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

There were lines of use around his eyes and mouth, and his hair was salted with white. When he spoke, his lips twisted with self-deprecation, and the depths of his eyes stirred uneasily. But he met the fire of Covenant’s glare without flinching.
    “My friend, if the choice were mine, I would return you at once to your world.
    The decision to summon you was painfully made, and I would willingly undo it. The Land has no need of service which is not glad and free. But, ur-Lord he gripped Covenant’s arm again to steady him — “my friend, we cannot return you.”
    “Cannot?” Covenant groaned on a rising, half hysterical note.
    “We have no lore for the releasing of burdens. I know not how it is in your world-you appear unchanged to my eyes but forty years have passed since we stood together on the slopes of Mount Thunder, and you freed the Staff of Law for our hands. For long years we have striven — ”
    “Cannot?” Covenant repeated more fiercely.
    “We have striven with power which we fail to master, and Lore which we have been unable to penetrate. It has taken forty years to bring us here, so that we may ask for your aid. We have reached the limit of what we can do.”
    “No!” He turned away because he could not bear the honesty he saw in Mhoram’s face, and yelled up at the woman with the Staff, “Send me back!”
    For a moment, she looked at him squarely, measuring the extremity of his demand. Then she said, “I entreat you to understand. Hear the truth of our words. Lord Mhoram has spoken openly. I hear the hurt we have done you. I am not unmoved.” She was twenty or thirty feet away from him, beyond the pit of graveling and behind the stone table, but her voice carried to him clearly through the crystal acoustics of the Close. “But I cannot undo your summoning. Had I the power, still the Land’s need would deny me.
    Lord Foul the Despiser — ”
    Head back, arms thrown wide, Covenant howled, “I don’t came!’
    Stung into sharpness, the High Lord said, “Then return yourself. You have the power. You wield the white gold.”
    With a cry, Covenant tried to charge at her. But before he could take a step, he was caught from behind. Wrestling around, he found himself in the grasp of Bannor, the unsleeping Bloodguard who had warded him during his previous delusion.
    “We are the Bloodguard,” Bannor said in his toneless alien inflection. “The care of the Lords is in our hands. We do not permit any offer of harm to the High Lord.”
    “Bannor,” Covenant pleaded, “she was my wife.”
    But Bannor only gazed at him with unblinking dispassion.
    Throwing his weight wildly, he managed to turn in the Bloodguard’s powerful grip until he was facing Elena again. Blood scattered from his forehead as he jerked around. “She was my wife!”
    “Enough,” Elena commanded.
    “Send me back!”
    “Enough!” She stamped the iron heel of the Staff of Law on the floor, and at once blue fire burst from its length. The flame roared vividly, like a rent in the fabric of the gold light, letting concealed power shine through; and the force of the flame drove Covenant back into Bannor’s arms. But her hand where she held the Staff was untouched.
    “I am the High Lord,” she said sternly. “This is Revelstone Lord’s Keep, not Foul’s Creche. We have sworn the Oath of Peace.”
    At a nod from her, Bannor released Covenant, and he stumbled backward, falling in a heap beside the graveling. He lay on the stone for a moment, gasping harshly. Then he pried himself into a sitting position His head seemed to droop with defeat. “You’ll get Peace,” he groaned. “He’s going to destroy you all.: Did you say forty years? You’ve only got nine left. Or have you forgotten his prophecy?”
    “We know;” Mhoram said quietly. “We do not forget.” With a crooked smile, he bent to examine Covenant’s wound.
    While Mhoram did this, High Lord Elena quenched the blaze of the Staff, and said to a person Covenant