Fatal Revenant t3cotc-2

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  “So I deem,” replied Stave as though he had not been almost beaten to death by Cail’s son.

  For the first time, Linden wondered whether Esmer himself might be the havoc for which he had blamed Stave and the Haruchai.

  Yet she could not believe that Esmer intended to threaten her like this. His conflicting inheritances precluded a direct assault. And a desire to ravage the Woodhelvennin seemed out of character. He had never shown the kind of omnivorous malice that delighted Lord Foul, or that Kastenessen and Roger might have enjoyed.

  But why, then-?

  An instant later, she saw an explanation. Ahead of the caesure, a rider fled desperately. He flogged his horse straight toward her. The Fall and the storm seemed to be chasing him.

  She recognised him before Stave stated flatly. It is the Harrow.”

  He was mounted on a brown destrier as large and strongly made as Mhornym, although the beast was not a Ranyhyn: it lacked the characteristic star-shaped blaze on its forehead; the unmistakable tang of Earthpower. Froth splashed from the horse’s mouth and nostrils, and its eyes glared with dumb terror, as its rider lashed its hindquarters with a short quirt. Hunched low over his mount’s neck, with his chlamys flapping, the Harrow rode for his life just ahead of the caesure.

  He had promised Linden his companionship. Now he raced toward her as though he hoped that she would save him.

  He was her enemy: she believed that. Oh, he had unmade the threat of the Demondim. But he had also tried to swallow her mind. He had cost her the Mahdoubt’s friendship and support; the Mahdoubt’s life.

  And he coveted Covenant’s ring. He wanted the Staff of Law. To tempt her, he had said, There is a service which I am able to perform for you, and which you will not obtain from any other living being.

  Nevertheless she did not hesitate. Unfurling plumes of fire from her Staff, she began to tune her percipience to the exact pitch and timbre of the Fall. Her private rages and bereavements had no significance now. The Woodhelvennin were still in peril, and they had already lost too much.

  If Esmer sought to destroy the Harrow, he did not do so for Linden’s benefit, or for the Land’s. In him, aid and betrayal were indistinguishable. Perhaps he saw some threat to one of his ruling compulsions in the Harrow’s proposed service. If so, she needed to know more about the Insequent.

  With the back of her neck, she felt the villagers stumbling slowly westward. They did not resist the shepherding of the Masters and the Ramen. But there were too many of them-and too many were still in shock. Their progress was sluggish, hampered by grief.

  The caesure was no more than a stone’s throw for a Giant away: it towered over her, feral and deadly. The Harrow raced less than ten strides ahead of it, and the gap was narrowing-If she ran out of time, she would be devoured by the conflagration of instants.

  She could do this, she told herself. She had done it before. And Esmer’s storm did not camouflage the caesure, or confuse her health-sense. If anything, his efforts to flail the Fall only emphasised its specific ferocity.

  Muttering, “Melenkurion abatha,” she raised Law and Earthpower in sunlight flames to meet the impending chaos. “Duroc minas mill.” In one sense, every Fall was different: it occurred in a different place; shattered different fragments of time. But in another, they were all the same, and she knew them well. “Harad khabaal!”

  Fervid as a bonfire, her power geysered into the heavens.

  The Harrow gestured at her frantically, urging her to rescue him. Lightning in fatal bursts blasted the dirt between her and the destrier. Concussions of thunder shook the ground. Each searing bolt liquefied the shale and flint, leaving molten pools where it struck.

  “Anele!”

  Liand’s yell nearly broke Linden’s concentration. She felt the old man fling himself headlong from Hrama’s back; felt him hit the stony soil rolling, wild to escape the caesure or the storm, she did not know which. With every nerve, she sensed the eruption of bitter magma that took hold of him.

  Instantly Stave wheeled Hynyn away from Linden. At the same time, Liand sprang after Anele, still shouting.

  She had no choice: she could not stop Kastenessen now. If she did not quench the Fall, she would do nothing ever again.

  Fear for Anele hampered her-and for Stave and Liand as well. Kastenessen would savage the old man; but he would not kill a vessel that could still serve him. Stave and Liand were another matter. The insane Elohim might incinerate them.

