Fatal Revenant t3cotc-2

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Surprised, Linden murmured, “I don’t know.” She had seen Caer-Caveral sacrifice himself, and he was the last. The Sunbane had destroyed every remnant of the ancient forests west of Landsdrop.

  Still smiling, the Mahdoubt said. “The Great One is aware of this. Assuredly so. He does not require that which the lady cannot possess. He asks only that she seek out knowledge, for its lack torments him. The fear that no answer exists multiplies his long sorrow.”

  “I will,” repeated Linden, although she could not guess what her promise might cost her, and had no idea how she would keep it. Caerroil Wildwood was too extreme to be refused.

  “Then I will grant that which you require.” The Forestal sang as though he spoke for every living thing throughout the Deep.

  At once, music gathered around Linden’s grasp on the Staff. Involuntarily she flinched. Unbidden, her fingers opened. But the Staff did not fall to the ground. Instead it floated away from her, wafted by song toward the Forestal. When it was near, he reached out to claim it with his free hand; and his clasp shone with the same silver that illumined his eyes.

  “This blackness is lamentable”- his tone itself was elegiac- “but I will not alter it. Its import lies beyond my ken. However, other flaws may be amended. The theurgy of the wood’s fashioning is unfinished. It was formed in ignorance, and could not be otherwise than it is. Yet its wholeness is needful. Willingly I complete the task of its creation.”

  Then he sang a command that would have been Behold! if it had been expressed in words rather than melody. At the same time, he lifted his gnarled sceptre. It, too, radiated silver, telic and irrefusable, as he directed its singing at the Staff.

  Slowly a nacre fire began to burn along the dark surface of the shaft from heel to heel; and as it did so, it incised shapes like a jagged script into the wood. Radiance lingered in them after the Forestal’s magic had passed: then it faded, line by line in dying streaks of argent, until the Staff had once again lapsed to ebony.

  Runes, Linden thought in wonder. Caerroil Wildwood had carved runes-

  A moment later, he released the Staff. Midnight between its bands of iron, it drifted through the air to Linden. When she closed her fingers around it, the shapes flared briefly once more, and she saw that they were indeed runes: inexplicable to her, but sequacious and acute. Their implications seemed to glow for an instant through the wound in her right hand. And as they fell away, she felt a renewed severity in the wood, a greater and more exacting commitment, as though the necessary commandments of Law had been fortified.

  When the last of the luminance was gone from the symbols, she found that her hand had been healed. Pale against the black shaft, her human flesh too had become whole.

  She had entered Garroting Deep bereft of every resource; exhausted beyond bearing; upheld by nothing except clenched intransigence-and thoughts of Thomas Covenant. But the Mahdoubt had fed and warmed her. Comforted her. And now Caerroil Wildwood had given her new power. Gallows Howe itself had made her stronger. All of her burdens except the pressing weight of millennia and incomprehension had been eased.

  Finally she roused herself from her astonishment so that she could thank the Forestal. But he had already turned to walk away with his threnody and his silver eyes. And as he passed between the stark uprights of his gibbet, he seemed to shimmer into music and disappear, leaving her alone with the Mahdoubt and the starlight and the ceaseless sorrowing wrath of the trees.

  For a long moment, Linden and the older woman listened to Caerroil Wildwood’s departure, hearing it fade like the future of Garroting Deep. Then the Mahdoubt spoke softly, in cadences that echoed the Forestal’s lorn song.

  “The words of the Great One are sooth. His passing cannot be averted, though he will cling to his purpose for many centuries. These trees have forgotten the knowledge which enables him, and which also binds the Colossus of the Fall. The dark delight of the Ravers will have its freedom. Alas for the Earth, lady. The tale of the days to come will be one of rue and woe.”

  With an effort, Linden shook off the Forestal’s ensorcellment. She had been given a gift which seemed to hold more meaning than she knew how to contain. Yet it changed nothing. The task of returning to her proper time still transcended her.

  Standing on wrath and death, she confronted her companion.

  “I just made a promise.” Her voice was hoarse with the memory of her promises. She had made so many of them- “But I can’t keep it. Not here. I have to go back where I belong.”

