Lord Foul's Bane: Chapter 3: Invitation to a Betrayal

[teres]

Chapter Two (Part II) | Chapter Four

A good day, everyone, and welcome back to Lord Foul’s Bane! Last time, we got the last bit of Covenant’s backstory, he had a meeting with the old man from the first chapter, and he decided to do something… before he presumably fell unconscious.

For the reader post:

On chapter 1, Epistler notes that Covenant wouldn’t have all that much money from just being a writer. If he did, I imagine he’d be popular enough not to be in his current situation.

On part II of chapter 2, she further notes that Covenant shouldn’t have much of a phone bill if he’s barely calling or being called now.

She further supports my feeling that Covenant’s situation is very contrived. It relies on everyone around Covenant dropping him because of his leprosy, after all, which is just not something everyone would do with the range of contacts he’d have. It also relies on Covenant not taking any steps to improve his situation, which would be fine if Donaldson had meant that, but I don’t get the feeling he did. As a result, combined with Covenant’s bad behaviour, I find it very hard to care about him (not to mention that 10000 words before anything happens isn’t something I care about, either).

In any case, we’ve had Covenant’s backstory now and something’s about to happen!

Chapter Three: Invitation to a Betrayal

That isn’t what will be happening in this chapter, though; as we’ll see, Covenant will be asked to “betray” something he barely knows exists, and I’d hardly call that betrayal.

Well, we open on Covenant where we left off. He hangs in darkness for an indeterminate time, the “red, impaling light” the only fixed point for him. He feels that he could see a “massive moving of heaven and earth”, if he’d know where to look, but the blackness and the red light keep him from “turning away”, so he can’t. He can also feels his heartbeat in his temples (which he thinks is too slow for the “amount of apprehension” he feels) and every beat shakes him. That’s somewhat interesting, at least, though I’ve got little idea what’s specifically going on.

Abruptly, the red spear wavers and splits in two. Covenant realises that he’s coming closer to the light, and then that the red light comes from eyes. Then he hears laughter, “high, shrill glee full of triumph and old spite”. Then we get this… which I think I’ll just show entirely:

The voice crowed like some malevolent rooster heralding the dawn of hell, and Covenant’s pulse trembled at the sound.

“Done it!” the voice cackled. “I! Mine!” It shrilled away into laughter again.

Covenant was close enough to see the eyes clearly now. They had no whites or pupils; red balls filled the sockets, and light moiled in them like lava. Their heat was so close that Covenant’s forehead burned.

Hmm, this being has glowing red eyes, laughs evilly, and gloats about how they’ve caught Covenant… Could they possibly be evil? It’s just so hard to tell. More seriously, this is so unsubtle (and so overdramatic: the first bit especially) that I can’t help but find it silly. I also wonder how these eyes are supposed to work without a pupil; if no light can come in, they’re useless. Further, if they’re so hot, they’d be damaging the rest of the body. So… we kind of need an explanation, but I don’t think we’ll ever get one. I also note that Covenant’s not really reacting very much to this, which I might expect given the situation he’s in now.

Now the eyes flare, and light appears around him. By it, Covenant can see he’s in a cave “deep in stone”. The walls “[catch] and [hold] the light”, so that the cave stays bright. That’s… not what’s going on here, and the eventual explanation does make sense. The rock is smooth, but has “hundreds of irregular facets”. Around the circumference of the cave are lots of openings. Above Covenant’s head is a “thick cluster of stalactites”, which gleam with reflections, while the floor is “flat and worn”. Overall, this does sound quite cool!

The chamber smells quite bad, like “burning sulfur over the reek of rotting flesh”. Covenant gags at that, and at the sight of the being that just spoke. We get a description: “Crouched on a low dais near the center of the cave was a creature with long, scrawny limbs, hands as huge and heavy as shovels, a thin, hunched torso, and a head like a battering ram”. As he’s crouched, his knees nearly reach his ears. He also holds a “long wooden staff” with metal on the ends that’s “intricately carved”. That’s… not at all as horrifying as Covenant seems to think it is.

