Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant 02 - Fatal Revenant

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  “All greed is perilous,” concluded the woman more mildly. “Hence is the Mahdoubt wary of her words. She has no wish for darkness.”

  Linden heard a more profound refusal in the Mahdoubt’s reply. The older woman seemed to know where Linden’s questions would lead—and to warn Linden away. Nevertheless Linden persevered, although she approached her underlying query indirectly.

  “Still,” she remarked, “it seems strange that I’ve never heard of your people before. Covenant—” She stumbled briefly, tripped by grief and rage. “I mean Thomas Covenant, not his sick son—” Then she squared her shoulders. “He told me a lot, but he didn’t say anything about the Insequent. Even the Giants didn’t, and they love to explore.” As for the Elohim, she would not have expected them to reveal anything that did not suit their self-absorbed machinations. “Where have you all been?”

  The Mahdoubt smiled. The divergent colors of her eyes expressed a fond appreciation for Linden’s efforts. “It does not surpass conception,” she said easily, “that the lady—aye, and others as well, even those who will come to be named Lords—know naught of the Insequent because apt questions at the proper time have not been asked of those who might have given answer.”

  Linden could not repress a frown of frustration. The woman’s response revealed nothing. Floundering, she faced the Mahdoubt with her dirt-smeared clothes and her black Staff and her desolation. “All right. You said that you can’t answer my questions. I think I understand why. But there must be some other way that you can help me.” Why else had the older woman awaited her here?

  Abruptly she gave up on indirection. She had recovered some of her strength, and was growing frantic. “The Theomach told me that I already know his ‘true name.’” Therefore she assumed that true names had power among the Insequent. “How is that possible?”

  If you won’t rescue me, tell me how to make him do it.

  Slowly the older woman’s features sagged, adding years to her visage and sadness to her mien. Linden’s insistence seemed to pain her.

  “Lady, it is not the Mahdoubt’s place to inform you of that which is known to you. Assuredly not. She may confirm your knowledge, but she may neither augment nor explain it. Also she has spoken of the loyalty of the Insequent, to neither oppose nor betray. Long and long has she spurned such darkness.” She shook her head with an air of weary determination. “Nay, that which you seek may be found only within yourself.

  “The Mahdoubt has urged rest. Again she does so. Perchance with sleep will come comprehension or recall, and with them hope.”

  Linden swallowed a sarcastic retort. She was confident that she had never heard the Theomach’s true name. And she was certain that she had not forgotten some means to bypass centuries safely. But she also recognized that no bitterness or supplication would sway the Mahdoubt. After her fashion, the woman adhered to an ethic as strict as the rectitude of the Haruchai. It gave meaning to the Mahdoubt’s life. Without it, she might have left Linden to face Garroting Deep and Caerroil Wildwood and despair alone.

  For that reason, Linden stifled her rising desperation. As steadily as she could, she said, “I’m sorry. I don’t believe it. You didn’t go to all of this trouble just to feed and comfort me. If you can’t tell me what I need to know, there must be some other way that you can help. But I don’t know what it is.”

  Now her companion avoided her gaze. Concealing her eyes behind the hood of her cloak, the Mahdoubt studied the night as if the darkened trees might offer her wisdom. “The lady holds all knowledge that is necessary to her,” she murmured. “Of this no more may be said. Yet is the Mahdoubt saddened by the lady’s plight? Assuredly she is. And does her desire to provide succor remain? It does, again assuredly. Perchance by her own quest for knowledge she may assist the lady.”

  Without shifting her contemplation of the forest, the older woman addressed Linden.

  “Understand, lady, that the Mahdoubt inquires with respect, seeking only kindness. What is your purpose? If you obtain that which you covet here, what will be your path?”

  Linden scowled. “You mean if I can get back to the time where I belong? I’m going to rescue my son.”

  “Oh, assuredly,” assented the Mahdoubt. “As would others in your place. The Mahdoubt herself might do so. But do you grasp that your son has known the power of a-Jeroth? He that is imprisoned, a-Jeroth of the Seven Hells?”

