Lord Foul's Bane: Chapter 5: Mithil Stonedown

[teres]

Chapter Four | Chapter Six (Part I)

A good day, everyone, and welcome back to Lord Foul’s Bane! Last time, Covenant met with Lena, who dumped quite some names on us, Covenant had trouble with his situation, and he eventually managed to climb down Kevin’s Watch.

For the reader post: on the previous chapter, Opyros notes that the Mithil River might be a rip-off of the River Mitheithel (River Hoarwell) in Middle-Earth. Thank you for that!

Also, because I have a new reader, I’ll be doing this chapter earlier than I usually would and, if I get through reasonably quickly, I’ll be doing Lord Foul’s Bane after both Eragon and BattleAxe.

Let me begin, then!

Chapter Five: Mithil Stonedown

We will be seeing the Stonedown at the end of the chapter, so I’d say the title is roughly appropriate. We open on Covenant feeling “strangely purged” at having put the stair behind him. He thinks he has found the right answer to how to deal with the existence of the Land (and when he looks at the sky, he can’t see “carrion eaters”; he saw his anxiety over this as scavenging birds earlier). He repeats what that is: go forward, don’t think about it, and survive. That will probably go well enough in the short term, but I doubt it will go well in the long term.

For now, Lena asks him if he’s well, which spurs Covenant to check on himself. He’s got blood his the “heels and fingertips” of his hands, and he finds his knees, shins and elbows hurt when touched, too. That sucks for him, and he’d probably have trouble for several more days. He gets to his feet, and says that it’s important that he clean his hands. Lena stands too, but he can see she doesn’t understand. …Because she wouldn’t be aware that cleaning wounds helps prevent infection, even though she’s in the mountains often enough to know that as a base rule, and even though her mother went to the university and might well have learned about healing. There’s naïve, and then there’s this, which is a little ridiculous.

Covenant goes to “explain”, first saying that he can’t feel the pain, and then saying that he lost his fingers because he got “hurt and infected” and his hand had to be “cut […] apart”. So he needs water and soap. This seems to me like something he’d tell someone much younger than Lena, and describing surgery as “cutting his hand apart” is just not how surgery works at all. Lena then touches the scar on his hand and asks if the “sickness does this”, which Covenant confirms. At that, Lena says there is a stream toward the Stonedown and “hurtloam near it”. Covenant motions for her to lead the way, Lena “accept[s] his urgency”, and she goes down the path.

I am wondering just why this is apparently so urgent, and how his explanations fit. Sure, he doesn’t feel these wounds, and if they’re left untreated, that can go quite wrong… but he does know exactly where he’s hurt and he can do something about it, too! This would make some sense if his immune system was affected, but leprosy doesn’t do that, so I really don’t know why these wounds need to be cleaned at once; they’re not that large, so the risk of infection wouldn’t be very high, either. I’m getting the distinct impression that Donaldson didn’t research leprosy as well as he should have done, which isn’t great for a story like this.

So we get a paragraph describing their route. They follow the path to the west from Kevin’s Watch, where it runs on a ledge in the slope of the mountain, until they reach a “cluttered ravine”. They go up that, then down a “rough-hewn stair in the side of a sharp cut that branche[s] away into the mountain”. I suppose that was made by the earlier Lords, like the ladder to Kevin’s Watch? At the bottom, they keep going along it; it gets darker as they progress, and Covenant notices a “rich, damp smell”. The cut then turns to the left and opens into a “small, sun-bright valley” that has a stream in the middle and “tall pines standing over the grass around the edges”. That seems like a lovely place!

Lena agrees with me, asking what could “heal [Covenant] more than this”. He looks around and gives us some more description. The valley is only “fifty yards long”, and at the end, the stream turns left into another cut. It’s nicely secluded, the earth is “comfortably green and sunny”, and the air is fresh and warm and smells of spring. I really wouldn’t mind being there! Covenant, for his part, gets sad about having leprosy, and to ease the grief, he goes to the stream. He notes the grass is “so thick and springy” that he feels it in his legs, which “seem[s] to encourage him toward the stream”.

Once there, he gets to cleaning his hands at once. He doesn’t feel the cold much and scrubbing the wounds doesn’t hurt, either. He vaguely notes Lena going up the stream, seemingly “looking for something”, but he’s too busy to wonder about it. After an “intense scrubbing”, he checks on his elbows; they’re “red and sore”, but there are no wounds. He pulls up his trousers and sees that his shins and knees have fared worse. The bruises on them are already darkening, and they’ll soon be black, but his trousers were tough enough to keep him from getting cut. He thinks that bruises are in their way “as dangerous to him as cuts”, but he can’t treat them “without medication”. He holds his anxiety under control and goes back to his hands.

