In death, his visage wore a strange grimace of relief and pain. He looked like a man who was about to laugh and weep at the same time.
At least I trusted you, she replied. Whatever else I did wrong. I trusted you in the end.
Then anguish seized her heart.
You didn't even say good bye.
None of the people who had died while she loved them had ever said goodbye.
She did not know how it was possible to continue breathing. Lord Foul's attar had become as intense as the light. The destruction he purposed tore a howl through the stone. Kiril Threndor became the stretched mouth of the mountain's hurt. Her mere flesh seemed to fray and dissolve in the proximity of such power. His blast was nearly ready.
Instinctively, almost involuntarily, she looked up from Covenant's guilt and innocence, impelled by an inchoate belief that there should be at least one witness to the riving of Time. While her mind lasted, she could still watch what the Despiser did, still send her protest to hound him into the heavens.
A maelstrom swept around him and grew as if he meant to break the Earth by consuming it alive. His fire was so extreme that it pulsed through the mountain, made all of Mount Thunder pound. But gradually he pulled the flame into himself, focused it in the hand that held the ring. Too bright to be beheld, his fist throbbed like the absolute heart of the world.
With a terrible cry, he hurled his globe splitting power upward.
An instant later, his exaltation changed to astonishment and rage.
Somewhere in the rock which enclosed Kiril Threndor, his blast shattered. Because it was aimed at the Arch of Time, it was not an essentially physical force, though the concussion of its delivery nearly reft Linden of consciousness. It did no physical damage. Instead, it burst as if it had struck a midnight sky and snapped. In a fathomless abyss, ruptured fragments of fire shot and blazed.
And the hot lines of light spread like etchwork, merged and multiplied swiftly, took shape within the bulk of the mountain. From wild magic and nothingness, they created a sketch of a man.
A man who had placed himself between Lord Foul and the Arch of Time.
The outlines gained substance and feature as they absorbed the Despiser's attack. Thomas Covenant.
He stood there inside Mount Thunder's gutrock, a spectre altogether different than the ponderous stone. All which remained of his mortal being was the grimace of power and grief that marked his countenance.
“No!” the Despiser howled. “No!”
But Covenant replied, “Yes.” He had no earthly voice, made no human sound. Yet he could be heard through the clamour of tormented stone, the constant repercussions of Lord Foul's fury. Linden listened to him as if he were as clear as a trumpet “Brinn showed me the way. He beat the Guardian of the One Tree by sacrificing himself, letting himself fall. And Mhoram told me to “Remember the paradox of white gold.” But for a long time I didn't understand. I'm the paradox. You can't take the wild magic away from me.” Then he seemed to move forward, concentrating more intensely on the Despiser. His command was as pure as white fire. “Put down the ring.”
“Never!” Lord Foul shouted instantly Might leaped in him, wild for use. “I know not what chicane or madness has brought you before me from the Dead-but it will not avail! You have once cast me down! I will not suffer a second debasement! Never! The white gold is mine, freely given! If you combat me. Death itself will not ward you from my Wrath!”
Something like a smile sharpened the spectre’s acute face. "I keep telling you you're wrong. I wouldn't dream of fighting you.”
Lord Foul's retort was a bolt that sizzled the air like frying meat. Power fierce enough to blow off the crown of the peak sprang at Covenant, raging for his immolation.
He did not oppose it, made no effort to resist or evade the attack. He simply accepted it The clench of pain between his brows showed that he was hurt; but he did not flinch. The blast raved and scourged into him until Linden feared that even a dead soul could not survive it. Yet when it ended he had taken it all upon himself. Bravely, be stood forth from the fire.
“I'm not going to fight you.” Even now, he seemed to pity his slayer. “All you can do is hurt me. But pain doesn't last. It just makes me stronger.” His voice held a note of sorrow for the Despiser. “Put down the ring.”
But Lord Foul was so far gone in fury and frustration that he might have been deaf. “No!” he roared again. No fear hampered him: he was transported to the verge of absolute violence.
“No!”
“NO!”
And with every cry he flung his utterest force against the Unbeliever.
Blast after blast, faster and faster. Enough white power to bring Mount Thunder down in rubble, cast it off Landsdrop into the ruinous embrace of Sarangrave Flat. Enough to leave the One Tree itself in ash and cinders. Enough to shatter the Arch of Time. All Lord Foul's ancient puissance was multiplied and channelled by the argent ring. He struck and struck, the unanswerable knell of his hunger adumbrating through Kiril Threndor until Linden's mind reeled and her life almost stopped, unable to support the magnitude of his rage. She clung to Covenant's body as if it were her last anchor and fought to endure and stay sane while Lord Foul strove to rip down the essential definition of the Earth.
But each assault hit nothing except the spectre, hurt nothing except Covenant. Blast after blast, he absorbed the power of Despite and fire and became stronger: Surrendering to their savagery, he transcended them. Every blow elevated him from the mere grieving spectation of the Dead in Andelain, the ritualized helplessness of the Unhomed in Coercri, to the stature of pure wild magic. He became an unbreakable bulwark raised like glory against destruction.
At the same time, each attack made Lord Foul weaker Covenant was a barrier the Despiser could not pierce because it did not resist him; and he could not stop. After so many millennia of yearning, defeat was intolerable to him. In accelerating frenzy, he flung rage and defiance and immitigable hate at Covenant. Yet each failed blow cost him more of himself. His substance frayed and thinned, denatured moment by moment, as his attacks grew more reckless and extravagant. Soon he had reduced himself to such evanescence that he was barely visible.
And still he did not stop. Surrender was impossible for him. If he had not been limited and confined by the mortal Time of his prison, he would have gone on forever, seeking Covenant's eradication. For a while, his form guttered and wailed as complete fury drove him to the threshold of banishment. Then he failed and went out. Though she was stunned and stricken. Linden heard the faint metallic clink of the ring when it fell to the dais and rolled to a stop.
Twenty: The Sun-Sage
SLOWLY, silence settled like dust back into Kiril Threndor. Most of the rocklight had been extinguished, but pieces still flared along the facets of the walls, giving the chamber an obscure illumination. Without the cloying scent of attar, the brimstone atmosphere smelled almost clean. Holes gaped in the ceiling where many of the stalactites had hung. Long tremors still rumbled into the distance, but they were no longer dangerous. They subsided like sighs as they passed beyond Linden's percipience.
She sat cross-legged near the dais, with Covenant's head in her lap. No breath stirred his chest. He was already growing cold. The capacity for peril which had made him so dear to her had gone out. But she did not let him go. His face wore a grimace of defeat and victory-a strange fusion of commandment and grace-that was as close as he would ever come to peace.