Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant 02 - Fatal Revenant

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Swallowing anger, Linden asked, “Does that have to happen? Isn’t there something we can do about it?”

  The woman sighed. “It is the way of the Insequent, inherent in us. It is required of the Mahdoubt by birth rather than by choice or scruple. The Insequent exert no demands upon each other, for the cost of such conflict would be extinction. Some centuries past, the Vizard sought to thwart the Harrow’s desires, for he deemed them contrary to his own purpose. Thus was the Vizard lost to use and name and life. The outcome of what the Mahdoubt has done will not be otherwise.”

  The eyes of the Humbled widened momentarily, and Stave cocked an eyebrow; but Linden paid no attention to them.

  “Ere that end, however,” the Mahdoubt continued, “there is much that must be said.” She glanced at Stave. “You also must speak, Haruchai. The Mahdoubt falters, for her years come upon her swiftly. She is too weary to relate the tale of your people. Yet that tale must be told.”

  “It must not,” countered Clyme promptly. “There is no need. And the will of the Masters has not been consulted.”

  The Mahdoubt squinted at Clyme with her orange eye. In spite of her weakness, she retained enough force to silence him. “Were you efficacious against the Harrow, Master? Did he not dismiss your efforts, as did the Vizard in a distant age and place? Then do not speak to the Mahdoubt of ‘need.’ While she retains any portion of herself, she will determine what is needful.”

  To Linden’s surprise, all three of the Humbled bowed, and said nothing more.

  While she scrambled to grasp why any Master would show the Mahdoubt such respect when earlier the Humbled had attacked the Harrow without provocation, Stave said. “If there is much that must be said, perhaps it would be well to speak first of this ‘service’ which the Harrow may elect to perform for the Chosen.”

  The Mahdoubt shook her head. “Nay. Doing so will alter my lady’s path—and the Mahdoubt has given her life in the belief that my lady must be trusted, though her deeds engender horrors. The Mahdoubt will not disturb a future which eludes her sight.”

  “Then tell me why you did it,” Linden asked; pleaded. “I needed you at first. You saved me. But then I could have defended myself,” while the Harrow’s intentions had only been delayed. “You didn’t have to sacrifice yourself.”

  The woman sighed. “Has the Mahdoubt not said—assuredly, and often—that she is weary?” Linden could feel the Mahdoubt’s vitality slowly seeping from her limbs. “She prefers her own passing to a life in which she may behold the end of days.”

  Then she turned her blue eye on Linden. “Yet if she is craven, persuaded to madness and death by apprehension, she is not merely so.

  “My lady, you have become the Mahdoubt’s friend, as she is yours. You are sorely transformed. That is sooth. You have become fearsome. Yet in Garroting Deep, you found within yourself the means to warm the Mahdoubt’s heart. There she learned that the mystery of your needs and desires is unfathomable. It resembles the mystery of life, rich in malice and wonder. That good may be accomplished by evil means defies explication. Yet the Mahdoubt has assured herself that you are equal to such contradictions. Therefore she believes that you must not be turned aside.”

  Slowly the Mahdoubt lowered her head to rest her tired neck. At the same time, however, her tone became sharper, whetted by indignation.

  “My lady, the Harrow’s purpose lies athwart your path. His blandishments you may withstand. But if he failed here to consume your choices and your love, he would attempt the same wrong at another time. Oh, assuredly. Again and again he would attempt it, relentlessly, until your strength faltered. Then would you be altogether lost.

  “This the Mahdoubt could not suffer, trusting you as she does. Therefore has she spent her mind and life to obtain the Harrow’s oath of forbearance.”

  Aching at the scale of the Mahdoubt’s sacrifice, Linden said in a small voice. “Then tell me how. How did you beat him?”

  “My lady,” the Mahdoubt sighed, “knowledge precludes knowledge. Our mortality cannot master one thing, and then another, and then yet another. The Harrow unmade the Demondim. The Mahdoubt could not have done so. But she has given centuries to the contemplation of Time. He has not. He passes from place to place as he wills—oh, assuredly—but he cannot journey among the years.

