The Fatal Revenant Part 10

Leaning forward earnestly, Liand explained on Mahrtiir's behalf, "Linden, Anele spoke to us. He has not done so ere now. Always his moments of clear speech have been directed to you, or have been uttered in your name." Bewilderment filled the Stonedownor's face. "Upon the verges of Glimmermere, however, he addressed each of us in turn. And his manner of speaking-"

When Liand stumbled, Mahrtiir forced himself to resume. His voice was husky as he said, "Ringthane, it appeared to us that his voice resembled his fashion of speech when he accosted you in the Verge of Wandering, before fire and fury possessed him, and he was struck down for your preservation. And his words held such gentleness and sorrow that our hearts were wrung to hear him."

Linden blinked in shock. Was it possible? Had Covenant spoken to her friends through Anele? Had they heard his voice? Felt his love? While she had been alone with him and her son, struggling to make sense of their strangeness, their disturbing evasions, their glimpses of scorn?

Oh, Linden. I'm so glad to see you.

Covenant had claimed or implied that he was exercising his relationship with Time for several different purposes at once, simultaneously making himself and Jeremiah manifest in Revelstone, seeking the means to oppose Kastenessen, and defending the Arch against Joan's caesures. Could he also have taken possession of Anele; addressed her friends with "gentleness and sorrow"?

Or- Not to mention some of the other powers that have noticed what's happening here and want to take advantage of it.

-were there other beings at work? Forces other than Kastenessen and the Demondim and Esmer and the Elohim? Was some foe whom she had never met endeavoring to manipulate her friends?

Linden, find me. I can't help you unless you find me.

Oh, G.o.d, she thought; groaned. Who's doing this? How many lies have we been told?

Nevertheless this new surprise galvanized her. Her la.s.situde vanished: even her inward storm was pushed aside. Throughout her encounter with Covenant, he had sounded subtly false; insidiously out of tune. If Jeremiah had become so much more than the boy whom she had known, Covenant had seemed to be less than himself. The voice that had spoken to her through Anele-like the voice in her dreams-had felt far more true than Covenant himself did.

You need the ring.

Dreaming, she had heard Covenant urge her to trust herself.

"Tell me," she told the Manethrall and Liand intently. "If that was Covenant-or even if it just sounded like him-I need to know what he said."

The words themselves might reveal who had spoken them.

In a formal tone, Mahrtiir responded, "First he addressed us generally. His words were these." Then he altered his voice to produce an unexpected imitation of Covenant's. -I can only say all of this once. And I can't explain it. As soon as he notices what I'm doing, he'll stop me. If I even start to say his name, he'll stop me before I can finish.

-She can do this. Tell her I said that. It's hard now. And it's going to get harder. She'll have to go places and do things that ought to be impossible. But I think she can do it. And there's no one else who can even make the attempt."'

The Manethrall paused. When Liand and the Cords nodded, confirming his recitation, he resumed.

"Anele's possessor then spoke to Liand, saying, 'I wish I could spare you. h.e.l.l, I wish any of us could spare you. But I can't see any way around it. What you need is in the Aumbrie. Stave will show you where that is, whether the Masters want him to or not. You'll know what you're looking for when you touch it."'

The Aumbrie? Linden gripped the Staff; stifled an interruption. The Aumbrie of the Cleve? She had never seen that hidden storeroom herself. But she had heard from Covenant that Vain had found his way to the Aumbrie, seeking the iron bands which had formed the heels of Berek's original Staff of Law.

"To me," Mahrtiir was saying. "Anele next addressed himself." Linden felt the veiled knife-edge of the Manethrall's eagerness as he quoted. -You'll have to go a long way to find your heart's desire. Just be sure you come back. The Land needs you."'

Hurrying past his excitement as if he considered it unseemly, Mahrtiir said, "Last Anele named the Cords. He said, 'In some ways, you two have the hardest job. You'll have to survive. And you'll have to make them listen to you. They won't hear her. She's already given them too many reasons to feel ashamed of themselves.'

"We thronged with questions at his words," the Ramen leader admitted; and Liand nodded vigorously. "We would have urged explanations, though he had said that he could not provide them. But then Anele appeared to grow faint, as though a sudden ailment, or perhaps an undetected forbidding, had fallen upon him. Expressing regret, he fell to the gra.s.s, and his eyes rolled as though he had been taken by a seizure.

"The moment was brief," finished the Manethrall. "He roused himself shortly and became as he had been before, distracted and incomprehensible. To us, it appeared that he was unaware of his words. We surmise that his unnamed foe had indeed become cognizant of him, and had roughly imposed incoherence upon him.

