Fatal Revenant t3cotc-2

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  If he bore any weapons, they were concealed under his chlamys or inside his doublet.

  He had a lean, muscular figure with strong hands, a neatly trimmed beard, and close-cropped hair. And every shade of his features, from his weathered cheeks and mouth to his hair and whiskers, blended subtly with the browns of his raiment. The combined effect suggested that his garments were not mere clothing: they expressed his identity.

  But his eyes were a startling black, so stark and lustreless that they might have been holes or caves leading into subterranean depths.

  Disturbed in spite of her efforts to prepare herself, Linden instinctively avoided meeting his gaze. Instead of looking directly into his face, she let her eyes wander over his broad shoulders, down the fluid folds of the chlamys. As far as she could discern with her health-sense, he was simply a man, devoid of magic or force. But at one time, she had mistaken the Mahdoubt for an ordinary woman. Even the Masters had done so. And Linden had failed to detect the Theomach’s secret puissance-

  She held her runed Staff and Covenant’s ring. Alone, she had beaten Roger and the croyel back from the brink of the Land’s doom-and she had done it without drawing on wild magic. Yet she felt oddly abashed in the stranger’s presence; unsure of herself; exposed and frail.

  His voice was familiar. Where had she heard it before?

  She wanted to speak confidently, but her voice was an unsteady whisper. “You ate them? You ate the Demondim?”

  The stranger laughed briefly, a comfortable sound with a slight trace of ridicule. “Alas, lady, that is imprecise. Were I able to consume them, I would have taken their power into myself and become stronger. Belike I would then have no need of you.

  “No, the truth is merely that I have made a considerable study of such beings. Their lore is both potent and unnatural. It holds a great fascination for me. For many and many a long year, I have devoted myself to the comprehension of their theurgy. And I have learned the trick of unbinding them.”

  Linden’s eyes flicked close to his. “Unbinding?”

  He inclined his head. “Indeed, lady. Having no tangible forms, they would be lost to will and deed without some containing ensorcellment to preserve them from dissolution. Imagine,” he explained. “that they are bound to themselves by threads of lore and purpose. The threads are many, but if one alone is plucked and severed, all unravel.

  “Thus I disposed of the Demondim, for their presence in this time endangered my desires.”

  Again she felt her gaze drawn toward his. With an effort, she forced herself to concentrate on the centre of his forehead. At her side, Stave stood without movement or speech, as if he saw no threat in the stranger, and had lost interest.

  Yet he, too, had heard that voice before. It had addressed Linden through Anele after she had quenched the horde’s caesure. She remembered it clearly now.

  Such power becomes you. But it will not suffice.

  Abruptly she stood straighter, holding her Staff like an asseveration. This stranger had imposed himself on Anele; had taken advantage of the old man’s vulnerability. As far as she knew, he had only done so once. But once was enough to win her animosity. He was not Thomas Covenant, striving to help her in spite of the boundaries of life and death. He was simply careless of Anele’s suffering.

  In the end, you must succumb. If you do not, you will nonetheless be compelled to accept my aid, for which I will demand recompense.

  Ignoring the seduction of the stranger’s eyes, Linden said like the first soft touch of a flail, before it began to swing in earnest. “You’re one of the Insequent.”

  Stave must have guessed that the stranger belonged to the same race as the Mahdoubt and the Theomach

  Now the stranger’s laugh was ripe with pleasure. “Lady, I am. You are known to me, together with all of your acts and powers, and your great peril. Permit me the honour of presenting myself. I am the Harrow.”

  He bowed with courtesy as elaborate as his apparel; but Linden did not. Already she was starting to loathe the sound of his voice. He was not the first to foretell failure for her. But he had hurt Anele-

  Before she could retort, however, a rush of movement behind the Harrow caught her attention. She looked past him in time to see the Humbled emerge from the darkness, flinging themselves as one at his undefended back.

  Instinctively she cried out, “No!” but the Masters ignored her. Galt leaped high to punch at the Harrow’s head. Clyme drove a kick at the centre of his spine while Branl dove for his knees.

