Two kingdoms, ancient enemies, must stand alone against an implacable invader in the masterful conclusion of the Great God’s War epic from the New York Times bestselling author of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. They are coming. The kingdoms of Belleger and Amika had been fighting for generations. But then they learned of a terrible threat moving through them to destroy the Last Repository, an immense hidden library. To face this greater enemy, King Bifalt of Belleger and Queen Estie of Amika allied their lands and prepared for war. They are at the door. Now the time of preparation is over. Black ships and sorcery test the cannon that defend the Bay of Lights. Treachery and betrayal threaten the kingdoms. The priests of the Great God Rile sow dissent. And Estie rides for the Last Repository, desperate to enlist the help of their Magisters—and to understand the nature of her own magical gift. They are here. Bifalt hates sorcery as much as he loves Estie, and the discovery that she could become a Magister shatters him. But he must rally and fight. Belleger and Amika are all that stand between the Great God’s forces and his ultimate goal: the destruction of the Last Repository and its treasure of knowledge. Product DetailsISBN-13: 9780399586194 Media Type: Hardcover Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group Publication Date: 11-15-2022 Pages: 704 Product Dimensions: 6.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 2.30(d) Series: Great God's WarAbout the Author Stephen R. Donaldson is the author of the original six volumes of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, a landmark in modern fantasy. Every volume, beginning with Lord Foul’s Bane in 1977, has been an international bestseller. Donaldson returned to the series with the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, which includes The Runes of the Earth, Fatal Revenant, Against All Things Ending, and The Last Dark.Read an Excerpt Read an Excerpt One Queen Estie on the Road Queen Estie of Amika had told her husband that she would not return to her realm. Surely, he knew that she had meant Maloresse and Amika's Desire, her city and her castle-fortress. She had to go through Amika. Her road to the Last Repository crossed out of Belleger at Fivebridge. Past the Line River, it turned eastward toward the vast desert and the place where its newest stretches crossed the river's gorge. There, the theurgies of the Repository had built a bridge in the desert long ago, a crossing for caravans like Set Ungabwey's. Now it was sustained by a version of the same sorcery that kept the caravan-track through the desert clear. In its way, the road was the crowning achievement of Estie's reign. It had cost her a number of years, the hard sweat of hundreds of workmen, and finally her father's direct opposition; but now it was complete: a comparatively direct link between Belleger, Amika, and the treasure-house of knowledge that was the Last Repository. Her road would take her to her goal with an ease and quickness that would have been inconceivable a decade ago. Under better circumstances, she might have been proud of what she had accomplished. Now she had no time for pride. The Great God was coming. He might extinguish every life in Amika, Belleger, and the hidden library. When she thought about her road at all, she was grateful that it enabled her to travel swiftly. She had too little time. Magister Facile had assured her that she, Estie, would learn the secret of her own nature in the library. There other Magisters would be able to identify the Queen of Amika's sleeping gift for theurgy. And when she knew what it was, she would also know whether she wanted it awakened. If she decided that she craved the use of her talent, those sorcerers would be able to deliver her true inheritance at last: the legacy that her father had concealed from her since the day she was born. Before she and King Bifalt had parted, she had been honest with him. I told myself that I was waiting for you. I waited for the day when you would choose to love me. But now I know the truth. I have been waiting to find out who I am. Now she was eager to learn the truth. For the same reason, she was also afraid. Her gift might prove to be a small one, useless in a time of war. And her husband loathed sorcery. He distrusted all sorcerers. Choosing to awaken her talent would mean turning her back on him. She could not forget the clenched anguish in his voice and face, in the blood on his mouth and the fire of his gaze, when he had protested, I will never see you again. Her eagerness seemed indistinguishable from dread. Nevertheless she had other reasons for haste, better ones. While she was away, King Bifalt would be fighting battles that he could not hope to win. If she had not spent long years learning to compose herself, she would have been frantic to reach the Repository. She believed that the theurgists there had the power to save King Bifalt's realm-and his life. She was riding in her personal