Fatal Revenant

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  He had said those exact words twice before, both times in warning—and both because either Esmer or the ur-viles had taken her by surprise.

  Dragging herself up from the grass, she braced her doubts on the Staff of Law and climbed to her feet.

  As if without transition, Liand reached her side and took hold of her arm so that she would not stumble or fall as she turned to find herself peering dumbly into the black face of the ur-viles’ loremaster.

  The creature’s nostrils gaped, scenting her through the rain. Behind the storm-clouds, dawn had reached the Upper Land, and the sun drove a dim illumination into the dark; just enough light to reveal the dire shape of the loremaster. Now that she was aware of the creature, she felt rain spatter against its obsidian flesh, run down its torso and limbs—and hiss into steam as droplets struck the blade of molten iron gripped in its fist.

  Behind the larger creature stood a packed wedge of Demondim-spawn, as black as ebony and midnight, and as ominous. Even the Waynhim scattered among them seemed as dark as demons. As far as she could tell, those few creatures that had accompanied her here had joined the larger force which Esmer had delivered beside Glimmermere. And they all seemed to be muttering imprecations as they crowded close to each other and Linden, aiming their combined might through the loremaster and its hot blade.

  When it smelled her attention, the loremaster lifted its free hand and held its ruddy knife over its palm, apparently offering to cut itself on her behalf.

  This same creature had behaved in the same fashion when she was preparing herself for her first experience of a caesure; when she had been sick with fear and the aftereffects of the horserite. At that time, a much smaller wedge of ur-viles had healed her, giving her the strength to find her way through Joan’s madness; to reach the Land’s past and the Staff of Law.

  Now the loremaster appeared to be making a similar offer—

  Yesterday Esmer had said to her, I have enabled their presence here, and they have accepted it, so that they may serve you. They will ward you, and this place—Revelstone—with more fidelity than the Haruchai, who have no hearts.

  Covenant had jeered at Esmer’s assertion. He had warned her that the manacles of the ur-viles were intended for him. They’ve been Foul’s servants ever since they met him. And she had her own reasons for wondering what secret purpose lay behind the assistance of the ur-viles. Esmer’s involvement cast doubt in all directions.

  “Linden”—the rain muffled Liand’s voice—“your distress is plain. You fear that you will fail. But here is aid. Few of these creatures are those that have served you with both lore and valor. Yet those ur-viles are here, and the Waynhim with them. It may be that they will strengthen you to succeed.”

  He gave his faith too easily—Covenant would have mocked him for it.

  Out of the dim dawn, Mahrtiir added, “The Ramen have long known some few of these ur-viles. They have acted for our benefit. And they have succored Anele.”

  Stave said nothing. He had felt Esmer’s fury and might therefore suspect the motives of the ur-viles.

  When she did not respond, the Stonedownor turned to Handir. “You speak for the Masters,” he said more strongly. “What is your word now? I have learned that in their time your kind fought long and bitterly against such creatures. Also the Unbeliever desires the Chosen to desist. Will you permit her to be aided now?”

  For a long moment, Linden heard nothing except the harsh invocations—or imprecations—of the Demondim-spawn. Then Handir replied dispassionately, “From Stave, we have received one account of these creatures, and from the ur-Lord, another. We cannot discern the sooth of such matters. Yet here we need make no determination. Waynhim now stand among the ur-viles. In the name of their ancient service to the Land, we honor the Waynhim as we do the Ranyhyn. While they participate in the actions of these ur-viles, we will not hinder them.”

  Covenant had discounted the Waynhim as though their long devotion meant nothing.

  Still the loremaster extended its open palm; poised its blade to shed its own blood.

  Trust yourself.

  Until now, she had accomplished almost nothing that had not been made possible by the ur-viles—and the Waynhim.

  Holding her breath, Linden opened her hand and proffered it to the loremaster.

  Swift as a striking snake, as if it feared that she might change her mind, the creature flicked at her with its eldritch dagger, slicing a quick line of blood across the base of her thumb. Then the loremaster cut itself and reached out to clasp her hand so that its acrid blood mingled with hers.

