Read The 1st Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #2: The Illearth War for Free Online Page A

light. The fire-stones burned there before him without consumption, filling the air with the smell of newly broken earth.
    Strong hands caught him by either arm. As his fall was halted, drops of blood spattered onto the stone floor at the edge of the graveling pit.
    Regaining his feet, he cried hoarsely, “Don’t touch me!”
    He was dizzy with confusion and rage, but he braced himself while he put a hand to his forehead. His fingers came away covered with blood. He had cut himself badly on the edge of the table. For a moment, he gaped at his red hand.
    Through his dismay, a quiet, firm voice said, “Be welcome in the Land, ur-Lord Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever and Ringthane. I have called you to us. Our need for your aid is great.”
    “You called me?” he croaked.
    “I am Elena,” the voice replied, “High Lord by the choice of the Council, and holder of the Staff of Law. I have called you.”
    “You called me?” Slowly, he raised his eyes. Thick wetness ran from the sockets as if he were weeping blood. “You called me?” He felt a crumbling inside him like rocks breaking, and his hold over himself cracked. In a voice of low anguish, he said, “I was talking to Joan.”
    He saw the woman dimly through the blood in his eyes. She stood behind the stone table on the level above him, holding a long staff in her right hand. There were other people around the table, and behind them the gallery of the Close held many more.
    They were all watching him.
    “To Joan, do you understand? I was talking to Joan. She called me. After all this time. When I needed-needed. You have no right.” He gathered force like a storm wind.
    “You’ve got no right! I was talking to loan!” He shouted with all his might, but it was not enough. His voice could not do justice to his emotion. “To Joan! to Joan! do you hear me? She was my wife!”
    A man who had been standing near the High Lord hurried around the broad open C of the table, and came down to Covenant on the lower level. Covenant recognized the man’s lean face, with its rudder nose mediating between crooked, humane lips and acute, gold flecked, dangerous eyes. He was Lord Mhoram.
    He placed a hand on Covenant’s arm, and said softly, “My friend. What has happened to you?”
    Savagely, Covenant threw off the Lord’s hand. “Don’t touch me!” he raged in Mhoram’s face. “Are you deaf as well as blind?! I was talking to Joan! On the phone!”
    His hand jerked convulsively, struggling to produce the receiver out of the empty air.
    “She needed” — abruptly his throat clenched, and he swallowed roughly — “she said she needed me. Me!” But his voice was helpless to convey the crying of his heart. He slapped at the blood on his forehead, trying to clear his eyes.
    The next instant, he grabbed the front of Mhoram’s sky-blue robe in his fists, hissed, “Send me back! There’s still time! If I can get back fast enough!”
    Above them, the woman spoke carefully. “Ur-Lord Covenant, it grieves me to hear that our summoning has done you harm. Lord Mhoram has told us all he could of your pain, and we do not willingly increase it. But it is our doom that we must.
    Unbeliever, our need is great. The devastation of the Land is nearly upon us.”

    Pushing away from Mhoram to confront her, Covenant fumed, “I don’t give a bloody damn about the Land!” His words came in such a panting rush that he could not shout them. “I don’t care what you need. You can drop dead for all I care. You’re a delusion! A sickness in my mind. You don’t exist! Send me back! You’ve got to send me back. While there’s still time!”
    “Thomas Covenant.” Mhoram spoke in a tone of authority that pulled Covenant around. “Unbeliever. Listen to me.”
    Then Covenant saw that Mhoram had changed. His face was still the same-the gentleness of his mouth still balanced the promise of peril in his gold concentrated irises-but he was older, old enough now to be Covenant’s father.