The Fatal Revenant Part 40

While she could still bear to remain pa.s.sive, she drank the last of Glimmermere's water. Anele had not touched it, presumably for the same reason that he refused to bathe in the lake, or suffer the touch of hurtloam.

"Tell me," she said, striving to sound conversational; undemanding. "Why don't you want to talk about that stranger? Or about the Mandoubt?"

He did not look away. "Like the Masters, I am uncertain. Therefore I prefer to await the resolution of my doubts."

Linden scrutinized him. "Uncertain?"

"The Mandoubt and the stranger are entwined in my thoughts. I speculate concerning them, but my imaginings are unconfirmed. If I am mistaken, I do not wish to compound my error by speaking prematurely."

She nodded. "I understand. I don't know why the Mandoubt disappeared when she did, but she's my friend. She saved my life. That's why I didn't say anything. As far as I'm concerned, she should be allowed to keep her secrets." Then Linden added, "But I don't feel that way about our stranger. He's a bit too fortuitous for my taste." His defeat of the horde resembled Roger's and the croyets arrival in glamour. "I think that we should go relieve some of our ignorance."

Stave appeared to hesitate. "Do you conceive that the Masters will permit it'?"

Linden tightened her grip on the Staff. "Oh, they'll permit it, all right. You told them my story. Right now, they need answers as badly as we do.

"I'm sure that they still don't trust me. And the fact that they were so wrong about Roger and my son might make them even more suspicious. Now they really don't know who to trust.

"But you told them about the Theomach. And they know that the Mandoubt isn't just a servant of Revelstone. If they want to go on calling themselves the Masters of the Land, they need to know who that stranger is. They need to know how he disposed of the Demondim." And why. "If I'm willing to risk talking to him, I don't see how they can object."

After a slight pause, Stave nodded. "As you say, Chosen. If they reason otherwise, they will reconsider."

Then he turned to open the door.

In the hall outside, the Humbled stood arrayed like a blockade; and for an instant, Linden's steps faltered. But Branl, Clyme, and Galt parted smoothly, permitting Stave to walk between them. At the former Master's back, she left her rooms unopposed. As she followed Stave, the Humbled formed an escort behind her.

So far, at least, they tolerated her actions.

Her boots struck echoes from the smooth stone, but the Haruchai moved soundlessly. Obliquely she regretted that she had sent the rest of her friends away. Their company might have comforted her. You hold great powers. Yet if we determine that we must wrest them from you, do you truly doubt that we will prevail? She had heard too many forecasts of disaster. On some deep level, she feared herself in spite of her granite resolve; or because of it.

Nevertheless she kept pace with Stave as he guided her through the intricate pa.s.sages of Lord's Keep. She could acknowledge doubts and distrust, but they did not sway her.

Stairways descended at unexpected intervals. Corridors seemed to branch randomly, running in all directions. At every juncture, however, the way had been prepared. Lamps and torches illumined Stave's route. And he walked ahead of her with unerring confidence. Apparently the Masters condoned her intentions.

The pa.s.sages seemed long to her. Yet eventually Stave led her down a short hall that ended in the high cavern inside Revelstone's inner gates. There, too, lamps and torches had been set out for her; and when she looked past Stave's shoulder, she saw that the Keep's heavy interlocking doors stood slightly open.

That they remained poised to close swiftly did not trouble her. The Masters were understandably chary. One man, alone, had defeated the entire horde of the Demondim-had eaten them, according to Liand-in spite of their prodigious theurgies and their apparently limitless power to resurrect themselves. Naturally the defenders of Revelstone wanted to be ready for the possibility-the likelihood?-of calamity.

Now her steps no longer echoed. The vast forehall swallowed the clap of her boots, diminis.h.i.+ng her until she seemed laughable in the face of the dangers which crowded the Land's deep night. Still she followed Stave. Occasionally she touched the cold circle of Covenant's ring. If at intervals she wished for Liand's presence, or for Mahrtiir's, she did not show it.

As she trod the length of the forehall, she hoped that Galt, Clyme, and Branl would remain in Revelstone. She did not want to hold herself responsible for either their actions or their safety. And she was in no mood to argue with them if they disapproved of her choices. But when they accompanied her through the narrow gap between the gates into the walled courtyard that separated the main Keep from the watchtower, she shrugged off her wish to be free of them. She could not pretend, even to herself, that she might not need defenders.

