White Gold Wielder

The Wounded Land
, Book One of The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, describes the return of Thomas Covenant to the Land—a realm of magic and peril where, in the past, he fought a bitter battle against sin and madness, and prevailed. Using the power of wild magic, he overcame Lord Foul the Despiser, the Land’s ancient enemy, thus winning peace for the Land and integrity for himself.

Ten years have passed for Covenant, years that represent many centuries in the life of the Land; Lord Foul has regained his strength. Confident that he will succeed in his efforts to gain possession of Covenant’s white gold ring—the wild magic—Lord Foul summons Covenant to the Land. Covenant finds himself on Kevin’s Watch, where once before Foul prophesied that Covenant would destroy the world. Now that prophecy is reaffirmed, but in a new and terrible way.

Accompanied by Linden Avery, a doctor who was unwittingly drawn to the Land with him, Covenant descends to the old village of Mithil Stonedown, where he first encounters the heinous force that the Despiser has unleashed: the Sunbane. The Sunbane is a corruption of the Law of Nature; it afflicts the Land with rain, drought, fertility, and pestilence in mad succession. It has already slain the old forests; as it intensifies it threatens to destroy every form of life. The people of the Land are driven to bloody sacrificial rites to appease the Sunbane for their own survival.

Seeing the extremity of their plight, Covenant begins a quest for an understanding of the Sunbane, and for a way to heal the Land. Guided by Sunder, a man from Mithil Stonedown, he and Linden fare northward toward Revelstone, where lives the Clave, the lore-masters who most clearly comprehend and use the Sunbane. But the travelers are pursued by Ravers, Lord Foul’s ancient servants, whose purpose is to afflict Covenant with a strange venom that will eventually drive him mad with power.

Surviving the perils of the Sunbane and the attacks of venom, Covenant, Linden, and Sunder continue northward. As they near Andelain, a once-beautiful region in the center of the Land, they encounter another village, Crystal Stonedown, in which a woman named Hollian is being threatened by the Clave because of her power to foresee the Sunbane. The travelers rescue her, and she joins them on their quest.

She informs Covenant that Andelain, while still beautiful, has become a place of horror. Dismayed by this desecration, Covenant enters Andelain alone to confront the evil therein. He learns that Andelain is not a place of evil: rather, it has become a place of power where the Dead gather around a Forestal who defends the trees. Covenant soon meets this Forestal, who was once a man named Hile Troy, and several of his former friends—the Lords Mhoram and Elena, the Bloodguard Bannor, and the Giant Saltheart Foamfollower. The Forestal and the Dead give Covenant gifts of obscure knowledge and advice; and Foamfollower offers Covenant the companionship of a strange ebony creature named Vain, who was created by the ur-viles of the Demondim, and whose purpose is hidden.

With Vain behind him, Covenant seeks to rejoin his companions, who, in his absence, have been captured by the Clave. His search for them nearly costs him his life, first in the desperate village of Stonemight Woodhelven, then among the Sunbane victims of During Stonedown. However, with the aid of the Waynhim, he at last wins his way to Revelstone. There he meets Gibbon, the leader of the Clave, and learns that his friends have been imprisoned so that their blood can be used to manipulate the Sunbane.

Desperate to free his friends and to gain knowledge of Lord Foul’s atrocity, Covenant submits to a soothtell, a ritual of blood in which much of the truth is revealed. His visions show him two crucial facts: that the source of the Sunbane lies in the destruction of the Staff of Law, a powerful tool that formerly supported the natural order; and that the Clave actually serves Lord Foul through the actions of the Raver that controls Gibbon.

Unleashing the wild magic, Covenant frees his friends from Revelstone; he then resolves to find the One Tree, from which the original Staff of Law was made, so that he can fashion a new one to use against the Sunbane.