The creature talks (in broken English) about how he called Covenant with his power, and how he’ll kill them all, and then he proclaims himself “Lord Drool” (yes, he’s really called that). He gets up and walks over to Covenant, who recoils “with a loathing he [can’t] control”. Not because Drool is dangerous, mind. Drool rants some more about how he’s going to kill Covenant, take his power and become Lord, and raises the staff to hit Covenant.

Just then, another voice speaks. It’s “deep and resonant”, “powerful” and “somehow deadly”. In other words, this being is also evil, but more restrained about it. It tells “Rockworm” to back off, since Covenant is too great for him, and the new being claims him for himself. Drool looks at the ceiling and protest that he called Covenant with his own Staff. Covenant looks up, too, but can only see the stalactites.

The other voice tells him that he had aid, since the Staff was “too hard a matter” for Drool, and he’d have destroyed it in irritation if he hadn’t taught Drool some uses of it. He tells Drool to do whatever else he wants, but Covenant belongs to him. I have to say that I’m not especially impressed with Drool getting put in his place in his very first scene. Well, Drool calms down, as if he’s “suddenly remembered some secret advantage”… and then gives it away, by muttering that the other isn’t safe because of his Staff. Very smart!

The other voice bristles at the threat, and threatens Drool back, saying that his “doom grows upon [him]”, and then that he has begun. Ooh, scary. There’s a “low, grinding noise” and a thick mist appears. At first, it’s lit by the cave, but then the colour fades to grey and the smell changes to that of “attar, the odor of funerals”. Covenant think that he isn’t in the cave any more. Yes, I’d have thought that myself. I also don’t find raising some mist and getting Covenant out of the cave all that impressive.

This predictably doesn’t give Covenant much relief, and he falls to his knees. The voice then says Covenant “[does] well to pray to [him]”, since there are no “other hopes or helps” for someone in Covenant’s position. The voice’s “Enemy” won’t aid him. He was the one who chose Covenant for this, and “when he has chosen, he does not give; he takes”. I do like that this being tries to convince Covenant at first, and tries to come across as “better” than Drool by rescuing Covenant from the cave… but the evil is just all too obvious and the description of the “Enemy” doesn’t fit with what we saw at all, so it just falls flat.

So the being says again that Covenant would do well to pray to him, since he might give Covenant “[w]hatever health and strength [he] ask[s]”. After all, the being has “begun [his] attack upon this age”, the future is his and he won’t fail again. Yes, it’s quite clear he’s evil. The offer of health gets through to Covenant, and his heart jumps, but he’s still “too stricken to speak”. So the being naturally goes into an evil monologue.

He first says that a certain “Kevin” is a fool, as are “they all”. He calls Covenant a “groveller”, and then says that the “mighty High Lord Kevin, son of Loric and great-grandson of Berek Lord-Fatherer whom [he] hate[s]”, stood where Covenant kneels and thought to destroy him. I think you could have gone with a better name than “Kevin” for this High Lord, Donaldson; this is rather silly. This Kevin apparently discovered his designs and realised some of the being’s “true stature”, though he’d kept him “on his right side on the Council” for many years without suspecting him. Then they warred, and the war “blasted the west and threatened his precious Keep itself”. The being was more powerful and Kevin knew it, so when his armies began to fail, he succumbed to despair. He still thought he could “utterly undo” the being, so he met him in the cave Covenant was just in: “Kiril Threndor, Heart of Thunder”.

I don’t mind the history lesson (and evil gloating makes some degree of sense here, since Covenant can’t harm him at all), but it’s kind of hard to get into when we’ve got no context for it at all. The being now goes on to talk about how Rockworm doesn’t know this history, and that’s “not his only ignorance”… but he won’t talk about his “deeper plans” (so why even mention it?). Rockworm serves him well, though he doesn’t mean to. Covenant will, too, as do “those timid Lords”. He goes on about how ignorant these Lords are, and they haven’t even mastered a seventh of Kevin’s “Lore”, and they are so arrogant that they’ve called themselves “Earthfriends, servants of Peace”. Well, it gives them something to fulfil, at least.

