Stephen Donaldson - Fatal Revenant

If the garment had been worn by anyone other than the Mahdoubt, no one who saw it would have discerned love or gratitude.

Considering her task, Linden murmured with an indefinable mixture of bafflement and certainty. “My friend, I hope that you don’t mind standing. This is going to take a while.”

“The Mahdoubt is patient,” the woman replied. “Oh, assuredly. Has she not awaited the lady for many of her long years? And is she not pleased-aye, both pleased and gratified-by the lady’s offer of thanks? How then should she grow weary?”

Half to herself, Linden promised. “I’ll be as quick as I can.” Then she went to work.

She could not think about what she meant to do. It made no sense, and might paralyse her. Instead she concentrated on the practical details, the small things: matters as simple as the Mahdoubt’s gifts of food and drink and warmth and company.

So: cloth first. Then a needle of some sort. After that, she would confront the conundrum of thread.

She had no knife; no sharp edge of any kind. That was a problem. Yet she did not pause to doubt herself, or consider that she might fail. Nor did she waste her attention on embarrassment. Putting down the Staff, she unbuttoned her shirt and removed it.

The shirttail seemed the best place to tear the fabric. But the red flannel had been tightly hemmed: she would not be able to rend it with her fingers. And she lacked any implement to pick the stitches.

Lifting the edge of the material to her mouth, she began trying to chew through the hem.

The flannel proved tougher than she had expected. She gnawed and plucked at it until her jaws ached and her teeth hurt, but it refused to rip.

For a moment, she studied the area around the cookfire, hoping to find a rock with a jagged edge. However, every stone in sight was old and weathered; water-rounded.

Oh, hell, she thought; but again she did not pause. Instead she took up a dead twig and poked it at the bitten fabric. Then she used the twig to thrust that small section of hem into the fire.

When the flannel began to blacken and char, she withdrew it from the flames; blew on the material to extinguish it. Knotting her fists in her shirt, she pulled against the weakened hem.

The cloth was sturdy: it did not tear easily. But when she dropped her shirt over a stone, stood on it, and heaved at the shirttail with both hands, she was able to make a rent longer than a hand span.

The Mahdoubt watched her avidly, nodding as if in encouragement. But Linden paid no heed. Her task consumed her. Her palms and fingers were sore, her arms throbbed, she was breathing hard-and she had to rip another part of the hem.

This time, she did not expend effort chewing: she turned immediately to the fire. With her twig, she held the hem in the flames until the cloth and even the twig began to burn. Then she stamped on her shirt to quench the charred fibres.

Now the material tore more easily. One fierce tug sufficed to rip a sizable scrap from the shirttail.

More out of habit than self-consciousness, Linden donned her shirt and buttoned it, although it was filthy, caked with mud and dead leaves. For a moment while she caught her breath, she reminded herself, One step at a time. Just one. That’s all. She had procured a patch. Next she needed a needle.

Trusting that Caerroil Wildwood would not take offense, she went to the nearest evergreen-a scrub fir-and broke off one straight living twig. She wanted wood that still held sap; wood that would not be brittle.

Beside the cookfire, she rubbed her twig on the stones until it was as smooth as possible. Then she held one end in the small blaze, hoping to harden it. Before it could catch fire, she pulled it out to rub it again.

When she had repeated the process several times, her rubbing began to produce a point at the end of the twig.

“The lady is resourceful,” remarked the Mahdoubt in a voice rich with pride. “Must the Mahdoubt dismiss her fears? Assuredly she must. The lady has foiled her foes under great Melenkurion Skyweir. How then may it be contemplated that the Earth’s doom will exceed her cunning?”

Briefly Linden stopped to massage her tired face, stroke her parched eyes. All right, she told herself. Cloth. A needle. Now thread.

As far as she knew, the forest offered nothing suitable. Its thinnest vines and most supple fibres would eventually rot away, invalidating her gratitude.

Sighing, she spread out her scrap of flannel and began trying to pick threads from its torn edge with the point of her twig.

This was difficult work, close and meticulous. It brought back her weariness in waves until she could hardly keep her eyes open. Her world seemed to contract until it contained nothing except her hands and needle and a stubborn scrap of red. The weave of the flannel resisted her efforts. She had to be as careful and precise as her son when he worked on one of his constructs. She had watched him on occasions too numerous to count. His raceway in his bedroom may have enabled him to reach the Land, for good or ill. And she had seen him build a cage of deadwood to enter the depths of Melenkurion Skyweir. She knew his exactitude intimately; his assurance. Time and again, her needle separated stubby threads too short to serve any purpose. Nevertheless she persevered. Now or never, she repeated to herself like a mantra. Now or never.

In her exhaustion, she believed that if she put her task down to rest or sleep, she might give her enemies the time they needed to achieve the Earth’s end.

Finally she had obtained five red threads nearly as long as her hand. That, she decided, would have to suffice. Cloth. A needle. Thread. Now she lacked only a method of attaching thread to her twig.

While she groped for possibilities, she picked up the flask of springwine and drank. For a moment, she blinked rapidly, trying to moisten eyes that felt as barren as Gallows Howe. Then she took her sharpened twig and broke it in half.

The wood snapped unevenly, leaving small splits in the blunt end of her needle.

On her knees, she approached the Mahdoubt.

“Be at peace, lady,” the Insequent said softly. “There is no need for haste.”

Linden hardly heard her. The world had become cloth and thread, a wooden needle and the hanging edge of the Mahdoubt’s robe. When she was near enough to work, Linden laid her few threads out on a stone and examined the woman’s gown until she located a place where her patch could be made to fit. Still kneeling, and guided only by her memories of Jeremiah, she took one fragile thread, wedged it gently into a split at the end of her needle, and began sewing.

As she worked, she held her breath in an effort to steady her weariness.

Her needle did not pierce the fabric easily. And when it passed through her scrap of flannel and the edge of the gown, it made a hole much too large for her thread. But she knotted the thread as well as she could with her sore fingers, then forced her twig through the material a second time.

While she laboured, she felt the Mahdoubt touch her head. The older woman stroked Linden’s hair, comforting her with caresses. Then, softly, the Mahdoubt began to chant.

Her voice was low, as if she were reciting a litany to herself. Nevertheless her tone-or the words of her chant-or Linden’s flagrant fatigue-cast a trance like an enchantment, causing the world to shrink further. Garroting Deep ceased to impinge on Linden’s senses: the raw teeth of winter and the kindly flames of the cookfire lost their significance: darkness and stars were reduced to a vague brume that condensed and swirled, empty of meaning. Only Linden’s hands and the Mahdoubt’s gown held any light, any purpose. And only the Mahdoubt’s chant enabled Linden to continue sewing.