Fatal Revenant

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  The need in her son’s muddied eyes tapped a source of tears that she was barely able to contain. He had already endured too much—No matter what she thought of Covenant, she did not know how to refuse Jeremiah.

  Stiffly she rose to her feet.

  “All right,” she said to Covenant. “I’ll meet you there.” If she did not concede at least that much, she might never learn the truth. “You can show me what you have in mind.”

  Then, for the last time in that room, she stood her ground. “But you should know—” Do something they don’t expect. “Between now and then, I’m going to use the Staff.

  “I’m telling you because I don’t want to take you by surprise. And I’ll stay as far away as I can. I don’t mean to threaten you.” She absolutely did not wish to disrupt the theurgy which enabled their presence. “But there are some things about our situation that I do understand. I won’t shirk them.”

  She did not wait for Covenant’s reply. She had come to the end of her self-control. “Jeremiah, honey,” she said thickly, “I’ll see you in the morning.” On the verge of weeping, she promised, “And I’ll find a way to help you. Even if I’m too confused to make the right choices.”

  In response, Jeremiah offered her a smile that filled her throat with grief. At once, she headed for the door as if she had been routed, so that he would not see her lose herself.

  4.

  A Defense of Revelstone

  In the corridor outside Covenant’s rooms, Linden found Stave waiting for her.

  He stood among the three Humbled as though they were all still Masters together; as though his true purposes were in tune with theirs. But as soon as she emerged from the doorway, he moved toward her like a man who meant to catch her before she collapsed. The tumult of her emotions, the torn gusts of confusion and dismay and sorrow, must have been as plain as wind-whipped banners to his senses. Ignoring Clyme, Galt, and Branl, he gripped her quickly by one arm and guided her along the passage, away from bewilderment and loss.

  Without his support, she might have fallen. Tears crowded her heart: she could hardly contain them. Only Stave’s firm hand, and her clenched grasp on the Staff of Law, enabled her to take one step after another, measuring her paltry human sorrows and needs against Revelstone’s bluff granite.

  She was not Anele: she had no friend in stone. Lord’s Keep had never offered her anything except distrust, imprisonment, bloodshed, malice. She could only be consoled by grass and trees; by Andelain’s loveliness and Glimmermere’s lacustrine potency; by the unharmed rightness of the Land.

  Or by her son, who sided with Covenant.

  Nevertheless she allowed Stave to steer her through Revelstone’s convoluted intentions toward the rooms which his kinsmen had set aside for her. Where else could she go? The clouds brewing over the upland held no malevolence; but they would bring darkness with them, concealment and drenching rain. Her own storm was already too much for her.

  Be cautious of love. There is a glamour upon it which binds the heart to destruction.

  Covenant and Jeremiah were altered almost beyond recognition. They had not simply refused Linden’s touch: they had rebuffed her heart.

  Why had Covenant sounded false when he so obviously wished to persuade her, win her confidence? God, she thought, oh, God, he might have been a ventriloquist’s dummy, his every word projected onto him, off-key and stilted, from some external source.

  From Jeremiah? From the power, the leakage, that her son had acquired by being in two places at the same time? Or were they both puppets? The playthings of beings and forces which she could not begin to comprehend?

  Or were they simply telling her as much of the truth as they could? Did the fault lie in her? In her reluctance to trust anyone who contradicted her? In her unwillingness to surrender Covenant’s ring?

  Anele had said that the stone of the Close spoke of Thomas Covenant, whose daughter rent the Law of Death, and whose son is abroad in the Land, seeking such havoc that the bones of the mountains tremble to contemplate it. For the wielder also this stone grieves, knowing him betrayed.

  Covenant and Jeremiah were the two people whom she had loved most in all the world. Now she felt that they had broken her.

  But she was not broken. She knew that, even though her distress filled her with unuttered wailing. She was only in pain; only baffled and grieved, flagrantly bereft. Such things she understood. She had spent the past ten years studying the implications of what she had learned from Thomas Covenant and the Despiser. Her former lover’s attempts to manipulate her now might hurt like a scourge, but they could not lash her into surrender.

