Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson Page B

was a shadow over the pot which the brightness of the room did not penetrate, and for some time the man stared into the darkness, studying it while he rotated the pot. Then he began to sing. His voice was too low for Covenant to make out the words, but as he listened he felt a kind of invocation in the sound, as if the contents of the pot were powerful. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the shadow began to pale. At first, Covenant thought that the light in the room had changed, but soon be saw a new illumination starting from the pot. The glow swelled and deepened, and at last shone out strongly, making the other lights seem thin.
With a final mutter over his work, the man stood upright and turned around. In the new brightness, he seemed even taller and broader than before, as if his limbs and shoulders and deep chest drew strength, stature, from the light; and his forehead was ruddy from the heat of the pot. Seeing Covenant, he started in surprise. An uneasy look came into his eyes, and his right hand touched his thick reddish beard. Then he extended the hand, palm forward, toward Covenant, and said to Lena, “Well, daughter, you bring a guest. But I remember that our hospitality is in your charge today.” The strange potency of a moment before was gone from his voice. He sounded like a man who did not speak much with people. But though he was treating his daughter sternly, he seemed essentially calm. “You know I promised more graveling today, and Atiaran your mother is helping deliver the new child of Odona Murrin-mate. The guest will be offended by our hospitality- with no meal ready to welcome the end of his day.” Yet while he reprimanded Lena, his eyes studied Covenant cautiously.
Lena bowed her head, trying, Covenant felt sure, to look ashamed for her father's benefit. But a moment later she hurried across the room and hugged the big man. He smiled softly at her upturned face. Then, turning toward Covenant, she announced, “Trell my father, I bring a stranger to the Stonedown. I found him on Kevin's Watch.” A lively gleam shone in her eyes, although she tried to keep her voice formal.
“So,” Trell responded. “A stranger- that I see. And wonder what business took him to that ill-blown place.”
“He fought with a grey cloud,” answered Lena.
Looking at this bluff, hale man, whose muscle knotted arm rested with such firm gentleness on Lena's shoulder, Covenant expected him to laugh at the absurd suggestion- a man fighting a cloud. Trell's presence felt imperturbable and earthy, like an assertion of common sense that reduced the nightmare of Foul to its proper unreality. So Covenant was put off his balance by hearing Trell ask with perfect seriousness, “Which was the victor?”
The question forced Covenant to find a new footing for himself. He was not prepared to deal with the memory of Lord Foul- but at the same time he felt obscurely sure that he could not lie to Trell. He found that his throat had gone dry, and he answered awkwardly, “I lived through it.”
Trell said nothing for a moment, but in the silence Covenant felt that his answer had increased the big man's uneasiness. Trell's eyes shifted away, then came back as he said, “I see. And what is your name, stranger?”
Promptly, Lena smiled at Covenant and answered for him, “Thomas Covenant. Covenant of Kevin's Watch.”
“What, girl?” asked Trell. “Are you a prophet, that you speak for someone higher than you?” Then to Covenant he said, “Well, Thomas Covenant of Kevin's Watch- do you have other names?”
Covenant was about to respond negatively when he caught an eager interest in the question from Lena's eyes. He paused. In a leap of insight, he realized that he was as exciting to her as if he had in fact been Berek Halfhand- that to her yearning toward mysteries and powers, all-knowing Lords and battles in the clouds, his strangeness and his unexplained appearance on the Watch made him seem like a personification of great events