There Trell stood in the graveling pit like the core of a holocaust, bursting with flames and hurling great gouts of fire at the ceiling with both fists. His whole form blazed like incarnated damnation, white-hot torment striking out at the stone it loved and could not save.

The sheer power of it staggered Mhoram. He was looking at the onset of a Ritual of Desecration. ... He had to be stopped. That was imperative. He turned to Tohrm.
"You are of the rhadhamaerl!" he shouted over the raving of the fire. "You must silence this flame!"

"Silence it?" Tohrm was staring, aghast, into the ravage of his dearest love. "Silence it? I have no strength to equal this. I am a Gravelingas of the rhadhamaerl -- not Earthpower incarnate. He will destroy us all."
-- The Power That Preserves

      The final novel of the First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant starts out grim, makes for fairly grim reading and ends ... well, sort of grim, or at least not very happily by general fantasy standards. Thomas Covenant returns from his previous sojourn in the Land just long enough to engage in some depressing and delirious flailing about while seven years pass in the Land. In that short time Lord Foul's mastery of the Illearth Stone (and, unbeknownst to our heroes, the Staff of Law) allows him to assemble an even vaster army. This time however a gelid and unnatural winter grip the Land, weakening the resistance of the free peoples. The Ramen and Ranyhyn are hunted, the Earthpower of the forests is in retreat, the Giants have been exterminated, the Bloodguard Vow is broken and the Haruchai have dispersed. Only at Revelstone is there a glimmer of hope, and it is braced unsteadily against the vicious onslaught of Satansfist's ravening horde. Like a comet in the sky, Covenant's return signals a time of crisis, in what will surely prove the death grapple between good and evil in the Land. As usual the Warward will do its suffering alone, while Covenant embarks on a separate but equally important quest.

When discussing Donaldson's novels, especially with Tolkien fans (and I'm a big one), it never hurts to restate the fact that Tolkien did not invent and does not own the concepts of:

      Yes, the siege of Revelstone will no doubt conjure up images of the Battle of the Hornburg or the siege of Minas Tirith among the faithful, as surely as Ridjeck Thome must seem an imitation of Baradur or the Ranyhyn appear as shadows of the Mearas. But if Tolkien could envision such bitter, bloody business as takes place under the pall of Lord Foul's unnatural winter (and having survived the First World War he probably could) he never set it down on paper. The Power That Preserves chronicles the brutal rape and degradation of so much of the Land and its people that its amazing the survivors require only two thousand years to regain some ground. Sometimes it's hard to remember that apart from the butchery and pain there is an actual plot unfolding leading Covenant towards a showdown with Lord Foul a hundred times more dark and dangerous than Frodo and Sam's jaunt to Mount Doom.

As in The Illearth War, Donaldson allows himself to cut loose and just write some astonishingly good stuff that reaches out and involves the reader intellectually and emotionally. If you're not dabbing at tears after Mhoram's failed attempt at re-summoning Covenant to the Land, well then you're just not human (I cried like a little girl). Covenant gets to pay in a small but satisfying way for his rape of Lena by having to deal with her unnatural affection with his best friends looking on. I'll admit Donaldson occasionally goes overboard with the suffering, as in Covenant's amanibhavam-fueled wandering towards Morinmoss Forest. But the ending to the First Chronicles is more satisfying than Tolkien's dismal failure with the Lord of the Rings (Sauron go poof !). And for every flaw there is a moving and impressive scene; the valiant and hopeless sacrifice of the Waynhim attacking Satansfist's army, Mhoram and Tohrm's opposition of the Ritual of Desecration, Triock's doomed trek to the Unfettered One's demesne, the Healer's last act of mercy, Lord Mhoram's Victory.

Chapter headings for The Power That Preserves

1: The Danger in Dreams
2: Variol-son
3: The Rescue
4: Siege
5: Lomillialor
6: The Defense of Mithil Stonedown
7: Message to Revelstone
8: Winter
9: Ramen Covert
10: Pariah
11: The Ritual of Desecration
12: Amanibhavam
13: The Healer
14: Only Those Who Hate
15: "Lord Mhoram's Victory"
16: Colossus
17: The Spoiled Plains
18: The Corrupt
19: Ridjeck Thome
20: The Unbeliever
21: Leper's End