  Linden winced. Long ago, the Clave had spoken of a-Jeroth. Both she and Covenant had taken that as another name for Lord Foul: an assumption which Roger had confirmed.

  “He’s Lord Foul’s prisoner,” she replied through her teeth. Tell her that I have her son. “I’ve known that since I first arrived. One of the croyel has him now, but that doesn’t change anything.”

  The older woman sighed. “The Mahdoubt does not speak of this. Rather she observes that a-Jeroth’s mark was placed upon the boy when he was yet a small child, as the lady recalls.”

  Her statement stuck Linden’s heart like iron on stone; struck and shed sparks. The bonfire, she thought in sudden anguish. Jeremiah’s hand. He had been in Lord Foul’s power then, hypnotized by eyes like fangs in the savage flames; betrayed by his natural mother. He had borne the cost ever since. And when his raceway construct freed him to visit the Land, he may have felt the Despiser’s influence, directly or indirectly.

  The Mahdoubt seemed to suggest that Jeremiah had formed a willing partnership with the croyel. That his sufferings had distorted and corrupted him within the secrecy of his dissociation.

  If Linden’s heart had not been fused—

  The older woman seemed unaware of Linden’s shock; or she chose to ignore it. “Respectfully the Mahdoubt inquires again. What is your purpose?”

  Anchoring herself on stone, Linden answered. “That doesn’t change anything. Even if you’re right. I have to get him back.” Somehow. “If he’s been marked”—claimed?—“I’ll deal with that when he’s safe.”

  “Assuredly,” countered the woman. “This the Mahdoubt comprehends. Yet her query remains unmet. What will be your path to the accomplishment of your purpose?”

  If her questions and assertions were kindly meant, their benignance had become obscure.

  “All right.” Linden gripped the Staff with both hands as if she intended to lash out at the Mahdoubt. But she did not; would not: she clenched the Staff only because she could not close her fingers around the hardness that filled her chest. “Assuming that I’m not stuck in this time, I’ll go to Andelain. Maybe the Dead are still there.” Maybe Covenant himself would be there: the real Thomas Covenant rather than his son’s malign simulacrum. Her need for him increased with every beat of her heart. “They might help me.” Even the spectre of Kevin Landwaster had once counseled her according to the dictates of his torment. “But even if they aren’t—”

  When Linden fell silent, holding back ideas that she had kept to herself for days, the Mahdoubt prompted her. “Lady?”

  Oh, hell, Linden muttered to herself. What did she have left to lose? An idea that she had concealed from Roger and the croyel could not hurt her now.

  Harshly she told her companion. “Maybe I can find Loric’s krill.” She had heard that there were no limits to the amount of force which could be expressed through the eldritch dagger. “Covenant and I left it in Andelain.” Millennia hence, it would enable the breaking of the Law of Life. And the clear gem around which it had been forged had always responded to white gold. She was counting on that. “If it’s still there, I’ll have a weapon that might let me use wild magic and my Staff at the same time.”

  Had the Mahdoubt asked her why she wanted to wield power on that scale, she would have had difficulty answering. Certainly she needed all the puissance she could muster against foes like Roger, Kastenessen, and the Despiser. But she had begun to consider other possibilities as well; choices which she hardly knew how to articulate. She had already demonstrated that she was inadequate to the Land’s plight. Now every effort to envision so
me kind of hope brought her back to Covenant.

  But the older woman did not pursue her questions. Wrapping her cloak more tightly about her, she shrank into herself.

  “Then the Mahdoubt may say no more.” Her voice emerged, muffled and saddened, from her shrouded shape. “The lady is in possession of all that she requires. And her purpose exceeds the Mahdoubt’s infirm contemplation. It is fearsome and terrible. The lady embraces devastation.”

  A moment later, she spoke to Linden more directly. “Nonetheless her years have taught the Mahdoubt that there is hope in contradiction. Upon occasion, ruin and redemption defy distinction. Assuredly they do. She will trust to that when every future has become cruel.