  Nevertheless Linden had grown stronger, annealed under Melenkurion Skyweir. And Caerroil Wildwood’s runes defined her Staff; sharpened its black possibilities. Hindrances of which she had been unaware had been carved away. Between one heartbeat and the next, she gathered Law and flame into a detonation as great as any that Esmer had unleashed. Shouting the Seven Words, she hurled Earthpower into the core of the caesure.

  Time seemed to have no meaning. For an instant or an eternity, she threw her fire at the Fall; and the Harrow raced toward her in a fever of dread; and dire lava gathered at her back. Lightning coruscated near Hyn’s hooves. The caesure appeared to swell as though it feasted on flame.

  Then she felt the sudden brilliance of orcrest behind her.

  Through Liand’s glaring light, the storm thundered in a voice like a convulsion of despair. “Wildwielder, do not!”

  Abruptly Kastenessen’s lava imploded, sucked back into itself.

  As if fetters had been struck from her limbs, Linden felt freedom and energy surge through her. Almost calmly, she thought, No, Esmer. Not until I know what’s at stake. Not until one of you bastards tells me the truth.

  With Law and Earthpower and repudiation, she lit a deflagration in the Fall’s heart and watched while the tumult of sundered instants swallowed itself whole. Like the scoria of Kastenessen’s rage, the migraine tornado appeared to consume its own substance. Moments before the caesure caught the heels of the Harrow’s mount, the fabric of time was rewoven; restored where it had been rent.

  Briefly Esmer’s storm became a stentorian wail of frustration and dismay. Then it started to fray as though intangible winds were pulling it apart. Swirling like the Fall, lightning and thunder dissipated, drifting away toward all of the horizons simultaneously.

  The Harrow hauled at his horse’s reins; stopped short of a collision with Linden. At the same time, Esmer stepped out of the air behind the Insequent. Gales seething in his eyes, Cail’s son strode forward as if he meant to assail the Harrow as he had once attacked Stave.

  In Esmer’s presence, Linden’s viscera squirmed with an almost metaphysical nausea. But she ignored the sensation. Turning her back on both men, she looked for her friends.

  Fifteen or twenty paces away, in the middle of the caesure’s wide gall, Stave stood on the pane of slate, holding Anele upright and unconscious against his chest. On his knees near them, Liand cupped his quenched Sunstone in one hand and gazed at it in wonder, studying it as if he were amazed that the flesh had not been scalded from his fingers.

  In the distance beyond them, the Masters and the Ramen continued herding the villagers into motion, a pitiful few on horseback, the rest walking. Frightened and distraught, men, women, and children trudged away from the wreckage of First Woodhelven in the general direction of Lord’s Keep. As a group, they radiated numbness and misery that ran too deep for utterance.

  She could not help them: not with Esmer advancing on the Harrow behind her. In another moment, they might begin to lash at each other-or at her-with forces as lethal as the Fall’s.

  Gritting her teeth, she returned her attention to Liand, Stave, and Anele.

  When she had assured herself that Liand and Stave were unharmed, and that Anele was only asleep, apparently exhausted by mere moments of possession and imposed sanity, she asked unsteadily. “How did you do that? Why aren’t you hurt?”

  Liand still stared at his hand and the Sunstone as though they astonished him. “I would not have credited it,” he breathed. “In my heart, I believed that my hand w
ould be destroyed, and perhaps the orcrest with it. But when I touched the stone to Anele’s forehead, the conflagration within him ended. In some fashion that I do not comprehend, Kastenessen has been expelled.”

  “I can’t explain it.” Liand’s success confounded Linden. She had hoped only that an imposed sanity might forestall Kastenessen’s violation. She had not expected Liand to exorcise the Elohim once Kastenessen had established his possession. Perhaps contact with orcrest enabled Anele to draw upon his inborn magic. “I’m just glad that you’re all right. All of you.”

  “Chosen,” Stave said distinctly, warning her. “attend.”

  Instinctively she looked to the Woodhelvennin again. They had stopped moving; stood crowded together on the near side of the brook. Most of them now faced in her direction.

  Both the Humbled and the Ramen were galloping swiftly toward her.

