Official Discussion Forum for the works of Stephen R. Donaldson
https://kevinswatch.com/phpBB3/
T h e w o r dwayfriend wrote: Spread the word.
Ananda wrote:T h e w o r dwayfriend wrote: Spread the word.
Done.
One of my all time fave movies ('Course, I have hundreds of All time faves, probably)Menolly wrote:"...is the word
that you heard."
[Generation gap?
Probably...]
What????? The thread is named after Wayfriend. Are you saying Wayfriend is not that interesting?Linna Heartlistener wrote:Oh! I didn't know this thread would be that interesting... the name of the thread actually sounded really uninteresting to me.
Pretty much, yea, but, there's also an audience imparting additional wisdom for those judgements.Linna Heartlistener wrote:more like I thought this thread was "entertain wf and he will give you WGD's according to his whims."
actually... hmmm...
What's confusing is that everyone else enjoys it, too. 
Frostheart Menolly Ananda Savor Dam aliantha ebony_squire EffaeldmMenolly:At that, Pitchwife burst into a spasm of coughing. A moment passed before Covenant realized that the malformed Giant was trying to laugh. [...]
"I am proud of you beyond all endurance. Demean not your high courage with foolishness. Neither Earthfriend nor Chosen [...] will fail. I am sworn to you in love and fealty, and I will remain."
Ananda:"We cannot forget.
"But in the old lore-legend, the children of the Creator had hope. He put rainbows in our sky after cleansing rains, as a promise to the stars that somehow, someday, he would find a way to bring them home.
"If we are to survive, we must find the Home that we have lost, the heartland beyond the Sunbirth Sea."
[snip]
We set our sails to to resail our track;
but the winds of life blew not the way we chose,
and the land beyond the Sea was lost.
[snip]
Softly, the Giant said, "Laugh, Thomas Covenant--laugh for me. Joy is in the ears that hear."
Savor Dam:“We had become the thing we hate. We are better dead.”
“Nevertheless!” Korik said. “Is this the fealty of the Giants? Does all promised faithfulness come to this? By the Vow, Giant! You destroy yourselves, and let the evil live! Even Kevin Landwaster was not so weak.”
In his emotion, he forgot caution, and all the Bloodguard were taken unaware. The sudden voice behind them was cold with contempt; it cut through them like a gale of winter. Turning, they found that another Giant stood in the doorway. He was much younger than the Giant within, but he resembled the older Giant. The chief difference lay in the contempt that filled his face, raged in his eyes, twisted his mouth as if he were about to spit.
In his right hand, he clenched a hot green stone. It blazed with an emerald strength that shone through his fingers. As he gripped it, it steamed thickly.
He stank of fresh blood; he was spattered with it from head to foot. And within him, clinging to his bones, was a powerful presence that did not fit his form. It slavered from behind his eyes with a great force of malice and wrong.
aliantha:Let breakers crash against the shore --
let rocks be rimed with sea and weed,
cliffs carven by the storm --
let calm becalm the deeps,
or wind appall the waves, and sting --
and sting --
nothing overweighs the poise of Sea and Stone.
The rocks and water-battery of Home endure.
We are the Giants,
born to live,
and bold for going where the dreaming goes.
Let the world be wide beyond belief,
the ocean be as vast as time --
let journeys end or fail,
seaquests fall in ice or blast,
and wandering be forever. Roam --
and roam --
nothing tarnishes the poise of Sea and Stone.
The hearth and harborage of Home endure.
We are the Giants,
born to sail,
and bold for going where the dreaming goes.
ebony_squire:Foamfollower's question caught him wandering. "Are you a storyteller, Thomas Covenant?"
Absently, he replied, "I was, once."
"And you gave it up? Ah, that is as sad a tale in three words as any you might have told me. But a life without a tale is like a sea without salt. How do you live?"
Covenant folded his arms across the gunwales and rested his chin on them. As the boat moved, Andelain opened constantly in front of him like a bud; but he ignored it, concentrated instead on the plaint of water past the prow. Unconsciously, he clenched his fist over his ring. "I live."
"Another?" Foamfollower returned. "In two words, a story sadder than the first. Say no more -- with one word you will make me weep."
Effaeldm:[Covenant says] 'Cross that? Are you crazy? What do you think I am?' . . . He felt that if he went two steps closer to the lava, his skin would begin to char.
'No, replied Foamfollower. His voice was full of fatality. 'I have striven to prepare myself. It may be that in doing this I will anneal the long harm of my life before I die. My friend, I will bear you across.'
At once, he lifted Covenant into the air, placed him sitting upon his broad shoulders. . . . 'Damnation, Giant! Put me down! You're going to kill us!'
'I am the last of the Giants,' Foamfollower grated 'I will give my life as I choose.'
. . . 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 towards the far shore.
. . . 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 . . . Still he thrust himself forward, stretching every sinew past all limits in his effort to reach the far shore . . . Two more strides - the lava reached Foamfollower's chest. He mastered his pain for one last instant to gasp out over the silent fire, 'Remember the jheherrin!' Then he began to howl, driven beyond his endurance by red molten agony . . . finally he floundered to a stop. The weight and pain of the lava halted him. He could not wade any further.
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 towards the bank.
[Covenant] landed on dead cinders five feet from the edge of Hotash Slay. . . 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!
... Foamfollower hung in his chains as if the burden were too great for him to bear.
"Help me!" Covenant cried.
Then slowly his plea made itself felt. Some prophecy in his words touched the hearts that heard him. With a terrible effort, Saltheart Foamfollower, the last of the Giants, began to laugh.
It was a gruesome sound at first; writhing in his fetters, Foamfollower spat out the laugh as if it were a curse. On that level, the Lords were able to share it. In low voices, they aimed bursts of contemptuous scorn, jeering hate, at the beaten Despiser. But as Foamfollower fought to laugh, his muscles loosened. The constriction of his throat and chest relaxed, allowing a pure wind of humor to blow the ashes of rage and pain from his lungs. Soon something like joy, something like real mirth, appeared in his voice.
The Lords responded. As it grew haler, Foamfollower's laugh became infectious; it drew the grim specters with it. They began to unclench their hate. Clean humor ran through them, gathering momentum as it passed. Foamfollower gained joy from them, and they began to taste his joy. In moments, all their contempt or scorn had fallen away. They were no longer laughing to express their outrage at Lord Foul; they were not laughing at him at all. To their own surprise, they were laughing for the pure joy of laughter, for the sheer satisfaction and emotional ebullience of mirth.