  “Lady, if you will permit the Mahdoubt to guide you, you will set such thoughts aside until you have rested. Sleep comforts the wracked spirit. Behold.” The woman’s hand emerged from her cloak to indicate her flask. “Springwine has the virtue to compel slumber. Allow ease to soften your thoughts. This she implores of you. If you make haste toward the Earth’s doom, it will hasten to meet you.”

  When her hand withdrew, she became motionless beside her steady cookfire as though she herself had fallen asleep.

  Like her advice, her statements conveyed nothing.—in possession of all that she requires. Such assertions left Linden unillumined; or she could not hear them. As far as she was concerned, her own ignorance and helplessness were all that gave meaning to words like doom.

  Nevertheless she did not protest or beg. She made no demands. The Mahdoubt had come to this time to rescue her: she was certain of that. The Mahdoubt’s desire to accomplish something good here was unmistakable, in spite of the obfuscation imposed by her peculiar morality. She had traveled an inconceivable distance in order to meet Linden’s simpler needs. She had spoken for Linden when Caerroil Wildwood might have slain her. The woman’s human aura, her presence, her manner—everything about her that was accessible to Linden’s percipience—elicited conviction.

  And she had insisted that Linden was not ignorant. The lady is in possession of all that she requires.

  When Linden could no longer contain the pressure of her caged passions, she rose to her feet. Taking the Staff with her, she began to pace out her futility on the cold-hardened ground of the riverbank.

  She did not walk away into the trees, although the gall and ire of Gallows Howe seemed to whisper a summons. There, at least, she would not be urged to sleep. The Forestal’s gibbet would recognize her rage, and approve. Nevertheless she did not intrude on the Deep. She had no desire to test the extent of Caerroil Wildwood’s forbearance. And the glowering resentment of the forest would not encourage her to think more clearly.

  Instead she strode along the narrow strip of open ground at the edge of the Black River. And when she had walked far enough to reduce the Mahdoubt’s cookfire to a small glimmer, she turned back, passing the older woman and continuing on until she was once more in danger of losing sight of her companion. Then she turned again as if she were drawn by the innominate and undiminished promise implicit in the gentle flames.

  Repeatedly tracing the same circuit from verge to verge of the cookfire’s light, with the runed black wood of the Staff gripped in her healed hand, she tried to solve the conundrum of the Mahdoubt’s presence.

  The older woman had suggested that sleep might bring comprehension or recall. Comprehension was beyond Linden; as unattainable as sleep. But recall was not. For long years, she had sustained herself with remembrance. Pacing back and forth within the boundaries of the fire’s frail illumination, she tried to recollect and examine everything that the Mahdoubt had said since Linden had come upon her beside the river.

  Unfortunately her battle under Melenkurion Skyweir, and her brutal struggle out of the mountain, had left her so frayed and fraught that she could remember only hazy fragments of what had been said and done before the Forestal’s arrival.

  —answer none of the lady’s sorrows. The Mahdoubt had tried to explain something. Time has been made fragile. It must not be challenged further. But in Linden’s mind the words had become a blur of earthquake and cruelty and desperate bereavement.

  Stymied by her earlier weakness, she had to begin with food and forbearance and Gallows Howe; with runes and assurances.

  Must it transpire that beauty and truth shall pass utterly when we are gone?

  If I can find an answer, I will.

  After that, the Staff of Law had been restored to her, written with knowledge and power. It had made her stronger. The Howe itself had made her stronger. Her memories were as distinct as keening.

  This blackness is lamentable—

  But nothing in her encounter with Caerroil Wildwood relieved her own lament.

  Again and again, however, the Mahdoubt had avowed that her wishes for Linden were kindly. Apart from her obscure answers to Linden’s questions, the Mahdoubt had treated Linden with untainted gentleness and consideration.

  And when Linden had tried to thank her, the Mahdoubt had replied, Gratitude is always welcome—The Mahdoubt has lived beyond her time, and now finds gladness only in service. Aye, and in such gratitude as you are able to provide.