  “The Mahdoubt gained his oath by revealing that her knowledge might displace him to another age of the Earth, a time in which the objects of his greed would not exist. There he would remain, abandoned, useless to himself, until his spirit was broken.

  “For that reason, he acknowledged defeat.”

  Her muscles trembled as she shifted her attention to Stave.

  “Now, Haruchai,” she commanded softly, “you must speak. You have ascertained that the Mahdoubt is of the Insequent. You have been informed of the Vizard’s passing. And you have heard my lady’s mention of the Theomach. Share with her the tale of your people. It is the last boon which the Mahdoubt may grant.”

  In the Harrow’s absence, his campfire died slowly, and with it the yellow elucidation of the flames. Shadows passed like small gusts of night over the older woman’s sagging frame and Stave’s unread countenance. More stars became visible overhead, throngs poised to hear or ignore what was unveiled in the dark.

  Unsteady reflections in the former Master’s eye suggested conflicting emotions, obscure reluctance and rue, as he gazed past the Mahdoubt at Linden. “Chosen,” he said in a voice that sounded as removed as Revelstone and the Westron Mountains. “in the distant past, some centuries before the coming of the Haruchai to the Land, our ancestors encountered the Insequent.”

  While Linden studied him in surprise, he continued. “We have ever been a combative race, glorying in struggle, for by such contests we demonstrate our worth—and it is by our worth that we survive the harsh ardor of the peaks. We have eschewed weapons because they detract from the purity of our battles, and because we did not desire our own destruction. Yet for many a century we were content to battle among ourselves, striving for wives, and for supremacy of skill, and for pride.

  “There came a time, however, when we were no longer content. Ourselves we knew too well, speaking mind to mind. We desired to measure our worth against other peoples in less arduous climes, for we conceived that the rigors of the mountains had made us great. Therefore twenty-five score Haruchai journeyed together westward, seeking some race whom we might best in battle.”

  Stave’s tone took on a defended formality as he explained, “Understand, Chosen, that we did not crave dominion. We sought only to express the heat of our pride.”

  Peripherally Linden was aware that the Humbled had turned away as if to disavow Stave’s tale—or his telling of it. Galt, Clyme, and Branl withdrew to the edges of the light, standing guard. But she paid no real attention to them. She was immersed in the sound of Stave’s voice.

  He spoke of we as though he had been one of those five hundred Haruchai thousands of years ago.

  This, she knew, was an effect of their mental communion. They had shared their thoughts and passions and memories so completely, and for so long, that each of them embodied the long history of their race. Stave remembered his distant ancestors as if he had been present with them.

  “After a trek of many days,” he said, “we at last left behind our high peaks and biting snows, and found a fertile lowland lush with crops and waters, a region in which we deemed that even a slothful and unstriving people would flourish. For a time, we encountered none of the region’s inhabitants. At last, however, we came upon a lone hut with a single occupant.

  “The hut was a rude structure of wattle and thatch, and the man who emerged from it was clad in rags which scarcely covered his limbs. Furthermore both his flesh and his hair were clotted with filth, for he seemed unconscious of his person.

  “Yet he addressed us courteously, offering both shelter and sustenance, though we were twenty-five score and his hut was small. In response, we declined, also courteously. Then he in
quired, still courteously, of our purpose in the land of the Insequent. Intending no offense to one who plainly could not oppose us, we replied that we knew nothing of the Insequent, but that we had come in search of combat, seeking confirmation that our prowess knew no equal.”

  The effect of what she heard on Linden was both immediate and detached. She seemed to experience Stave’s tale through a veil of imposed dispassion. She saw everything that he described, but it did not touch her. Her sensitivity to the Mahdoubt’s sinking vitality muffled her reactions.

  “Hearing us,” Stave went on, “the man became haughty. He informed us that the Insequent were far too mighty and glorious to heed such trivialities. Sneering, he proclaimed that if we did not immediately depart, he would punish our arrogance with his own hands, driving us defeated back to our mountains.

  “We had no wish to harm him, for he appeared frail to us, beneath our strength. Yet we were also loath to turn aside from any challenge. Therefore one among us, Zaynor, whom we deemed the least of our company, stepped forward. He inquired if the Insequent would consent to display his skill for our edification.

