Unexpectedly, however, they are joined by one of the Elohim, Findail, who has been Appointed to bear the consequences if Vain’s purpose does not fail.
Linden soon finds that she is unable to free Covenant’s mind without possessing him, which she fears to do, knowing that she may unleash his power. When events force her to a decision, however, she succeeds at restoring his consciousness-much to Findail’s dismay.
At last, Starfare’s Gem reaches the Isle of the One Tree, where one of the Haruchai, Brinn, succeeds at replacing the Tree’s Guardian. But when Covenant, Linden, and their companions approach their goal, they learn that they have been misled by the Despiser-and by the Elohim.
Covenant’s attempt to obtain wood for a new Staff of Law begins to rouse the Worm of the World’s End. Once awakened, the Worm will accomplish Lord Foul’s release from Time.
At the cost of his own life, Seadreamer succeeds at making Linden aware of the true danger. She in turn is able to forestall Covenant. Nevertheless the Worm has been disturbed, and its restlessness forces the Search to flee as the Isle sinks into the sea, taking the One Tree beyond reach.
Defeated, the Search sets course for the Land in White Gold Wielder. Covenant now believes that he has no alternative except to confront the Clave directly, to quench the Banefire, and then to battle the Despiser; and Linden is determined to aid him, in part because she has come to love him, and in part because she fears his unchecked wild magic.
With great difficulty, they eventually reach Revelstone, where they are rejoined by Sunder, Hollian, and several Haruchai. Together the Land’s few defenders give battle to the Clave. After a fierce struggle, the companions corner the Raver which commands the Clave. There Seadreamer’s brother, Grimmand Honninscrave, sacrifices his life in order to make possible the “rending” of the Raver. Then Covenant flings himself into the Banefire, using its dark theurgy to transform the venom in his veins so that he can quench the Banefire without threatening the Arch. The Sunbane remains, but its evil no longer grows.
When the Clave has been dispersed, and Revelstone has been cleansed, Covenant and Linden turn toward Mount Thunder, where they believe that they will find the Despiser. As they travel, still followed by Vain and Findail, Linden’s fears mount. She realises that Covenant does not mean to fight Lord
Foul. That contest, Covenant believes, will unleash enough force to destroy Time. Afraid that he will surrender to the Despiser, Linden prepares herself to possess him again, although she now understands that possession is a greater evil than death.
Yet when she and Covenant finally face Lord Foul, deep within the Wightwarrens of Mount Thunder, she is possessed herself by a Raver; and her efforts to win free of that dark spirit’s control leave her unwilling to interfere with Covenant’s choices. As she has feared, he does surrender, giving Lord Foul his ring. But when the Despiser turns wild magic against Covenant, slaying his body, the altered venom is burned out of Covenant’s spirit, and he becomes a being of pure wild magic, able to sustain the Arch despite the fury of Lord Foul’s attacks. Eventually the Despiser expends so much of his own essence that he effectively defeats himself; and
Covenant’s ring falls to Linden.
Meanwhile, she has gleaned an understanding of Vain’s purpose-and of Findail’s Appointed role. Vain is pure structure: Findail, pure fluidity. Using Covenant’s ring, Linden melds the two beings into a new Staff of Law. Then, guided by her health-sense and her physician’s instincts, she reaches out with the restored power of Law to erase the Sunbane and begin the healing of the Land.
When she is done, Linden fades from the Land and returns to her own world, where she finds that Covenant is indeed dead. Yet she now holds his wedding ring. And when Dr. Berenford comes looking for her, she discovers that her time with Covenant and her own victories have transformed her. She is now truly Linden Avery the Chosen, as she was called in the Land: she can choose to live her old life in an entirely new way.
THE LAST CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENANT
In Book One, The Runes of the Earth, ten years have passed for Linden Avery; and in that time, her life has changed. She has adopted a son, Jeremiah, now fifteen, who was horribly damaged during her first translation to the Land, losing half of his right hand and-apparently- all ordinary use of his mind. He displays a peculiar genius: he is able to build astonishing structures out of such toys as Tinker toys and Lego. But in every other way, he is entirely unreactive. Nonetheless Linden is devoted to him, giving him all of her frustrated love for Thomas Covenant and the Land.
In addition, she has become the Chief Medical Officer of a local psychiatric hospital, where Covenant’s ex-wife, Joan, is now a patient. For a time, Joan’s condition resembles a vegetative catatonia. But then she starts to punish herself, punching her temple incessantly in an apparent effort to bring about her own death. Only the restoration of her white gold wedding band calms her, although it does not altogether prevent her violence.