  Cursing, Linden wheeled Hyn to meet the threat of the Harrow and Esmer-and saw that a multitude of ur-viles had appeared as if they had risen suddenly out of the gouged dirt, accompanied by a much smaller number of Waynhim. Sunshine on the obsidian skin of the ur-viles made them look like avatars of midnight, stark as fuligin. The greyer flesh of the Waynhim had the colour of ash and exhaustion.

  They were the last of their kind-

  Shit, she thought. Of course. Ur-viles, Waynhim-and Esmer. It is their intent to serve you. They had come for her sake. They watch against me-

  In spite of their distrust for each other, Cail’s son had brought several score of them out of the distant past. And they had earned her faith. Now she did not know whom Esmer was trying to betray.

  United as if they had forgotten their long enmity, the ur-viles and Waynhim had formed themselves into two fighting wedges, one led by their only loremaster, the other by a small knot of Waynhim. Barking raucously to each other, the creatures in one wedge faced Esmer. The other formation confronted the Harrow.

  The loremaster held an iron sceptre or jerrid that fumed with vitriol. The Waynhim brandished short curved daggers that looked like they had been forged of lucent blood.

  Both men had stopped. Esmer stood with his fists clenched. His cymar billowed around him as if it were being tugged by winds which Linden could not feel. Spume rose like vapour from the dangerous seas of his eyes. His limbs seemed to quiver with suppressed outrage and alarm.

  “Wildwielder,” he said in a voice like a blare of trumpets, “you do not know the harm that this Insequent desires. In another moment, the caesure would have taken him, and you would have been spared much. It was madness to redeem him.”

  Closer to Linden, the Harrow sat his destrier with an air of deliberate nonchalance, although he was breathing heavily, and beads of sweat stood on his forehead. From the symbols on his boots to the beads in his leathern doublet, he was a figure of sculpted muscle and casual elegance. The ploughshare clasp which secured his chlamys emphasised the neatness of his hair and beard. And the hues of his raiment harmonised with the moisture-darkened shades of his destrier’s coat. Only the lightless depths of his eyes suggested that he had not accidentally wandered into the Land from some more courtly realm where a munificent king or queen presided sumptuously over lordlings and damsels bright with meretricious grace.

  “Lady,” he said, inclining his head. “Your intervention was indeed timely.” His voice had not lost its loamy richness, in spite of his exertions. “I see with pleasure that you have elected to accept my companionship.”

  His quirt had disappeared. He must have concealed it somewhere under his short cloak.

  Tightening her grasp on the Staff, Linden forced herself to look away again. “Stave,” she said over her shoulder. “the Woodhelvennin need to keep moving. They have to get out of here.”

  Kastenessen had touched Anele. He knew where to send the skurj.

  Stave glanced toward the approaching riders, then met her gaze. Through the tumult of hooves, he replied. “The Masters comprehend this. They will not neglect their care for the folk of the Land. The villagers will be urged away. If any remain living when this peril has passed, they will be escorted to Revelstone.”

  The ur-viles and Waynhim continued their rasping growls and coughs, cautioning Linden or threatening Esmer and the Harrow in a tongue as indecipherable to her as the language of crows.

  “All right.” Slowly Linden faced Esmer and the Harrow once more. With both hands, she gripped the Staff, anchoring herself on Law and Earthpower, blackness and runes. “You’ve had your fun. Now it’s my turn. You both want something from me, but you aren’t going to get it this way.

  “No,” she said to the Insequent. “I don’t accept your companionship. But you don’t care about that. If you did, you wouldn’t have led Esmer here,” where so many innocent and helpless people might have lost their lives-and might yet die if she did not find a way to defuse the danger. “In a minute, you can justify yourself by telling me why Esmer wants you dead.” As if she were fearless, she glared into the dark tunnels of his eyes. “Right now, you can keep your mouth shut.

  “As for you,” she flung at Esmer. “if you think that you absolutely need to destroy the Harrow, you could have found some other way to do it. You didn’t have to drive him straight toward those poor Woodhelvennin. I don’t care how much he scares you. This is just another betrayal.”

  Esmer’s face held a torrent of protests and indignation. But when she said the word, “betrayal,” he flinched visibly, and his anger collapsed into consternation, as if she had touched a hidden vulnerability; a concealed self-abhorrence.