  Involuntarily all of her muscles clenched, anticipating a rush of strength and exaltation that would lift her entirely out of herself; elevate her doubts to certainty and power.

  In the Verge of Wandering, the loremaster’s ichor had changed her, transcending her sickness and dread; her sheer mortality. It transformed her again now—but in an entirely different way. The wedge in front of her, more than a hundred creatures all chanting together, had called a new lore to her aid; had given her a new power. Instead of strength like the charging of Ranyhyn, she felt an almost metaphysical alteration, at once keener and more subtle than simple health and force and possibility. The creatures had not made her stronger: they had augmented her health-sense, increasing its range and discernment almost beyond comprehension.

  Now she could have pierced the closed hearts of the Masters, if she had wished to do so. Hell, she could have possessed any one of them—Or she could have searched out the mysteries locked within the Demondim-spawn themselves. They had given her the power to lay bare the complex implications of their Weird. Or she might have been able to discern the causes of Covenant’s strangeness, and Jeremiah’s. Certainly she could have identified the nature of her son’s unforeseen power—

  But she found that she had no desire for any of those things; no desire and no time. The same given percipience which made them possible also made her aware that her enhancement would be ephemeral. She had perhaps a dozen heartbeats, at most two dozen, in which to exercise her whetted perceptions.

  And she was already able to descry every single one of the Demondim far below her. The ur-viles and Waynhim had been formed by Demondim: they understood their makers. They had given her the capacity to penetrate all of the defenses which the horde had raised against her.

  That was enough. She did not need more.

  With Stave and Liand beside her, she turned to face the cliff and the siege again. There she raised the Staff high in both hands, gripping her own blood and that of the loremaster to the surface of the incorruptible wood.

  Now she beheld plainly all that was required of her. The opalescent surges and crosscurrents of the monsters’ subterfuge were clear, as etched and vivid as fine map-work. And they were transparent. Through them, disguised and concealed by them, she found the means by which the Demondim deployed the Illearth Stone. With all of her senses, she watched baleful green glints swirl and spit, many thousands of them, outlining precisely the mad hornet-storm of time that allowed the horde to exert the Stone’s evil.

  While her heart beat toward the instant when her transcendental percipience would fail, she reached through the veil of emerald to the horde’s caesure.

  It was as obvious to her now as the Fall which Esmer had summoned to the Verge of Wandering on her behalf; as unmistakable as the chaos which she herself had ripped in time. Fed by the insight, lore, and vitriol of the wedge at her back, her health-sense at last recognized the exact location and shape, as specific as a signature, of the monsters’ Fall. Each piece of time that Joan shattered with wild magic had its own definitive angles, texture, composition; its own place in the wilderland of rubble at Joan’s feet. With the telic power of the ur-viles and Waynhim in her veins, Linden was able to name unerringly the unique substance which Joan had destroyed to form this particular caesure.

  When she was utterly certain of what she saw, she called forth a blaze as bright and cleansing as sunfire from the Staf
f. In an instant, she had surrounded herself with brilliance and flame, lighting the proud jut of Revelstone as if she had effaced the storm and the gloom, the shroud of rain; as if she had pierced with Earthpower and Law even the vile fug of Kevin’s Dirt.

  For perhaps as long as a heartbeat, she considered hurling her fire directly against the Illearth Stone. Through the open door of the Fall, she could have striven to excise the Stone’s perversion at its source. Then she rejected the idea. If she failed—if she proved inadequate to that unfathomable contest—she would lose her opportunity to unmake the Fall. And if she did not fail, she would alter the Land’s past so profoundly that the Arch of Time itself might break.

  Instead, risking everything, she took a moment to search through the rampant insanity of the caesure for Joan, hoping somehow to soothe that tormented woman. In spite of the danger, she spent precious seconds seeking to send care and concern through the maelstrom created by Joan’s pain.

  Then she had to stop. She had no more time.