  Even a Giant might have been felled by their assault. But the Harrow was not. All three of the Humbled struck him-and all three rebounded to the dirt as if they had been slapped away. The Harrow remained standing, apparently untouched. Neither his posture nor his amiable smile suggested that he had noticed his attackers.

  “Lady,” he observed with easy nonchalance. “you have not inquired into the nature of my desires.”

  Shocked, Linden realised too late that she was looking directly into the black caves of his eyes. They caught her and held as if they were sucking at her mind.

  None of the Humbled hesitated. The force which had repulsed them must have hurt; yet they sprang up instantly to attack again. This time, however, they did not leave their feet. Planting themselves around the Harrow, they hammered him with blows too swift and heavy to be distinguished from each other. A plinth of sandstone might have been pulverised by their onslaught.

  Still he ignored them. Instead he gazed at Linden, drawing her deeper and deeper into the fathomless abysm of his eyes. She could not think or move; could not look away. The frenzy of the Humbled and the cheerful dance of the campfire became imprecise, meaningless: they had slipped sideways somehow, into a slightly different dimension of existence. The Harrow himself had slipped. Only his eyes remained fully real, his eyes and the rich loam of his voice; only the darkness

  Vaguely she tried to summon the power of her Staff. But she was already lost. The hands of her volition hung, useless, at her sides. She could not lift them.

  “First,” he said pleasantly, “I desire this curious stick to which you cling as though it possessed the virtue to ward you. Second, I crave the circle of white gold which lies hidden by your raiment. And last, I covet the unfettered wrath at the centre of your heart. It will nourish me as the Demondim did not. Though the husk of yourself is comely, I will discard it, for it does not interest me.”

  He laughed as he added. “Did I not forewarn you that you must succumb’?”

  Stave may have shouted Linden’s name. She was almost sure that he had joined Galt, Branl, and Clyme, assailing the Harrow with all of his prodigious strength. But she knew that none of them would prevail. Knowledge is power, she thought absently. The Harrow had destroyed the entire horde of the Demondim. He could certainly withstand the Haruchai while he consumed her soul.

  Long ago, she had succumbed. More than once. She was familiar with self-abandonment. Now she resisted. Desperately she tried to say the Seven Words. Any of them. She remembered them all: she could form them in her mind. But they required utterance. They had no efficacy without breath and effort. The Harrow cocked an eyebrow as if he were aware of her attempt, and mildly surprised by it. Nevertheless he went on laughing with the ease of complete certitude.

  There was no pain; no falling; no sensation at all. She was not possessed and tortured as she had once been by a Raver. Nor did she feel the illimitable excruciation of a caesure. Her own capacity for evil held no horror. The voids of the Harrow’s eyes had simply grown as infinite as the heavens. But no stars sanctified them. No glimmering articulated their emptiness. Absolute loss unredeemed by choice or possibility claimed her. She could do nothing except observe her ruin until every particle of her being was devoured.

  She wanted to plead with him somehow; beseech him to let her go. He did not care about Jeremiah. Her son would never be freed if she could not convince the Harrow to release her.

  But she did not know his true name. She lacked the
means to make him heed her.

  There was another name, one which had been given to her for a reason, and which she had not forgotten. She was no longer substantial or significant enough to speak it.

  Stave and the Humbled beat themselves raw on the Harrow’s impervious form. They hit and kicked so hard that any bones except theirs would have shattered. The skin of their fists and feet became pulp. With every blow, they splashed blood that did not touch the Insequent.

  They could not save Linden.

  Still they were Haruchai, deaf and blind to defeat. With a suddenness which would have startled her if all of her reactions had not been sucked away, Stave gouged at the Harrow’s eyes.

  Stave was imponderably swift.

  Nevertheless the Harrow snatched Stave’s hand aside before it reached his face. To prevent another strike, he kept his grip on Stave’s wrist.

  Surprised by the Harrow’s quickness, Stave may have faltered for a small fraction of a heartbeat. Then he attacked the lnsequent’s eyes with his other hand.

  That blow the Harrow caught and held easily as well; so easily that even Stave’s boundless courage must have known dismay.