Apparently she was doomed to pursue her fate in the company of halfhands.

While she walked along the pa.s.sage under the watchtower, the warded throat of Revelstone, she heard her boot heels echoing again. The sound seemed to measure her progress like a form of mockery, a rhythmic iteration of Lord Foul's distant scorn. And the air became distinctly colder. Involuntarily she s.h.i.+vered. She felt Masters watching her, wary and unreadable, through slits in the ceiling of the tunnel; but she could not discern what they expected from her.

During her previous time in the Land, she had been able to rely on the Haruchai even when they distrusted her. For a moment, the fact that she could not do so now filled her with bitterness. But then she pa.s.sed between the teeth of the outer gates, and had no more attention to spare for the intransigence of the Masters.

Night held the slowly sloping plain beyond the watchtower and the ma.s.sive prow of Revelstone. High in the eastern sky, a gibbous moon cast its silver sheen over the ground where the Demondim had raged, seething with frustration and corrosive lore. The aftereffects of their ancient hatred lingered in the bare dirt. But overhead a profusion of stars filled the heavens, glittering gems in swaths and mult.i.tudes untouched by the small concerns of suffering and death. They formed no constellations that she knew, but she found solace in them nonetheless.

Following Stave through the darkness, she was glad to be reminded that her fears and powers were little things, too evanescent and human to impinge upon the immeasurable cycles of the stars. Her life depended on what she did. It was possible that Stave and the Humbled and all of Revelstone's people were at risk. In ways which she could not yet imagine, Jeremiah's survival-and perhaps that of the Land as well-might hang in the balance. Yet the stars took no notice: they would not. She was too small to determine their doom.

As was the man who had destroyed the Demondim. He might well surpa.s.s her. But while the heavens endured, she could afford to push her limits until they broke-or she did. Like her, the stranger lacked the power to decide the destinies of stars.

In faint silver, Stave led Linden forward; and when she lowered her gaze from the sky, she saw the flickering of a campfire. Its lively flames cast the stranger into shadow, but he appeared to be seated with his back to her and his head bowed. If he heard her steps, or sensed the advancing Haruchai, he gave no sign. His limned shape remained motionless.

Within a dozen paces of the stranger, Linden halted Stave with a touch on his shoulder. He glanced at her, a quick flash of reflected firelight in his eye.

Drawing him with her, she began to circle around the campfire so that she could approach the stranger in plain sight, unthreateningly-and so that she could watch his reactions.

She expected the Humbled to accompany her, but they did not. Instead they stopped where she and Stave had paused, no more than a few running strides from the stranger's back. Swearing to herself, she considered gesturing-or calling aloud-for them to join her. But she felt sure that they would ignore her.

Grateful for Stave's presence at her side, she continued to circle toward the far side of the fire.

As she entered the stranger's range of vision, he lifted his head slowly. But he did not react in any other way until she and Stave stood near the flames. Then, as lithe and easy as if he had not been sitting still for days, he rose to his feet.

"Lady," he said in a voice as deep and rich as the loam of a river delta. "Haruchai. You are well come. I feared that I would be compelled to await you for seasons rather than mere days. Such is the obduracy of those who rule yon delved dwelling."

Linden stared at him, unable to mask her surprise. She had heard that voice somewhere before- He was clad all in leather, and all in subtle shades of brown. Nevertheless his garb was unexpectedly elaborate: if its hues had been less harmonious, it would have seemed foppish. Boots incused with arcane symbols extended up his calves almost to his knees, then folded down over themselves and ended in dangling ta.s.sels. Leggings that looked as supple as water clung to his thighs, emphasizing their contours. Above them, he wore a frocked doublet ornately worked with umber beads, the sleeves deeply cuffed. It was snug at the waist, unbelted, and hemmed with a long, flowing fringe. From his shoulders hung a short dun chlamys secured by a bronze clasp: the only piece of metal in his costume. The clasp resembled a plowshare.

If he bore any weapons, they were concealed under his chlamys or inside his doublet.

