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antishurtugal_reborn2025-04-20 08:23 pm
Lord Foul's Bane: Chapter 6: Legend of Berek Halfhand (Part I)
Chapter Five | Chapter Six (Part II)
A good day, everyone, and welcome back to Lord Foul’s Bane! Last time, Covenant was healed, he creeped on Lena, and they finally made it to Mithil Stonedown.
For the reader post, I don’t have anything; I do want to welcome Silver Adept, though!
Let me go on with this, then.
Chapter Six: Legend of Berek Halfhand
We will be hearing that legend this chapter, so it’s appropriate enough, I suppose. The chapter opens on some description of the night setting in. Birds come to rest in the trees and sing “energetically” for a while, before they sink into a “quiet, satisfied murmur”. Both Lena and Covenant are silent, Lena because she seems to be containing “some excitement or agitation”, and Covenant because he’s too immersed in the sounds of the twilight to talk. So they reach Lena’s house, which is “rectangular”, and larger than most in the Stonedown. Warm yellow light comes from the windows, and they can see “a large figure” walk in front of it. Yes, we’re about to meet someone else from the Land!
At the house itself, Lena takes Covenant’s hand and leads him to the door. It’s covered by a “heavy curtain”, as it turns out, which Lena holds aside as she leads Covenant in. There she stops, and Covenant has a look at the interior. We get more description: the room goes the length of the house, and it has “two curtained doors in either wall”. There is a stone table with benches that can seat “six to eight people”. In the walls are shelves with “stoneware jars and utensils”, there are some “rock stools” against the walls, and there is the “warm yellow light”, of course. This comes from fires in several stone pots, which stand in the corners and on the table. This light is steady, and it has a “soft smell as of newly broken earth”.
Well, after this “cursory glance” (which took 181 words, I see), Covenant looks at the far end of the room, where there stands a “huge granite pot, half as tall as a man”. Over it stands a large and solid man (the same one we just saw), who is looking intently into it. He has a “short brown tunic with brown trousers under it”, and the same pattern on the tunic’s shoulders as Lena has. At the moment, he’s rotating the pot; Covenant finds it looks “prodigiously heavy”, but he almost expects the man to lift it and pour out the contents. Then Covenant sees that there is a shadow above the pot which the light can’t get into. The man keeps rotating the pot for a while, then softly sings, which Covenant feels is an “invocation”. Soon, light comes from the pot, and eventually, it outshines all the other lights.
When the man is done, he stands up and turns around (and Covenant notes that he seems even taller, as if he’s drawing strength and stature from the light). He’s surprised to see Covenant, then greets him by extending his right hand, “palm forward”. He then reminds Lena that she was in charge of their “hospitality” today, since, as she knows, he promised to deliver more “graveling” today, and Atiaran is “helping deliver the new child of Odona Murrin-mate”. Their guest will be offended not to have a meal at the end of the day, he says. Covenant notes that Trell sounds like he doesn’t speak much, that he’s being gentle with Lena, and that he’s looking at Covenant. I do wonder how Lena was supposed to be making food for Covenant while simultaneously guiding him to Mithil Stonedown. That aside, I do like this introduction, and the man seems quite likeable just from this paragraph, so that’s well done.
Lena tries to look ashamed, but then immediately runs over to the man to hug him, which he smiles at (awwww). Then she introduces Covenant to Trell (because this is indeed him), saying he’s a stranger she found on Kevin’s Watch. Trell asks how he came to be there, and Lena answers that he “fought with a gray cloud”. Covenant expects Trell, “this bluff, hale man”, to laugh at the suggestion, since his presence feels “imperturbable and earthy”, which he thinks “reduce[s] the nightmare of Foul to its proper unreality”. Consequently, he’s put off balance when Trell asks seriously who the winner of the fight was. Covenant thinks he needs a “new footing”, since he doesn’t want to deal with Foul’s memory, but he doesn’t think he can lie to Trell, so he says that he “lived through it”. That’s a fair description, I’d say.
Trell gets more uneasy at this answer, and then asks Covenant for his name. Lena gives his name for him, calling him “Covenant of Kevin’s Watch”. Trell reprimands her for speaking for “someone higher than [her]”, and asks if Covenant has any other names. Covenant wants to say not, but then he sees “eager interest” in Lena’s eyes and pauses. He realises that Lena is very excited about him; her desire for “mysteries and powers”, combined with the way he appeared, make him seem like “a personification of great events out of a heroic past”. He further realises that she hopes he’ll reveal himself to her. She certainly could have picked a better person for that, I think.
So Covenant talks about how he isn’t “used to such flattery”, and it gives him a “sense of possibility”. He searches for a title to give to Lena without “falsifying himself to Trell”, and settles on “the Unbeliever”. He immediately feels pretentious for it and like he’s “committed himself to more than he [can] measure at present”, though Lena “reward[s] him with a beaming glance” and Trell accepts it “gravely”. I’m with Lena and Trell here, as Covenant will be quite open about not believing in the Land. I’d also quite forgotten that he’d come up with this title just to impress Lena, which is a bit disappointing.