  But the Humbled followed the former Master’s example. Branl and Clyme grasped the Harrow’s arms in an attempt to prevent him from moving: Galt leaped onto the Harrow’s back. With both hands, Galt clawed at the lnsequent’s eyes.

  Within herself, Linden continued to struggle.

  The Harrow did not try to defend himself physically. Instead he released Stave and let out a roar of force which flung all of the Haruchai from him. They were tossed through the air like dolls to land in darkness beyond the reach of the firelight.

  But while he scattered his attackers, his will or his attention wavered for an instant. And in that instant, Linden gasped softly. “Quern Ehstrel.”

  At once, the Harrow staggered as though an avalanche had fallen on his shoulders. He stumbled into his campfire. Flames flared hungrily over his boots and onto his leggings.

  And the grasp of his gaze snapped.

  As his blackness vanished from Linden’s mind, she recoiled; pitched headlong to the ground with her hands clamped over her eyes. She had dropped her Staff, and did not care. Released, she returned to herself with a shock as violent as a seizure. Her muscles spasmed as she lay in the dirt, unable to move or think. At that moment, she only knew that she had to protect her eyes.

  “Fool.” The Harrow’s voice was velvet with rage. “You are doomed, damned, ended. If you do not extinguish yourself, the entire race of the Insequent will rise up to excoriate your intrusion. Every commandment of what we are requires-”

  “Oh, assuredly,” put in the Mahdoubt complacently. “By this deed, the Mahdoubt completes her long years of service. Yet her doom is not immediate. Even your animal fury cannot demand madness of her until her interference is beyond denial.”

  Linden’s appeal had been answered.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she moved her hands. Although her arms trembled in reaction, and her heart shook, she fumbled around her for the Staff. But she found only bare ground and the residual loathing of the Demondim, bitter as gall.

  The Mahdoubt had come. But surely she had no power to compare with the Harrow’s? She could cross time. And she could pass unseen to appear where she was needed. She was provident and considerate. But she had evinced no magic like that with which the Harrow had repulsed Stave and the Humbled.

  “You prevaricate, old woman”- the largesse of the Harrow’s anger filled the night- “as has ever been your wont. You have intervened in my triumph, which no Insequent may attempt without cost. If you deny this, you are false to yourself as to me.”

  Linden’s head reeled. Her whole sense of herself seemed to stagger drunkenly. Nevertheless she could not remain sprawling, blind and helpless, while the Mahdoubt confronted the Harrow on her behalf. Fearfully she slitted her eyes; confirmed that she was facing away from the campfire. Then she pushed herself up onto her knees and glanced around rapidly, looking for the Staff.

  It was out of reach behind her and to the left. Even if she dove toward it while the Harrow was distracted, he might be too quick for her. She was still too dazed to summon Earthpower and Law without touching the black wood.

  “Rage as you wish,” answered the Mahdoubt, unperturbed. “Assuredly the Mahdoubt seeks to defy the commandments of our kind. This she acknowledges. And in so doing, she hazards her life. Yet even your arrogance cannot proclaim that she has prevented your designs. Her intrusion has merely delayed them. She cannot be named inexculpate until she has coerced you to forswear your purpose against the lady’s person.”

  Linden braced herself to lunge for the Staff. As she did so, however, Stave came to stand between her and the campfire. Blood dripped from his hands: it trickled down his shins, oozed from his feet. But he disdained his hurts.

  Stooping, he retrieved the Staff and passed it to Linden. “Rise, Chosen,” he said quietly. “It appears that the Mahdoubt will have need of you.”

  At once, she surged to her feet. For a moment longer, she kept her back to the flames and the Insequent while she assured herself of Earthpower. Then, abruptly, she turned to see what the Mahdoubt and the Harrow were doing.

  The Harrow laughed with renewed confidence. “Forswear my purpose?’ he countered in a tone of abundant mirth. “I? As the years pass, you have become an object of ridicule. At one time, you were remembered respectfully among the Insequent, but now you are viewed with scorn.

  “This, however, I will grant,” he added more dangerously. “I have merely been delayed, and will yet triumph. If you depart now, you may perchance retain some portion of your mind.”