  Darkness concealed the strange discrepancy of the Mahdoubt’s eyes, giving her a secretive air in spite of her comfortable demeanour. “Lady,” she replied, “your need for nourishment and rest is not yet sated. Return with the Mahdoubt to warmth and stew and springwine. She urges you, seeing you unsolaced.”

  Linden shook her head. In this time, the Mahdoubt had not referred to her as you until now. “You can help me. That’s obvious. You wouldn’t be here if you couldn’t move through time.” Her urgency increased as she persisted. “You can take me back.”

  The Mahdoubt seemed tranquil, but her tone hinted at sadness as she said, “Lady, the Mahdoubt may answer none of your queries. Nor may she lightly set aside the strictures of your plight. Nor may she transgress the constraints of her own knowledge. Assuredly not.” She touched the bare skin of Linden’s wrist near the Staff, allowing Linden’s nerves to feel her sincerity. “Will you not accompany her? The Great One cannot grant your desire, and this place”- she inclined her head to indicate Gallows Howe- “augurs only death.

  “Will sustenance and companionship harm the lady? The Mahdoubt inquires respectfully, intending only kindness.”

  Linden could not think of a reason to refuse. She felt a disquieting kinship with the Howe. And its blood-soaked earth held lessons which she had not yet understood. She was loath to leave it. But the Mahdoubt’s touch evoked a need that she had tried to suppress; a hunger for simple human contact. Jeremiah had refused her for so long-She could plead for her companion’s help beside the cookfire as well as here.

  With a stiff shrug, she allowed the Mahdoubt to lead her back down the dead slope in the direction of food and the Black River.

  The distance seemed greater than it had earlier. But once Linden and her guide had left Gallows Howe behind, and had spent a while moving like starlight through the bitter woodland, she began to catch glimpses of a soft yellow glow past the trees. Soon they reached the riverbank and the Mahdoubt’s cookfire.

  To every dimension of Linden’s senses, the flames looked entirely mundane, as plain as air and cold-and as ordinary as the Mahdoubt’s plump flesh. However, they had not died down while they went untended. The pot still bubbled soothingly. And its contents were undiminished.

  Sighing complacently, the older woman returned to her place with her back to the thin trickle of the river. Squatting as she had earlier, she stirred at her pot for a moment, smelled it with contentment, then retrieved Linden’s bowl and filled it. When she had set the bowl down near the warming flask of springwine, she looked up at Linden. Her blue eye regarded Linden directly, but the orange one appeared to focus past or through her, contemplating a vista that Linden could not discern.

  “Be seated, lady,” she advised mildly. “Eat that which the Mahdoubt has prepared. And rest also. Sleep if you are able. Will your dreams be troubled, or your slumber disturbed? No, assuredly. The Mahdoubt provides peace as she does food and drink. That gift she may bestow freely, though her infirmities be many, and the years weigh unkindly upon her bones. The Great One will suffer our intrusion.”

  Linden considered remaining on her feet. She felt restless, charged with new tensions: she could not imagine sleep. And an impossible journey lay ahead of her. More than food or rest, she needed some reason to believe that it could be accomplished.

  The Mahdoubt had not come here merely to feed and comfort her, or to provide for her encounter with the Forestal: Linden was certain of that. While she remained in this time, she could not k
eep her promise to Caerroil Wildwood, or act on what she had learned from Gallows Howe, or try to rescue her son, or search for Thomas Covenant and hope-

  But the aromas arising from the pot insisted that she was still hungry. And the Mahdoubt’s intent was palpably charitable, whatever its limitations. Abruptly Linden sat down within reach of the cookfire’s heat and set the Staff beside her.

  Lifting the flask, she found it full. At once, she swallowed several long draughts, then turned the surface of her attention to the stew while her deeper mind tried to probe the conundrum of her companion. Doubtless food and drink and the balm of the cookfire did her good; but those benefits were trivial. In her present straits, even Caerroil Wildwood’s gifts were trivial. What she needed most, required absolutely, was some way to return to her friends and Revelstone.