I’m… quite sure it’s been not even an hour since he left Kevin’s Watch, so I doubt his bruises should be turning black now. Also, why would bruises be dangerous to him? That sounds more like haemophilia… and I can’t find anything on it on a first look, either. It doesn’t make sense, either, since bruises aren’t really an infection danger. Come to think of it, what kind of medication would he even need against these bruises? The best I can think of are clotting factors, but that’s something for haemophilia, too… which would make sense with “bruises are as dangerous to cuts”, but it isn’t leprosy! I’m quite lost on what Donaldson was thinking, and if anyone knows, please tell me.

Either way, it turns out that blood is still coming from the wounds, and when he removes it, he can see “bits of black grit” in some of the cuts. …If his wounds have been bleeding this whole time, it shouldn’t just be on his fingers; it likely began bleeding just now when he rubbed off the crust. It’s a small thing, but combined with the stuff about leprosy, I’m inclined to keep track of it:

Did Not Do the Research: 6 (it isn’t a precise count, but close enough)

Before he resumes washing, Lena comes back with two handfuls of “thick brown mud”. She “reverently” says it’s hurtloam and he should put it on all his wounds. Now Covenant gets to be stubborn, as he dismisses the hurtloam as “more dirt” and is shocked by the idea of putting it in his cuts when Lena holds it out toward him (and he thinks he can see “tiny gleams of gold” in it). Lena explains to him that her father is a rhadhamaerl; his work lies with “the fire-stones”, and he leaves healing “to the Healers”, but he understands “the rocks and soils”. So he taught her to care for herself, and to find the “signs and places of hurtloam”. In short, she clearly knows what she’s talking about. Covenant just glares at her, and clearly doesn’t believe what she’s saying, because of course he does.

Lena decides to act, putting the mud first on his knees and then spreading it down his shins. I’d rather had that she had waited, but I can hardly complain, either. As it lies on his legs, the golden gleam seems to grow stronger, and Covenant feels the mud is “cool and soothing”. It seems to absorb the pain from his bruises, and soon he feels relief “flowing through his bones”. Having seen that it works, he lets Lena treat his hands, with much the same effect. He also notes a “tingling” on the palms of his hands and the arches of his feet, like the hurtloam is trying to restore his nerves. He stares at the mud with “a kind of awe”.

The mud dries quickly, its light fading, and soon Lena removes it from his legs. Then he sees that his bruises are “almost gone”; they’re yellow now and almost gone. He washes the mud from his hands and sees that they’re entirely whole again, as are his arms. He’s completely stunned and can only wonder what’s happening to him. That’s more what I’d like to see from him encountering the Land!

After a while, Covenant says that it isn’t possible. In response, Lena smiles and mocks him a bit for his earlier disbelief in the hurtloam. Covenant asks after how this can be. Lena answers that there is “power and life” in the Earth. Atiaran says that things like hurtloam are everywhere in the Earth, but people are blind to them because they don’t share enough “with the Land and with each other”. I don’t think that idea will come up much more; it might have been interesting to pursue. Covenant asks if there are other things like hurtloam, to which Lena says there are many more, but she knows just a few. If he goes to the Council, the Lords might teach him everything.

She gets to her feet and decides to show him another wonder. She asks him if he’s hungry, which Covenant finds he is. He gets up, too, finding that nearly all his muscle ache is gone. Still somewhat disbelieving, he goes after Lena. The new wonder turns out to be a “gnarled, waist-high shrub” with holly-like leaves, “small viridian blooms” and a “blue-green fruit the size of blueberries”. Lena explains that it’s “aliantha”, also known as “treasure-berries”. She eats some of them, then drops the seeds in her hand and throws them behind her.

Then she goes to explain more about aliantha. “It is said” that someone can walk across the entire Land while only eating treasure-berries and come back “stronger and better fed than before”. They bloom and bear fruit “in every season”. They grow everywhere in the Land, except perhaps in the “Spoiled Plains”. There grow some aliantha in the edges, but indeed nothing in the rest. They’re also the hardiest plants, “the last to die and the first to grow again”. Atiaran told her all this “as part of the lore of [their] people”, she says. She then gives Covenant some aliantha and tells him to eat and spread the seeds over the earth so the aliantha can flourish.

Well, the aliantha are clearly wonderful indeed! Not that I mind; it’s nice to have such a plot device, and there’s already a custom attached to them, so that’s nice for worldbuilding. Covenant, meanwhile, has zoned out, thinking about the “strange potency” of the Land. Lena looks at him and puts a berry in his mouth. Covenant bites it and finds it has a “light, sweet taste like that of a ripe peach faintly blended with salt and lime”. That does seem tasty. The next moment, he’s “eating greedily”, only remembering to spit out the seeds occasionally.