  Her desire to weep was merely necessary. It did not mean that she had been undone. When Stave brought her at last to her rooms and opened the door for her, she found the strength to swallow her grief so that she could speak.

  “We need to talk,” she said, hoarse with self-restraint. “You and me. Mahrtiir and Liand. All of us. Can you get them for me? If Covenant is right, the Demondim won’t attack before tomorrow. We should have time.”

  The Haruchai appeared to hesitate. “Chosen,” he replied after a moment, “I am loath to leave you thus.”

  “I understand.” With the sleeve of her shirt, she rubbed some of the tears from her face. “I don’t like sending you away. But I’m in no condition to go with you. And we need to talk. Tomorrow morning, Covenant wants to show me how he plans to solve our problems. But there’s something that I have to do first. I’m going to need all of you,” every one of her friends. “And—” She paused while she struggled to suppress a fresh burst of sorrow. “And you should all hear what Covenant and Jeremiah told me.”

  Stave would stand by her to the best of his abilities; but he could not give her solace.

  He nodded without expression. “As you wish.” Then he bowed to her and obeyed.

  Still stifling sobs, Linden entered her rooms and closed the door.

  She felt that she had been absent from her small sanctuary for a long time, and did not know what to expect. Who would provide for her, if the Mahdoubt had left Revelstone? During the day, however, more firewood had been piled beside the hearth, and the lamps had been refilled and lit. In addition, a fresh tray of food awaited her. It was as bountifully laden as Covenant’s had been: like his, it included pitchers of water and springwine.

  The Masters may well have elected to side with the Unbeliever, but clearly the servants of Revelstone made no distinction between their guests.

  Clinging to the Staff, Linden poured a little springwine into a flagon and drank it. When she could feel that small hint of aliantha extend its delicate nourishment through her, she went into her bedroom and opened the shutters to look out at the weather.

  A light drizzle was falling from the darkened sky: the seepage of leaden clouds. It veiled the Westron Mountains, and she was barely able to see the foothills far below her, the faint hue of the White River some distance off to her right. Behind the spring rain, dusk had closed over Revelstone. Full night would cover the plateau and the Keep and the threatening horde of the Demondim before Stave returned with her friends.

  The thought of darkness disturbed her. Dangers which she did not know how to confront lurked where there was no light. Abruptly she closed the shutters, then returned to her sitting room, to the kind illumination of the lamps, and knelt to build a fire in the hearth.

  The wood took flame quickly, aided by a splash of oil from one of the lamps. Soon a steady blaze began to warm the room.

  But light and heat alone could not denature the midnight in her mind. Her head was full of echoes. I deserve better than this. That’s my Mom. They repeated themselves obsessively, feeding her tears. Pain is worse when you have something to compare it to. I need something in return. Their reiteration was as insistent and compulsory as keening. A little bit of trust. Ask that callow puppy who follows you around—

  The sound of Covenant’s voice, and of Jeremiah’s, haunted her.

  Trying to protect hers
elf, she went back into her bedroom and stretched out fully dressed on her strict bed. Hugging the Staff against her chest, she concentrated as well as she could on the numinous wood’s cleanliness.

  She had never seen Berek’s original Staff of Law, but she knew enough to be sure that hers was not identical to his. His had been crafted by lore and earned wisdom from a limb of the One Tree: she had formed hers with urgency and wild magic, melding Findail and Vain. And her own understanding of Law might well differ from Berek’s. For all she knew, the two Staffs had little in common except the iron heels which Berek had forged. The magic which had transformed Vain’s forearm may have arisen from the Worm of the World’s End rather than from the One Tree.

  Nonetheless her Staff was a tool of Earthpower, as Berek’s had been, and she had fashioned it in love and yearning to sustain the beauty of the Land. Somehow it would aid her to discover the truth, to rescue her son, and to oppose the Despiser.

  With the Staff resting against her exhausted heart, she hardly noticed as she drifted into sleep.

