Cord Hurn wrote:The scene where Kastenessan is bluffed into being herded into the fane is a hoot!
I didn't really explain that remark, so would like to do so now.
It's the moment after Infelice tells Kastenessen to cease his striving, enter Jeremiah's fane along with the rest of his people, and permit them to heal his hurts.
But Kastenessen had spent long ages in his Durance. He had made choices which exacerbated his fury. Infelice's appeal could not reach him. For him, it may have been the final affront.
He gathered flames until they burst from his eyes and his mouth, from every limb and line of his towering form. He was becoming a holocaust, devastation personified: a bonfire high and hot enough to ravage the plain. His reply was one word: "Never!"
Yet he was not given time to release his accumulated hate.
From the northeast, a burst of extravagant argent opened the twilight. It cast back the darkness, dismissed the sunless gloom. It was as bright as Kastenessen, and as complex, but immeasurably cleaner. And it was brief, little more than a blink. Nevertheless it was long enough.
Out of it came riding Thomas Covenant and Branl Haruchai of the Humbled. Covenant held Loric's krill.
The shock of their arrival snatched Kastenessen away from his victims.
Covenant rode a shovel-headed horse as ungainly and muscular as a mule. Branl was mounted on a Ranyhyn that Jeremiah had never seen before. And they were in a desperate hurry. Froth snorted from the nostrils of Covenant's horse, the muzzle of Branl's palomino stallion. Sweat reflected brimstone on their coats. They looked like they had galloped for leagues or days. Covenant lurched in his seat as if he were falling.
As soon as his mount's hooves struck the dirt, he pitched from his saddle. But he did not sprawl. Staggering like a holed ship in a storm, he managed to stay on his feet. Awkward and urgent, he confronted Kastenessen as if he had forgotten that the Elohim could reduce his bones to ash.
In his maimed hands, the gem of the krill shown like a kept promise in an abandoned world.
"You--!" Kastenessen began: a strangled howl. Rage clenched his throat, choked off his protest.
"Try me," Covenant panted as if he were on the verge of prostration. "Do your worst." He looked too weak to withstand a slap. Streaked by conflicting illuminations, his face had the pallor of a wasting disease. Still he was Thomas Covenant. He did not falter. "See what happens.
"I killed my ex-wife. I helped destroy a Raver. And I've seen the Worm of the World's End. I am done with restraint!" His teeth gnashed. "I used to care how much you've suffered. I don't anymore. If you think you can beat me, go ahead. I'm wild magic, you crazy bastard. I'll cut you apart where you stand."
Jeremiah stared and stared, and could not name his astonishment, when Kastenessen flinched--
--and took an alarmed step backward.
Covenant advanced, holding up the krill. It blazed like havoc, unmitigated and unanswerable. Its argent covered him with majesty. The silver of his hair resembled a crown.
Branl came up behind him, but did not intrude.
Kastenessen retreated another step, and another. Another. The passion in Covenant's eyes drove him. He must have realized that he was being forced toward Infelice and the fane; but he did not stop. Perhaps he could not. Perhaps he saw something in Covenant, or in Loric's numinous dagger, that cowed him.
With every step, he dwindled. Retreating, he became smaller. Lava seemed to leak out of him and fade, denatured like water by his own thwarted heat.
Covenant stumbled and wavered, and kept coming. Kastenessen shrank away from him.
Giants let him pass. They watched as if they were as stricken as Jeremiah; as transfixed.
Then Infelice spoke Kastenessen's name like a command, and Kastenessen turned from Covenant to face her.
Terror and loathing contorted his features. He conveyed the impression that he wanted to scream and could not because he feared he might sob. Through his teeth, he spat words like fragments of torment.
"You have earned my abhorrence."
Infelice's calm had become irrefusable. Placid as Glimmermere, she answered, "We have. We will not ask you to set it aside. We ask only that you allow us to soothe your pain."
Her response appeared to horrify himl. "It is what I am."
"It is not," she countered, undismayed. "When it is gone, you will remember that you and you alone among the Elohim have both loved and been loved."
To that assertion, he had no reply.
She did not repeat her invitation. Instead she reached out one hand to clasp his severed wrist. With chiming and mercy, she staunched his bleeding. If the pollution of the skurj him, caused her any hurt, she accepted it.
His eyes bled anguish. He made no attempt to pull away.
Briefly Infelice glanced at the Giants, at the Ironhand. "Be warned," she told them. "Moksha Jehannum noow rules the skurj. He will wield them with cunning and malice. And do not forget that the Chosen-son is precious to a-Jeroth."
Then she surrendered at last to the imperative of Jeremiah's construct. Drawing Kastenessen with her, she entered the fane. In an instant, they were gone as if they had stepped out of the world altogether.
"Damnation," Covenant gasped. "I wasn't sure I could do that."
Lowering his arms as if he had been beaten, he tried to approach the Swordmainnir. But his legs failed, and he dropped to his knees.
Overhead, Kevin's Dirt had already begun to dissipate. If more stars perished, they did so beyond the horizons. Jeremiah did not see them die.
I like how Kastenessen goes from being a fiery demonic figure, "a holocaust, devastation personified" and then slowly fizzles out when Covenant advances toward him wielding Loric's weapon. Enjoyable imagery.
There are some vividly entertaining similes in this passage. When Covenant is pitched from his horse, he is "staggering like a holed ship in a storm". The light of the gem in the
krill he holds "shown like a kept promise in an abandoned world", it "blazed like havoc, unmitigated and unanswerable". Infelice talking to Kastenessen is as "placid as Glimmermere".
Covenant, though appearing "too weak to withstand a slap", advances on Kastenessen with the lines, "I killed my ex-wife. I helped destroy a Raver. And I've seen the Worm of the World's End. I am
done with restraint!" Lines great enough to be the trailer for this book.
Kastenessen allows himself to be herded by Covenant due to the inestimable peril of Covenant and the
krill. This is an unexpected, clever twist--better than the prolonged duel of fire from Kasty and the
skurj that I was expecting that would have produced pages of slaughter and overused heat metaphors.
Infelice's words to Kastenessen, "When it is gone [his pain], you will remember that you and you alone have both loved and been loved" were a rare gift of eloquence from her. She taking his hurt and the pollution of the
skurj into herself without complaint parellels Covenant's previously taking in Fangthane's wild magic blasts at the climax of the Second Chronicles.
The warning about
Moksha Jehannum now controlling the
skurj keeps the sense of foreboding danger and ambush at an appropriately compelling level for the story.
Covenant admitting he wasn't sure he could do that face-off after all was said and done with bravado was something I found funny.
I felt a sense of relief after this was over knowing Kevin's Dirt was vanquished, and that no more stars would be dying.
This entire passage was most unexpected and very enjoyable for me.
