But the gem of Loric’s krill could hold and focus any amount of power.
With her arms outstretched in welcome or supplication, Linden Avery the Chosen confronted her purpose.
“Wildwielder!” Infelice gasped. “Do not. I implore you!”
Linden did not glance at the Elohim. “Then free my son. Give him back to me.”
Are we not equal to all things?
Infelice made no answer. Instead the Harrow said disdainfully. “They will not. They can not. They fear your son more than they fear you. Though his worth to the Despiser is beyond measure, his gifts taint the self-contemplation of the Elohim.”
— a shadow upon the heart-
Specific constructs attract them. Jeremiah could make a door to lure the Elohim in and never let them out.
When he was little more than a toddler, he had been touched and maimed by Lord Foul.
That I do not forgive.
“Then leave me alone,” muttered Linden. “I have to concentrate.”
First health-sense and Loric’s gem: then wild magic: then Earthpower and Law.
But before she could begin, Galt stepped in front of her.
“Linden Avery, no,” he said flatly. “This we will not permit. Uncertain of you, we have withheld judgment. But now we deem that the peril is too great. Such extravagance is not wisdom. Nor is it seemly or salvific. You will unleash havoc, to the measureless delight of all who loathe life and the Land. Similar extreme passions performed the Ritual of Desecration, marred the Laws of Death and Life, and invoked the Sunbane.
“If you do not turn aside, we will wrest both Staff and ring from you because we must.”
An instant of absolute fury gathered in Linden, but she did not utter it.
The Humbled could not hear Stave’s thoughts. While Galt’s assertion lingered in the air, Stave charged into him; bore him thrashing to the ground.
At the same instant, Mahrtiir sprang from Narunal’s back. Flipping his garrote around Clyme’s neck, he wrenched the Master off balance.
Even sight would not have made the Manethrall a match for Clyme. But Bhapa and Pahni followed less than a heartbeat behind Mahrtiir. Pahni grappled for Clyme’s legs: Bhapa snagged one of Clyme’s hands with his fighting cord and heaved. Together the three Ramen pulled Clyme from his feet.
Simultaneously both Rhohm and the Ranyhyn Naybahn surged between Branl and Linden. Naybahn’s chest struck his rider’s: Rhohm collided with Branl from the side.
The great horses had declared themselves utterly to the service of the Chosen.
As Rhohm opposed Branl, Liand snatched out his orcrest; held it shining in his hand. “Do you dare, Master?” he shouted. “Will you accept the test of truth? If you refuse, you declare yourself unworthy to oppose the Chosen!”
The Masters ignored Liand. But Rhohm and Naybahn countered Branl’s speed as if they were herding him. Bhanoryl stood ready to intervene if Galt broke free of Stave. Mhornym and Hynyn circled Clyme’s struggle with the Ramen. Hyn guarded Linden.
Infelice turned away as if she scorned the indignity of physical combat. The Harrow remained apart, laughing bitterly. From near the rim of the vale, Elena and Caer-Caveral watched with anguish and ire. The High Lords contained their reactions, although Kevin’s jaws clenched and strained.
Covenant regarded them all with yearning and pity in every limned line of his form; but he did not move or speak.
The actions of Linden’s friends were like Caerroil Wildwood’s runes: they articulated her resolve. Grateful and ready, sure of her allies, she closed her eyes. In darkness, she began to tune her percipience to the precise splendour of the krill. When she opened her hidden door and found wild magic, she intended to release it in only one direction, using Loric’s gem to manage its possible devastation.
There. She could not imagine how Loric had forged his blade, but she saw its nature; its unconstrained potential. With her Staff warm in her hand, she felt every eldritch quality and significance of the gem, and of its position in the dagger. She descried how the edges and guards and hilt contributed to the complex purity of the stone. She sensed the meaning of its many facets. Immense lore and ineffable skill had provided for the shaping of the gem, designed the form and function of the dagger. There were no defined boundaries to the forces which could be wielded with Loric’s weapon.
Nothing intruded on Linden’s attention now. Perhaps the will of the Ranyhyn had thwarted the Humbled. In every age, the Haruchai had treasured the horses of Ra: no Master would strike at a Ranyhyn. And Stave and the Ramen and even Liand would fight without compunction.
