Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant 02 - Fatal Revenant

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  They were her friends, but she hardly noticed them.

  Fearless with urgency, she followed Stave and Mahrtiir across the unsteady span above the courtyard between the watchtower and Revelstone’s inner gates. Gripping the Staff hard in one hand, she pursued her guides into the sudden gloom of the Keep’s lightless passages.

  She did not know the way. She had spent too little time here to learn even a few of Revelstone’s complex intersections and halls. And she required illumination. If she had been willing to move more slowly, using only her enhanced senses, she could have trailed Stave’s hard shape and Mahrtiir’s more legible tension through the wrought gutrock. But she had to hurry. Instinctively, irrationally, she felt that her own rush to meet them might enable Jeremiah and Covenant to reach the comparative safety of the massive interlocking gates, the friable sanctuary of the Masters. As the reflected sunshine behind her faded, and the darkness ahead deepened, she called up a gush of flame from one iron heel of the Staff. That warm light, as soft and clean as cornflowers, allowed her to press Stave and the Manethrall to quicken their pace.

  Nearly running, they descended stairways apparently at random, some broad and straight enough to accommodate throngs, others narrow spirals delving downward. Her need for haste was a fever. Surely she could reach the cavernous hall within the gates ahead of Jeremiah and Covenant and their small band of Masters?

  Her friends followed close behind her. Anele was old; but his intimacy with stone, and his decades among the mountains, made him sure-footed: he did not slow Liand and the Cords. And after them came the three Humbled, Galt, Clyme, and Branl, maimed icons of the Masters’ commitments. They were as stubborn and unreadable as Stave; but Linden did not doubt that they intended to protect her—or to protect against her. The Masters had rejected Stave because he had declared himself her ally; her friend. Naturally they would not now trust him to fill any of their self-assigned roles.

  Fervidly she tried to cast her health-sense farther, striving to penetrate Revelstone’s ancient rock so that she might catch some impression of the Vile-spawn. How near had they come? Had they overtaken Covenant and Jeremiah? But she could not concentrate while she dashed and twisted down the passages. She could only chase after Stave and Mahrtiir, and fear that her loved ones had already fallen beneath the breaking tsunami of the Demondim.

  But they had not, she insisted to herself. They had not. The Demondim had withdrawn their siege the previous day for a reason. Possessed by some fierce and fiery being, Anele had confronted the Vile-spawn; and they had responded by allowing Linden and those with her to escape—and then by appearing to abandon their purpose against Lord’s Keep. Why had they acted thus, if not so that Jeremiah and Covenant might reach her? If they desired Jeremiah’s death, and Covenant’s, they could have simply awaited their prey in front of Revelstone’s gates.

  Jeremiah and Covenant were not being hunted: they were being herded.

  Why the Demondim—and Anele’s possessor—might wish her loved ones to reach her alive, she could not imagine. But she strove to believe that Covenant and Jeremiah would not fall. The alternatives were too terrible to be endured.

  Then Linden saw a different light ahead of her: it spilled from the courtyard into the Keep. A moment later, Stave and Mahrtiir led her down the last stairs to the huge forehall. Now she did not need the Staff’s flame; but she kept it burning nonetheless. She might require its power in other ways.

  The time-burnished stone echoed her boot heels as she ran into the broad hall and cast her gaze past the gates toward the courtyard and the passage under the watchtower.

  Beyond the sunshine in the courtyard, the shrouded gloom and angle of the wide tunnel obscured her line of sight. She felt rather than saw the open outer gates, the slope beyond them. With her health-sense, she descried as if they were framed in stone the four Masters astride their laboring horses. Covenant clung to the back of one of the Haruchai. Jeremiah balanced precariously behind another.

  The mustang that bore her son was limping badly: it could not keep pace with the other beasts. And Covenant’s mount staggered on the verge of foundering. All of the horses were exhausted. Even at this distance, Linden sensed that only their terror kept them up and running. Yet somehow they remained ahead of the swarming Demondim. If the monsters did not strike out with the might of the Illearth Stone, the riders would reach the outer gates well before their pursuers.

