Thomas Covenant 8 - The Fatal Revenant (17 page)

When the sound of knocking at her door awakened her, she sat up suddenly, startled. She could not guess how much time had passed, could scarcely believe that she had fallen asleep. Momentarily befuddled, she

thought, Shock. Nervous prostration. The prolonged difficulties of the day had drained her—

Almost at once, however, she remembered her friends. Surging out of bed, she hurried to the door.

Until she saw Stave standing there, with Mahrtiir and Liand behind him, and Pahni, Bhapa, and Anele as well, she did not realize that she had feared some other arrival: a new summons

from Covenant and Jeremiah, perhaps; or one of the Masters come to inform her that the Demondim had begun their attack.

Awkwardly, as if she suspected that they might vanish into one of her uninterpretable dreams, she urged her companions to enter. Then she scanned the hall for some sign of the Humbled; for any indication of trouble. But the passageway outside her door was empty. The smooth stone walls

held no hint of distress.

Breathing deeply to clear the alarm from her lungs, she closed the door, latched it, and turned to face the concern of her friends.

She was glad to see that they emanated health and vigor, in spite of their concerned expressions. The diminishment of Kevin’s Dirt had been replaced by a vitality so acute that it seemed to cast a palpable penumbra

around all of them except Anele and Stave himself. Now she knew what the former Master and Mahrtiir had discerned in her when she had returned from Glimmermere. The eldritch strength of the waters had washed away their bruises and their weariness and perhaps even their doubts. And she perceived with relief that the lake’s effects would last longer than the relatively evanescent restoration which she had performed with her Staff earlier in the day. Kevin’s

Dirt would not soon regain its power over them.

For Liand even more than for the Ramen, the experience of Glimmermere must have been like receiving an inheritance; a birthright which should have belonged to him throughout his life, but which had been cruelly denied.

By comparison, Stave’s impassivity resembled a glower. Anele murmured

incomprehensibly to himself,

apparently lost in his private dissociation: the effect of standing on wrought stone. Yet his blind eyes seemed to regard Linden as though even in his madness he could not fail to recognize the significance of what had happened to her.

In simple relief, Linden would have liked to spend a little time enjoying the presence of her friends. She could have offered them food and drink and

warmth, asked them questions; distracted herself from her personal turmoil. But they were clearly alarmed on her behalf. Although the Ramen said nothing, Pahni’s open worry emphasized Mahrtiir’s fierce anger, and Bhapa frowned anxiously.

Liand was less reticent. “Linden,” he breathed softly, fearfully. “Heaven and Earth! What has befallen you? If the Masters plunged a blade into your heart, I would not think to see you so

wounded.”

Involuntarily Linden ducked her head as if she were ashamed. His immediate sympathy threatened to release tears which she could not afford. Already the consequences of her encounter with Covenant and Jeremiah resembled the leading edge of the fury which had flailed her after the horserite. If that storm broke now, she would be unable to speak. She would only sob.

“Please don’t,” she replied, pleading. “Don’t look so worried. I understand. If I were you, I would probably do the same. But it doesn’t help.”

Stave folded his arms over his chest as if to close his heart. “Then inform us, Chosen. What form of aid do you require? Your anguish is plain. We who have determined to stand at your side cannot witness your plight and remain unmoved.”

In response, Linden jerked up her head, taken aback by a sudden rush of insight. Perhaps unwittingly, Stave reminded her that behind their stoicism the Haruchai were an intensely passionate people.

The bond joining man to woman is a fire in us, and deep, Brinn had told her long ago. The Bloodguard had broken their Vow of service to the Lords, he had explained, not merely because they had proven themselves unworthy, but

more because they had abandoned their wives in the name of a chosen fidelity which they had failed to sustain. The sacrifices that they had made for their Vow had become too great to be endured.

For the same reason, thousands of years later, Brinn and Cail had withdrawn their service to Thomas Covenant. In their eyes, their seduction by the Dancers of the Sea-their vulnerability to such desires-had

demonstrated their unworth. Our folly must end now, ere greater promises than ours become false in consequence.