The Harrow’s laughter had fallen silent. Infelice did not speak. The Dead remained still.
When Linden was confident of the krill, she turned her health-sense inward.
Proximity to the gem’s incandescence aided her; guided her. Brilliance led her through her human concealments, the secret implications of old doubts. And when she found the door, white fire responded eagerly to her desires. At her call, wild magic grew and branched within her like an image of the One Tree in purest argent, its boughs emblazoned with stars. During the space of two heartbeats, or three, flame accumulated until she held enough power to rive the night; alter the heraldry of the heavens.
When she released it, it became a ceaseless blast of lightning, a bolt which struck and flared and crackled between her right fist and Loric’s gem.
She had been assured-repeatedly- that she could not damage the Arch of Time. Not alone. She was not the ring’s rightful wielder: therefore her ability to use white gold was limited. But she did not feel limited. Her conflagration stopped the night: it seemed to stop the movement of one moment to the next. While her lightning rent the air, she possessed unfathomable might. Her choices and desires could shape reality.
Jeremiah, she thought: an uninterrupted blare of wild magic. I’m coming. The only way I know how.
Her fire became so extreme that she saw everything with her eyes closed: the Humbled and their opponents frozen in shock or chagrin or astonishment; the terror on Infelice’s face, the frightened calculation in the Harrow’s gaze; the scrutiny of the High Lords, solemn and alarmed. She saw Covenant consider her as if he were praying.
She had gone beyond fear-beyond the very concept of fear-as she reached out for the blessed yellow flame of her Staff.
At once, Earthpower and Law responded as though they had come to efface every darkness from the Hills of Andelain. Strength as blissful as sunshine, as natural as Gilden, and as capable as a furnace erupted from the Staff, pouring like the incarnation of her will into the heart of Loric’s krill.
Briefly she seemed to feel herself battling in the depths of Melenkurion Skyweir, wielding the Power of Command and the Seven Words while Roger Covenant and the croyel strove to extinguish her. But wild lightning exceeded the frenzy of her earlier struggles. It lit the vale as if it could illuminate the Earth. Together argence and cornflower flame and the dagger’s incandescence swallowed any possibility of opposition or malice, drowning mere inadequacy in a vast sea of power.
Now instinctively she understood the runes with which Caerroil Wildwood had elaborated her Staff. They were for this. The Forestal of Garroting Deep had engraved the ebony wood with his knowledge of Life and Death. Indirectly he had given her a supernal relationship with Law. For a moment, at least, his gift enabled her to commingle wild magic and Earthpower without losing control of one or falsifying the other.
She could have raised or levelled mountains, divided oceans, carved glaciers. She had become greater than her most flagrant expectations: as efficacious as a god, and as complete.
It should have been too much. Either alone will transcend your strength- Human flesh had not been formed to survive such forces. Yet Linden felt no danger. She was hardly conscious of strain. Perhaps her mind had already shattered. If so, she did not recognise the loss, or choose to regret it. Loric’s gem drew immeasurable might away from her mortal blood and nerves and bones. Caerroil Wil
dwood’s runes imposed a kind of structure on potential chaos. Her beloved stood before her, radiant in the admixture of theurgies and his own innominate transcendence. And she did not doubt herself at all.
She could imagine that the Swordmainnir knew the location of Covenant’s human bones. The First and Pitchwife had carried his body out of the Wightwarrens for burial. And they had told the tale. Rime Coldspray and her comrades might know where to find the last time-gnawed residue of his life. Linden could have summoned them to her with a thought.
But she did not need any lingering particle of his ordinary flesh. His spirit stood before her, as necessary as love, and as compulsory as a commandment. She had wild magic and Earthpower, Loric’s krill and Caer-Caveral’s runes. She had her health-sense. And the Laws of Death and Life had already been broken once. They were weaker now.
She knew of no power with which she could cause the immediate release of her son. Jeremiah was hidden from her; beyond her reach. Covenant’s ring and her Staff did not enable her to scry, or to search out secrets, or to foretell the effects of malevolence.
But that which she could do, she did without hesitation.