  Relinquishing thoughts of Joan, Linden exerted all of her bestowed percipience to concentrate the energies of the Staff. And when she had summoned enough conflagration to reach the heavens, she sent a prodigious wall of fire crashing down like a tsunami on the horde’s Fall.

  That caesure was huge, even by the measure of the one which she had created. And it had been nurtured as well as controlled and directed with every resource of cunning and lore that the Demondim could command. It was defended now by the entire virulence and will of the monsters. The woman whom she had been before the loremaster had shared its blood with her would not have been able to overcome such opposition.

  As the bestowed potency of her health-sense faltered and failed, however, she heard the horde’s feigned confusion become a feral roar of rage; and she knew that she had succeeded.

  5.

  “I know what to do”

  Sinking under a sudden wave of exhaustion, Linden might have fallen if Stave and Liand had not caught her, upheld her. As rain and faint dawn returned to the promontory of Lord’s Keep, their gloom filled her heart: as damp as tears, and blocked from the sun by the receding storm.

  She felt a kind of grief, the consequences of self-expenditure, as though her success were a complex failure. She had missed her chance to learn the truth about the Demondim-spawn. More than that, she had let slip an opportunity to understand the changes in Jeremiah and Covenant. If only the gift of the wedge had lasted longer—

  She had sacrificed her own concerns for the safety of Revelstone. The loss of augmented percipience and blazing Law seemed to blind her.

  Nevertheless a grim and satisfied part of her knew what she had accomplished, and how. That was aid, she thought as she blinked at the rain. Out of the Land’s past, Esmer had brought ur-viles and Waynhim to serve her in the truest sense of the word.

  So where was his betrayal? How did the presence and assistance of the Demondim-spawn endanger her, or the Land? Had Esmer simply intended to repay a perceived debt? Was that possible?

  Linden could not believe that he had come to the end of his self-contradictions.

  Still the ur-viles and Waynhim had given her more help than she could have expected or imagined. And in so doing, they had made themselves vulnerable to her. While their bestowed percipience had endured, she could have probed their deepest and most cherished secrets. They had trusted her—

  She did not comprehend what motivated them; but she was no longer able to doubt them. Esmer’s intentions were not theirs. When he betrayed her, he would do so through his own deeds, not through the presence or purposes of the Demondim-spawn.

  Until her first rush of weariness passed, she did not notice that Liand was speaking to her, murmuring his astonishment.

  “Heaven and Earth, Linden.” His voice was husky with wonder. “I know not how to name what you have wrought. Never have I witnessed such fire. Not even in the course of our flight from the Demondim—” She felt his awe through his grasp on her arm. “For a moment while you dazzled me, I seemed to stand at the side of the Land’s redemption.”

  Earlier he had told her, You have it within you to perform horrors. But she had not done so here: of that she was certain. Instead she had struck an important blow in Revelstone’s defense.

  Sighing to herself, she began to struggle against her fatigue. So much remained to be done—

  “You have extinguished the Fall,” Stave announced as if she had asked for confirmation. “The bale of the Illearth Stone is now absent from this time.” Then he added, “Thus the Demondim are enraged. Already they assail the Keep. If the Masters wish to preserve Revelstone, a long and arduous battle awaits them. Yet you have made it conceivable that they will prevail.”

  Dully Linden tried to think of some other way that she might oppose the horde. In spite of Stave’s attempt to reassure her, she was not confident that his kinsmen could hold off the Demondim for long. But she had already spent all of her resources. Only the support of her friends and the nourishing touch of the Staff kept her on her feet. And Covenant wanted her to meet him near Furl Falls: a walk of, what, close to two leagues? If she did not rally soon, her friends would have to carry her.

  Long ago, the Unhomed had designed Revelstone to withstand the enemies of the Old Lords. In her weakness, Linden could only hope that the ancient granite would prove to be as obdurate as the men who warded it.

  With an effort, she turned her attention outward; toward the people and creatures gathered around her.