  The fact that the Vile-spawn had not already made use of the Stone seemed to confirm Linden’s clenched belief that Jeremiah and Covenant were being herded rather than hunted.

  She wanted to cry out her own encouragement and desperation; wanted to demand why the Masters had not organized a sally to defend her loved ones; wanted to oppose the horde with Law and Earthpower in spite of the distance. But she bit down on her lip to silence her panic. Jeremiah and Covenant would not hear her. The Haruchai could not combat the Demondim effectively. And she did not trust herself to wield power when the people whom she yearned to save were between her and the horde.

  Grimly she forced herself to wait, holding her fire over her head like a beacon, nearly a stone’s throw from the courtyard so that the Keep’s defenders would have room in which to fight if the monsters could not be prevented from passing the gates.

  Abruptly the Masters and their horses surged between the outer gates into the dark tunnel. Hooves clanged on the worn stone as first Covenant and then Jeremiah fell into shadow.

  A heartbeat later, ponderous as leviathans, the outer gates began to close.

  The heavy stone seemed to move slowly, far too slowly to close out the rapacity of the monsters. Through her fear, however, Linden realized that the Demondim had once again slackened their pace, allowing their foes to escape. She felt the impact as the gates thudded together, shutting out the Vile-spawn, plunging the tunnel into stark blackness.

  Then the riders reached daylight in the courtyard, and she saw that all six of them were safe. She did not know how far they had fled the Demondim; but she recognized at once that none of them had suffered any harm.

  The mounts had not fared so well. Like their riders, the horses were uninjured. But their terror had driven them to extremes which might yet kill them: they had galloped hard and long enough to break their hearts. Yet they did not stop until they had crossed the courtyard and passed between the inner gates. Then, as those gates also began to close, shutting out the last daylight, Jeremiah’s mount stumbled to its knees; fell gasping on its side with froth and blood on its muzzle. Jeremiah would have plunged to the stone, but the Master with him caught him and lifted him aside. The horse bearing Covenant endured only a moment longer before it, too, collapsed. But Covenant and his fellow rider were able to leap clear.

  When the inner gates met and sealed like the doors of a tomb, the flame of the Staff was the only light that remained in the forehall.

  The Ramen protested at the condition of the horses; but Linden ignored them. She had already begun to rush forward, avid to clasp her loved ones, when Covenant yelled as if in rage, “Hellfire, Linden! Put that damn thing out!”

  She stopped, gasping as though his vehemence had snatched the air from her lungs. Her power fell from her, and instant darkness burst over her head like a thunderclap.

  Oh, God—

  Just be wary of me. Remember that I’m dead.

  If she could have found her voice, or drawn sufficient breath, she might have cried out at the Despiser, You bastard! What have you done?

  A hand closed on her arm. She hardly heard Stave as he urged her softly, “A moment, Chosen. Handir and others approach, bearing torches among them. You need only constrain yourself for a moment.”

  He could still hear the mental speech of the Masters, although they now refused to address or answer him in that fashion.

  At once, she rounded on Stave. Behind him, Liand and the Ramen were whispering, perhaps asking her questions, but she had no attention to spare for them. Gripping Stave as he gripped her, she deman
ded, “Your senses are better than mine.” Like their preternatural strength, the vision of the Haruchai had always exceeded hers. “Can you see them?” See into them? “Are they all right?”

  In the absence of the Staff’s flame, she knew only blackness and consternation.

  “They appear whole,” the former Master answered quietly. “The ur-Lord has ever been closed to the Haruchai. Even the Bloodguard could not discern his heart. And his companion”—Stave paused as if to confirm his perceptions—“is likewise hidden.”

  “You can’t see anything?” insisted Linden. Even Kevin’s Dirt could not blind the Masters—

  Stave may have shrugged. “I perceive his presence, and that of his companion. Nothing more.

  “Chosen,” he asked almost immediately, “is the ur-Lord’s companion known to you?”

  Linden could not answer. She had no room for any questions but her own. Instead she started to say, Take me to them. She needed to be led. Covenant’s shout had shattered her concentration: she might as well have been blind.