He gloats some more about how it’s too late for them, and they’ll came to Kiril Threndor, where he’ll “teach them things to darken their souls”. We get some more gloating, which I’ll just sum up:

-He and Kevin uttered the “Ritual of Desecration”, which Kevin thought could “unbind” the being, and which would “strike the Land and all its accursed creations into dust”.

-Though Kevin died, the being was preserved through the “very Law which [Kevin] served”.

-The Ritual of Desecration did indeed kill nearly everyone and ended the “age of the Old Lords”.

-The being was “reduced” for a thousand years (and he talks about “exact[ing] [his] due” for that), but when Drool found the Staff, recognised it, and couldn’t use it, he took his chance.

He ends by telling Covenant to pray to him and reject the “doom” that his Enemy gave him. Covenant won’t have “many chances to repent”. I’d love to know exactly what you’d have him repent of, since Covenant isn’t responsible for being chosen, and why you think Covenant would do so, given that you’ve only been gloating so far.

We then get a reaction from Covenant, who feels the fog and the “attar-laden air” sap his strength. He wraps his arms around his chest and bends low to block the cold (so it’s cold now?). He makes himself ask what that doom is. (I also note that Covenant’s been put on pause during the speech.)

The being says that his Enemy means for Covenant to be “[his] final foe”, since Covenant his “a might in his hands such as no mortal has ever held before”. But his Enemy will find he’s “not so easily mastered”. Sure, Covenant has “wild magic”, but he’ll never know what it is, and won’t be able to fight him in the end. …So you’ve just about guaranteed he will find out what it is. I think he should read the Evil Overlord List… Well, Covenant’s the “victim of [his Enemy’s] expectations” and the being can’t kill him yet. But they can band together and rid the Earth of “Enemy” entirely. Not that I know why Covenant would agree to that.

Covenant asks about the health he was promised. The being promises whatever he asks for, as long as Covenant prays to him, “while [he is] still patient”. Covenant finds the contempt of the voice cut too deep, and so he gets angry and stands up, thinking to himself that he isn’t a groveller. I am somewhat happy to see this gloating and sneering completely backfire. Covenant asks who the being is. The being speaks smoother, “[a]s if sensing its mistake” (a bit too late for that), and gives us this:

“To the Lords of Revelstone, I am Lord Foul the Despiser; to the Giants of Seareach, Satansheart and Soulcrusher. The Ramen name me Fangthane. In the dreams of the Bloodguard, I am Corruption. But the people of the Land call me the Gray Slayer.”

Yes, that’s going to convince Covenant! Can you scream “I’m a Dark Lord” any harder? I do like that these different groups all have their own name for him, though I do raise an eyebrow at “Satansheart”, and “Lord Foul” is just a bad name. I also think, again, that this would work better if we knew any of these people.

Covenant naturally tells Foul to forget it, at which Foul calls him a fool and knocks him over with his voice. Covenant lies on the stone, waiting for “the anger of the voice to annihilate him” (not that I’m feeling much of it). Foul rants about how he won’t forget this, and that he’ll teach Covenant “the true meaning of contempt” before he’s done. He won’t do it now, but soon he’ll be strong enough to gain the wild magic from Covenant, and then he’ll learn that “[his] contempt is without limit, [his] desires bottomless”. Oh no, how evil.

Then Foul says he’s “wasted time enough”. At least he’s self-aware about it? He tells Covenant that he has a task for him: he needs to bear a message to the Council of Lords. He needs to tell them and “High Lord Prothall son of Dwillian” in specific, that “the uttermost limit of their span of days upon the Land” is forty-nine years, and before that time is over, he’ll be lord and master over the Land. As a token that what he says is “the one word of truth”, he should tell them that Drool, “Cavewight of Mount Thunder”, has found the “Staff of Law”, which Kevin lost a thousand years ago. He has to say to them that the ask appointed to their generation is to regain the Staff; without it, they won’t be able to withstand him for seven years, and his total victory will be forty-two years earlier than otherwise.

