The 1st Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #2: The Illearth War by Stephen R. Donaldson

man alive who’s seen the Celebration of Spring. And there she stands, looking like all the allure of the Land put together-practically begging you. And you!” Troy struck the table with his hand, brandished his empty sockets at Covenant. “You refuse.”
    Abruptly, he slapped his sunglasses back on, and flung away from the table to pace the room again, as if he could not sit still in the face of Covenant’s perversity.
    Covenant watched him, seething at the freedom of Troy’s judgment-the trust he placed in his own rectitude. But Covenant had heard something else in Troy’s voice, a different explanation. Probing bluntly, he asked, “Is Mhoram in love with her, too?”
    At that, Troy spun, pointed a finger rigid with accusation at the Unbeliever. “You know what I think? You’re too cynical to see the beauty here. You’re too cheap. You’ve got it made in your ‘real’ world, with all those royalties rolling in. So what if you’re sick?
    That doesn’t stop you from getting rich. Coming here just gets in the way of hacking out more best-sellers. Why should you fight the Despiser? You’re just like him yourself.”
    Before the Warmark could go on, Covenant rasped thickly, “Get out. Shut up and get out.”
    “Forget it. I’m not going to leave until you give me one — ”
    “Get out.”
    ” — one good reason for the way you’re acting. I’m not going to walk away and let you destroy the Land just because the Lords are too scrupulous to lean on you.”
    “That’s enough!” Covenant was on his feet. His hurt blazed up before he could catch hold of himself. “Don’t you even know what a leper is?”
    “What difference does that make? It’s no worse than not having any eyes. Aren’t you healthy here?”
    Mustering all the force of his injury, his furious grief, Covenant averred, “No!”
    He waved his hands.
    “Do you call this health? It’s a lie!”
    That cry visibly stunned Troy. The black assertion of his sunglasses faltered; the inner aura of his spirit was confused by doubt. For the first time, he looked: like a blind man.
    “I don’t understand,” he said softly.
    He faced the onslaught of Covenant’s glare for a; moment longer. Then he turned and left the room, moving quietly, as if he had been humbled.
    SIX: The High Lord
    WHEN evening came, Thomas Covenant sat on his balcony to watch the sun set behind the Westron Mountains. Though summer was hardly past, there was a gleam of white snow on many of the peaks. As, the sun dropped behind them, the western sky shone with a sharing of cold and fire. White silver reflected; from the snow across the bottom of a glorious sky, an orange-gold gallant display sailing with full canvas’ over the horizon.
    Covenant watched it bleakly. A scowl knotted his forehead like a fist. He had spent the afternoon in useless rage, but after a time his anger at Troy had died down among the embers of his protest against being summoned to the Land. Now he felt cold at heart, desolate and alone. The resolve he had expressed to Mhoram, his determination to survive; seemed pretentious-fey and anile. And the frown.’ clenched his forehead as if the flesh over his skull refused to admit that it had been healed.
    He was thinking of jumping from the balcony. To quell his fear of heights, he would have to wait until, the darkness of the night was complete, and he could no longer see the ground. But considered in that way, the idea both attracted and repelled him. It offended his leper’s training, heaped ridicule on everything he had already endured to cling to life. It spoke of a defeat- that was as bitter as starkest gall to him. But he yearned for relief from his dilemma. He felt as dry as a wasteland, and rationalizations came easily. Chiefest of these was the argument that since the Land was not real it could not kill him; a death here would only force him back into the reality that was the only thing in which he could believe. In his aloneness, he could not