Trell welcomes him to the Stonedown, and promises him the hospitality of their house. He needs to give out his graveling now. Atiaran may be back soon, and if he prods her, Lena might give hima some refreshments. He then picks up the stone pot and walks out, giving Covenant a glimpse of the contents, which is “small, round stones like fine gravel”, which seem to be on fire. He asks how heavy it is; Lena answers that three men can’t lift it by their own, but when the gravelling burns, Trell can easily lift it, since he’s a Gravelingas. I like this much better than the name dumps we had earlier; now we can see how this works, and a bit of how the Stonedownors actually live! Covenant stares after Trell after this, “appalled by [his] strength”. I’m quite sure the pot gets lighter for him when the gravelling is lit, actually, so I think Covenant could have paid more attention.
Lena now indeed offers refreshments, asking him if he wants to wash, or have something to drink (they have “good springwine”, according to her). At the sound of her voice, Covenant forgets his “instinctive distrust of Trell’s might”, and realises that he has a “power of his own”, as the Land accepts him and “accord[s] him importance”. This leads him to think that the people of the Land are prepared to take him as seriously as he wants; he’s “giddy” at the prospect and decides to enjoy his importance while it lasts. And let’s see how long it will take before you become a threat, then.
He covers this up by telling Lena that he wants to wash. She takes him to another room, which has water running from “a spout in the wall”, and a valve that lets the water go into a “washbasin or a large tub”. He can use “fine sand” for soap. Once she leaves, Covenant washes up in the cold water. I suppose the water is coming from the Mithil? That would make sense, given how close to the river they are. I do wonder if there’s an option to shut the water off in case you want to use the bath, or that the water drains out of the bottom as fast at it goes in? For the sand, I see that that could indeed be used as soap, so that’s good to know.
Once Covenant has washed, he tries the gravelling pot to dry off, and it turns out that the light is quite effective for that. After a VSE (where he notices that he still has marks from his earlier cuts, which I didn’t expect), he goes back in, and see another woman has come in. As she looks at him, he immediately guesses that it’s Atiaran, not so much because of the pattern on her robe (which he guesses is a kind of “family emblem”) as because of the “long familiarity” she displays with Lena or the similarities in their posture. Where Lena appears “fresh” and “full of unbroken newness”, Atiaran seems “complex, almost self-contradictory”. He talks further about how her body seems to be a hindrance to “the hard strength of experience within her”, and that, because of this, her “forehead seem[s] prematurely lined”, and her eyes seem to open on “a weary battleground of doubts and uneasy reconciliations”. Covenant gets an impression of “frowning concern”, which comes from “knowing and fearing more than other people realize[]”, and an “absent beauty”.
While I don’t mind this, I get the idea that Donaldson spilled his perspective into Covenant, since I’m not sure just how Covenant’s getting all of this from a look at Atiaran. Well, Atiaran gives the same gesture of greeting as Trell did and welcomes him to their home. Covenant accepts, at which Atiaran says that “[a]ccepting that which is offered honors the giver”, and courtesy is always welcome. She hesitates a while, then says that it’s not custom among her people to ask guests “hard questions” before eating, but the food isn’t ready yet, and she finds Covenant “strange and disquieting”. Because of this, and because he “seem[s] to bear a need that should not wait”, she’d like to ask him some questions. Covenant agrees, a bit anxious at the thought of trying to answer them.
We then get a bit on Lena preparing food, and often looking at Covenant; we learn here that cooking is done on a “slab of stone” heated by “a tray of graveling”, which I quite like as a detail. Back to Atiaran, she says that she hardly knows where to begin, since it has been so long and she learned so little at the Loresraat. Still, no one can take her place, so she’ll have to be enough. She begins by asking Covenant to show his hands. He holds up his right one, remembering Lena’s first reaction to him. Atiaran comes to have a closer look, and, after confirming that he is indeed a halfhand, brings up that some say that Berek will return to the land when there’s need. She asks if Covenant knows of that, which he “gruffly” says he doesn’t.
Atiaran then asks him to show his other hand, which he does. At the sight of it, she gasps and backs away, seeming “inexplicably terrified” for a moment. Then she asks what metal Covenant’s ring is made of. Covenant is confused, then remembers both his wedding and the old beggar, and manages to answer that it’s white gold. At that, Atiaran groans and “clasp[s] her hands over her temples”, but she brings herself under control, and a “bleak courage” appears in her eyes. She says that she alone in Mithil Stonedown knows what this means, and she knows too little. She asks him if it’s true. Covenant, for his part, thinks that he should have thrown it away, before Atiaran’s intensity brings his attention back. He gets the impression that she knows more about what’s happening than he does, and that this world “ha[s] been made ready for him”. Well, maybe it has? He gets angry and says that of course it’s true, and it’s only a ring, so what’s the matter with her? Atiaran repeats that it’s white gold, Covenant still finds it doesn’t mean anything (and we learn that his ring is white gold since Joan preferred it over yellow gold), and Atiaran explains that the Lords have “an ancient lore-song” about the bearer of white gold.