  But then the torches that Stave had promised appeared. Their unsteady light wavered toward her from the same passage which had admitted her and her companions to the forehall.

  A few heartbeats later, the Voice of the Masters, Handir, entered the hall. A coterie of Haruchai accompanied him, some bearing fiery brands. As they moved out into the dark, the ruddy light of the flames spread along the stone toward the gates. It seemed to congeal like blood in the vast gloom.

  Now Linden could see the faces of her companions, confused by erratic shadows. None of them had the knowledge or experience to recognize Covenant and Jeremiah. Perhaps as a reproach to Linden, Handir had called the newcomers “strangers.” Nevertheless Mahrtiir and his Cords may have been able to guess at Covenant’s identity. The Ramen had preserved ancient tales of the first Ringthane. But Liand had only his open bafflement to offer Linden’s quick glance.

  Apparently none of the Masters had done her friends the courtesy of mentioning Covenant’s name aloud. And of course even the Masters could only speculate about Jeremiah.

  Then the light reached the cluster of horses and their riders within the gates; and Linden forgot everything except the faces that she loved more dearly than any others she had ever known.

  Unconscious that she was moving again, she hurried toward them, chasing the limits of the ambiguous illumination.

  The inadequacy of the torches blurred their features. Nevertheless she could not be mistaken about them. Every flensed line of Covenant’s form was familiar to her. Even his clothes—his old jeans and boots, and the T-shirt that had seen too much wear and pain—were as she remembered them. When he held up his hands, she could see that the right lacked its last two fingers. His strict gaze caught and held the light redly, as if he were afire with purpose and desire.

  And Jeremiah was imprinted on her heart. She knew his gangling teenaged body as intimately as her own. His tousled hair and slightly scruffy cheeks, smudged here and there with dirt or shadows, could belong to no one else. He still wore the sky-blue pajamas with the mustangs rampant across the chest in which she had dressed him for bed days or worlds earlier, although they were torn now, and stained with grime or blood. And, like Covenant’s, his right hand had been marred by the amputation of two fingers, in his case the first two.

  Only the eagerness which enlivened the muddy color of his eyes violated Linden’s knowledge of him.

  The light expanded as more torches were lit. Holding brands high, the Humbled followed her, joined by her friends; followed as if she pulled them along behind her, drawing their fires with her. Now she could see clearly the cut in Covenant’s shirt where he had been stabbed, and the old scar on his forehead. Flames lit his eyes like threats; demands. His appearance was only slightly changed. After ten years and more than three millennia, the grey was gone from his hair: he looked younger despite his gauntness. And the marks of the wounds that he had received while Linden had known him were gone as well, burned away by his consummation in wild magic. Yet every compelling implication of his visage was precious to her.

  Nevertheless she did not approach him. Deeper needs sent her hastening toward Jeremiah.

  She was still ten paces from her son, however, when Covenant snapped harshly, “Don’t touch him! Don’t touch either of us!”

  Linden did not stop. She could not. Long days of loss and alarm impelled her. And she had never before seen anything that resembled consciousness in Jeremiah’s eyes. Had never seen him react and move as he did now. She could not stop until she flung her arms around him and felt his heart beating against hers.

  At once, his expression became one of dismay; almost of panic. Then he raised his halfhand—and a wave of force like a wall halted her.

  It was as warm as steam: except to her health-sense, it was as invisible as vapor. And it was gone in an instant. Yet she remained motionless as if he had frozen her in place. The shock of his power to repulse her deprived her of will and purpose. Even her reflexive desire to embrace him had been stunned.

  At a word from Mahrtiir, Bhapa and Pahni moved away to help the Masters tend the horses. The Manethrall remained behind Linden with Liand, Anele, and Stave.

  “He’s right,” said Jeremiah: the first words that Linden had ever heard him utter. His voice sounded as unsteady as the torchlight, wavering between childhood and maturity, a boy’s treble and a man’s baritone. “You can’t touch either of us. And you can’t use that Staff.” He grinned hugely. “You’ll make us disappear.”