Now, she said in fire and passion. Now. Covenant, I need you. I need your help. I need to get you back.
She had demonstrated again and again that she could not save Jeremiah alone. Without Covenant, she was inadequate to the task.
Gazing steadily through her eyelids at the Land’s redeemer, she murmured his name in an exultation of fires. Then she brought her hands together, wild magic and Earthpower.
A blast that seemed to quell the stars erupted from Loric’s krill. Deliberately she invoked a concussion which compelled conflicting energies to become one.
This was not culmination. It was apotheosis. Power shocked the bedrock of the world: it strove to claim the sky. Convulsions like the earthquake under Melenkurion Skyweir cast reality into madness.
Around the vale, the Wraiths scattered suddenly; fled and winked out. They may have been screaming. Someone wailed or roared: Elena or Kevin, Infelice or the Harrow. Emotions trumpeted from the High Lords. But Linden heeded nothing except Covenant and her own purpose.
Through the gem, her powers took hold of him as if she had chosen to incinerate his soul.
An instant later, the sheer scale of the forces which she had unleashed overwhelmed her; and the world was swept away.
Covenant’s agony must have been terrible to behold. His cry of protest may have deafened the night. But Linden was no longer able to see or hear him. Absolute vastness stunned every nerve in her body, every impulse in her mind. For a moment, her detonation left her entirely insensate, unable to feel or think or move. She did not know that she had dropped
Covenant’s ring as if it had scalded her. Her fingers were too numb to realise that the Staff had slipped from her grasp. Her eyes might as well have been charred away: she did not see the knits coruscating puissance rupture and vanish, blown apart by fundamental contradictions.
She did not recognise what she had done until darkness reasserted her mortality, and the frantic labour of her pulse began to force new awareness into her muscles and nerves.
When she opened her eyes, she saw Covenant’s resurrected form standing, twisted with pain, on the far side of the blank gem, the dead stump. Theurgies flared and spat from his arms, his shoulders, his chest. Linden had burned him as badly as Lord Foul had burned him in Kiril Threndor. But she had burned him to life instead of death. The fading energies of his transformation wracked him as though he had emerged from a bonfire.
Like Joan, he bore the consequences of too much time.
Yet he was alive. In some sense, he was whole; unmarked except by his old wounds. Even his clothes were intact. Linden could see the rent in his T-shirt where he had been stabbed for Joan’s sake. His hair was tousled silver like reified white gold.
Fires flickered up and down his body. They were the only light in the vale; or in Andelain; or in the Land. Slowly they exhausted themselves and went out.
While the last wisps of power streamed from his eyes, Covenant forced himself to straighten his back and look at Linden.
He took one step toward her, then another, before his legs failed and he plunged to his knees. Still upright, he gazed at her with such dismay that her throat closed. She could not breathe.
“Oh, Linden.” His first words to her were a hoarse gasp. “What have you done?”
“Done, Timewarden?” Infelice snapped viciously. “Done? She has roused the Worm of the World’s End. Such magicks must be answered. Because of her madness and folly, every Elohim will be devoured.”
Abruptly the krill’s gem began to shine again. Its light throbbed like a heart in ecstasy, as if it echoed Joan’s distant excitement-or Lord Foul’s.
Hyn’s dolorous whickering reminded Linden that the Ranyhyn had tried to warn her.
Here ends
Fatal Revenant
Book Two of
The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.
