The Illearth War Author:Stephen R. Donaldson A book in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever — It has been forty years in the time of the Land - a mere four days in the time of Thomas Covenant's "real" world - since his first visit to that magical realm torn by an age-old, elemental struggle between the forces of good and evil. Having led the Council of Lords on a perilous quest... more » to recover the Staff of Law, a talisman of power lost for centuries, he returns to discover this earlier mission to have been merely the opening move in the apocalyptic scheme of Lord Foul the Despiser, the Land's immortal enemy. For that quest have given Lord Foul an even greater weapon - the Illearth Stone - and as it seems to be the pattern of his afflicted life, Covenant must assume personal responsibility for a fateful situation he has tried desperately to avoid.« less