  Gratitude.

  Linden could have gone on, remembering word for word. But something stopped her there: a nagging sensation in the back of her mind. Earlier, days ago, or millennia from now, the Mahdoubt had spoken of gratitude. Not when the woman had accosted Linden immediately before Roger’s arrival in Revelstone with Jeremiah and the croyel: not when she had warned Linden to Be cautious of love. Before that. Before Linden’s confrontation with the Masters. The day before. In her rooms. When she and the Mahdoubt had first met.

  Linden’s heart quickened its beat.

  Then also the older woman had offered food and urged rest. She had explained that she served Lord’s Keep, not the Masters. And she had asked—

  Linden’s strides became more urgent as she searched her memories.

  She had asked, Does the wonder of my gown please you? Are you gladdened to behold it? Every scrap and patch was given to the Mahdoubt in gratitude and woven together in love.

  My gown. That was the only occasion when Linden had heard the Insequent refer to herself in the first person.

  Full of other concerns, Linden had missed her opportunity to learn more about the patchwork motley of the Mahdoubt’s garb. But Liand had supplied what Linden lacked, as he had done so often.

  That it is woven in love cannot be mistaken. If I may say so without offense, however, the gratitude is less plain to me.

  In response, the Mahdoubt had chided him playfully. Matters of apparel are the province of women, beyond your blandishment. And then she had said—

  Oh, God. Linden was so surprised that she stumbled. When she had recovered her balance, she stood still and braced herself on the Staff while she remembered.

  The Mahdoubt had said, The lady grasps the presence of gratitude. And if she does not, yet she will. It is as certain as the rising and setting of the sun.

  Gratitude. In the gown, my gown: in the disconcerting unsuitability of the parti-colored scraps and tatters which had been stitched together to form the garment. Other people in other times had given thanks to the Mahdoubt—or had earned her aid—by adding pieces of cloth to her raiment.

  The lady is in possession of all that she requires.

  The Mahdoubt had already given Linden an answer.

  —such gratitude as you are able to provide.

  Shaken, Linden entered a state of dissociation that resembled Jeremiah’s; a condition in which ordinary explicable logic no longer applied. She leapt to demented assumptions and did not question them. Suddenly the only problem which held any significance for her was that she had no cloth.

  For that matter, she had neither a needle nor thread. But those lacks did not daunt her. They hardly slowed her steps as she hurried to stand across the campfire from the Mahdoubt.

  Hidden within her cloak, the woman still squatted motionless. She did not react
to Linden’s presence. If she felt the blaze of confusion and hope in Linden’s gaze, she gave no sign.

  Linden opened her mouth to blurt out the first words that occurred to her. But they would have been too demanding, and she swallowed them unuttered. If she could, she wanted to match the Mahdoubt’s courtesy. Intuitively she believed that politeness was essential to the older woman’s ethos.

  She took a deep breath to steady herself. Then she began softly, “I don’t know how to address you. ‘The Mahdoubt’ seems too impersonal. It’s like calling you ‘the stone’ or ‘the tree.’ But I haven’t earned the right to know your name,” her true name. “And you don’t use mine. You call me ‘lady’ or ‘the lady’ to show your respect.

  “Would it be all right if I called you ‘my friend?’”

  Slowly the Mahdoubt lifted her head. With her hands, she pulled back the hood of her cloak. The jarring and comfortable contradiction of her eyes regarded Linden warmly.

  “The Mahdoubt,” she said, smiling, “would name it an honor to be considered the lady’s friend.”

  “Thank you.” Linden bowed, trying to honor the older woman in return. “I appreciate that.

  “My friend, I have a request.”

  Still smiling, the woman waited for Linden to continue.

  Linden did not hesitate. The pressure building within her did not permit it. As if she were sure of herself, she said, “You once asked if looking at your gown made me glad. I didn’t understand. I still don’t. All I know is that it has something to do with the requirements of your knowledge. Your beliefs. But I would be glad to look at it again now. I’ll be grateful for a second chance.”