He eats all the berries on the bush, then looks for another, but Lena stops him by holding his arm, saying that they’re “strong food”, so he doesn’t need many, and they taste better when he eats slowly. Covenant doesn’t listen, because he’s never wanted any food as badly as he wants the treasure-berries (that doesn’t sound good), so he pulls free, before realising that something weird is happening. He doesn’t have the time to pursue that, though, since he immediately feels “overpowering drowsiness”. Lena explains that it’s the work of the hurtloam, but she didn’t expect it; if the wounds are “very deadly”, hurtloam brings sleep to speed the healing up. Cuts on the hands are hardly deadly, though, so does Covenant have “hurts that [he] did not show [her]”? Covenant thinks that he’s “sick to death” before falling asleep.

I’m… not quite what’s going on here with Covenant and the aliantha, since we won’t be seeing this again. For Covenant falling asleep… once again Lena is a bit too naïve; Covenant already told her that he had leprosy, after all. All the same, I do have to agree with her that it’s weird, as leprosy really isn’t that deadly, nor would it be very hard to heal in Covenant’s case. So…

Did Not Do the Research: 7

The more Donaldson insists that leprosy is such a uniquely difficult disease, the less I get the feeling that he knew what he was talking about, unfortunately.

Either way, Covenant wakes up after a while to find “Lena’s firm thighs pillowing his head”. Gradually, he notices other things, like the trees shining with “declining sunlight”, more environment sensations, “the sound of a tune”, and the tingling in his hands. Still, the warmth of Lena’s lap seems more important, and, for the while, his only desire is to “clasp Lena in his arms and bury his face in her thighs”.

So Covenant is now attracted to Lena, the sixteen-year-old girl, and we’ll be stuck with this for the coming few chapters. Even if I liked where Donaldson ended up taking this, I wouldn’t like this, and in this case, I like it even less. It also bothers me that it’s coming relatively out of nowhere. Sure, Covenant did leer at teenage girls earlier, and he did think Lena was pretty, but he wasn’t attracted to her earlier, and now he’s slept and awoken with his head in her lap, and he immediately is. It just feels like it’s skipping some steps, and that doesn’t work well for me.

For something else… he’s just woken up, so why hasn’t the hurtloam progressed on his hands? I could see it make sense if it hasn’t encountered leprosy before and so takes a longer time, but we won’t be getting an explanation for it, as far as I know, so it just looks wrong.

Either way, Covenant resists his desire by listening to what Lena is singing in a “soft and somehow naive tone”. We get to see it:

Something there is in beauty

which grows in the soul of the beholder

like a flower:

fragile—

for many are the blights

which may waste

the beauty

or the beholder—

and imperishable—

for the beauty may die,

or the beholder may die,

or the world may die,

but the soul in which the flower grows

survives.

There’s our epigraph, then! I do like this; it’s not very good, but I wouldn’t expect that from something like this, either. For the content, it’s a nice riff on “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, though the message quite depends on what you believe about souls. After a bit, Covenant says that he likes it. Lena is happy that he does, and says Tomal (who we heard about last chapter) made it when he married “Imoiran Moiran-daughter”. The beauty of a song is often in the way it’s sung, though, and she isn’t a singer. Atiaran might sing for the Stonedown this tonight, and then Covenant can hear a real song.

Covenant doesn’t answer; he just wants to keep lying on Lena, after all. He thinks the tingling in his hands urges him to embrace Lena, which he enjoys, while he wonders where he’ll get the courage. Please don’t get it anywhere at all… Then Lena sings again, this time a tune that sounds familiar, and he soon realises it sounds like the one that “Golden Boy” has… which says nothing much, since trochaic tetrameter is not uncommon. He flashes back to what he was doing then, and then abruptly gets up, a “mist of violence” over his vision, and “demand[s] thickly” to know what song she’s singing. Yes, this will certainly end well! I do feel sorry for Lena getting subjected to Covenant’s nonsense. She says that she was only making a melody and asks if it’s wrong.

Covenant’s anger passes at her tone of voice, since she sounds “so abandoned, so made forlorn”. He thinks he doesn’t have any business “taking it out on her”, which is quite fine, except that he doesn’t apologise to her or anything. He helps her up, tries to smile and asks where they’ll go now. Lena’s hurt “fade[s] from her eyes”, and she says that Covenant is strange (that he certainly is), to which he says that he didn’t think it was that bad.