  “The man laughed scornfully. To our sight, he became briefly indistinct. Then Zaynor lay senseless at his feet. Upon Zaynor’s face and limbs were the marks of many blows.”

  While Stave spoke, the fire continued to shrink, contracting its light until the Mahdoubt clung in gloom to Linden’s and Stave’s support, and only coals reflected like memories in the former Master’s gaze.

  “Though we vaunted ourselves for our readiness in all things, we were surprised. Yet we were not daunted, for we conceived that the lone man’s prowess lay in supernal swiftness, and we believed ourselves able to counter it, having been forewarned. Three of our number advanced to request a second demonstration of the man’s worth.

  “His response was mockery. Rather than suffer the continued affront of our presence, he avowed that he would defeat all of us together, thereby teaching us a condign humility.”

  Stave paused as though he had to search for words. When he resumed, his tone suggested a remembered disbelief.

  “Chosen, we were twenty-five score, and we credited our might. We did not scoff in reply, for we consider scorn the refuge of the weak. Also our opponent appeared to be a madman. Yet he had felled Zaynor. For that reason, we contemplated the means by which a supernal swiftness may be defeated, and we stood prepared.

  “Nevertheless he passed among us as wheat is scythed. Before the last of us recognized astonishment, twenty-five score Haruchai lay unconscious upon the ground, all pummeled insensate during the space of perhaps three heartbeats.”

  The Mahdoubt sighed in sadness or disapproval, but she did not interrupt. Linden wanted to protest, Wait a minute. All of you? Five hundred—? If anyone else had told her this, she would not have believed it. However, she swallowed her shock for the Mahdoubt’s sake as much as for Stave’s.

  Inflexibly he said. “When we began to regain our wits and rise from the ground, the man stood before us still, showing no sign of exertion. Only our battered flesh, and the blood of many blows upon his hands and feet, verified that he had struck us down bodily rather than causing us to slumber by theurgy.

  “Then we conceived that we had been humbled. Therefore we made obeisance, declaring our opponent ak-Haru, the greatest warrior known to the Haruchai. But his reply taught us that we had not yet discovered humility within ourselves.”

  Ak-Haru? Linden thought in sudden recognition. Stave had reached the cusp of his story, the point on which everything else turned. She wanted to interrupt him with questions simply so that she would have time to brace herself for what was coming. Only her concern for the Mahdoubt restrained her.

  “Courteous once more, he bowed, saying that he had foreseen neither doughtiness nor fair speech from such small folk. Then he informed us that among the Insequent he was known as the Vizard.”

  Linden swore inwardly at that name; but she forced herself to remain silent.

  “The Insequent, he explained, did not reveal their true names. Rather they claimed obscure and gratifying titles for their own amusement. Yet he bid us welcome, both to his dwelling and to the land of the Insequent, cautioning us only that to every man or woman of his kind we must make obeisance. The Insequent—so he averred—wielded skills as diverse as their numbers, and few shared his indulgent nature.

  “Lastly he proclaimed in a manner which forbade contradiction that he was unworthy to be named ak-Haru, for he was not the greatest of his people. There we found that humility had a deeper meaning than we had recognized. The Vizard did not merely refuse the honor which we ceded to him. He named the Theomach as the only Insequent who would be deemed deserving by his own kind.”

  Linden stared at Stave through the encroaching night, shaken in ways which she could not have articulated. Briefly she forgot the Mahdoubt’s plight. Roger had made cryptic comments about the Theomach’s role in the Land’s history. And the Theomach had assured her that she knew his true name—

  Stave faced her like a man who had determined to spare himself nothing. “It was the Vizard’s word that the Theomach had joined himself to a great Lord in a land beyond our mountains to the east. In the Lord’s company, he had quested far across the Earth, risking Nicor and the Soulbiter and many other perils to discover the hiding place of the One Tree. That alone, said the Vizard, was knowledge of surpassing difficulty, deserving accolade. The One Tree may be found only by those who do not seek the thing they seek, yet the Theomach resolved the conundrum by seeking the One Tree on the Lord’s behalf rather than his own. For himself, he desired not the One Tree, but rather its Guardian.