He had a lean, muscular figure with strong hands, a neatly trimmed beard, and close-cropped hair. And every shade of his features, from his weathered cheeks and mouth to his hair and whiskers, blended subtly with the browns of his raiment. The combined effect suggested that his garments were not mere clothing: they expressed his ident.i.ty.

But his eyes were a startling black, so stark and l.u.s.terless that they might have been holes or caves leading into subterranean depths.

Disturbed in spite of her efforts to prepare herself, Linden instinctively avoided meeting his gaze. Instead of looking directly into his face, she let her eyes wander over his broad shoulders, down the fluid folds of the chlamys. As far as she could discern with her health-sense, he was simply a man, devoid of magic or force. But at one time, she had mistaken the Mandoubt for an ordinary woman. Even the Masters had done so. And Linden had failed to detect the Theomach's secret puissance- She held her runed Staff and Covenant's ring. Alone, she had beaten Roger and the croyel back from the brink of the Land's doom-and she had done it without drawing on wild magic. Yet she felt oddly abashed in the stranger's presence; unsure of herself; exposed and frail.

His voice was familiar. Where had she heard it before?

She wanted to speak confidently, but her voice was an unsteady whisper. "You ate them? You ate the Demondim?"

The stranger laughed briefly, a comfortable sound with a slight trace of ridicule. "Alas, lady, that is imprecise. Were I able to consume them, I would have taken their power into myself and become stronger. Belike I would then have no need of you.

"No, the truth is merely that I have made a considerable study of such beings. Their lore is both potent and unnatural. It holds a great fascination for me. For many and many a long year, I have devoted myself to the comprehension of their theurgy. And I have learned the trick of unbinding them."

Linden's eyes flicked close to his. -Unbinding'?"

He inclined his head. "Indeed, lady. Having no tangible forms, they would be lost to will and deed without some containing ensorcellment to preserve them from dissolution. Imagine," he explained. "that they are bound to themselves by threads of lore and purpose. The threads are many, but if one alone is plucked and severed, all unravel.

"Thus I disposed of the Demondim, for their presence in this time endangered my desires."

Again she felt her gaze drawn toward his. With an effort, she forced herself to concentrate on the center of his forehead. At her side, Stave stood without movement or speech, as if he saw no threat in the stranger, and had lost interest.

Yet he, too, had heard that voice before. It had addressed Linden through Anele after she had quenched the horde's caesure. She remembered it clearly now.

Such power becomes you. But it will not suffice.

Abruptly she stood straighter, holding her Staff like an a.s.severation. This stranger had imposed himself on Anele; had taken advantage of the old man's vulnerability. As far as she knew, he had only done so once. But once was enough to win her animosity.

He was not Thomas Covenant, striving to help her in spite of the boundaries of life and death. He was simply careless of Anele's suffering.

In the end, you must succ.u.mb. If you do not, you will nonetheless be compelled to accept my aid, for which I will demand recompense.

Ignoring the seduction of the stranger's eyes, Linden said like the first soft touch of a flail, before it began to swing in earnest. "You're one of the Insequent."

Stave must have guessed that the stranger belonged to the same race as the Mandoubt and the Theomach Now the stranger's laugh was ripe with pleasure. "Lady, I am. You are known to me, together with all of your acts and powers, and your great peril. Permit me the honor of presenting myself. I am the Harrow."

He bowed with courtesy as elaborate as his apparel; but Linden did not. Already she was starting to loathe the sound of his voice. He was not the first to foretell failure for her. But he had hurt Anele- Before she could retort, however, a rush of movement behind the Harrow caught her attention. She looked past him in time to see the Humbled emerge from the darkness, flinging themselves as one at his undefended back.

Instinctively she cried out, "Nor but the Masters ignored her. Galt leaped high to punch at the Harrow's head. Clyme drove a kick at the center of his spine while Branl dove for his knees.

Even a Giant might have been felled by their a.s.sault. But the Harrow was not. All three of the Humbled struck him-and all three rebounded to the dirt as if they had been slapped away. The Harrow remained standing, apparently untouched. Neither his posture nor his amiable smile suggested that he had noticed his attackers.

