Stephen Donaldson - The Power That Preserves

Before Covenant could say another word, Foamfollower sprinted down the ashen beach toward the lava of Hotash Slay.

From the last edge of the shore, he leaped mightily out over the molten stone. As his feet touched the lava, he began to run with all his great Giantish strength toward the far shore.

The swift blast of heat almost snuffed out Covenant’s consciousness. He heard a distant wailing, but moments passed before he realized that it came from his throat. The fire blinded him, wiped everything but red violence out of his sight. It tore at him as if it were flailing the flesh from his bones.

But it did not kill him. Endurance flowed into him from the Giant. And his ring ached on his half hand as if it were absorbing his torment, easing the strain on his flesh.

He could feel Foamfollower sinking under him. The lava was thicker than mud or quicksand, but with each stride the Giant fell deeper into it. By the time his long surging strides had covered half the distance, he was in over his thighs. Yet he did not falter. Agony shot up through his shoulders at Covenant. Still he thrust himself forward, stretching every sinew past all limits in his effort to reach the far bank.

Covenant stopped wailing to hold his breath, though Foamfollower’s pain seemed to burn him worse than the heat of the lava. He tried to grasp the white gold with his mind, pull strength from it to aid the Giant. But he could not tell whether or not he succeeded. The red fire blinded his perceptions. In another two strides, Foamfollower had sunk to his waist. He gripped Covenant’s ankles, boosted him up so that the Unbeliever was standing on his shoulders. Covenant wavered on that heaving perch, but Foamfollower’s hold on his ankles was as strong as iron, kept him erect.

Two more strides-the lava reached Foamfollower’s chest. He mastered his pain for one instant to gasp out over the silent fire, “Remember the jheherrin !” Then he began to howl, driven beyond his endurance by red molten agony.

Covenant could see nothing, did not know how far they had come. Reeling over the lava, he held his breath, kept himself from joining Foamfollower’s terrible scream. The Giant went on, propelled himself with his tortured legs as if he were treading water.

But finally he floundered to a stop. The weight and pain of the lava halted him. He could not wade any farther.

With one last, horrific exertion, he thrust himself upward, reared back, concentrated all his strength in his shoulders. Heaving so hard that he seemed to tear his arms from their sockets, he hurled Covenant toward the bank.

Covenant arched through the blazing light for an instant, clenched himself against the sudden pain of incineration.

He landed on dead cinders five feet from the edge of Hotash Slay. The ashes crunched under him, gave slightly, absorbed some of the impact. Gasping for breath, he rolled, staggered to his knees. He could not see; he was blind with tears. He gouged water out of his eyes with numb fingers, blinked furiously, forced his vision into focus.

Ten or more yards out in the lava, he saw one of Foamfollower’s hands still above the surface. It clenched uselessly for a moment, trying to find a grip on the brimstone air. Then it followed the Giant into the molten depths.

Foamfollower! Covenant cried soundlessly. He could not find enough air to scream aloud. Foamfollower!

The heat beat back at him furiously. And through the pounding blaze came dim shouts-the approaching clamour of pursuit.

Before we are seen , Covenant remembered dumbly. Foamfollower had done this for him so that he would not be seen-so that Foul would not know that he had crossed Hotash Slay. He wanted to kneel where he was until he dissolved in heat and grief, but he stumbled to his feet.

Foamfollower! My friend!

Lumbering stiffly, he turned his back on the lava as if it were the grave of all his victims, and moved away into darkness.

After a short distance, he crossed a low, barren ridge, fell into the shallow gully beyond it. At once, a landfall of weariness buried him, and he abandoned himself to sleep. For a long time, he lay in his own night, dreaming of impossible sunlight.

HE awoke with the acrid taste of brimstone in his mouth, and ashes in his heart. At first, he could not remember where he was; he could not identify the ruined ground on which he lay, or the rasp of sulphur in his throat, or the sunless sky; he could not recollect the cause of his loneliness. How could anyone be so alone and still go on breathing? But after a time he began to notice a smell of sweat and disease under the brimstone. Sweat, he murmured. Leprosy. He remembered.

Frailly, he levered himself into a sitting position in the gully, then leaned his back against one crumbling wall and tried to grasp his situation.

His thoughts hung in tatters from the spars of his mind, shredded by a sale of inanition and loss. He knew that he was starving. That’s right, he said to himself. That’s the way it was. His feet were battered, scored with cuts, and his forehead hurt as if a spike had been driven through his skull. He nodded in recognition. That’s right. That’s the way it was. But his dirty skin was not burned, and his mud-stained robe showed no signs of heat damage. For a while, he sat without moving, arid tried to understand why he was still alive.

Foamfollower must have saved him from the heat by exerting power through him, in the same way that the Giants propelled boats by exerting power through Gildenlode rudders. He shook his head at Foamfollower’s valour. He did not know how he could go on without the help of a friend.

Yet he shed no tears over the Giant. He felt barren of tears. He was a leper and had no business with joy or grief. None, he claimed flatly. The crisis at the Colossus had taken him beyond himself, drawn responses from him which he did not properly possess. Now he felt that he had returned to his essential numbness, regained the defining touchstone of his existence. He was done pretending to be anything more than what he was.

But his work was not done. He needed to go on, to confront the Despiser-to complete, if he could, the purpose which had brought him here. All the conditions of his release from the Land had not yet been fulfilled. For good or ill, he would have to bring Lord Foul’s quest for white gold to an end.

And he would have to do it as Bannor and Foamfollower would have done it-dispassionately and passionately, fighting and refusing to fight, both at once-because he had learned one more reason why he would have to seek out the Despiser. Surrounded in his mind by all his victims, he found that there was only one good answer still open to him.

That answer was a victory over Despite.

Only by defeating Lord Foul could he give meaning to all the lives which had been spent in his name, and at the same time preserve himself, the irremediable fact of who he was.

Thomas Covenant: Unbeliever. Leper.

Deliberately, he looked at his ring. It hung loosely on his emaciated finger-dull, argent, and intractable. He groaned, and started to wrestle himself to his feet.

He did not know why he was still in the Land after Foamfollower’s death-and did not care. Probably the explanation lay somewhere in the breaking of the Law of Death. The Despiser could do anything. Covenant was prepared to believe that in Lord Foul’s demesne all the former Law of the Earth had been abrogated.

He began to make his way up the far side of the gully. He had no preparations to make, no supplies or plans or resources to get ready-no reason why he should not simply begin his task. And the longer he delayed, the weaker he would become.

As he neared the crest of the hill, he raised his head to look around.