"That is our tale, Ringthane. While we pondered what we had heard, the first of the rain began to fall. Desiring shelter more for the old man than for ourselves, we departed from Glimmermere. Stave met us returning toward Revelstone and guided us. .h.i.ther."

Pahni continued to rest one hand on Liand's shoulder, keeping her eyes downcast in an effort to mask her alarm. And Bhapa had lapsed into a reverie: he seemed to study the hearth without seeing it, as if he sought the meaning of Anele's words behind the restless dance and gutter of the flames.

But when the Manethrall was done, Liand asked at once. "Is it conceivable, Linden? Was Thomas Covenant indeed able to address us through Anele while he was also present with you'?"

Linden held Mahrtiir's discomfited gaze for a moment, thanking him with her eyes. Then she faced Liand's question.

"I don't know." Her alarm had become a kind of courage. Upon occasion, she had experienced a similar reaction during emergency surgeries. At those times, when detachment and training failed her, her own fear had enabled her to proceed. Under the right circ.u.mstances, dread and even inadequacy became as compelling as valor. "Covenant says that he and Jeremiah are 'in two places at once.' It's three if you count taking possession of Anele. I don't know how he can do any of that.

"And he's dead." She forced herself to say this. "I watched Lord Foul kill him." Through Anele, he had urged her, Just be wary of me. "I don't know how its possible for him to have any physical form. He told me himself that too many Laws have been broken for the Dead to hold themselves together.

"But he did say that there are 'other powers,' enemies or beings, that we don't know about. And he gave me such a strong impression of"-she could not say the word falsehood aloud, not speaking to her friends about Thomas Covenant-"of discrepancy. Like all of the pieces didn't fit. Or I didn't understand them well enough to put them together."

Her Jeremiah had been a wizard at such things, making the pieces fit- "For all I know," she sighed, "Covenant never said a word to me until today," and every voice in her dreams, every word in Anele's mouth, had belonged to someone else. "I can't even begin to guess whether he actually talked to the four of you. And I certainly can't tell you what any of it means."

"Then, Chosen," Stave put in flatly. "my question stands. If it remains your purpose to exert the Staff, though such forces may dismiss the Unbeliever and your son, what will you attempt to accomplish?"

Steadying herself on a kind of daring and indomitable trepidation, Linden answered him as plainly as she could.

"Covenant wants me to meet him near Furl Falls about an hour after dawn." She had explained this earlier: she repeated it more for her own sake than to remind her friends. "But I'm not willing to wait that long. I have to do something about the Demondim. I want Revelstone to have a fighting chance if Covenant fails-or even if he just makes a mistake."

The Demondim were reputed to be profoundly lorewise. Surely no perceptual trick would baffle them for long?

"Those creatures can use the II!earth Stone," Linden went on unsteadily. "Once they decide to attack, they can probably tear this whole place apart in a matter of hours. The Masters won't stand a chance.

"I want to prevent that."

Before Stave or Mahrtiir could object, she explained, "Covenant agrees with the Masters. The Demondim are using a caesure to draw power directly from the Stone, even though it was destroyed a long time ago. I can't feel the Fall-they're masking it somehow*but it has to be there," in the midst of the horde. "And if it's there, the Staff of Law can unmake it.

"I'm going to study those monsters," she said directly to the former Master, knowing that he would not be able to conceal what he heard from his kinsmen, "until I locate their caesure." She no longer cared what the Masters might think of her intentions. "And when I can feel it," when her health-sense had identified the precise miasmic wrongness of the Fall. "I'm going to erase it."

As if she were not afraid, she concluded, "Without the II!earth Stone, they're just Demondim." Hideously potent in themselves: more than a match for the Masters. But they would need days rather than mere hours to overwhelm Revelstone. "And maybe I'll be able to cut down their numbers without using more power than Covenant can withstand."

Stave showed no reaction; made no comment. He may have been content to accept any of her decisions. But Bhapa turned from his study of the flames to regard her with surprise and hope. Pahni raised her head with an air of hesitation, almost of timidity, as though she felt abashed in Linden's presence. And Liand gazed at Linden as if she had once again justified his faith in her.

However, the Manethrall's emanations were more complex. Linden might have expected his heart to leap at the prospect of combat; but he made a visible effort to swallow his antic.i.p.ation.