-and remain unmoved. Shaken by memory and understanding, Linden realized abruptly that Stave had made a similar choice when he had declared himself her friend. He had recanted his devotion to the chosen service of the Masters.

Liand had glimpsed the truth when he had suggested that the Masters feared grief. As a race, Stave and his kinsmen had already known too much of it.

Mourning for the former Master, Linden felt her own sorrow recede. It did not lose its force: perhaps it would not. Nevertheless it seemed to become less immediate. Stave’s words and losses had cleared a space in which she could control her tears, and think, and care about her friends.

“You’re already helping,” she told Stave as firmly as she could. “You’re here. That’s what I need most right now.”

There would be more, but for the moment she had been given enough.

When the Haruchai nodded, accepting her reply, she turned to Manethrall Mahrtiir and his Cords.

“I know that being surrounded by stone like this is hard for you,” she began. A

faint quaver betrayed her fragility. However, she anchored herself on Mahrtiir’s combative glare; clung to the insight which Stave had provided for her.

As she did so, she discovered that she could see more in the auras of the Ramen-and of Liand as well-than magically renewed vitality and

protective concern. Beneath the

surface, their emotions were

complicated by hints of a subtler

unease. Something had happened to trouble them since she had parted from Mahrtiir.

“But we have a lot to talk about,” she continued. “When we’re done, I won’t ask you to stay. We’ll get together again in the morning.”

Bhapa inclined his head as though he were content with whatever she chose to say. But Pahni still stared at Linden with shadows of alarm in her dark

eyes. She rested one of her hands on Liand’s shoulder as if she had come to rely on his support-or as if she feared for him as well as for Linden. And Mahrtiir remained as watchful as a raptor, searching Linden as though he expected her to name her enemies; his prey.

The Manethrall’s manner suggested unforeseen events. Yet his reaction to them tasted of an eagerness which his companions did not share.

His manner strengthened Linden’s ability to hold back the effects of her confrontation with Covenant and Jeremiah.

Finally she shifted her gaze to Liand’s, addressing him last because his uncomplicated concern and affection touched her pain directly.

“Liand, please don’t ask me any questions.” He also seemed privately uneasy, although he conveyed none of

the Manethrall’s eagerness-and little of Pahni’s fear. “I’ll tell you everything that happened. I’ll tell you what I plan to do about it. But it will be easier for me if I can just talk. Questions make it harder for me to hold myself together.”

Liand mustered a crooked smile. “As you wish. I am able to hold my peace, as you have seen. Yet allow me to say,” he added with a touch of rueful humor. “that since my departure from Mithil Stonedown, no experience of

peril and power, no discovery or exigency, has been as unexpected to me as this, that I must so often remain silent.”

Damn it, Linden thought as her eyes misted, he’s doing it again. The unaffected gallantry of his attempt to jest undermined her self-control. Striving to master her tears again, she turned her back and pretended to busy herself at the hearth; prodded the logs with the toe of her boot although they

plainly did not require her attention.

Over her shoulder, she said thickly, “Sit down, please. Have something to eat. It’s been a long day. I want to tell you about Covenant and Jeremiah, and that’s going to be hard for me. But there’s no hurry.” If the Demondim did not strike unexpectedly, she intended to wait until the next morning to confront the horde. “We can afford a little time.”

She meant to speak first. Surely then she would be able to put her pain behind her and listen more clearly to the tales of her friends? But she had one question which could not wait.

With her nerves as much as her ears, she heard her friends shift their feet, glance uncertainly at each other, then begin to comply with her request. Stave remained standing by the door, his arms folded like bars across his stained tunic. But Liand and Pahni

urged Anele into a chair and seated themselves beside him. At once, the old man reached for the tray of food and began to eat. At the same time, Bhapa and Mahrtiir also sat down. The older Cord did so with deliberate composure. In contrast, Mahrtiir was tangibly reluctant: he appeared to desire some more active outlet for his emotions.