"Lady," he observed with easy nonchalance. "you have not inquired into the nature of my desires."

Shocked, Linden realized too late that she was looking directly into the black caves of his eyes. They caught her and held as if they were sucking at her mind.

None of the Humbled hesitated. The force which had repulsed them must have hurt; yet they sprang up instantly to attack again. This time, however, they did not leave their feet. Planting themselves around the Harrow, they hammered him with blows too swift and heavy to be distinguished from each other. A plinth of sandstone might have been pulverized by their onslaught.

Still he ignored them. Instead he gazed at Linden, drawing her deeper and deeper into the fathomless abysm of his eyes. She could not think or move; could not look away. The frenzy of the Humbled and the cheerful dance of the campfire became imprecise, meaningless: they had slipped sideways somehow, into a slightly different dimension of existence. The Harrow himself had slipped. Only his eyes remained fully real, his eyes and the rich loam of his voice; only the darkness Vaguely she tried to summon the power of her Staff. But she was already lost. The hands of her volition hung, useless, at her sides. She could not lift them.

"First," he said pleasantly, "I desire this curious stick to which you cling as though it possessed the virtue to ward you. Second, I crave the circle of white gold which lies hidden by your raiment. And last, I covet the unfettered wrath at the center of your heart. It will nourish me as the Demondim did not. Though the husk of yourself is comely, I will discard it, for it does not interest me."

He laughed as he added. "Did I not forewarn you that you must succ.u.mb'?"

Stave may have shouted Linden's name. She was almost sure that he had joined Galt, Branl, and Clyme, a.s.sailing the Harrow with all of his prodigious strength. But she knew that none of them would prevail. Knowledge is power, she thought absently. The Harrow had destroyed the entire horde of the Demondim. He could certainly withstand the Haruchai while he consumed her soul.

Long ago, she had succ.u.mbed. More than once. She was familiar with self-abandonment. Now she resisted. Desperately she tried to say the Seven Words. Any of them. She remembered them all: she could form them in her mind. But they required utterance.

They had no efficacy without breath and effort. The Harrow c.o.c.ked an eyebrow as if he were aware of her attempt, and mildly surprised by it. Nevertheless he went on laughing with the ease of complete cert.i.tude.

There was no pain; no falling; no sensation at all. She was not possessed and tortured as she had once been by a Raver. Nor did she feel the illimitable excruciation of a caesure. Her own capacity for evil held no horror. The voids of the Harrow's eyes had simply grown as infinite as the heavens. But no stars sanctified them. No glimmering articulated their emptiness. Absolute loss unredeemed by choice or possibility claimed her. She could do nothing except observe her ruin until every particle of her being was devoured.

She wanted to plead with him somehow; beseech him to let her go. He did not care about Jeremiah. Her son would never be freed if she could not convince the Harrow to release her.

But she did not know his true name. She lacked the means to make him heed her.

There was another name, one which had been given to her for a reason, and which she had not forgotten. She was no longer substantial or significant enough to speak it.

Stave and the Humbled beat themselves raw on the Harrow's impervious form. They hit and kicked so hard that any bones except theirs would have shattered. The skin of their fists and feet became pulp. With every blow, they splashed blood that did not touch the Insequent.

They could not save Linden.

Still they were Haruchai, deaf and blind to defeat. With a suddenness which would have startled her if all of her reactions had not been sucked away, Stave gouged at the Harrow's eyes.

Stave was imponderably swift.

Nevertheless the Harrow s.n.a.t.c.hed Stave's hand aside before it reached his face. To prevent another strike, he kept his grip on Stave's wrist.

Surprised by the Harrow's quickness, Stave may have faltered for a small fraction of a heartbeat. Then he attacked the lnsequent's eyes with his other hand.

That blow the Harrow caught and held easily as well; so easily that even Stave's boundless courage must have known dismay.

But the Humbled followed the former Master's example. Branl and Clyme grasped the Harrow's arms in an attempt to prevent him from moving: Galt leaped onto the Harrow's back.

With both hands, Galt clawed at the lnsequent's eyes.

Within herself, Linden continued to struggle.

