Fatal Revenant

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  “When he got there, he didn’t actually possess any of the kings. Not even Berek’s King. He didn’t want to risk getting too close to Caerroil Wildwood. But he incited—In fact, he did a shitload of inciting. He encouraged generations of kings to think all their problems would be solved if they could overrun the Land. Because of him, whole armies tried to slash and burn their way through Cravenhaw.

  “That’s where Wildwood beat them. The terrain makes a kind of bottleneck. He could concentrate his power there. And he could smell that Raver. He knew who was responsible for slaughtering his trees. On his own ground, with the full force of Garroting Deep behind him, nothing could stand against him. He stopped generations of kings dead in Cravenhaw—and I do mean dead. In effect, he forced them to turn toward Doom’s Retreat. If they’d kept on trying to force a passage through Cravenhaw, that damn Forestal would have left none of them alive.

  “By the time they gave up, he’d developed a grudge you wouldn’t believe.”

  The Theomach nodded as if in confirmation.

  With less acid in his voice, Covenant explained, “Berek’s King is—I mean was—the last of their line. I know some of the old legends say the Land was one big peaceful nation, and Berek’s King and Queen were happy, but it wasn’t like that. People tell themselves simple stories because they’re easier to live with than the truth. In fact, the Land was never a nation, and the southern kings never actually succeeded at overrunning it.

  “But it wasn’t for lack of trying. And Berek’s King was the most bloody-minded and stubborn of them all. His whole lineage was grasping and brutal, but he was something more. He didn’t just take samadhi Sheol’s advice. Indirectly that Raver ruled him. And when Berek’s Queen decided she didn’t like what her husband was doing, samadhi’s influence turned an ordinary struggle for new territory into an all-out civil war.

  “Maybe you noticed the smell of death behind us? About a year and a half ago, one of the worst battles of the whole war was fought in that valley. The ground is so full of blood, even birds don’t go there.” With dark satisfaction, Covenant stated, “Under all that snow, we were walking across corpses.”

  The idea made Linden wince inwardly; but she kept her reactions hidden. She could no longer estimate how far into the Land’s past she had been brought. Yet Covenant’s revelations changed nothing. A valley drenched in bloodshed changed nothing. He still had not told her anything that explained his intentions, or the Theomach’s—or her own plight. Holding his gaze, she waited for him to go on.

  After a moment, he looked away. With renewed sarcasm, he remarked, “But you haven’t noticed what’s going on east of us.” He waved one hand negligently in that direction. “Or maybe you can’t see that far. I’m sure the all-wise and all-knowing Theomach can. In fact, I’m sure that’s why he brought us here.

  “There’s smoke on the horizon. The smoke of battle. Good old Berek is fighting for his life. Has been for the past three days.

  “Hell and blood!” he snapped suddenly. “I wish I didn’t have to do this. It’s so damn gratuitous.” Then, however, he made a visible effort to master his ire.

  “When the Fire-Lions rescued Berek on Mount Thunder,” he said like a shrug, “they won a battle for him. A turning point. But they didn’t win the war. The king’s supporters took up the fight. And samadhi eggs them on from the safety of Doriendor Corishev, where Caerroil Wildwood can’t reach him, and he doesn’t have to worry about the Colossus. Berek still has a long way to go.

  “Of course, it’s just a mopping-up operation. He has power now, power no one has ever seen before. Eventually he’ll win this battle. He’ll win the war. But he doesn’t know that. The people fighting and dying for him—or for the Queen—don’t know it. All they know is, they think they’ve found something they can believe in. Something they consider more precious than new territory and fresh resources and plain greed.

  “Berek was alone on Mount Thunder. His army was scattered, effectively crippled. But they weren’t all dead. When the Fire-Lions answered him, it was a spectacle you could see for twenty or thirty leagues. Some of his survivors witnessed forces they couldn’t even imagine. And since then the rest have seen him do things—To them, he looks like he’s more than human. Better. They know about his vow, and they’re looking at this war through his eyes.

