Stephen Donaldson - Fatal Revenant

“Then will your paths be altered in all sooth, and there will be no gainsaying the Mahdoubt’s culpability. She herself will not question it.”

The campfire dwindled, and night crowded closer, as the Mahdoubt said distinctly, “Choose, then, proud one. Accede or give battle. The Mahdoubt has grown weary in the service of that which she deems precious. She does not fear to fail.”

The Harrow’s voice was full of amusement as he replied, “Do you dare this challenge?” Yet behind his mirth, Linden thought that she heard the gnashing of boulders. “Have you fallen prematurely into madness?”

“Pssht,” retorted the woman dismissively. “Words. The Mahdoubt will have deeds or naught.”

Linden wanted to protest, No, don’t do this! I can fight for myself! The Mahdoubt had nothing to gain here: she could only lose. And she was Linden’s friend. But Linden’s voice was locked in her throat.

Urgent fire curled around her fingers and ran along the Staff as she prepared to defend the older woman.

“Then ready yourself, relic of foolishness,” the Harrow pronounced with plush confidence. “You cannot rule me.”

Stave shifted closer to the direct line between Linden and the Harrow’s eyes.

Linden saw nothing to indicate that a contest had commenced. Her health-sense discerned nothing. To all appearances, the Harrow simply stood with his arms folded over his chest, a figure of irrefragable self-possession and surety. Opposite him, the Mahdoubt squatted motionless, seemingly devoid of power or purpose; as mundane as the gradual slope of the plain.

But the campfire continued to shrink as though moisture from some cryptic source were soaking imperceptibly into the wood. Around the battle, darkness thickened like a wall.

If she could have spoken, Linden would have asked Stave, What are they doing? She might have asked, Have they started yet? But she had no voice. As the flames died, they seemed draw sound as well as light with them. Nothing punctuated the night except her own taut breathing and the muffled thud of her heart.

But then, subtly, by increments too small to be defined, the Harrow began to fade as if his physical substance were being diluted or stretched thin. Some undetectable magic siphoned away his tangible existence.

For long moments, Linden watched the change, transfixed, until she was able to catch glimpses of the Humbled through the Harrow’s form.

With a palpable jolt, the Mahdoubt’s opponent snapped back into solidity. The flames of his fire flared higher, driving back the encroachment of the night.

Without risking the hunger of his eyes, Linden could not see his expression. But his chest heaved, and his strained breathing was louder than hers.

A heartbeat later, he started to fade again, leaking out of himself into some other dimension of reality. Or of time.

This change was more rapid. He seemed to dissolve in front of her as the fire died toward embers. Clyme, Branl, and Galt were clearly visible through the veil of the Harrow’s substance.

The impact when he forced himself back into definition was as visceral as a blow. Linden felt the intensity of his exertion. It touched her percipience on a pitch that scraped along her nerves, vibrated in the marrow of her bones. His flames guttered higher as he gasped hoarsely. Hazarding a glance upward, she saw that his cheeks were slick with sweat. Fine droplets caught a skein of ruddy reflections in his beard.

The Mahdoubt was beating him-

His arms remained clasped across his chest. Yet Linden could see that they trembled. All of his muscles were trembling.

The Mahdoubt still had not moved. But now her plump form and rounded shoulders no longer suggested quiet readiness. Instead they were implacable; vivid with innominate strength. She had made herself as unyielding as the bedrock of mountains.

Earthpower and protests itched for expression in Linden’s hands as the Mahdoubt renewed the Harrow’s failure.

Now he did not fade slowly toward evanescence; dissolution. Instead he appeared to flicker. For an instant, he was nearly solid: then he came so close to transparency that only his outlines remained: then he struggled back into substance. Linden felt every throb and falter of his efforts to find some finger hold or flaw in the Mahdoubt’s obdurate expulsion.

If Stave and the Humbled had struck at him, they might have broken his bones; or they might have passed through him as if he were no more than mist. But they merely witnessed the eerie conflict, as unmoving as the Mahdoubt, and as unmoved.

Linden did not realise that she was holding her breath until a soundless implosion snatched the air from her lungs. The sudden inrush of force swallowed the Harrow’s power, and the Mahdoubt’s. As Linden panted in surprise, the Harrow’s campfire burned normally again. He stood across the flames from the Mahdoubt as if nothing had occurred. Only the heaviness of his respiration, and the sweat on his face, and the wincing hunch of his shoulders betrayed the truth.

“That is difficult knowledge,” he remarked when he was able to speak evenly. “It emulates the Theomach’s. Yet I am not displaced.”

“Assuredly.” The Mahdoubt shook her head as if she were casting sparks from her hair. “The Mahdoubt acknowledges that choices remain to you, flight among them. But you will not flee. Greed will not permit you to surrender your intent. Nor are you able to withstand the Mahdoubt’s resolve.”

“You know me, then,” he admitted. “Yet you are thereby doomed. While I endure, your long service comes to naught.”

Again the woman shook her head. “Perchance it is so. Perchance it is not.” Her tone was as implacable as her strength. “No conclusion is reached until you have given your bound oath.”

Grimly Linden hoped that the Harrow would refuse. If he continued to fight, or chose to retreat, she could argue that the Mahdoubt had not prevented his designs. And if she cast her own force into the fray, surely the Mahdoubt could not be held accountable for the outcome? Damn it, the woman was her friend.

But the Harrow accepted defeat. “It is given.” Resentment pulsed in his voice. “If it must be spoken, I will speak it.

“My purpose against your lady’s person I forswear.” As he uttered them, the words took on resonance. They expanded outward as if they were addressed to the night and the uncaring stars. “From this moment, I will accept from her only that which she chooses to grant. No other aspect of my desires will I relinquish. But my efforts against her mind and spirit and flesh I hereby abandon. In herself, she will have no cause to fear me. And I adjure all of the Insequent to heed me. If I do not abide by this oath, I pray that their vengeance upon me will be both cruel and prolonged.”

When he was finished, his voice relapsed to its normal depth and richness. “Does this content you, old woman?”

“It does.” The Mahdoubt’s reply was soft and faintly forlorn, as if she rather than the Harrow had been humbled. She slumped beside the fire as though her bones had begun to crack. “Assuredly. The Mahdoubt acknowledges your oath, and is content.”

“Then,” responded the Harrow with fertile malice, “I bid you joy in your coming madness. It will be brief, for it brings death swiftly in its wake.”

Offering his opponent an elaborate and mocking bow, he turned away.

At last, Linden found her voice. “Just a minute!” she snapped. “I’m not done with you.”

Cocking an eyebrow in a show of surprise, the Harrow faced her. “Lady?”

As he had sworn, his eyes exerted no compulsion. Nevertheless Linden avoided them. Instead she moved to crouch beside the Mahdoubt. Resting a hand on the older woman’s shoulder, she murmured. “Are you all right?”