The story continues in Book Three
Against All Things Ending
COMBINED GLOSSARY FOR
THE CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENANT
A
Abatha: one of the Seven Words
Acence: a Stonedownor, sister of Atiaran
Ahamkara: Hoerkin, “the Door” Ahanna: painter, daughter of Hanna
Aimil: daughter of Anest, wife of Sunder
a-Jeroth of the Seven Hells: Lord of wickedness; Clave-name for Lord Foul the Despiser
ak-Haru: a supreme Haruchai honorific
Akkasri na-Mhoram-cro: a member of the Clave
aliantha: treasure-berries
Alif, the Lady: a woman Favoured of the gaddhi
amanibhavam: horse-healing grass, dangerous to humans Amatin: a Lord, daughter of Matin
Amatin: a lord, daughter of Matin
Amith: a woman of Crystal Stonedown
Amok: mysterious guide to ancient Lore
Amorine: First Haft, later Hiltmark
Anchormaster: second in command aboard a Giantship
Andelain, the Hills of Andelain, the Andelainian Hills: a region of the Land which embodies health and beauty
Andelainscion: a region in the Centre Plains
Anele: a deranged old man; son of Sunder and Hollian
Anest: a woman of Mithil Stonedown, sister of Kalina
Annoy: a Courser
anundivian yajna: “lost” Ramen craft of bone-sculpting
Appointed, the: an Elohim chosen to bear a particular burden; Findail
Arch of Time, the: symbol of the existence and structure of time; conditions which make the existence of time possible
arghule/arghuleh: ferocious ice-beasts
Asuraka: Staff-Elder of the Loresraat
Atiaran Trell-mate: a Stonedownor, daughter of Tiaran; mother of Lena
Audience Hall of Earthroot: maze under Melenkurion Skyweir to conceal and protect the Blood of the Earth
Aumbrie of the Clave, the: storeroom for former Lore
Auspice, the: throne of the gaddhi
aussat Befylam: child-form of the jheherrin
B
Bahgoon the Unbearable: character in a Giantish tale
Banas Nimoram: the Celebration of Spring
Bandsoil Bounds: region north of Soulsease River
Banefire, the: fire by which the Clave affects the Sunbane
Bann: a Bloodguard, assigned to Lord Trevor
Bannor: a Bloodguard, assigned to Thomas Covenant
Baradakas: a Hirebrand of Soaring Woodhelven
Bargas Slit: a gap through the Last Hills from the Center Plains to Garroting Deep
Bareisle: an island off the coast of Elemesnedene
Basila: a scout in Berek Halfhand? army
Benj, the Lady: a woman favoured by the gaddhi
Berek Halfhand: Heartthew, Lord-Fatherer, first of the Old Lords
Bern: Haruchai lost to the Clave
Bhanoryl: a Ran
yhyn; mount of Galt
Bhapa: a Cord of the Ramen, Sahah’s half-brother; companion of Linden Avery
Bhrathair: a people met by the wandering Giants, residents of Bhrathairealm on the verge of the Great Desert
Bhrathairain: the town of the Bhrathair
Bhrathairain Harbour: the port of the Bhrathair
Bhrathairealm: the land of the Bhrathair
Birinair: a Hirebrand, Hearthrall of Lord’s Keep
Bloodguard, the: Haruchai, a people living in the Westron Mountains; the defenders of the Lords
bone-sculpting: ancient Ramen craft; marrowmeld
Borillar: a Hirebrand, Hearthrall of Lord’s Keep
Bornin: a Haruchai, a Master of the Land
Brabha: a Ranyhyn, Korik’s mount
Branl: a Haruchai, a Master of the Land; one of the Humbled
Brannil: man of Stonemight Woodhelven
Brinn: a leader of the Haruchai, protector of Thomas Covenant; later Guardian of the One Tree
Brow Gnarlfist: a Giant; father of the First of the Search
C
caamora: Giantish ordeal of grief by fire
Cable Seadreamer: a Giant, brother of Grimmand Honninscrave; member of the Search; possessed of the Earth-Sight
Cabledarm: a Giant; one of the Swordmainnir
Caer-Caveral: Forestal of Andelain; formerly Hile Troy
Caerroil Wildwood: Forestal of Garroting Deep
caesure: a Fall; a rent in the fabric of time
Cail: one of the Haruchai, protector of Linden Avery
Caitiffin: a captain of the armed forces of Bhrathairealm
Callindrill Faer-mate: a Lord
Callowwail, the river: stream arising from Elemesnedene
Cavewights: evil creatures existing under Mount Thunder
Ceer: one of the Haruchai
Celebration of Spring, the: the Dance of the Wraiths of Andelain on the dark of the moon in the middle of spring
Center Plains, the: a region of the land
Centerpith Barrens: a region in the Centre Plains
Cerrin: a Bloodguard, assigned to Lord Shetra
Chant: one of the Elohim
Char: a Cord of the Ramen, Sahah’s brother
Chatelaine, the: courtiers of the gaddhi
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