Stephen Donaldson: The Power That Preserves

Soon he was able to move. He forged away from the wall, waded like a strong man through the tempest toward his enemy. White and green blasts scalded the atmosphere; detonations of savage lightning shattered against each other. Lord Foul’s fiery cold and Covenant’s gale tore at each other’s throats, rent each other, renewed themselves and tore again. In the virulence of the battle, Covenant thought that Ridjeck Thome would surely come crashing down. But the Creche stood; the thronehall stood. Only Covenant and Lord Foul shook in the thunderous silence of the power storm.

Abruptly, he succeeded in driving Lord Foul back from the Stone. At once, his own fire blazed still higher. Without direct contact, the Despiser’s control over his emerald bane was less perfect. His exertions became more frenzied, erratic. Unmastered force rocked the throne, tore ragged hunks of stone from the ceiling, cracked the floor. He was screaming now in a language Covenant could not understand.

The Unbeliever grabbed his opportunity. He moved forward, rained furious gouts and bolts of wild magic at the Despiser, then suddenly began to form a wall of might between Lord Foul and the Stone. Lord Foul shrieked, tried frantically to regain the Stone. But he was too late. In an instant, Covenant’s force had surrounded Lord Foul.

With all the rage of his will, he pressed his advantage. He pounced like a hawk, clenched power around the Despiser. Whitely, brutally, he began to penetrate the penumbra.

Lord Foul’s aura resisted with shrieks and showers of sparks. It was tough, obdurate; it shed Covenant’s feral bolts as if they were mere show, incandescent child’s play. But he refused to be denied. The dazzling of his wild magic flung shafts and quarrels of might at the emerald glister of the aura until one prodigious blast pierced it.

It ruptured with a shock which jarred the thronehall like an earth tremor. Waves of concussion pealed at Covenant’s head, hammered at his sore and feverish skull. But he clung to his power, did not let his will wince.

The whole penumbra burst into flame like a skin of green tinder, and as it burned it tore, peeled away, fell in hot shreds and tatters to the floor.

Within Covenant’s clench, Lord Foul the Despiser began to appear.

By faint degrees, he became material, drifted from corporeal absence to presence. Perfectly molded limbs, as pure as alabaster, grew slowly visible-an old, grand, leonine head, magisterially crowned and bearded with flowing white hair-an enrobed, dignified trunk, broad and solid with strength. Only his eyes showed no change, no stern, impressive surge of incarnation; they lashed constantly at Covenant like fangs wet with venom.

When he was fully present, Lord Foul folded his arms on his chest and said harshly, “Now you do in truth see me, groveller.” His tone gave no hint of fear or surrender. “Do you yet believe that you are my master? Fool! I grew beyond your petty wisdom or belief long before your world’s babyhood. I tell you plainly, groveller-Despite such as mine is the only true fruit of experience and insight. In time you will not do otherwise than I have done. You will learn contempt for your fellow beings-for the small malices which they misname their loves and beliefs and hopes and loyalties. You will learn that it is easier to control them than to forbear-easier and better. You will not do otherwise. You will become a shadow of what I am-you will be a despiser without the courage to despise. Continue, groveller. Destroy my work if you must-slay me if you can-but make an end! I am weary of your shallow misperception.”

In spite of himself, Covenant was moved. Lord Foul’s lordly mien, his dignity and resignation, spoke more vividly than any cursing or defiance. Covenant saw that he still had answers to find, regardless of all he had endured.

But before he could respond, try to articulate the emotions and intuitions which Lord Foul’s words called up in him, a sudden clap of vehemence splintered the silence of the thronehall. A great invisible door opened in the air at his back; without warning, strong presences, furious and abhorring, stood behind him. The violence of their emanations almost broke his concentrated hold on Lord Foul.

He clenched his will, steadied himself to face a shock, and turned.

He found himself looking up at tall figures like the one he had seen in the cave of the EarthBlood under Melenkurion Skyweir. They towered above him, grisly and puissant; he seemed to see them through the stone rather than within the chamber.

They were the specters of the dead Lords. He recognized Kevin Landwaster son of Loric. Beside Kevin stood two other livid men whom he knew instinctively to be Loric Vilesilencer and Damelon Giantfriend. There were Prothall, Osondrea, a score of men and women Covenant had never met, never heard named. With them was Elena daughter of Lena. And behind and above them all rose another figure, a dominating man with hot prophetic eyes and one halfhand: Berek Earthfriend, the Lord-Fatherer.

In one voice like a thunder of abomination-one voice of outrage that shook Covenant to the marrow of his bones-they cried, “Slay him! It is within your power. Do not heed his treacherous lies. In the name of all Earth and health, slay him!”

The intensity of their passion poured at him, flooded him with their extreme desire. They were the sworn defenders of the Land. Its glory was their deepest love. Yet in one way or another, Lord Foul had outdone them all, seen them all taken to their graves while he endured and ravaged. They hated him with a blazing hate that seemed to overwhelm Covenant’s individual rage.

But instead of moving him to obey, their vehemence washed away his fury, his power for battle. Violence drained out of him, giving place to sorrow for them-a sorrow so great that he could hardly contain it, hardly hold back his tears. They had earned obedience from him; they had a right to his rage. But their demand made his intuitions clear to him. He remembered Foamfollower’s former lust for killing. He still had something to do, something which could not be done with rage. Anger was only good for fighting, for resistance. Now it could suborn the very thing he had striven to achieve.

In a voice thick with grief, he answered the Lords, “I can’t kill him. He always survives when you try to kill him. He comes back stronger than ever the next time. Despite is like that. I can’t kill him.”

His reply stunned them. For a moment, they trembled with astonishment and dismay. Then Kevin asked in horror, “Will you let him live?”

Covenant could not respond directly, could not give a direct answer. But he clung to the strait path of his intuition. For the first time since his battle with the Despiser had begun, he turned to Saltheart Foamfollower.

The Giant stood chained to the wall, watching avidly everything that happened. The bloody flesh of his wrists and ankles showed how hard he had tried to break free, and his face looked as if it had been wrung dry by all the things he had been forced to behold. But he was essentially unharmed, essentially whole. Deep in his cavernous eyes, he seemed to understand Covenant’ s dilemma. ” You have done well, my dear friend,” he breathed when Covenant met his gaze. ” I trust whatever choice your heart makes.”

“There’s no choice about it,” Covenant panted, fighting to hold back his tears. “I’m not going to kill him. He’11 just come back. I don’t want that on my head. No, Foamfollower-my friend. It’s up to you now. You-and them.” He nodded toward the livid, spectral Lords. “Joy is in the ears that hear-remember? You told me that. I’ve got joy for you to hear. Listen to me. I’ve beaten the Despiser-this time. The Land is safe-for now. I swear it. Now I want-Foamfollower!” Involuntary tears blurred his sight. “I want you to laugh. Take joy in it. Bring some joy into this bloody hole. Laugh!” He swung back to shout at the Lords, “Do you hear me? Let Foul alone! Heal yourselves!”