  “That’s the real reason they’re going to win. Even with Berek’s power—which he doesn’t understand yet—they don’t have superior force. And they sure as hell don’t have superior numbers.” Again Covenant’s sarcasm mounted. “But they believe. They aren’t conscripts fighting because they’ll be cut down if they don’t. They’re fighting a damn holy war.”

  Linden listened and said nothing. Moment by moment, she became increasingly certain that Covenant was no longer the man who had changed her life. He had lost some aspect of his humanity in the Arch of Time.

  “It’ll all be wasted, of course,” he asserted trenchantly. “Just about two thousand years from now, poor doomed Kevin is going to join Foul in the Ritual of Desecration, and everything Berek and his true believers are fighting for will fall apart.

  “After that, it’ll be a downhill battle all the way.”

  Abruptly Covenant turned on the Theomach. “Which is why I’m so God damn pissed off at you! You and your fucking arrogance. We aren’t supposed to be here. We shouldn’t have to go through all this. She shouldn’t have to go through it.

  “And I’m in a hurry. Never mind how hard I have to work just to keep us in one piece, or how long it’s going to take. I can handle that. Hellfire! I’m in a hurry because I’m trying to stop Foul before he finds a way to massacre everybody who has ever cared about the Land, or the Earth, or at least bare survival.”

  Before the Theomach could reply, Linden intervened. She suspected that Covenant’s vehemence was a ploy, a diversion; and she had no intention of permitting it to distract her. He still had not come to the point of his explanation.

  “Covenant,” she asked sharply. “when is this? How far back did you bring us?”

  Jeremiah gave her a quick, troubled glance, then looked away again. After studying his useless toy for a moment, he put it away in the waistband of his ruined pajamas.

  With a shrug, Covenant seemed to dismiss his anger. He sounded almost nonchalant as he said. “Ten thousand years. Give or take.”

  Ten thousand—? Ten thou—?

  Still Linden kept her face blank. “And if the Theomach hadn’t interfered?” she persisted. “If we were where you wanted? When would that be?”

  “Five hundred years after all this.” He indicated Berek’s struggle in the east. “Roughly. I haven’t actually counted. It isn’t worth the effort.”

  She stared at him. Her voice rose in spite of her determination to contain herself. “So if we were doing this the way you wanted, we would still be nine and a half thousand years away from where we belong?”

  “It isn’t just the time, Mom,” Jeremiah offered as though he wanted to placate her. “It’s the whole situation.”

  Covenant nodded. “That’s right. Time is only part of the problem. We’re also not supposed to be here. We’re supposed to be over there.” He pointed past her thin glimpse of the forest. “On the other side of Garroting Deep. Ninety leagues or so, if we could fly.

  “But of course we can’t,” he said acidly. “And we can’t go through the Deep. So we’ll have to go around. All the way around. Which is more like two hundred leagues. Up through the Westron Mountains. In the dead of winter. Without food or warm clothes or horses. And we can’t take any shortcuts because the bloody Theomach won’t let us. He’s afraid we might change history.”

  “With good cause,” remarked the Theomach ambiguously. “Other puissant beings occupy this age of the Land. And the forces at your command are misplaced here. Any encounter threatens a disturbance of Time which I will be unable to contain. You cannot safely attain your goal except upon the path that I have prepared for you—the path of the lady�
�s choices and desires.

  “Even you, Halfhand, with your daring and folly,” the man stated, “even you must endeavor to avoid or mislead notice.”

  “Oh, thanks.” Covenant snorted bitterly. “I didn’t realize that. I feel so much better now.”

  “Covenant, stop,” Linden put in. “You can complain as much as you want later. You still haven’t explained anything. You haven’t told me why. What can you possibly hope to accomplish this far from where we belong? You said that you know how to save the Land.” And Jeremiah. “Why do we have to be thousands of years and hundreds of leagues away from where we’re needed?”

  The Unbeliever gave her a look dark with resentment, then turned his head away. “The Theomach is right about one thing,” he muttered. “If we can get there, we might still be able to do it.” He sighed heavily. “But what I wanted—

  “Ah, hell.” With an air of disgust, he seemed to concede defeat. “I was aiming for the time of Damelon. High Lord Damelon Giantfriend, Berek’s son. I wanted to catch him when he reaches Melenkurion Skyweir. Right before he figures out how to get at what he’s looking for.

