With High Lord Elena’s fall, Covenant is wrenched from the Land, back to the ‘real world’. The ‘fiendish scream’ that assaulted his ears so gleefully at Gallows Howe (p.560), becomes the incessant sound of the telephone, which he clutches painfully in his hand.
Covenant is shattered. He is lying beside his coffee table, his blood smeared across its surface. The wound that Hile Troy gave him with Lord Mhoram’s staff is now neatly mirrored by the gash he received from the table’s edge. There is nothing left of the man.‘A long, dumb moment passed before he regained enough of himself to wonder how long ago Joan had hung up on him.’ (p.561)
He makes his way to the bathroom, washes his hands with the care and deliberation of a leper. Eventually, when he can avoid it no more, he looks at himself in the mirror.‘The sanctuary of the familiar place gave him no consolation. When he tried to concentrate on the room’s premeditated neatness, his gaze kept sliding back to the blood – dry, almost black – which crusted the carpet. That stain violated his safety like a chancre. To get away from it, he gripped himself and climbed to his feet.” (p.562)
Unable to stand the sight of himself, he looks around his bathroom in search of solace. The bland porcelain and stainless steel fixtures do their best to comfort him, denying the reality of his experiences in the Land by their obstinate banality.‘The sight of his own visage stopped him…The wound and the blood on his grey, gaunt face made him look like a false prophet, a traitor to his own best dreams.
Elena! he cried thickly. What have I done?’ (p.562-563)
So ends The Illearth War.‘He stared at them for a long time, measuring their blankness. Then he limped out of the bathroom. Grimly, deliberately, he left his forehead uncleaned, untouched. He did not chose to repudiate the accusation written there.’ (p.563)