Hmm… I suppose that he has Covenant send this message to get the Lords to get the Staff of Law from Drool, so he won’t have to deal with him any more. That could be a smart move, if he tried to let everyone believe that Drool had found out how to use the Staff by himself and that Foul isn’t a player. Sure, it would be suspect, but it would be better than revealing himself when he’s barely had time to prepare a force! Even if it means little in the end, bothering not to be too obvious can hardly hurt.

Foul tells Covenant not to fail with his message, because if he does, “every human in the Land will be dead before ten seasons have passed”. He then says again that Drool has the Staff and that’s a “cause for terror”. If the message fails, he’ll be “enthroned at Lord’s Keep in two years”. The Cavewights are already marching to his call, as are “wolves, and ur-viles of the Demondim”. But war is not the worst danger, as Drool delves deeper and deeper into the roots of Mount Thunder (“Gravin Threndor, Peak of the Fire-Lions”), and there are very “potent and terrible” banes buried in the depths of the Earth, which would make “of the universe a hell forever”. Drool seeks one of them, though, namely the “Illearth Stone”, and if he becomes its master, there will be “woe for high and low alike until Time itself falls”.

Well, the very obvious naming aside (I like “ur-viles” the best)… I first doubt Foul’s last claim, since I doubt that Drool would care to make a hell out of the universe, and I doubt, for much the same reason, that there wouldn’t be any humans left in the Land in two and a half years if Covenant fails. Beyond that… if Foul could make this happen, why doesn’t he? Sure, he’d have to deal with Drool, but that would be certainly doable, and if not, he could just wait Drool out; he has lived for more than a thousand years already, after all. If he’s bluffing, which I think he is (because Drool’s war force doesn’t sound that capable, among other reasons), he’s giving Covenant all the more reason to travel to Revelstone and thus reveal himself. In either case, he isn’t being smart.

He ends with a threat to Covenant: he will die at Drool’s hands if he fails with the message. …And you just said you’d kill him yourself anyway, so I don’t think that’s as impressive as it’s supposed to be. We go back to Covenant, who’s put his head in his arms and insisting to himself that it’s a dream. The mist gives him the feeling he’s trapped, though, and he shudders “with the force of his desire for escape and warmth”. He tells Foul to leave him alone.

Foul then gives one “final caution”, and gloats about how his plans are laid and he won’t rest until he’s “eradicated hope from the Earth”. He tells Covenant to think about that and “be dismayed”. That last word hangs in the air while the grinding noise returns, which Covenant panics at. He stays on his knees with his head between his arms until the noise passes and the “low hum of wind” sounds in the silence. Then he looks and sees “sunlight on the rock before his face”. Well, that was that for Foul, then, and I’m happy he’s gone, since he quite overstayed his welcome. And with that, the chapter ends, too.

So… what did I think of it? It’s mostly evil gloating from Foul, and, to a much lesser extent, Drool, along with some contextless history. I don’t find that very engaging, especially not the latter. The former is nice for a bit, but Foul keeps on for much too long, and if we take his word for it, he’s making a massive blunder. On top of that, he just doesn’t do all that much now beside monologuing; yes, he forces Covenant to his knees, and he teleports him and raises mist, but it just feels all too much like stage magic for a supposed Dark Lord. (And that’s not to mention that I don’t really find “evil voice in the mist” all that evocative.)

I do find that Drool has the better showing, despite how obviously evil he is immediately. He’s the one who has directly got Covenant in this situation, after all, and he was clearly willing to kill him before Foul recalled him. Combined with a more interesting design and aesthetic, I’d really take Drool over Foul at the moment.

That’s about all there is to it, since Covenant noticeably reacts quite little to his predicament, and it seems like Donaldson forgot to have him react sometimes, which doesn’t make him all that engaging.

Well, until next time, then!