  “Therein lay his greatest feat. In single combat, he defeated the hated Elohim who stood as the Tree’s Appointed Guardian. Thus the Theomach became the Guardian in the Elohim’s stead. Alone among the Insequent—so said the Vizard—the Theomach passed beyond self and craving to join the rare company of those who do not heed death. And therefore the Vizard did not scruple to reveal the Theomach’s true name, for he could no longer be harmed by it.”

  “Kenaustin Ardenol,” Linden breathed. “Oh, my God.”

  She had known the Theomach’s true name for ten years. But she could not have recognized it until now.

  He had become more than Berek Halfhand’s companion and teacher: far more.

  She heard hints of mourning in Stave’s voice as he said. “To the Vizard, we granted that we would name the Guardian of the One Tree ak-Haru. But we could not further swallow our crippled pride. That we had been bested by a single opponent who then refused our acknowledgment did not teach us humility. It taught us humiliation.”

  The Mahdoubt raised her head, although the effort made her shudder. “Such was the Vizard’s intent.” Anger throbbed in her voice. “Assuredly. His peculiar greed ruled him, and no word or ploy of his was kindly. Even his courtesy was scorn. Had he lived to achieve his purpose, he would have undone the entire race of the Elohim to sate his hungers.”

  Stave nodded. The night made him appear carved in stone.

  “Being humiliated, we did not accept the welcome of the Vizard. Nor did we sojourn among the Insequent. Rather we returned in pain to our snow-clad peaks. When at a later time, we again elected to measure our worth, we did so in pain. In pain, we turned our trek to the east, for that was the direction named by the Vizard. In pain, we challenged High Lord Kevin Landwaster and all of his great Council. And when our challenge was met, not with combat, but with open-hearted respect and generosity, our pain was multiplied, for we were accorded a worth which we had not won. Therefore we swore the Vow of the Bloodguard, setting aside homes and wives and sleep and death that we might once again merit our own esteem.”

  Now Linden could not remain silent. Impelled by her own ire, she said unsteadily, “It’s also why you abandoned your Vow.” She was learning to understand what the Vizard’s whims had cost Stave’s people. “When Korik, Sill, and Doar failed, you decided that you didn’t deserve to help
the Lords fight Lord Foul.”

  Again Stave nodded; but she did not stop. Her indignation rose into the night as if it were directed at every Haruchai who had ever lived, although it was not. For Stave’s people, she felt only a sorrow which she could not afford.

  “And it’s why you never actually got together to fight the Clave, even though your people were being slaughtered,” shed to feed the Sunbane. “Even after Covenant saved you, only a few of you joined us. You knew that we were going to search for the One Tree, and you didn’t consider yourselves worthy to face your ak-Haru. You couldn’t commit yourselves to defend the Land until Brinn proved that he could take the Guardian’s place. Until he became the ak-Haru himself.

  “That’s when you finally started to believe in yourselves again.”

  The Masters had carried their perception of worth too far. Now she knew why. After millennia of loss, they had regained their self-respect, but they had never learned how to grieve. Liand was right about them. They could only find healing in the attempt to match Brinn’s example. Their humiliation had made them too rigid for any other release.

  “So of course,” Linden continued. “the Humbled attacked the Harrow before he did anything to threaten us. They had to. He’s one of the Insequent. That’s all the provocation they needed.”

  “Indeed.” Stave stood in darkness, as unrevealing as the stars. “Aspiring to Brinn’s triumph, they now desire to prove themselves against any of the Insequent. For that reason, among others, I did not wish to speak of the Mahdoubt, or of the stranger, until we were certain of their nature.”

  “But you didn’t tell anyone about all this?” That, too, might have healed them. If nothing else, it might have eased their loneliness. “Anyone at all? Didn’t you think that someone might need to know your story?”

  Her protest was addressed to the Mahdoubt as well.

  The Humbled had moved closer, following the light as it shrank and faltered. They stood around Linden, Stave, and the Mahdoubt like sentinels or accusers, stiff with wariness or reproach.