She proceeds to show the part she still remembers. It talks about the bearer being a paradox, since he is “everything and nothing, hero and fool, potent, helpless”, and he’ll “save or damn the Earth” with “the one word of truth or treachery”, since he’s “mad and sane, cold and passionate, lost and found”. It’s fine for what it is, but I hardly find it appropriate for Covenant, since he hasn’t shown all that much of the positive qualities named here! …To be fair, he has shown himself to be passionate, but mostly about how miserable he is, so… I also note this is formatted as a song, but it seems rather like Donaldson broke it up at every clause boundary; there’s not poetic techniques used, the lines are all over the place in length, and it seems like it would be rather clunky to sing.
Atiaran asks him if he knows the song (which he wouldn’t, of course), then says that there is no white gold in the Land, and, indeed, gold has never been found in the Earth, though it is said that Berek knew of it, and made the songs referencing it. I do find this a nice bit of worldbuilding. She says that Covenant comes from “another place”, and asks what “terrible purpose” brings him here. Covenant internally complains about the idea that his ring might be “some kind of talisman”, but he tells himself to go on, and says that he has a message for the Council of Lords. Atiaran wants to know what it is, and Covenant says that the Grey Slayer has come back!
Lean drops a “stoneware bowl” she was carrying at that, and flees to Atiaran’s arms. Covenant… just glares at the bowl Lena dropped (very empathetic!). Atiaran wants to know how he knows this. Covenant looks back at them, and sees her and Lena clinging together. As he watches, Atiaran pulls herself together, and he notes that Atiaran, for all her fear, is a “strong woman comforting her child—and bracing herself to meet danger”. She asks him again how he knows, and Covenant says that he met him on Kevin’s Watch. Once she hears this, she hugs Lena, and talks about how “the young in this world” have the “doom of the Land” upon them, and generations will “die in agony”, and for those who live, there will be “war and terror and pain”. Lena was born in an “evil time”, and there will be “no peace or comfort for [her] when the battle comes”. I can certainly understand this, but I don’t think this will exactly help with comforting Lena (or with anything, for that matter)!
Well, Covenant gets sad because of Atiaran’s grief, and he gets the idea that “the Land [holds] something precious which [is] in danger of being lost”. This also gets him worked up, and when he looks at Lena, he sees that her awe of him is already stronger than her panic. He is the person that Atiaran just identified as the one who might save the Land, after all. Covenant then talks about how “[t]he unconscious offer in her eyes burn[s] more disturbingly than ever”. No, that’s just your awful beliefs flaring up more disturbingly than ever. Such an “unconscious offer” is just you projecting your desire for Lena on her, and if you find this so disturbing, then get away from Lena! Yes, I do still heartily dislike Covenant.
After a while, Lena and Atiaran pull away, and he asks what Atiaran knows about what is happening. Just as she’s about to answer, someone asks Atiaran to come sing for the Stonedown. After saying that here life’s work has just begun, she tells the person that she’ll come later, and after the gathering, she needs to speak with the “Circle of Elders”, which the person agrees to. Atiaran stands by the door for a while, then says that she doesn’t know anything about Covenant’s fate. She might have had that if she had had the strength to stay at the Loresraat longer, but she “passed [her] limit there” and went home. She knows a bit of the old Lore, but too little, and the best she can remember for him is “hints of a wild magic which destroys peace”, but she doesn’t know what it means, and that is another reason to take him to the council. She also gives us two lines from a song, which talk about wild magic being contained in every rock, and white gold that can “unleash or control” it.
That’s interesting enough, I find, though it doesn’t give us much solid information to go on. Atiaran then looks straight at Covenant, and tells him that if he has “come to betray the Land”, only the Lords can “hope to stop [him]”. Given how badly Covenant has been behaving, I would not have been surprised if it eventually turned out on that. And here’s where I’d like to stop, as I’m about halfway through the chapter!
As you might tell, I had some trouble with this. It’s (still) not very engaging, not in the least because a considerable portion of this part is taken up with description. We do get to see Trell and Atiaran, though the former only for a short while, and I do like Atiaran… though we don’t get to see as much of her as I would like, either. There is also some good worldbuilding (which is actually shown, too), but we still know quite little about how the Land works. Next time should improve that, as we get to hear the legend of Berek Halfhand. Until then!
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Oh please, I've met small yappy dogs that were scarier than that loser.
God this thing is boring and overwritten. I honestly couldn't come up with anything else to say about it.
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Yeah, I'm suffering from much the same problem, as you could probably tell. On the subject of overwriting, though, this is a part of Trell walking out in the original:
Talk about overwriting!
That said... if you stay here for two more entries, I don't doubt you'll find plenty to say.
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Good LORD.
Oh I will... on both counts. I usually only read sporks of stuff I've read, but with this one I'm genuinely intrigued. Whether that's because my dad read these books and told me about them may or may not be a factor. 🤷♀️
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Yeah, I think you can understand just why I've got such a hard time going through.
Oh, that's nice to hear! (I could certainly understand that being a factor; it sounds like something that might make me interested, too.)
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