In this purpose he is joined by Brinn, Cail, Ceer, and Hergrom:
Haruchai
, members of the race that spawned the Bloodguard. With Linden, Sunder, Hollian, and Vain, Covenant turns eastward toward the sea, hoping there to find the means to pursue his quest. On the way, he encounters a party of Giants who name themselves the Search. One of them, Cable Seadreamer, has had an Earth-Sight vision of the Sunbane, and they have come to the Land to combat the peril. Guiding the Search to Seareach and
Coercri
, the former home of the Giants in the Land, Covenant uses his knowledge of their ancestors to persuade them to commit their Giantship to the service of his quest for the One Tree.

Before his departure from the Land, Covenant performs a great act of absolution for the Dead of
Coercri
, the former Giants who were damned by the manner of their death at the hands of a Raver. He then sends Sunder and Hollian back to the land, hoping they will be able to inspire the villages to resist the Clave, and prepares himself to begin the next stage of his quest.

The One Tree
, Book Two of the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, details that quest—the voyage of the Giantship Starfare’s Gem in search of the One Tree.

From the first, the journey is beset by treachery. Linden discovers too late that a Raver has boarded the vessel. The Raver uses a pack of rats to attack Covenant, triggering a venom-relapse which increases his power. Delirious, Covenant fears that he will destroy his friends, so he seals himself off from help. Linden is able to save him only by attempting a superficial possession of his spirit.

As he recovers, the quest sails toward the land of the
Elohim
, a reclusive and mystic people who the Giants believe will be able to reveal the location of the One Tree. But when Covenant and his companions reach
Elemesnedene
, home of the
Elohim
, they are met with distrust and mystification rather than aid. The
Elohim
proclaim Linden the Sun-Sage, denigrate Covenant because he lacks her health-sense, and refuse to provide the location of the One Tree except by entering Covenant’s mind to lay bare the knowledge hidden there by the Forestal in Andelain. As a result, the Giants learn how to find the One Tree; but Covenant’s mind is lost.

Meanwhile Vain is captured and imprisoned by the
Elohim
, who fear his presence. But when Linden leads the quest away from
Elemesnedene
, he manages to make his escape.

Aboard Starfare’s Gem, the quest sets out for the One Tree. To their surprise, the companions are joined by an
Elohim
, Findail the Appointed, who has been sent by his people to promote their secret purposes and to guard against Vain. And Linden finds that she cannot heal Covenant’s mind without taking full possession of him—an act which she considers evil.

Damaged by a terrible storm, Starfare’s Gem is forced to seek supplies and repairs in the seaport of
Bhrathairealm
, the home of the
Bhrathair
, a people who have spent most of their history in a way against the feral Sandgorgons of the Great Desert. They are ruled by an ancient thaumaturge, Kasreyn of the Gyre, who covets Covenant’s ring. Kasreyn attempts to free Covenant’s mind so that Covenant can be compelled to release it to him. These initial efforts fail, so Kasreyn seeks to coerce Linden to obtain the ring for him by exposing the
Haruchai
to the violence of the Sandgorgons—slaying Hergrom, crippling Ceer—and imprisoning the entire company when they try to flee Kasreyn’s castle, the Sandhold.

However, Linden turns Kasreyn’s machinations against him. She takes the damage done to Covenant’s mind upon herself, thus restoring him to consciousness and power in time to save the quest by mastering a Sandgorgon and bringing about Kasreyn’s death. As the companions and Starfare’s Gem escape
Bhrathairealm
, Ceer is slain. But Linden recovers from the loss of mind she absorbed from Covenant, and the quest continues.

When the companions reach the Isle of the One Tree, Cable Seadreamer strives to dissuade Covenant and Linden from their purpose; but his muteness prevents him from making his Earth-Sight understood. In the name of the
Haruchai
people, and for Covenant’s sake, Brinn battles the Guardian of the One Tree to obtain access to the Isle. In the process he becomes the Guardian himself and allows the company to descend into the deep cave which holds the One Tree.

There Seadreamer sacrifices his life to reveal the truth of Lord Foul’s secret manipulations: Covenant has been made so powerful by venom that he can no longer raise wild magic without threatening the Arch of Time. In addition, the One Tree is guarded by the Worm of the World’s End: any attempt to touch the Tree will rouse the Worm, and all the companions will be destroyed unless Covenant fights to protect them.