  When the sound of knocking at her door awakened her, she sat up suddenly, startled. She could not guess how much time had passed, could scarcely believe that she had fallen asleep. Momentarily befuddled, she thought, Shock. Nervous prostration. The prolonged difficulties of the day had drained her—

  Almost at once, however, she remembered her friends. Surging out of bed, she hurried to the door.

  Until she saw Stave standing there, with Mahrtiir and Liand behind him, and Pahni, Bhapa, and Anele as well, she did not realize that she had feared some other arrival: a new summons from Covenant and Jeremiah, perhaps; or one of the Masters come to inform her that the Demondim had begun their attack.

  Awkwardly, as if she suspected that they might vanish into one of her uninterpretable dreams, she urged her companions to enter. Then she scanned the hall for some sign of the Humbled; for any indication of trouble. But the passageway outside her door was empty. The smooth stone walls held no hint of distress.

  Breathing deeply to clear the alarm from her lungs, she closed the door, latched it, and turned to face the concern of her friends.

  She was glad to see that they emanated health and vigor, in spite of their concerned expressions. The diminishment of Kevin’s Dirt had been replaced by a vitality so acute that it seemed to cast a palpable penumbra around all of them except Anele and Stave himself. Now she knew what the former Master and Mahrtiir had discerned in her when she had returned from Glimmermere. The eldritch strength of the waters had washed away their bruises and their weariness and perhaps even their doubts. And she perceived with relief that the lake’s effects would last longer than the relatively evanescent restoration which she had performed with her Staff earlier in the day. Kevin’s Dirt would not soon regain its power over them.

  For Liand even more than for the Ramen, the experience of Glimmermere must have been like receiving an inheritance; a birthright which should have belonged to him throughout his life, but which had been cruelly denied.

  By comparison, Stave’s impassivity resembled a glower. Anele murmured incomprehensibly to himself, apparently lost in his private dissociation: the effect of standing on wrought stone. Yet his blind eyes seemed to regard Linden as though even in his madness he could not fail to recognize the significance of what had happened to her.

  In simple relief, Linden would have liked to spend a little time enjoying the presence of her friends. She could have offered them food and drink and warmth, asked them questions; distracted herself from her personal turmoil. But they were clearly alarmed on her behalf. Although the Ramen said nothing, Pahni’s open worry emphasized Mahrtiir’s fierce anger, and Bhapa frowned anxiously.

  Liand was less reticent. “Linden,” he breathed softly, fearfully. “Heaven and Earth! What has befallen you? If the Masters plunged a blade into your heart, I would not think to see you so wounded.”

  Involuntarily Linden ducked her head as if she were ashamed. His immediate sympathy threatened to release tears which she could not afford. Already the consequences of her encounter with Covenant and Jeremiah resembled the leading edge of the fury which had flailed her after the horserite. If that storm broke now, she would be unable to speak. She would only sob.

  “Please don’t,” she replied, pleading. “Don’t look so worried. I understand. If I were you, I would probably do the same. But it doesn’t help.”

  Stave folded his arms over his chest as if to close his heart. “Then inform us, Chosen. What form of aid do you require? Your anguish is plain. We who have determined to stand at your side cannot witness your plight and remain unmoved.”

  In response, Linden jerked up her head, taken aback by a sudden rush of insight. Perhaps unwittingly, Stave reminded her that behind their stoicism the Haruchai were an intensely passionate people.

  The bond joining man to woman is a fire in us, and deep, Brinn had told her long ago. The Bloodguard had broken their Vow of service to the Lords, he had explained, not merely because they had proven themselves unworthy, but more because they had abandoned their wives in the name of a chosen fidelity which they had failed to sustain. The sacrifices that they had made for their Vow had become too great to be endured.

  For the same reason, thousands of years later, Brinn and Cail had withdrawn their service to Thomas Covenant. In their eyes, their seduction by the Dancers of the Sea—their vulnerability to such desires—had demonstrated their unworth. Our folly must end now, ere greater promises than ours become false in consequence.