The Harrow did not try to defend himself physically. Instead he released Stave and let out a roar of force which flung all of the Haruchai from him. They were tossed through the air like dolls to land in darkness beyond the reach of the firelight.

But while he scattered his attackers, his will or his attention wavered for an instant. And in that instant, Linden gasped softly. "Quern Ehstrel."

At once, the Harrow staggered as though an avalanche had fallen on his shoulders. He stumbled into his campfire. Flames flared hungrily over his boots and onto his leggings.

And the grasp of his gaze snapped.

As his blackness vanished from Linden's mind, she recoiled; pitched headlong to the ground with her hands clamped over her eyes. She had dropped her Staff, and did not care. Released, she returned to herself with a shock as violent as a seizure. Her muscles spasmed as she lay in the dirt, unable to move or think. At that moment, she only knew that she had to protect her eyes.

"Fool." The Harrow's voice was velvet with rage. "You are doomed, d.a.m.ned, ended. If you do not extinguish yourself, the entire race of the Insequent will rise up to excoriate your intrusion. Every commandment of what we are requires-"

"Oh, a.s.suredly," put in the Mandoubt complacently. "By this deed, the Mandoubt completes her long years of service. Yet her doom is not immediate. Even your animal fury cannot demand madness of her until her interference is beyond denial." Linden's appeal had been answered.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she moved her hands. Although her arms trembled in reaction, and her heart shook, she fumbled around her for the Staff. But she found only bare ground and the residual loathing of the Demondim, bitter as gall.

The Mandoubt had come. But surely she had no power to compare with the Harrow's? She could cross time. And she could pa.s.s unseen to appear where she was needed. She was provident and considerate. But she had evinced no magic like that with which the Harrow had repulsed Stave and the Humbled.

You prevaricate, old woman"*the largesse of the Harrow's anger filled the night-"as has ever been your wont. You have intervened in my triumph, which no Insequent may attempt without cost. If you deny this, you are false to yourself as to me."

Linden's head reeled. Her whole sense of herself seemed to stagger drunkenly. Nevertheless she could not remain sprawling, blind and helpless, while the Mandoubt confronted the Harrow on her behalf. Fearfully she slitted her eyes; confirmed that she was facing away from the campfire. Then she pushed herself up onto her knees and glanced around rapidly, looking for the Staff.

It was out of reach behind her and to the left. Even if she dove toward it while the Harrow was distracted, he might be too quick for her. She was still too dazed to summon Earthpower and Law without touching the black wood.

"Rage as you wish," answered the Mandoubt, unperturbed. "a.s.suredly the Mandoubt seeks to defy the commandments of our kind. This she acknowledges. And in so doing, she hazards her life. Yet even your arrogance cannot proclaim that she has prevented your designs. Her intrusion has merely delayed them. She cannot be named inexculpate until she has coerced you to forswear your purpose against the lady's person."

Linden braced herself to lunge for the Staff. As she did so, however, Stave came to stand between her and the campfire. Blood dripped from his hands: it trickled down his s.h.i.+ns, oozed from his feet. But he disdained his hurts.

Stooping, he retrieved the Staff and pa.s.sed it to Linden. "Rise, Chosen," he said quietly. "It appears that the Mandoubt will have need of you."

At once, she surged to her feet. For a moment longer, she kept her back to the flames and the Insequent while she a.s.sured herself of Earthpower. Then, abruptly, she turned to see what the Mandoubt and the Harrow were doing.

The Harrow laughed with renewed confidence. "Forswear my purpose?' he countered in a tone of abundant mirth. "I? As the years pa.s.s, you have become an object of ridicule. At one time, you were remembered respectfully among the Insequent, but now you are viewed with scorn.

"This, however, I will grant," he added more dangerously. "I have merely been delayed, and will yet triumph. If you depart now, you may perchance retain some portion of your mind."

Keeping her eyes lowered, Linden scanned the vicinity of the campfire. The Harrow stood on the far side of the flames with his arms folded across his chest, defiant and dire. Although he had staggered into the blaze, his boots and leggings were undamaged. Like their wearer, they seemed impervious to ordinary harm. The bottomless holes of his gaze tugged at Linden. But she did not allow herself to glance above the level of his waist.

While she looked around, she readied her own fire.