As the story begins, Roger Covenant has reached twenty-one, and has come to claim custody of his mother: custody which Linden refuses, in part because she has no legal authority to release Joan, and in part because she does not trust Roger. To this setback, Roger responds by kidnapping his mother at gunpoint. And when Linden goes to the hospital to deal with the aftermath of Roger’s attack, Roger takes Jeremiah as well.
Separately Linden and the police locate Roger, Joan, and Jeremiah. But while Linden confronts Roger, Joan is struck by lightning, and Roger opens fire on the police. In the ensuing fusillade, Linden, Roger, and-perhaps Jeremiah are cut down; and Linden finds herself once again translated to the Land, where Lord Foul’s disembodied voice informs her that he has gained possession of her son.
As before, several thousand years have passed in the Land, and everything that Linden knew has changed. The Land has been healed, restored to its former loveliness and potency. Now, however, it is ruled by Masters, Haruchai who have dedicated themselves to the suppression of all magical knowledge and power. And their task is simplified by an eerie smog called Kevin’s Dirt, which blinds the people of the Land-as well as Linden-to the wealth of Earthpower all around them.
Yet the Land is threatened by perils which the Masters cannot defeat. Caesures- disruptions of time-wreak havoc, appearing and disappearing randomly as Joan releases insane blasts of wild magic. In addition, one of the Elohim has visited the Land, warning of dangers which include various monsters-and an unnamed halfhand. And the new Staff of Law that Linden created at the end of White Gold Wielder has been lost.
Desperate to locate and rescue Jeremiah, Linden soon acquires companions, both willing and reluctant: Anele, an ancient, Earthpowerful, and blind madman who claims that he is “the hope of the Land,” and whose insanity varies with the surfaces-stone, dirt, grass-on which he stands; Liand, a naïve young man from Mithil Stonedown; Stave, a Master who distrusts Linden and wishes to imprison Anele; a small group of ur-viles, artificial creatures that were at one time among Lord Foul’s most dire minions; and a band of Ramen, the human servants of the Ranyhyn, Earthpowerful horses that once inhabited the Land. Among the Ramen,
Linden discovers that the Ranyhyn intend to aid her in her search for her son. And she meets Esmer, the tormented and powerful descendant of the lost Haruchai Cail and the corrupted Elohim Kastenessen.
From Esmer, Linden learns the nature of the caesures. She is told that the ur-viles intend to protect her from betrayal by Esmer. And she finds that Anele knows where the Staff of Law was lost thousands of years ago.
Because she has no power except Covenant’s ring, which she is only able to use with great difficulty-because she has no idea where Lord Foul has taken Jeremiah-and because she fears that she will not be able to travel the Land against the opposition of the Masters-Linden decides to risk entering a caesure. She hopes that it will take her into the past, to the time when her Staff of Law was lost, and that Anele will then be able to guide her to the Staff. Accompanied by Anele, Liand, Stave, the ur-vi
les, and three Ramen-the Manethrall Mahrtiir and his two Cords, Bhapa and Pahni-Linden rides into the temporal chaos of Joan’s power.
Thanks to the theurgy of the ur-viles, and to the guidance of the Ranyhyn, she and her companions emerge from the caesure more than three thousand years in their past, where they find that the Staff has been hidden and protected by a group of Waynhim.
When she reclaims the Staff, however, she is betrayed by Esmer: using powers inherited from Kastenessen, he brings a horde of Demondim out of the Land’s deep past to assail her. The Demondim are monstrous beings, the makers of the ur-viles and Waynhim, and they attack with both their own fierce lore and the baleful energy of the IIIearth Stone, which they siphon through a caesure from an era before Thomas Covenant’s first visit to the Land. Fearing that the attack of the Demondim will damage the integrity of the Land’s history, Linden uses Covenant’s ring to create a caesure of her own. That disruption of time carries her, all of her companions, and the Demondim to her natural present. To her surprise, however, her caesure deposits her and everyone with her before the gates of Revelstone, the seat of the Masters. While the Masters fight a hopeless battle against the Demondim, she and her companions enter the ambiguous sanctuary of Lord’s Keep.
In Revelstone, Linden meets Handir, called the Voice of the Masters: their leader. And she encounters the Humbled, Galt, Branl, and Clyme: three Haruchai who have been maimed to resemble Thomas Covenant, and whose purpose is to embody the moral authority of the Masters. Cared for by a mysterious-and oddly comforting-woman named the Mahdoubt, Linden tries to imagine how she can persuade the Masters to aid her search for Jeremiah, and for the salvation of the Land. However, when she confronts Handir, the Humbled, and other Masters, all of her arguments are turned aside. Although the Masters are virtually helpless against the Demondim, they refuse to countenance Linden’s desires. Only Stave elects to stand with her: an act of defiance for which he is punished and spurned by his kinsmen.