carriage, a sturdy conveyance made for hard use and long trips rather than for the ostentation her dead father had preferred. Drawn by four dray-horses, it was large enough to seat six people with space to spare; it carried enough food and water for several days; and it had cabinets that could be opened to serve as bunks. Thanks to the care with which the stones of the roadbed had been fitted, the iron-shod wheels rolled smoothly, and springs on the axles softened the inevitable jolts. Even a weary old woman like Magister Facile could make her way to the Last Repository without discomfort. There were twenty Amikan soldiers in the Queen's escort, men she had known long enough to trust. In particular, she had learned a fondness for their officer, Commander Crayn. With his sandstone eyes, his instinctive tact, and his willingness to question her decisions when they worried him, he suited her. He would keep her safe, care for her ordinary needs, and accompany her in silence when she wanted to be left alone. Her fellow passengers were another matter. Oh, they were silent enough. But the character of their silence did not ease Estie's impulse to fret. Magister Facile was a self-tightening knot of anger and anticipated bereavement. She sat in her corner of the carriage like a woman who had closed a curtain around herself. To some extent, Estie understood the old woman. Facile was angry at her circumstances; angry at herself for growing old while the man she loved remained young; angry at whoever had poisoned that man. But she had a more immediate grievance as well. King Bifalt felt that she had betrayed him. She had concealed Estie's gift for sorcery from him while revealing it to Estie herself. Now he believed that Magister Facile had used his Queen-Consort for her own ends just as the Magisters of the library had used him. For that, Facile resented him. She had left her lover behind so that she could help him and Belleger prepare for the Repository's war. That should have been enough to earn the trust of Belleger's King. But she did not say so. On the sole occasion when Queen Estie had questioned her, the sorceress had replied without unclosing her jaws, "I am cut off from Apprentice Travail." Travail had been her lover before she had left the Repository to serve King Bifalt. He was the only representative of her home who had been able to hear her across the many leagues between them. "Magister Avail speaks in my mind. He tells me Travail still lives. He is only failing, not dead. But he cannot hear me." After that, Estie had given the old woman as much privacy as traveling together allowed. The Queen's other companion, the monk of the Cult of the Many, maintained a different kind of stillness. The man known as Third Father sat with his head bowed. Apart from his breathing, he hardly seemed to move. From time to time, he opened his eyes without looking around him. With his dun cassock cinched with white rope, his head shaved into a tonsure, and his posture of humility, he could have been an effigy of meditation. Estie suspected that his stillness was a choice he had made long ago. She had heard that he usually traveled on foot-and often for remarkable distances-despite his advancing years. When he sat for hours without shifting or speaking, he seemed to be contemplating thoughts that claimed his complete attention. What they might be, Queen Estie could not guess. For all she knew, he had fixed his mind on nothing more than silence. But an hour or two before the carriage reached Fivebridge, he ventured to speak. Without raising his head or looking at Estie, he asked, "Do you regret your choice of husbands, Queen?" Startled, she replied at once, "No." Then she reconsidered. Third Father's manner required the truth. "And yes. I regret that I have not found my way through to him. We are separated by the iron of his promises to me, and by his devotion to his people. I admire those qualities in him. I do not regret that I married him. I regret that I am not his equal." If she were, Bifalt might learn to love her. The monk shook his head gently. "You misjudge yourself, Queen. You are not him. Why should you be? You have other strengths." Firmly, Estie resisted her impulse to demand, Name one. Instead, she said, "Yet I do not know myself. Help me if you can, Father. Do you see a sorcerer waiting in me?" He may have smiled. His posture and the shade inside the carriage obscured most of his face. "No, Queen. I lack that gift. But sight has other uses. "I have studied the King. In the Last Repository, I saw that the needs and desires of his younger self warred with each other. That truth was unknown to him, yet it was plain to me. And I saw that his ignorance was both a weakness and a strength. His struggle enabled him to surprise even himself. I thought then that he would serve Belleger well. But I did not foresee how far his strength and weakness would carry him. In the crisis which the librarian devised for him, he surprised me as well. "When we spoke more recently, I saw