While her companions settled

themselves, poured water or

springwine into flagons, took a little food, Linden gathered her resolve. Facing the wall beside the hearth, nearly resting her forehead on the blunt stone, she said uncomfortably, “There’s something that I have to know. And I need the truth. Please don’t hold anything back.

“It’s about the caesures. About what you felt going through them. I’ve already asked Liand about the first one.” In the cave of Waynhim, he had

told her only that he had felt pain beyond description; that he would have broken if the black lore of the ur-viles had not preserved him. Is there anything else that any of you can tell me? I mean about being in that specific Fall?”

A moment of fretted silence seemed to press against her back. Then the Manethrall replied stiffly, “Ringthane, the pain was too great to permit clear perception. Within the caesure was

unspeakable cold, a terrible whiteness, agony that resembled being flayed, and fathomless despair. As the Stonedownor has said, we were warded by the theurgy of the ur-viles. But the Ranyhyn also played a part in our endurance. That they did not lose their way in time diminished a measure of our suffering.”

Linden heard the faint rustle of bodies as her friends looked at each other and nodded. With her health-sense, she

recognized that Liand, Pahni, and Bhapa agreed with Mahrtiir’s assessment.

“What about you, Stave’?” she asked. He had emerged from the Fall apparently unscathed. “What was it like for you?”

The Haruchai did not hesitate. “As the Manethrall has said, both the ur-viles and the Ranyhyn served us well. We rode upon a landscape of the purest

freezing while our flesh was assailed as though by the na-Mhoram’s Grim. Also there stood a woman among rocks, lashing out in anguish with wild magic. Toward her I was drawn to be consumed. However, turiya Herem held her. He is known to me, for no Haruchai has forgotten the touch of any Raver. Therefore I remained apart from her, seeking to refuse the doom which befell Korik, Sill, and Doar.”

Remained apart-Linden thought

wanly. Damn, he was strong. From birth, he had communicated mind to mind; and yet he had retained more of himself in the Fall than anyone except Anele. Even she, with the strength of the ur-viles in her veins, had been swept into Joan’s madness.

Stave’s severance from his people must have hurt him more than Linden could imagine.

But she could not afford to dwell on the

prices that her friends paid to stand at her side: not now, under these circumstances. She had her own costs to bear.

All right,” she said after a moment of silence. “That was the first one. What about the second’?” The caesure which she had created, bringing herself and her companions back to their proper time-and displacing the Demondim. “It must have been different. I need to know how it was different.”

Mahrtiir spoke first. For the Ramen, the distinction was both subtle and profound. Again we were assailed by a white and frozen agony which we were unable to withstand. The ur-viles no longer warded us. We lack the strength of the Haruchai. And we did not bear the Staff of Law on your behalf.” Liand had served Linden in that way, freeing her to concentrate on wild magic. “Yet the certainty of the Ranyhyn seemed greater, and their assurance somewhat diminished our torment. This, we

deem, was made possible by the movement of time within the caesure, for we did not seek to oppose the current of the whirlwind.”

Linden nodded to herself. Yes, that made sense. Days ago, she had chosen to believe that the temporal tornado of any Fall would tend to spin out of the past toward the future. Mahrtiir confirmed what she had felt herself during her passage from the foothills of the Southron Range three

thousand years ago to the bare ground before the gates of Revelstone.

Cautiously, approaching by increments the question which Covenant had advised her to ask, she said. “What about you, Stave? Can you offer anything more?”

The former Master did not respond immediately. Behind his apparent dispassion, he may have been weighing risks, striving to gauge the

effect that his answer might have on her. When he spoke, however, his tone revealed none of his calculations.

“To that which the Manethrall and I have described, I will add one observation. Within the second Fall, the woman possessed by despair and madness was absent. Rather I beheld you mounted upon Hyn. Within you blazed such wild magic that it was fearsome to witness. As in the first passage, I was drawn toward the mind

of the wielder. But again I remained apart.”

So. Twice Stave had preserved his separate integrity. Like the Ramen, he could not tell Linden what she needed to know.

-ask that callow puppy

Liand did not deserve Covenant’s scorn.