"Ringthane," he said carefully. "it is a bold stroke, and I applaud. But I must inquire when you will make the attempt. It is plain to all who behold you that you are weary beyond measure. Will you not eat and rest to refresh yourself? If you sleep, you need not fear that the bale of Kevin's Dirt will reclaim you. The benison of Glimmermere will not fade so swiftly.

"If you will heed me, I urge that you will be better able to confront the Teeth of the Render when your strength has been restored."

Liand and Pahni nodded in unison; and Stave said stolidly, "The Manethrall's counsel is apt. You require slumber. If it is your wish, I will gather our companions and awaken you in the hour before dawn. You will have time enough to confront the Demondim before the ur-Lord desires your presence at Furl Falls."

Linden would have preferred immediate action. She would have chosen anything that promised to distract her from the poignant throb of her meeting with Jeremiah and Covenant. But she did not argue. All right," she sighed. "That makes sense. I'm not sure how much sleeping I can do. But I'll eat as much as I can stomach. And maybe some of this springwine will help."

Certainly she wanted numbness In addition, she found now that she wanted to be alone. She had reached the end of her capacity for words. The emotions which remained to her were voiceless; too private to be shared. Long ago, she had loved a man and adopted a son. She did not know how to grieve for them in the presence of her friends.

"In the meantime," she added, "you should get some rest yourselves. G.o.d knows what's going to happen tomorrow. It could be hard on all of us."

"As you say, Chosen." Stave moved at once to the door.

Mahrtiir and Bhapa rose promptly to follow his example. They were Ramen, uncomfortable under the monumental constraint of the Keep. They would find a night on the plateau preferable to being confined in Revelstone, regardless of the weather.

But Liand remained seated. Anele continued to munch distractedly at the tray of food. And Pahni lingered at Liand's side. Her hand on his arm gently advised him to stand, but she did not insist.

Liand dropped his gaze for a moment, then looked at Linden again. "Linden-" he began awkwardly. "It saddens me that you must be alone with all that has transpired. You asked that I do not question you, and I have complied. But now I must speak. Is it well that no companion remains with you at such a time?"

"It is her wish," stated the Haruchai. And Mahrtiir commanded Pahni, "Bring the Stonedownor and Anele, Cord. When we have delivered them to Liand's chambers, we will seek a less constrained place of rest."

Obediently Pahni left her seat. Taking Anele's hand, she brought him to his feet. Yet she continued to watch Liand, plainly hoping that he would join her.

Linden covered her face, threatened once more by Liand's candor. As gently as she could, she told him, You don't need to worry. Sure, this is hard." Anele had said as much, in Covenant's voice or someone else's. "But I've known worse." She had survived the Sunbane and Rant Absolain's malice, the na-Mhoram's Grim and the Worm of the World's End. She had been possessed by a Raver, and had confronted the Despiser. And her son was here. His mind had been restored to him. If he and Covenant truly did not love her, she might spend the whole night crying, but she would not lose herself. "I have the Staff of Law. And if that's not enough, I have something even more precious. I've got friends.

"Go on," she said quietly. "Take care of Anele. Try to get some sleep. I'll see you early tomorrow."

Liand studied her for a long moment, obviously striving to see past her words into the condition of her spirit. Then he stood up and offered her a lopsided smile. "Linden, you surpa.s.s me-continually, it seems. As you say, we will gather upon the morrow. And we who name ourselves your friends with pride will hope to see that you have found a measure of solace."

She could not match his smile; but perhaps he did not expect that of her.

Or perhaps Pahni's soft gaze was enough for him. When he had joined the young Cord and Anele, Stave opened the door. Together, the Haruchai and Mahrtiir ushered their companions out into the corridor, leaving Linden alone with her thoughts and her desire to weep and her growing terror.

She did not believe that she would sleep. The events of the day had worn her nerves raw. And the prospect of dreaming frightened her. If she heard Covenant's voice-his voice as she remembered it rather than as it was now-she might lose the last of her frayed resolve. An old paresis lurked in the background of her pain, and it meant death.

But she had underestimated her hunger and fatigue. Her nap before her friends had arrived was not enough: she needed more. When she had eaten her fill, and drunk a flagon of springwine, she found it difficult to hold up her head. Her eyes seemed to fall closed of their own accord. Instead of spending the night as she had imagined, striving to make sense of Esmer and Covenant and her son, she went almost helplessly to her bed.

As soon as she took off her clothes and stretched out under the blankets, she sank into a sleep as empty and unfathomable as the loneliness between the stars. If she dreamed or cried out, she did not know it.

