Kevin's Watch

Hierachy wrote:Yes but by that point you can't really call it a lucky break, as Foamfollower was already involved. I think one of his lucky breaks was that Lena noticed him arrive on KW, if she hadn't helped him, d'you even think he would have been able to get down, and even if he did, choose the wrong direction and there's no civilisation for a long way and I don't believehe would have lasted long by himself.

"The first time I was here, I met a girl. Lena. She was just a kid, - but she was my friend. She kept me alive on Kevin's Watch, when I was so afraid it could have killed me."

"I am Lena," she replied formally, "daughter of Atiaran. My father is Trell, Gravelingas of the rhadhamaerl. Our home is in Mithil Stonedown. Have you been to our Stonedown?"

"No." He was tempted to ask her what a Stonedown was, but he had a more important question in mind. "Where -- " The word caught in his throat as if it were a dangerous concession to darkness. "Where are we?"

"We are upon Kevin's Watch." Springing lightly to her feet, she stretched her arms to the earth and the sky. "Behold."

Gritting his resolve, Covenant turned and knelt against the parapet. With his chest braced on the rim, he forced himself to look.

"This is the Land," Lena said joyfully, as if the outspread earth had a power to thrill her. "It reaches far beyond seeing to the north, west, and east, though the old songs say that High Lord Kevin stood here and saw the whole of the Land and all its people. So this place is named Kevin's Watch. Is it possible that you do not know this?"

Despite the coolness of the breeze, Covenant was sweating. Vertigo knuckled his temples, and only the hard edge of the stone against his heart kept it under control. "I don't know anything," he groaned into the open fall.

Lena glanced at him anxiously, then after a moment turned back to the Land. Pointing with one slim arm to the northwest, she said, "There is the Mithil River. Our Stonedown stands beside it, but hidden behind this mountain. It flows from the Southron Range behind us to join the Black River. That is the northern bound of the South Plains, where the soil is not generous and few people live. There are only five Stonedowns in the South Plains. But in this north -- going line of hills live some Woodhelvennin.

"East of the hills are the Plains of Ra." Her voice sparkled as she went on: "That is the home of the wild free horses, the Ranyhyn, and their tenders the Ramen. For fifty leagues across the Plains they gallop, and serve none that they do not themselves choose.

"Ah, Thomas Covenant," she sighed, "it is my dream to see those horses. Most. of my people are too content -- they do not travel, and have not seen so much as a Woodhelven. But I wish to walk the Plains of Ra, and see the horses galloping."

After a long pause, she resumed: "These mountains are the Southron Range. Behind them are the Wastes, and the Gray Desert. No life or passage is there; all the Land is north and west and east from us. And we stand on Kevin's Watch, where the highest of the Old Lords stood at the last battle, before the coming of the Desolation. Our people remember that, and avoid the Watch as a place of ill omen. But Atiaran my mother brought me here to teach me of the Land. And in two years I will be old enough to attend the Loresraat and learn for myself, as my mother did. Do you know," she said proudly, "my mother has studied with the Lorewardens?" She looked at Covenant as if she expected him to be impressed. But then her eyes fell, and she murmured, "But you are a Lord, and know all these things. You listen to my talk so that you may laugh at my ignorance."

Do you know," she said proudly, "my mother has studied with the Lorewardens?"

birdie wrote:You hurt my kid, you're a dead man.

Thomas Covenant wrote:I wasn't lucky... I was destined to succeed, and now I'm dead