  “I was planning to sneak in behind him. Before he started thinking of ways to keep people out. Between the two of us, Jeremiah and I can do that, no matter how much lore he has. Then we could just hide until he left. That would leave us free to do whatever we wanted.”

  With difficulty, Linden swallowed an impulse to yell at him. “I still don’t understand,” she insisted. “What’s so important about Melenkurion Skyweir? What’s Damelon looking for? Damn it, Covenant, you told me that you know what to do, you talk and talk, but you don’t explain anything.”

  Keeping his face turned away, Covenant answered. “The Skyweir is on the other side of Garroting Deep. It’s the biggest mountain in the west. Somewhere deep inside it are the springs that form the Black River. That’s another reason Caerroil Wildwood is so strong. The Black River feeds him. It carries a lot of power. Because one of its springs is the Blood of the Earth.”

  While Linden’s mind reeled, Covenant drawled over his shoulder, “Drinking the EarthBlood gives the Power of Command. Hellfire, Linden, I must have told you that.”

  Then he announced grimly, “I intend to use the Power of Command to stop Foul. I’m going to do what I would have done if you hadn’t created that damn Staff. I’m going to freeze time around him. And around Kastenessen while I’m at it. Encase them in temporal ice. That way, I can finally put a stop to all these atrocities without risking the Arch.”

  At last, the cold found its way through Linden’s clothes to her heart. You must be the first to drink of the EarthBlood. Esmer had known exactly what Covenant and Jeremiah had in mind.

  7.

  Taking the Risk

  The cold seemed to speak directly to Linden: she saw its uncompromising beauty. Certainly it could kill her. It had no pity. And she was not dressed warmly enough to contain her body’s inadequate heat. The sensation of fire that Covenant had given to her was slipping away. Already shivers began to rise through her undefended flesh. Soon she would lose control of her limbs; or she would have to implore Covenant to succor her again.

  Nevertheless the austerity and precision of the cold gave it a numinous glory. The sunlit crystalline untrammeled brilliance of the snow on all sides defined the contours of the hilltop as distinctly as etch-work in purest glass. The air itself might have been glass. Every slope and crest around her seemed to burn as though it were afire with cold.

  And winds had shaped and sculpted the crust as it melted and refroze repeatedly between day and night. She could see delicate, dazzling whorls everywhere; sastrugi as scalloped and articulate as hieroglyphs or runes; ridges and hollows as suggestive as the elaborate surface of the sea. With every step that she and Covenant and Jeremiah had taken, or would take, they marred instances of the most casual and frangible loveliness.

  Covenant had not stopped speaking: he seemed unaware that she heeded a voice other than his. Trenchant with bitterness, he was saying. “Of course, the Elohim could have done the same thing, saved us all this trouble, if they weren’t so damn self-absorbed. And if they didn’t object to messing around with time. That was Kastenessen’s original crime. They Appointed him to contain the skurj because he shared himself with a mortal lover, gave her some of who he was. He wanted her with him, so he gave her the power to stay young. To defy time. To use magicks like his. So naturally the Elohim took offense.”

  With her health-sense, Linden felt each probing finger of winter as it found its way through her garments to touch her skin with ice. If she had known how to interpret the speech of wind and weather, she might have been able to name every avatar of the snow and cold: every flake and crystal, every self-sufficient pattern; every broken and unbreakable rumple in the cloak that covered the hillsides. The stark and brittle branches of the distant forest might have spoken to her.

  “And if you do all that,” she asked Covenant as if she were unaware of her own voice. “what happens to Jeremiah? Will he be freed? Will he be safe?”

  Would she be able to find him?

  Her son was in more danger than anyone; more peril and more pain. Although he stood at Covenant’s side, his tangible body remained at Lord Foul’s mercy. Because he was her son, the strange bifurcation of his torment seemed too great to be borne.