  She was not surprised to find that most of the Demondim-spawn had already dispersed, leaving no trace of themselves in the dawn or the rain. But she felt a small frisson of anticipation when she saw that the loremaster still stood nearby with a wedge at its back. The formation held no more than half a dozen creatures—but they were all Waynhim.

  The loremaster’s knife had disappeared. Instead with both hands the black creature offered her an iron bowl.

  As soon as she heard the muted guttural voices of the Waynhim, and caught the dust-and-mildew scent of vitrim, her heart lifted. The creatures understood the effects of their earlier gift. Now they sought to restore her. The Waynhim chanted, summoning and concentrating their lore, in order to multiply the lenitive potency of the liquid in the bowl.

  At once, she reached for the bowl, eager for sustenance; for any theurgy which might revive her.

  As she swallowed the dank fluid in long gulps, she recognized its distilled virtue. It was stronger than any vitrim she had ever tasted. In an instant, it seemed to spangle like sunshine through her veins and along her nerves as if it were a form of hurtloam. It was not, of course: it was not organic or natural in any useful sense. Like the ur-viles and Waynhim themselves, the beverage had been created of knowledge and might which were alien to Earthpower or Law. Nonetheless it met her needs. It did more than give back the energy and courage which she had expended against the horde’s caesure: in some fashion, it restored her sense of her self.

  With gratitude in her eyes and appreciation in her limbs, she bowed deeply as she returned the bowl to the loremaster. Then she looked as closely as she could at the creature and its companions. Earlier she had given no consideration to the chance that her efforts against the horde might harm the Demondim-spawn. Now she felt chagrin at her thoughtlessness. A few short days and several millennia ago, she had seen that the Waynhim were damaged by their stewardship of the Staff—

  Once again, they had aided her in spite of their own peril.

  The artificial nature of the creatures confused her health-sense. Yet she detected no injury in the loremaster, or in its small wedge. The attitudes of the Waynhim suggested fatigue and strain, but nothing more.

  Perhaps they had been protected by the fact that every aspect of her power had been directed away from them.

  “Thank you,” she said to the loremaster’s eyeless face and slitted mouth. “I don’t know why you turned your back on Lord Foul. I’ll probably never understand it. But I want you to know t
hat I’m grateful. If you can ever figure out how to tell me what you need or want from me, I’ll do it.”

  The loremaster gave no sign that it had heard her. It had put its bowl away somewhere within itself. The Waynhim behind it had stopped chanting. A moment after she fell silent, the creatures loped away, taking no apparent notice of Handir and Galt, or of the Ramen and Anele. Soon they seemed to dissolve into the dark air and the rain, and Linden lost sight of them.

  She no longer needed Stave’s support, or Liand’s. She was strong enough to face her friends—and almost eager to meet with Jeremiah and Covenant. Briefly she considered expending some of her new vitality against the Demondim. Then she shrugged the idea aside. She did not know what Covenant’s intentions might require of her, or how much power she would be asked to wield.

  She had done what she could for Revelstone. The Masters would have to do the rest.

  When she looked toward Mahrtiir and his Cords, they bowed in the Ramen style. “That was well done, Ringthane,” said Mahrtiir gruffly. “Your tale grows with each new deed—and will doubtless expand in the telling. We are honored that it has been granted to us to accompany you.”

  Bhapa nodded his earnest agreement, and Pahni smiled gravely. Yet it seemed to Linden that the young woman’s attention was fixed more on Liand than on her.

  Without warning, Anele remarked. “Such power becomes you.”

  He stood with thick wet grass under his feet, but his voice was not Covenant’s—or any other voice that she recognized. It was deep and full, rich with harmonics which she had not heard before. Apparently the force that had silenced Covenant—or Covenant’s imitator—the previous day still allowed other beings to inhabit the old man.

  “But it will not suffice,” he continued. “In the end, you must succumb. And if you do not, you will nonetheless be compelled to accept my aid, for which I will demand recompense.”

  His moonstone eyes glowed damply in the crepuscular air.