  That she would never find without the Mahdoubt’s help.

  When she was ready-as ready as she would ever be-she arose and took her bowl to the edge of the watercourse. There she searched by the dim glitter of the stars until she located a manageable descent. Moving cautiously through mud that reached the ankles of her boots, she approached the small stream. There she rinsed out the bowl; and as she did so, the Earthpower pulsing along the current restored her further. Then, heedless of the damp and dirt that besmirched her clothes, she clambered back up the bank and returned to the Mahdoubt.

  Handing the bowl to the older woman, she bowed with as much grace as she could muster. “I should thank you,” she said awkwardly. “I can’t imagine how you came here, or why you care. None of this makes sense to me.” Obliquely the Mahdoubt had already refused Linden’s desire for a passage through time. “But you’ve saved my life when I thought that I was completely alone.” Alone and doomed. “Even if there’s nothing more that you can do to help me, you deserve all the thanks I have.”

  The woman inclined her head. “You are gracious, lady. Gratitude is always welcome-oh, assuredly-and more so when the years have become long and wearisome. The Mahdoubt has lived beyond her time, and now finds gladness only in service. Aye, and in such gratitude as you are able to provide.”

  For a moment longer, Linden remained standing. Gazing down on her companion might give her an advantage. But then, deliberately, she set such ploys aside. They were unworthy of the Mahdoubt’s kindness. When she had resumed her seat beside the fire, and had picked up the Staff to rest it across her lap, she faced the challenge of finding answers.

  Carefully, keeping her voice low and her tone neutral, she said, “You’re one of the Insequent.”

  The Mahdoubt appeared to consider the night. “May the Mahdoubt reply to such a query? Indeed she may, for she relies on naught which the lady has not gleaned from her own pain. For that reason, no harm will ensue.”

  Then she gave Linden a bright glimpse of her orange eye. “It is sooth, lady. The Mahdoubt is of the Insequent.”

  Linden nodded. “So you know the Theomach. And-” She paused momentarily, unsure whether to trust what the croyel had told her through Jeremiah. “And the Vizard?”

  The Mahdoubt returned her gaze to the shrouded darkness of Garroting Deep. “Lady, it is not so among us.” She spoke with apparent ease, but her manner hinted at caution as if she were feeling her way through a throng of possible calamities. “When the Insequent are young, they join and breed and make merry. But as their years accumulate, they are overtaken by an insatiable craving for knowledge. It compels them. Therefore they turn to questings which consume the remainder of their days.

  “However, these questings demand solitude. They must be pursued privately or not at all. Each of the Insequent desires understanding and power which the others do not possess. For that reason, they become misers of knowledge. They move apart from each other, and their dealings are both infrequent and cryptic.”

  The older woman sighed, and her tone took on an uncharacteristic bleakness. “The name of the Theomach is known to the Mahdoubt, as is that of the Vizard. Their separate paths are unlike hers, as hers is unlike theirs. But the Insequent have this loyalty to their own kind, that they neither oppose nor betray one another. Those who transgress in such matters-and they are few, assuredly so-descend to a darkness of spirit from which they do not return. They are lost to name and knowledge and purpose, and until death claims them naught remains but madness. Therefore of the Theomach’s quests and purposes, or of the Vizard’s, the Mahdoubt may not speak in this time.

  All greed is perilous,” concluded the woman more mildly. “Hence is the Mahdoubt wary of her words. She has no wish for darkness.”

  Linden heard a more profound refusal in the Mahdoubt’s reply. The older woman seemed to know where Linden’s questions would lead-and to warn Linden away. Nevertheless Linden persevered, although she approached her underlying query indirectly.

  “Still,” she remarked, “it seems strange that I’ve never heard of your people before. Covenant-” She stumbled briefly, tripped by grief and rage. “I mean Thomas Covenant, not his sick son-” Then she squared her shoulders. “He told me a lot, but he didn’t say anything about the Insequent. Even the Giants didn’t, and they love to explore.” As for the Elohim, she would not have expected them to reveal anything that did not suit their self-absorbed machinations. “Where have you all been?”