One short night was not enough. She needed whole days of tranquility and balm. Nevertheless she was awake and dressed, as ready as she would ever be, when a knock at her door announced that her friends had returned for her. Some unconscious awareness of time had roused her so that she could try to prepare herself.

She had opened her shutters briefly to look out at the weather. A drenching rain fell steadily, obscuring any hint of dawn's approach; and the damp breeze brought memories of winter from the ice-clogged peaks to the west. The prospect of being soaked and chilled felt like foreboding as she closed the shutters and left the lingering embers in the hearth in order to answer the summons of her friends and Revelstone's need.

Stave stood outside with the Ramen, Liand, and Anele. Liand and Anele wore woolen cloaks, heavy and hooded, although the Ramen and the former Master apparently disdained such protections. But over one arm, Stave carried a cloak for Linden.

Her companions offered her a subdued greeting which she hardly returned: she had already begun to sink into herself, focusing her concentration on the friable structure of her resolve-and on her percipience itself, striving to sharpen her health-sense so that she might be able to penetrate the mystic obfuscations of the Demondim. Distractedly she accepted the cloak from Stave, shrugged it over her shoulders. Clinging to the Staff, she nodded to indicate that she was as ready as she would ever be.

She can do this. Tell her I said that.

Flanked by Stave and Mahrtiir, with the Cords, Liand, and Anele behind her, she set out to confront the innominate powers of the Vile-sp.a.w.n.

Although she had not said so, she wanted to reach the highest possible vantage above the horde. There distance and rain might conceal her from the monsters until she was prepared to unfurl the Staff's fire. But Stave appeared to grasp her unspoken desires. Without a word, he led her where she needed to go.

Tense and determined, her small company pa.s.sed along the intricate pa.s.sages of the Keep to the wide tunnel which led like a road toward the upland. And as they rounded the last switchback, they began to splash through streams of rainwater. Below them, the streams were diverted into culverts and drains; and Linden wondered obliquely how the Haruchai had contrived to block those waterways when the Sandgorgon Nom had used Glimmermere's outflow to extinguish the lingering inferno of the Banefire, three and a half thousand years ago. Since then, however, the drains and channels had obviously been reopened so that acc.u.mulating torrents would not flood into the Keep.

As she ascended, Linden seemed to struggle against a current of memories: Covenant's extravagant bravery when he had quenched the theurgy of the Banefire; her own weakness and Nom's blunt strength. But then she slogged out of the tunnel into the open rain, and the downpour forced her attention back to the present. It impelled her to pull up her hood and huddle into her cloak; required her to forget who she had been and remember who she was.

There's no one else who can even make the attempt.

From the shelter of the tunnel, she and her companions turned north and east across the hills toward the promontory of Revelstone. Almost at once, the rain soaked into her cloak. Darkness covered the world, blotting out every horizon: she could only guess where she placed her feet. Nevertheless she sensed that the worst of the storm had pa.s.sed, that the rainfall was beginning to dwindle as the laden clouds drifted eastward.

Stave and the Manethrall steered her in a northerly curve toward the jut of the plateau, seeking, perhaps, to avoid an unseen hill or some other obstacle. Slowly water seeped through her cloak into her clothes: it dripped from her legs into her boots. By degrees, the chill of night and spring and damp leached the warmth from her skin. More and more, she yearned to draw on the invigorating fire of the Staff. She wanted to banish cold and fear and her own mortality so that she might feel equal to what lay ahead of her.

But if she did so, she would forewarn the Demondim. Knowing that she meant to release Law and Earthpower, Covenant might muster enough of his inexplicable puissance to protect himself and Jeremiah. But the Vile-sp.a.w.n would recognize their danger. And they would not need prescience to guess her purpose. They would ramify their defenses, creating cul-de-sacs and chimeras of lore to baffle her health-sense so that she could not identify their caesure. Or perhaps they would preempt her by unleashing the full evil of the II!earth Stone- She knew that bane too well to believe that she could stand against it: not without wild magic. And she trembled to think what might happen to Covenant and her son-or indeed to the hidden Fall of the Demondim-if she were compelled to unveil the force of Covenant's ring. It's hard now. And it's going to get harder. Covenant and Jeremiah might not simply vanish: they might cease to exist in any meaningful form. And the caesure of the Demondim might grow vast enough to devour the whole of Lord's Keep.

Her own fears as much as the cold and rain filled her with shivering, imminent fever, as she restrained her wish for the Staff's warmth and consolation.

Instead she let her companions lead her to her destination as if she were more blind than Anele, and had far less fort.i.tude.