They look into each others’ eyes for a moment, then Lena blushes and lets him go. With a “new excitement”, she tells him they’ll go to the Stonedown, where he’ll be sure to amaze her parents, and she runs down the valley. I’m not wholly sure what happened just now? The way it is written, I almost feel like Lena found herself a little attracted to Covenant, which she’s handling much better, if so. We now get a paragraph of thinking from Covenant, as he watches Lena run, and “mus[es] on the strange new feelings that move[] in him”. He gets the sense that the Land might allow him to “conjure away his impotence”, even though it doesn’t have to exist for real, and even though leprosy is incurable. He thinks it just might anyway, and so sets off after Lena “with a swing in his stride and eagerness in his veins”.

So… if I’m reading this correctly, Covenant sees Lena as the Land’s cure for his impotence. If this were a dream, I wouldn’t mind it, but Covenant doesn’t know that for certain, and if it isn’t, he’d be hurting Lena. He doesn’t even consider the latter option, because apparently the risk of having treated a real person as just a “cure for his impotence” is worth it! It does flow from Covenant’s characterisation, but it is a great way to make me hate him. (And that will be troublesome when we’ll be stuck with him for the whole book.)

Well, it’s now late in the day, and the “lower half of the valley” is shadowed. Covenant goes after Lena, enjoying the feel of the turf “under his feet” as he walks, and he feels as if the hurtloam has done more than heal his wounds. So… is his leprosy meant to have been partially healed, and he doesn’t realise it yet? Either way, as he nears Lena, he notes things he finds attractive about her, and seeing her “[makes] the tingling in his palms grow stronger”.

Then it’s time for more travelling! Lena leads the way out of the valley and into a “crooked file” with walls that soon become hundreds of feet high. The trail is uneven, which gives him some trouble, but within a few hundred metres, they enter a “crevice that ascend[s] to the right away from the stream”. The crevice soon levels, and then goes down for a while, though Covenant can’t see where they’re headed, due to its curves. After a final turn, it opens high above the valley of the Mithil, facing due west. We get some description, where we learn that there’s a smaller branch of the mountains across the valley. Lena points out Mithil Stonedown, which is a “tiny knot of huts” to the north. It’s not far to the village, but the path goes up the valley and then down the river, so the sun will have set by they time they reach it..

Covenant is a bit uneasy with the height they’re at, but he ignores it and follows Lena down. More description of their path follows: they soon go into grassy areas with rock outcroppings and the smell becomes greener. Covenant feels “alive to […] every nuance of the lowering altitude”. Because of this, the descent passes quickly; they soon find the river and go north again. The Mithil is “narrow and brisk” where they meet it, but it quiets down as they go along it, which we get some personification of. This makes Covenant aware of “the reassuring solidity of the Land”, which he explains (with quite some detail) means that it’s “coherent”, and when he understands it, he’ll be able to “retain his grip on sanity”. That’s good for him, I suppose.

We get a description of the sun setting, and then Lena stops Covenant and points out the Stonedown… which he apparently didn’t see before now? At this point, they stand on top of a “long, slow hill”, at the bottom of which lies the village. Covenant notes an open circle in the middle, and he thinks that the Stonedown looks completely erratic, but quickly realises that all the houses face in toward the middle (why the confusion, then?).

Each house only has one story and is made of stone, “with flat slabs of rock for roofs”. They have different sizes and shapes: some of them are round, others rectangular, and some of them look “more like squat hollow boulders than buildings”. That does look interesting. As they go toward it, Lena explains that five hundred people live here: “rhadhamaerl, Shepherds, Cattleherds, Farmers, and those who Craft”, but only Atiaran has gone to the Loresraat. I do wonder why the names of these professions are capitalised; it seems a rather odd thing to do. Lena points her house it, which is closest to the river, and so they skirt the Stonedown to her house. And there the chapter ends, rather awkwardly.

What did I think of this one? It’s better than the previous chapter, in that it doesn’t mostly consist of a whole lot of names. Still, not much happens in it: Covenant and Lena get to Mithil Stonedown, Covenant gets his wounds healed, and he gets attracted to Lena. We do get some practical worldbuilding with the hurtloam and aliantha, which I quite liked, but Covenant seeing Lena is nothing but a cure for his impotence is quite awful. Sure, Donaldson meant it that way, but I don’t want to be stuck with Covenant for longer than necessary because of that. Even then, I might still have liked it… except that the whole chapter is quite bland, and a big part of it is taken up by travel, which is described without much detail. I frankly think this chapter could have been merged with the previous one without problems.

Well, that was it for now. I will see you next time, as Covenant meets Lena’s family. Until then!