Stephen Donaldson - Fatal Revenant

When Linden raised her head, the Mahdoubt left her chair, moved into the next room, and returned with an oil lamp and a clay goblet. The little flame, soothing in spite of its unsteadiness, accentuated her orange eye while it dimmed her blue one. The lurid patchwork of her robe blurred into a more harmonious mélange.

“Forbear speech, lady,” she murmured as she approached the bed. “Your slumber has been long and long, and you awaken to confusion and diminishment. Here is water fresh from the eldritch wealth of Glimmermere.” She offered the goblet to Linden. “Has its virtue declined somewhat? Assuredly. Yet much of its healing lingers.

“Drink, lady,” the Mahdoubt urged. “Then you may speak, and be restored.”

But Linden needed no encouragement. As soon as she caught sight of the goblet, she became conscious of an acute thirst. Propping herself up on one elbow, she accepted the goblet and drained it eagerly.

In the absence of any health-sense, she could not gauge how much of the water’s potency had been lost. Nevertheless it was bliss to her mouth and throat, balm to her thirst. And it awakened her more fully. A numinous tingling sharpened her senses, reminding her of a more fundamental discernment.

At once, she dropped the goblet on the bed, sat up, and reached for the Staff.

As soon as she closed her hands on the necessary warmth of the wood, and read with her fingers the deft precision of the Forestal’s runes, she felt the return of a more complete life. In the space between her heartbeats, the stone of the chamber ceased to be blind granite, inert and unresponsive: it became a vital and breathing aspect of Lord’s Keep. She recognised warmth and fire in the hearth of the larger room beyond her bedroom; smelled water poised to flow in the bathroom. Every inch of her skin and scalp became aware of its cleanliness. And the comfortable ease of the Mahdoubt’s aura washed over her like a baptism.

Hugging the Staff to her bare breasts, Linden retrieved the goblet and handed it back to the older woman, mutely asking for more of Glimmermere’s benison.

With a nod of approval, the Mahdoubt complied. When she returned from the sitting room this time, however, she brought a large wooden pitcher as well as the replenished goblet. The goblet she gave to Linden: the pitcher she placed on the floor beside the bed, where Linden could reach it easily. Then she retreated to her chair.

Until Linden had emptied the goblet again, she did not remember that she was naked.

Instinctively self-conscious, although she knew that she had no reason to be, she pulled up the sheet to cover herself. With a grimace of embarrassment, she found her voice at last.

“Who bathed me?”

Now the Mahdoubt grinned broadly. “The lady’s questions are endless. And some may be answered. Aye, assuredly, for there can be no peril in them.

“Lady, you and the Mahdoubt were chanced upon by Ramen beside the falls of Glimmermere. Their Manethrall himself bore you hither, and here-with pleasure the Mahdoubt proclaims it-you have slumbered for two days and a night. Was such rest needful? Beyond all doubt it was. But when she discerned the depth of your slumbers, she saw that other care was needful as well.

“It was the wish of all who have claimed your friendship, the flattering

Stonedownor youth among them, and also he who was once a Master, to stand in vigil at your side. Assuredly. Are you not worthy of their attendance? Yet the Mahdoubt dismissed them, permitting only the Ramen girl to remain. Together she and the girl bathed you. Your raiment as well they cleansed and in part mended, though the marks of fecundity and long grass remain-as they must. Oh, assuredly.

“When these small services had been accomplished, the Mahdoubt dismissed the girl also. The Mahdoubt is aged,” she explained lugubriously, in apparent playfulness, “and finds only brief ease in the accompaniment of the young. They remind her of much that she has left behind.” She sighed, but her tone held no regret. “Therefore the Mahdoubt has watched over you alone, taking satisfaction in your rest.”

The older woman’s gentle voice filled the room with a more ordinary and humane solace than the relief of urgent thirst, the Earthpower in Glimmermere’s waters, the recovery of percipience, the stubborn protectiveness of Revelstone, or the confirmed strictures of the Staff. Listening, Linden found that she could accept the sound and relax somewhat, despite the hard clench of her heart.

She wanted to see her friends. But the Mahdoubt’s reply implied that Liand, Stave, Anele, and the three Ramen were well. Indeed, it seemed to indicate that they had not been harmed by the violence surrounding Linden’s disappearance, or threatened by the siege of the Demondim. And if Linden’s resolve remained as unmistakable as a fist, her utter extremity had passed, sloughed off by sleep and the Mahdoubt’s astonishing succour. She could afford to take her steps one at a time-and to take them slowly.

“When you washed my clothes,” she asked, holding images of Jeremiah’s plight at bay, “did you find a piece of red metal?” She could not recall what she had done with her son’s ruined racecar; his only reminder of her love. “It would have looked unfamiliar, but you could tell that it was twisted out of shape.”

The older woman nodded. “Aye, lady.” Her expression became unexpectedly grave, as though she grasped the significance of the racecar. “It lies beneath your pillow.”

Reaching under her pillow, Linden drew out the crumpled toy. Her fingers recognised it before she looked at it. It had been warmed while she slept, yet the croyel ’s touch lingered in it, palpable and malign; and for an instant, she could not understand why she did not weep. But of course she knew why: all of her tears had been fused into the igneous rock of her purpose.

Closing the car in her fingers, she met the Mahdoubt’s sympathetic gaze. “My friend,” she said, trying to soften her voice so that she would not sound angry. “I don’t know how to thank you. I can’t even imagine how to begin. I don’t understand how you helped me, or how you even knew that I needed help. And I certainly don’t understand why you went to all of that trouble. But you saved me when everything that I could have hoped for was gone.” Ever since we got you away from your present, there haven’t been any possible outcomes that don’t give us exactly what we want. “Now I hope that someday I’ll be worthy of you.”

She was not one of the Land’s great heroes. Her many inadequacies had almost given Lord Foul his ultimate victory. But the Mahdoubt had done more than restore her to her proper time: the Insequent had given her a new opportunity to fight for her son.

Linden did not mean to waste it.

“Pssht, lady,” replied the Mahdoubt. “Are your thanks pleasing to the Mahdoubt? Assuredly. Yet they are sufficient-nay, more than sufficient. Already you have surpassed her own hopes. And you have enabled her to gaze more deeply into the peril of these times. That which she has seen teaches her that she is not yet done with service.

“Lady,” she went on briskly. “one of those who is named the Humbled has discerned your awakening. Summons have been sent to your companions. Assuredly they will gather in haste, clamouring to attend upon you.” The woman smiled with evident affection. “Ere their coming, the Mahdoubt must depart, for she will not submit to their queries. Yet she is cognisant of your need for knowledge which none here possess. Perchance some few of your questions may now be sated. If there is aught that the Mahdoubt may reveal to you, she urges you to speak of it without qualm.”

Linden sat up straighter. She had not expected the Mahdoubt’s offer. And her mind was still clogged by long sleep as well as by the croyel ’s cruel spoor on Jeremiah’s toy. Half reflexively, she called up a small tongue of flame from the Staff to lick away the disturbing residue in the metal. Then she scrambled to catch up with her circumstances.