Immersed in private dreads, she did not sense the presence of the Masters until she neared the rim of Revelstone high above the courtyard and watchtower that guarded the Keep's gates.

Two of them awaited her. By now, she knew them well enough to recognize Handir and Galt, although she could scarcely discern their shapes in the darkness; certainly could not make out their features. No doubt the other Humbled, Branl and Clyme, had remained with Covenant and Jeremiah.

Galt and the Voice of the Masters stood between her and the cliff-edge of her intent.

She was not surprised to find them in her way. Doubtless they had read her intentions in Stave's mind. And she was confident that they had informed the ur-Lord-If she had not sunk so far into herself, she might have expected to encounter the Masters earlier.

Perhaps she should have been grateful that only two of Stave's kinsmen had come to witness her actions; or to oppose them.

"Chosen," Handir said when Linden and her friends were near enough to hear him easily through the rain, "the Unbeliever requests that you refrain from your intent. He requests it. He does not command it. In this, he was precise. He acknowledges the merit of your purpose. But he conceives that the peril is too great.

"Having been forewarned, he a.s.serts that he will be able to refuse banishment. That is not his concern. Rather he fears what will transpire should you fail. Provoked, the Demondim will draw upon the full might of the II!earth Stone. From such an a.s.sault, only ruin can ensue. The ur-Lord's design for the salvation of the Land is fragile, easily impeded. If he is a.s.sailed by the Demondim, he will be unable to perform what he must.

For that reason and no other, he asks that you turn aside from your intent and await the revelation of his purposes at Furl Falls."

"And if the Chosen does not fail?" countered Stave before Mahrtiir could retort. "Are the Masters not thereby greatly aided in their service to both Lord's Keep and the Land?"

The Voice of the Masters did not reply. Instead Galt stated, "Her failure is certain. Our discernment exceeds hers, yet we cannot determine how the Fall of the Demondim is concealed. And if she draws upon Earthpower to enhance her sight, she will be revealed, and the horde will strike against her. Therefore she cannot achieve her aim.

"It is the ur-Lord, the Unbeliever, the rightful wielder of white gold who requests her compliance. How may any refusal be justified?"

Linden stepped closer. She was beyond persuasion: fear and determination and even bafflement had made her as unwilling to compromise as the Masters themselves. Covenant's indirect appeal and Galt's reasoning were like the rain: they could fall on her, soak into her clothes, fill her mortal heart with shivering; but they could not deflect her.

Handir had not bowed to her. She gave him no greeting of her own. Ignoring Galt, she asked abruptly. "Did he tell you what this design of his is?"

"No," Handir answered as though her question had no relevance. "We cannot aid him, and so he did not speak of it. He asked only that we keep the ancient promise of the Haruchai to preserve Revelstone."

"Then," she said softly, as if she wished only Handir and the rain to hear her, "it seems to me that you still don't understand what Brinn did against the Guardian of the One Tree." If the Master did not consider the specific nature of Covenant's purpose germane, he could not say the same of the example upon which his people had founded their Mastery. "I tried to explain it yesterday, but I probably wasn't clear.

"Brinn didn't beat ak-Haru Kenaustin Ardenol by defeating him. He beat him by surrendering. He couldn't stop the Guardian from throwing him off a cliff, so he took Kenaustin Ardenol with him when he fell."

This you have-" Handir began; but Linden did not let him interrupt her.

"Doesn't that strike you as a rather un-Haruchai thing to do? In your whole history, have your people ever considered trying to solve a problem by surrendering to it'?"

That may have been why Covenant had asked the Haruchai not to accompany him while he and Linden went to confront Lord Foul. The ancestors of the Masters might have sacrificed their lives to prevent him from giving his ring to the Despiser. Indeed, Covenant may have decided on his own course because he had witnessed Brinn's victorious defeat.

"So where do you suppose Brinn got the idea? How did he even think of it?" She suspected that Handir knew the answer-that his ancestors had heard it from Cail, and that it was the underlying reason for their repudiation of Brinn's companion-but she did not pause for his reply. "I'll tell you. He got it because he already thought of himself as a failure. He and Cail were seduced by the merewives. They surrendered. They proved that they were unworthy before Brinn fought the Guardian of the One Tree."

He had said, Our folly must end now-But no Haruchai except Cail had harkened to him.

Still softly, almost whispering, Linden finished. "Brinn became your ak-Haru, your greatest hero, because he was a failure. He believed the worst about himself, and he understood surrender."

If the Masters had heeded Brinn's example, they would have chosen their Humbled, not by victory, but by defeat.