  “So tell me-” Linden was about to say, Tell me about this service that he claims he can perform. But then she changed her mind. Esmer feared the Harrow’s intentions; therefore he would refuse to explain them. Instead she finished, “Tell me what the ur-viles and Waynhim are saying.”

  Amid a clatter of hooves, the Humbled and the Ramen drew near. Immediately Mahrtiir rode to her side, and Bhapa joined her opposite the Manethrall. Mahrtiir’s gaze was fierce, eager to repay First Woodhelven’s ruin, but the plight of the villagers lined Bhapa’s visage.

  In a flash of brown limbs and grace, Pahni jumped down to help Liand and Stave boost Anele onto Hrama’s back. Then the three of them remounted their Ranyhyn; and Stave brought Hynyn forward to guard Linden with Mahrtiir and Bhapa.

  The ur-viles and Waynhim may have been asking Linden what she wanted them to do.

  “I am able to interpret their speech as well as the mere-son,” said the Harrow with a suggestion of smugness. “Though they recognise that you do not comprehend them, they strive to inform you that I possess the knowledge to unmake them. Also they fear my purpose, just as they fear my attacker’s. In the name of their Weird, however, they will give of their utmost to preserve you, ignoring the certainty of failure and doom.”

  Linden stared at him. “Wait a minute. You understand them?”

  She had made a promise to the Waynhim and the ur-viles. If the Harrow could kill them all-

  “Lady,” he replied. “I repeat that I have made a considerable study of such beings. I have pored over the Demondim, as you know, but also over both their makers and their makings. These spawn are corporeal. Therefore they are not as readily unbound as the Demondim. Yet they may be erased from life by one who has gleaned the secrets of their creation.

  “Behold.”

  With one hand, the Harrow performed a florid gesture as if he were drawing mystic symbols in the air. With the other, he stroked the umber beads of his doublet.

  Suddenly one of the ur-viles at the edge of the wedge near him slumped. As he gestured, the creature appeared to sag into itself as if it were being corroded by its own acrid blood. In moments, it had become a frothing puddle of blackness in the ploughed dirt and shale.

  From Esmer came a sound like the sighing of water over jagged rocks. A blast seemed to gather around him as if he were mustering seas.

  “They will wield dark theurgies against me,” said the Harrow like a shrug. “However, I am
not troubled. I have expended much to garner difficult knowledge. It will suffice to ward me.”

  What I seek, lady, is to possess your instruments of power.

  Far too late, Linden shouted. “Stop that! God damn you, I promised them!” The liquid remains of the ur-vile bubbled and steamed, denaturing quickly. Soon it had evaporated. “Do it again, and I’ll make a caesure for Esmer to use against you!”

  She was bluffing: she could not draw on Covenant’s ring while Esmer stood nearby. Cail’s son knew it. She gambled that the Insequent did not.

  In response, he laughed. “A dire threat, lady, but empty. You are known to me. Your desire for the service which I am able to perform will outweigh other avowals.”

  “Then,” Linden snapped hotly. “you had better explain yourself. And make it fast. If you know me even half as well as you think, you know that I’m sick of being manipulated. I am not going to put up with it.”

  He had already cost her the Mahdoubt. He had put the villagers in danger to obtain her aid against the Fall; to coerce her. Now he had slain an ur-vile. And by summoning the Demondim, Esmer had caused the deaths of dozens of Masters, ur-viles, and Waynhim. He had helped Roger and the croyel snatch her out of her proper time. Clearly he had been willing to cause the deaths of the Woodhelvennin in order to snare the Harrow.

  Moving slowly, Liand brought Rhohm to Mahrtiir’s side. In his hand, he still cupped the orcrest. The Sunstone shone again: it burned like a clean star in his palm, brilliant and ineffable. Its white light seemed to exalt him, limning both his youth and his resolve.

  “Perhaps a test of truth, Linden’?” he suggested. His voice shook, but his hand held steady.

  Behind Linden, Pahni radiated apprehension. Yet she stayed with Anele, watching over the old man while he slept on Hrama’s back.

  “No!” Esmer shouted in a voice that resounded as though it echoed back to him from tall cliffs. “Uncaring Insequent, your purpose is an abomination!” Energy accumulated around him, imminent and potent. If he released it, it would hit like a cyclone. “You will not speak.”