  The Mahdoubt smiled. The divergent colours of her eyes expressed a fond appreciation for Linden’s efforts. “It does not surpass conception,” she said easily, “that the lady-aye, and others as well, even those who will come to be named Lords-know naught of the Insequent because apt questions at the proper time have not been asked of those who might have given answer.”

  Linden could not repress a frown of frustration. The woman’s response revealed nothing. Floundering, she faced the Mahdoubt with her dirt-smeared clothes and her black Staff and her desolation. “All right. You said that you can’t answer my questions. I think I understand why. But there must be some other way that you can help me.” Why else had the older woman awaited her here?

  Abruptly she gave up on indirection. She had recovered some of her strength, and was growing frantic. The Theomach told me that I already know his “true name”.” Therefore she assumed that true names had power among the Insequent. “How is that possible’?”

  If you won’t rescue me, tell me how to make him do it.

  Slowly the older woman’s features sagged, adding years to her visage and sadness to her mien. Linden’s insistence seemed to pain her.

  “Lady, it is not the Mahdoubt’s place to inform you of that which is known to you. Assuredly not. She may confirm your knowledge, but she may neither augment nor explain it. Also she has spoken of the loyalty of the Insequent, to neither oppose nor betray. Long and long has she spurned such darkness.” She shook her head with an air of weary determination. “Nay, that which you seek may be found only within yourself.

  “The Mahdoubt has urged rest. Again she does so. Perchance with sleep will come comprehension or recall, and with them hope.”

  Linden swallowed a sarcastic retort. She was confident that she had never heard the Theomach’s true name. And she was certain that she had not forgotten some means to bypass centuries safely. But she also recognised that no bitterness or supplication would sway the Mahdoubt. After her fashion, the woman adhered to an ethic as strict as the rectitude of the Haruchai. It gave meaning to the Mahdoubt’s life. Without it, she might have left Linden to face Garroting Deep and Caerroil Wildwood and despair alone.

  For that reason, Linden stifled her rising desperation. As steadily as she could, she said, “I’m sorry. I don’t believe it. You didn’t go to all of this trouble just to feed and comfort me. If you can’t tell me what I need to know, there must be some other way that you can help. But I don’t know what it is.”

  Now her companion avoided her gaze. Concealing her eyes behind the hood of her cloak, the Mahdoubt studied the night as if the darkened trees might offer her wisdom. “The lady holds all knowledge that is necessary to her,” she murmured. “
Of this no more may be said. Yet is the Mahdoubt saddened by the lady’s plight? Assuredly she is. And does her desire to provide succour remain? It does, again assuredly. Perchance by her own quest for knowledge she may assist the lady.”

  Without shifting her contemplation of the forest, the older woman addressed Linden.

  “Understand, lady, that the Mahdoubt inquires with respect, seeking only kindness. What is your purpose? If you obtain that which you covet here, what will be your path?”

  Linden scowled. “You mean if I can get back to the time where I belong? I’m going to rescue my son.”

  “Oh, assuredly,” assented the Mahdoubt. “As would others in your place. The Mahdoubt herself might do so. But do you grasp that your son has known the power of a-Jeroth? He that is imprisoned, a-Jeroth of the Seven Hells?”

  Linden winced. Long ago, the Clave had spoken of a-Jeroth. Both she and Covenant had taken that as another name for Lord Foul: an assumption which Roger had confirmed.

  “He’s Lord Foul’s prisoner,” she replied through her teeth. Tell her that I have her son. “I’ve known that since I first arrived. One of the croyel has him now, but that doesn’t change anything.”

  The older woman sighed. “The Mahdoubt does not speak of this. Rather she observes that a-Jeroth’s mark was placed upon the boy when he was yet a small child, as the lady recalls.”

  Her statement stuck Linden’s heart like iron on stone; struck and shed sparks. The bonfire, she thought in sudden anguish. Jeremiah’s hand. He had been in Lord Foul’s power then, hypnotised by eyes like fangs in the savage flames; betrayed by his natural mother. He had borne the cost ever since. And when his raceway construct freed him to visit the Land, he may have felt the Despiser’s influence, directly or indirectly.