  —and remain unmoved. Shaken by memory and understanding, Linden realized abruptly that Stave had made a similar choice when he had declared himself her friend. He had recanted his devotion to the chosen service of the Masters.

  Liand had glimpsed the truth when he had suggested that the Masters feared grief. As a race, Stave and his kinsmen had already known too much of it.

  Mourning for the former Master, Linden felt her own sorrow recede. It did not lose its force: perhaps it would not. Nevertheless it seemed to become less immediate. Stave’s words and losses had cleared a space in which she could control her tears, and think, and care about her friends.

  “You’re already helping,” she told Stave as firmly as she could. “You’re here. That’s what I need most right now.”

  There would be more, but for the moment she had been given enough.

  When the Haruchai nodded, accepting her reply, she turned to Manethrall Mahrtiir and his Cords.

  “I know that being surrounded by stone like this is hard for you,” she began. A faint quaver betrayed her fragility. However, she anchored herself on Mahrtiir’s combative glare; clung to the insight which Stave had provided for her.

  As she did so, she discovered that she could see more in the auras of the Ramen—and of Liand as well—than magically renewed vitality and protective concern. Beneath the surface, their emotions were complicated by hints of a subtler unease. Something had happened to trouble them since she had parted from Mahrtiir.

  “But we have a lot to talk about,” she continued. “When we’re done, I won’t ask you to stay. We’ll get together again in the morning.”

  Bhapa inclined his head as though he were content with whatever she chose to say. But Pahni still stared at Linden with shadows of alarm in her dark eyes. She rested one of her hands on Liand’s shoulder as if she had come to rely on his support—or as if she feared for him as well as for Linden. And Mahrtiir remained as watchful as a raptor, searching Linden as though he expected her to name her enemies; his prey.

  The Manethrall’s manner suggested unforeseen events. Yet his reaction to them tasted of an eagerness which his companions did not share.

  His manner strengthened Linden’s ability to hold back the effects of her confrontation with Covenant and Jeremiah.

  Finally she shifted her gaze to Liand’s, addressing him last because his uncomplicated concern and affection touched her pain directly.

  “Liand, please don’t ask me any questio
ns.” He also seemed privately uneasy, although he conveyed none of the Manethrall’s eagerness—and little of Pahni’s fear. “I’ll tell you everything that happened. I’ll tell you what I plan to do about it. But it will be easier for me if I can just talk. Questions make it harder for me to hold myself together.”

  Liand mustered a crooked smile. “As you wish. I am able to hold my peace, as you have seen. Yet allow me to say,” he added with a touch of rueful humor. “that since my departure from Mithil Stonedown, no experience of peril and power, no discovery or exigency, has been as unexpected to me as this, that I must so often remain silent.”

  Damn it, Linden thought as her eyes misted, he’s doing it again. The unaffected gallantry of his attempt to jest undermined her self-control. Striving to master her tears again, she turned her back and pretended to busy herself at the hearth; prodded the logs with the toe of her boot although they plainly did not require her attention.

  Over her shoulder, she said thickly, “Sit down, please. Have something to eat. It’s been a long day. I want to tell you about Covenant and Jeremiah, and that’s going to be hard for me. But there’s no hurry.” If the Demondim did not strike unexpectedly, she intended to wait until the next morning to confront the horde. “We can afford a little time.”

  She meant to speak first. Surely then she would be able to put her pain behind her and listen more clearly to the tales of her friends? But she had one question which could not wait.

  With her nerves as much as her ears, she heard her friends shift their feet, glance uncertainly at each other, then begin to comply with her request. Stave remained standing by the door, his arms folded like bars across his stained tunic. But Liand and Pahni urged Anele into a chair and seated themselves beside him. At once, the old man reached for the tray of food and began to eat. At the same time, Bhapa and Mahrtiir also sat down. The older Cord did so with deliberate composure. In contrast, Mahrtiir was tangibly reluctant: he appeared to desire some more active outlet for his emotions.