The confrontation ends abruptly when news comes that riders are approaching Revelstone. From the battlements, Linden sees four Masters racing to reach Lord’s Keep ahead of the Demondim. With the Masters are Thomas Covenant and Jeremiah. And Jeremiah has emerged enthusiastically from his unreactive passivity.
PART I. “lest you prove unable to serve me”
Chapter One: Reunion
In sunshine as vivid as revelation, Linden Avery knelt on the stone of a low-walled coign like a balcony high in the outward face of Revelstone’s watchtower.
Implacable as the Masters, Stave of the Haruchai stood beside her: he had led her here in spite of the violence with which his kinsmen had spurned him. And at the wall, the young Stonedownor, Liand, stared his surprised concern and incomprehension down at the riders fleeing before the onrush of the Demondim. Like Stave, if by design rather than by blows, he had abandoned his entire life for Linden’s sake; but unlike the former Master, he could not guess who rode with the Haruchai far below him. He could only gaze urgently at the struggling horses, and at the leashed seethe of theurgy among the monsters, and gape questions for which he seemed to have no words or no voice.
At that moment, however, neither Liand nor Stave impinged on Linden’s awareness. They were not real to her.
Near Liand, Manethrall Mahrtiir studied the exhausted mounts with Ramen concentration while his devoted Cords, Bhapa and Pahni, protected mad, blind Anele from the danger of a fall that he could not see.
With Linden, they had crossed hundreds of leagues-and many hundreds of years-to come to this place at this time. In her name, they had defied the repudiation of the Masters who ruled over the Land.
But none of her companions existed for her.
To the north lay the new fields which would feed Revelstone’s inhabitants. To the south, the foothills of the Keep’s promontory tumbled toward the White River. And from the southeast came clamouring the mass of the Demondim, vicious as a host of doom. The monsters appeared to melt and solidify from place to place as they pursued their prey: four horses at the limits of their strength, bearing six riders.
Six riders. But four of them were Masters; and for Linden, they also did not exist. She saw only the others.
In the instant that she recognised Thomas Covenant and Jeremiah, the meaning of her entire life changed. Everything that she had known and understood and assumed was altered, rendering empty or unnecessary or foolish her original flight from the Masters, her time among the Ramen, her participation in the horserite of the Ranyhyn. Even her precipitous venture into the Land’s past in order to retrieve her Staff of Law no longer held any significance.
Thomas Covenant was alive: the only man whom she had ever loved.
Her son was free. Somehow he had eluded Lord Foul’s cruel grasp.
And Jeremiah’s mind had been restored. His eager encouragement of the Masters and their mounts as they struggled to outrun the horde showed clearly that he had found his way out of his mental prison; or had been rescued—
Transfixed, she stared at them past the wall of her vantage point, leaping toward them with her gaze and her health-sense and her starved soul. Moments ago, she had seen only the ruinous advance of the Demondim. But now she was on her knees, struck down by the miraculous sight of her adopted son and her dead lover rushing toward Revelstone for their lives.
Already her arms ached to hold them.
For two or three heartbeats, surely no more than that, she remained kneeling while Liand tried to find his voice, and Stave said nothing, and Mahrtiir murmured tensely to his Cords. Then she snatched up the Staff and surged to her feet. Mute and compelled, she flung herself back into the watchtower, intending to make her way down to the open gates; to greet Jeremiah and Covenant with her embrace and her straining heart.
But the chambers within the tower were crowded with tall mounds of firewood and tubs of oil. At first, she could not locate a stairway. And when she discovered the descent, the Masters refused to let her pass. One of them stood on the stair to forbid her.
“We prepare for battle,” he informed her curtly. His people had already refused her claims on them. “You will be endangered here.”
He did not add, And you will impede our efforts. Nor did she pause to heed him, or to contest the stair. Linden, find me. Her need for haste was too great. In all of her years with her son, she had never seen him react to people and events around him; had never seen an expression of any kind on his slack features. Riding toward Revelstone, however, his face shone with excitement as he waved his arms, urging his companions forward.
She wheeled away from the stair; ran for the suspended wooden bridge which linked the tower to the battlements of Revelstone.
Stave came to guide her. He had not wiped the blood from his mouth and chin. Dark stains marked his tunic. But his hurts did not slow him. And Mahrtiir accompanied him, with Bhapa, Pahni, and Liand grouped around Anele at his back.
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.
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