  Covenant sighed. In a gentler voice, he replied, “Unfortunately, no. Oh, his suffering will end. As soon as I freeze Foul, everything he’s doing will stop. But drinking the EarthBlood, using the Power of Command—Unleashing forces on that scale will pretty much overwhelm us. Jeremiah and I will disappear. We’ll snap back to where we belong.” If he felt any grief at the prospect of losing his physical existence—or losing Linden—he did not show it. “He won’t hurt anymore, but he’ll still be trapped wherever Foul has him. And he won’t know any more about where that is than he does now. He’ll still need rescuing.”

  Before Linden could pull her thoughts out of the cold to protest, he added, “That’s one of the reasons you’re here. In fact, I never even considered doing this without you. After Jeremiah and I vanish, it’ll be your turn. Once we’re gone, you can drink the EarthBlood yourself. You can Command—” His tone remained gentle. “Hellfire, Linden, you can Command any damn thing you want. All you have to do is want it, and you and your kid will be reunited. In your proper time. Anywhere you choose. If it’ll make you happy, you two can live in Andelain together for the rest of your natural lives.”

  Trembling with relief and cold—with a hope so sudden that it seemed to shake the marrow of her bones—she asked. “Is that true? Is that what you meant? When you said that you can’t do this without me?”

  At once, Covenant’s manner became aggrieved. “What, did you think I didn’t care? Did you think I’m not trying to do what’s best for you and Jeremiah as well as for the Land and the rest of the Earth? I’m Thomas Covenant, for God’s sake. I’ve saved the Land twice. And I sure as hell didn’t get myself killed because I like being dead.

  “Yes,” he admitted sharply, “you’re why the Elohim won’t interfere. I brought you for that. You’re the Wildwielder. As long as you’re here, they think they don’t have anything to worry about. But I also want to save your kid.”

  Abruptly the Theomach began to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” demanded Covenant.

  The stranger’s laughter stopped. “I find amusement in your justifications.” He did not sound at all amused.

  Again Linden seemed to feel an afterflash of power as she had when Covenant had warmed her earlier. The Theomach vanished from the hilltop.

  With a shudder, she dragged her attention away from the beauty which the snow and wind and sun had wrought. “Then why didn’t you transport us straight to Melenkurion Skyweir? Why did we have to come here? Into the past?”

  And why so far into the past?

  But Covenant had turned his back on her. Instead of facing her question, he was staring back down into
the valley.

  Jeremiah came a step or two closer. Then he met her gaze on Covenant’s behalf. “Because, Mom, the Blood of the Earth isn’t accessible in the time where we belong.” Now her son’s eyes reminded her of Esmer’s: they seemed to blur and run, melting from the silted hue of dark loam to the pale dun of fine sand. “There have never been more than one or two ways to approach it, and Elena’s battle with Kevin wrecked those passages.”

  Jeremiah’s tic signaled his discomfort. “But even before that battle, it wasn’t accessible. The first thing Damelon did after he discovered the EarthBlood was put up wards. He thought the Power of Command was too dangerous for anyone to use. He left all kinds of barricades behind. We would have to fight our way in, and you’re the only one of us who can do that. Which would banish Covenant and me before we could accomplish anything. We have to get inside the mountain before Damelon seals it.”

  “But”—troubled by Jeremiah’s disquiet, Linden struggled to think—“if Covenant shuts down Lord Foul now,” thousands of years before his first confrontation with the Despiser. “won’t he destroy the Arch of Time?”

  Surely such an exertion of Command would unmake all of Lord Foul’s actions for the next ten thousand years?

  “He could,” Jeremiah conceded without hesitation. “But he won’t. What would be the point? He’s trying to save the Land, not destroy it. He’ll seal Foul right after we leave to come here. Ten thousand years from now, in the time where you and I belong. That way, the Arch won’t be in any danger.”

  Tremors ran through Linden’s chest and arms; through her voice. “Then why are we still standing here?” If she did not draw on the Staff for warmth, she would not be able to remain coherent much longer. “Why don’t the two of you transport us right now? Get us to Melenkurion Skyweir before I freeze?”

  The scraps of Jeremiah’s pajamas gave him scant protection; much less than Linden’s cloak and clothes. Nevertheless he seemed unaware of the chill. His encrypted uneasiness had nothing to do with ice and snow.