  Among the shadows cast by the flames, she saw a small muscle beating like a pulse at the corner of his left eye.

  Linden might have wept then, overwhelmed by shock and need. Suddenly, however, she had no tears. The Mahdoubt had told her, Be cautious of love. It misleads. There is a glamour upon it which binds the heart to destruction. And days ago Covenant had tried to warn her through Anele—

  Between one heartbeat and the next, she seemed to find herself in the presence, not of her loved ones, but of her nightmares.

  In the emptiness and silence of the high forehall, the old man asked plaintively, “What transpires? Anele sees no one. Only Masters, who have promised his freedom. Is aught amiss?”

  No one answered him. Instead Handir stepped forward and bowed to Covenant. “Ur-Lord Thomas Covenant,” he said firmly, “Unbeliever and Earthfriend, you are well come. Be welcome in Revelstone, fist and faith—and your companion with you. Our need is sore, and your coming an unlooked-for benison. We are the Masters of the Land. I am Handir, by right of years and attainment the Voice of the Masters. How may we serve you, with the Demondim massed at our gates, and their malice plain in the exhaustion of your mounts?”

  “No,” Linden said before Covenant—or Jeremiah—could respond. “Handir, stop. Think about this.”

  She spoke convulsively, goaded by inexplicable fears. “The Demondim allowed us to escape yesterday. Then they pulled back so that”—she could not say Covenant’s name, or Jeremiah’s, not now; not when she had been forbidden to touch them—“so that these people could get through. Those monsters want this.” Her throat closed for a moment. She had to swallow grief like a mouthful of ashes before she could go on. “Otherwise they would have used the Illearth Stone.”

  The Demondim had not planned this. They could not have planned it. They had not known that she would try to protect the Land by snatching them with her out of the past. If Anele had not been possessed by a being of magma and rage, and had not encountered the Vile-spawn—

  Surely Covenant and Jeremiah would not be standing in front of her, refusing her, if some powerful enemy had not willed it?

  Turning from the Voice of the Masters to Covenant, she demanded, “Are you even real?”

  The Dead in Andelain were ghosts; insubstantial. They could not be touched—

  Covenant faced her with something like mirth or scorn in his harsh gaze. “Hell and blood, Linden,” he drawled. “It’s good to see you haven’t changed.
I knew you wouldn’t take all this at face value. I’m glad I can still trust you.”

  With his left hand, he beckoned for one of the Humbled. When Branl stepped forward holding a torch, Covenant took the brand from him. Waving the flame from side to side as if to demonstrate his material existence, Covenant remarked, “Oh, we’re real enough.” Aside to Jeremiah, he added, “Show her.”

  Still grinning, Jeremiah reached into the waistband of his pajamas and drew out a bright red toy racing car—the same car that Linden had seen him holding before Sheriff Lytton’s deputies had opened fire. He tossed it lightly back and forth between his hands for a moment, then tucked it away again. His manner said as clearly as words, See, Mom? See?

  Linden studied his pajamas urgently for bullet holes. But the fabric was too badly torn and stained to give any indication of what had happened to him before he had been drawn to the Land.

  None of the Masters spoke. Apparently they understood that her questions required answers.

  Abruptly Covenant handed his torch back to Branl. As Branl withdrew to stand with Galt and Clyme, Covenant returned his attention to Linden.

  “This isn’t easy for you. I know that.” Now his voice sounded hoarse with disuse. He seemed to pick his words as though he had difficulty remembering the ones he wanted. “Trust me, it isn’t easy for us either.

  “We’re here. But we aren’t just here.” Then he sighed. “There’s no good way to explain it. You don’t have the experience to understand it.” His brief smile reminded her that she had rarely seen such an expression on his face. Roger had smiled at her more often. “Jeremiah is here, but Foul still has him. I’m here, but I’m still part of the Arch of Time.

  “You could say I’ve folded time so we can be in two places at once. Or two realities.” Another smile flickered across his mouth, contradicted by the flames reflecting in his eyes. “Being part of Time has some advantages. Not many. There are too many limitations, and the strain is fierce. But I can still do a few tricks.”