Oh! Talk of Power! Can I play?
Have a seat, Fist. You
Haruchai don't know nuthin' about power anyway.
dlbpharmd,
What of the actual killing of Satansfist? Was that accomplished by merely sticking a blade into his chest? Surely nobody believes that would be enough to kill a Giant-Raver with a fragment of the Illearth Stone.
Mhoram planted his feet on the ground and braced himself to retain his grip on the krill. Through the focus of that blade, he drove all his might deeper and deeper toward the Giant-Raver's heart.
Yet samadhi did not die. Faced with death, he found a way to resist. Both his fists clenched the Stone only a foot above the back of Mhoram's neck. With all the rocky, Giantish strength of his frame, he began to squeeze.
Savage power steamed and pulsed like the beating of a heart of ice - a heart laboring convulsively, pounding and quivering to carry itself through a crisis. Mhoram felt the beats crash against the back of his spine. They kept Satansfist alive while they strove to quench the power which drove the krill.
But Mhoram endured the pain, did not let go; he leaned his weight on the blazing blade, ground it deeper and still deeper toward the essential cords of samadhi's life. Slowly, his flesh seemed to disappear, fade as if he were being translated by passion into a being of pure force, of unfettered spirit and indomitable will. The Stone hammered at his back like a mounting cataclysm, and Staansfist's chest heaved against his hands in great, ragged, bloody gasps.
The parts I've put in
bold say that power was at work, and that it was Mhoram's power.
And we know how much power Mhoram was throwing around, because of his battle with Satansfist's minions minutes earlier:
Now the only thing which limited his might was his staff itself. That wood had been shaped by people who had not understood Kevin's Lore; it was not formed to bear the force he now sent blazing through it. But he had no margin for caution. He made the staff surpass itself, sent it bucking and crackling with power to rage against his assailants. His flame grew incandescent, furnace-hot; in brilliance and coruscation it sliced through his foes like a scythe of sun-fire.
If anything, Mhoram would have poured even
more power into Satansfist, if he was able to.
Mhoram's damaged hands is an interesting point. I have a couple theories. Maybe those more well-versed in the Lore, like Loric himself, knew how to use the power without being hurt by it; they knew how to use the power to protect themselves from the power, just as Mhoram used the power to force his staff to endure the power. Circular, but possible.
It's also possible that they became acclimated to the power, and, by the time they could awaken the
krill, were immune to the burns it could cause.
And, although it took more power to pull the
krill from the table than the New Lords' Oath-inhibited understanding of Kevin's Lore could produce, it didn't take nearly as much power as, say, slaying Satansfist, and therefore the danger of burning was minimal. Whether one of my theories or something else, Mhoram was protected. But what he threw at Satansfist was quite another matter.
As for Covenant, um... No, he was not burned in the Sarangrave.
...But Covenant went on staring at his hands.
They were unharmed; free even of heat-damage. He had been protected by his own power; even his flesh had become so accustomed to wild magic that he guarded himself instinctively, without expense to any part of hiimself except his soul.
But since he used wild magic, it's extremely difficult to compare his uses of power with Mhoram's anyway.
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