  Keeping her eyes lowered, Linden scanned the vicinity of the campfire. The Harrow stood on the far side of the flames with his arms folded across his chest, defiant and dire. Although he had staggered into the blaze, his boots and leggings were undamaged. Like their wearer, they seemed impervious to ordinary harm. The bottomless holes of his gaze tugged at Linden. But she did not allow herself to glance above the level of his waist.

  While she looked around, she readied her own fire.

  Opposite the Harrow-directly between him and Linden-the Mahdoubt squatted as she had beside her gentle flames in Garroting Deep. She faced her fellow Insequent steadily. The curve of her back suggested poised stillness rather than relaxation. Shining through the unkempt tangle of her hair, the firelight seemed to crown her head with an oblique glory, subtle and ineffable. Stark against the campfire, she wore a nimbus of determination.

  Stave stood at Linden’s side a little ahead of her. Perhaps he thought that if the Harrow snared her again he would be able to save her by stepping in front of her; blocking the Harrow’s gaze.

  The Humbled also had emerged from the night. They had positioned themselves behind the Harrow, waiting to see what would transpire. They had fought longer than Stave: their bruises and abrasions were worse. Nevertheless Linden did not doubt that they would attack again without hesitation if they saw a need to do so.

  The random flare and gutter of the flames effaced the stars overhead. But around the horizons of the plain, and along the rims of Revelstone, faint gleams still defined the dark like sprinkled flecks of ice. And behind her, Linden felt the moon arc placidly across the heavens, undismayed by earthbound conflicts.

  “On other matters,” the woman was saying as if the Harrow had not spoken, “the Mahdoubt does not intrude. Assuredly she does not. You will act according to your desires. But she will see your threat to the lady’s mind and spirit and flesh abandoned. If you accede, no evil has occurred. And if she fails, there is again no evil. But if you seek to measure yourself against her, and are outmatched, she will require your bound oath.

  “Then will your paths be altered in all sooth, and there will be no gainsaying the Mahdoubt’s culpability. She herself will not question it.”

  The campfire dwindled, and night crowded closer, as the Mahdoubt said distinctly, “Choose, then,
proud one. Accede or give battle. The Mahdoubt has grown weary in the service of that which she deems precious. She does not fear to fail.”

  The Harrow’s voice was full of amusement as he replied, “Do you dare this challenge?” Yet behind his mirth, Linden thought that she heard the gnashing of boulders. “Have you fallen prematurely into madness?”

  “Pssht,” retorted the woman dismissively. “Words. The Mahdoubt will have deeds or naught.”

  Linden wanted to protest, No, don’t do this! I can fight for myself! The Mahdoubt had nothing to gain here: she could only lose. And she was Linden’s friend. But Linden’s voice was locked in her throat.

  Urgent fire curled around her fingers and ran along the Staff as she prepared to defend the older woman.

  “Then ready yourself, relic of foolishness,” the Harrow pronounced with plush confidence. “You cannot rule me.”

  Stave shifted closer to the direct line between Linden and the Harrow’s eyes.

  Linden saw nothing to indicate that a contest had commenced. Her health-sense discerned nothing. To all appearances, the Harrow simply stood with his arms folded over his chest, a figure of irrefragable self-possession and surety. Opposite him, the Mahdoubt squatted motionless, seemingly devoid of power or purpose; as mundane as the gradual slope of the plain.

  But the campfire continued to shrink as though moisture from some cryptic source were soaking imperceptibly into the wood. Around the battle, darkness thickened like a wall.

  If she could have spoken, Linden would have asked Stave, What are they doing? She might have asked, Have they started yet? But she had no voice. As the flames died, they seemed draw sound as well as light with them. Nothing punctuated the night except her own taut breathing and the muffled thud of her heart.

  But then, subtly, by increments too small to be defined, the Harrow began to fade as if his physical substance were being diluted or stretched thin. Some undetectable magic siphoned away his tangible existence.

  For long moments, Linden watched the change, transfixed, until she was able to catch glimpses of the Humbled through the Harrow’s form.