Stephen Donaldson - Fatal Revenant

Until the time of the Clave, the Hall of Gifts had been an expression of hope for the future of the Land. That was the mosaic’s import: Revelstone had survived the Ritual with its promise intact.

For Linden, however, the cavern was a place of sacrifice and death.

When she had followed Covenant here to challenge Gibbon Raver, she had been full of battle and terror. Instead of looking around, she had watched the Giant Grimmand Honninscrave and the Sandgorgon Nom defeat Gibbon. Honninscrave’s death had enabled Nom to destroy samadhi Sheol. For the first time since their birth in a distant age, one of the three Ravers had been effectively slain, rent ; removed from Lord Foul’s service. Yet samadhi had not entirely perished. Rather Nom had consumed the fragments of the Raver, achieving a manner of thought and speech which the Sandgorgons had never before possessed.

In gratitude, it seemed, Nom had raised a cairn over Honninscrave’s corpse, using the rubble of battle to honour the Master of Starfare’s Gem.

Linden had come here now to remember her loves.

The mound of broken stone which dominated the centre of the cavern was Honninscrave’s threnody. It betokened more than his own sacrifice: it expressed his brother’s death as well. And it implied other Giants, other friends. The First of the Search. Her husband, Pitchwife. Ready laughter. Open hearts. Life catenulated to life.

Link by link, Nom’s homage to Honninscrave brought Linden to Sunder and Hollian, whom she had loved dearly-and whom she did not intend to heed.

They beg of you that you do not seek them out. Doom awaits you in the company of the Dead. But where could she turn for insight or understanding, if not to the people who had enabled her to become who she was?

Everything came back to Thomas Covenant.

As she began to move slowly around the cairn, studying old losses and valour by the light of Law, brave souls accompanied her, silent as reverie, and generous as they had been in life. And Stave, too, walked with her. If he wondered at her purpose here-at the strangeness of her response to the Mahdoubt’s fate-he kept his thoughts to himself.

He could not know what she sought among the legacies of those who had died.

When she had completed two circuits of the mound and begun a third, she murmured, musing, “You and the Masters talked about the Mahdoubt. “She serves Revelstone”, you told me. “Naught else is certain of her”. And Galt had said, She is a servant of Revelstone. The name is her own. More than that we do not know. “Looking back, it’s hard to imagine that none of you even guessed who she was.”

Her mind was full of slippage and indirect connections. She was hardly aware that she had spoken aloud until Stave stiffened slightly at her side. “Chosen? I do not comprehend.” Subtle undercurrents perplexed his tone. “Are you troubled that you were not forewarned?”

“Oh, that.” Linden’s attention was elsewhere. “No. The Mahdoubt could have warned me herself. You all had your reasons for what you did.”

Honninscrave had died in an agony of violation far worse than mere physical pain. Like him, she had once been possessed by a Raver: she knew that horror. But the Giant had gone further. Much further. He had held Sheol; had contained the Raver while Nom killed him. In its own way, Honninscrave’s end daunted her as profoundly as Covenant’s surrender to Lord Foul.

She would not hesitate to trade her life for Jeremiah’s. Of course. He was her son: she had adopted him freely. But for that very reason, her willingness to die for him seemed trivial compared to Honninscrave’s self-expenditure, and to Covenant’s.

“What then is your query?” asked Stave.

She groped for a reply as if she were searching through the rubble of the cairn. “Everything seems to depend on me, but I’m fighting blind. I don’t know enough. There are too many secrets.” Too many conflicted intentions. Too much malice. “Your people don’t trust me. I’m trying to guess how deep their uncertainty runs.”

How badly did it paralyse the Masters? How vehemently would they react against it?

Stave studied her for a long moment. “I have no answer,” he said finally. Your words suggest an inquiry, but your manner does not. If you wish it, I will speak of the Masters. Yet it appears that your desire lies elsewhere. What is it that you seek in this place?”

Linden heard him. She meant to answer. But her thoughts slipped again, seeking links and meaning which she could not have named. Distracted, she veered away toward the pillars near one end of the Hall, where the Gifts had not suffered from Gibbon Raver’s struggles. Bearing her light with her, she walked between the columns until an odd statue caught her eye. It stood alone, thickly layered with dust, on an open stretch of the floor.

At first glance, it appeared to be a random assortment of rough rocks balanced on top of each other to form a distorted shape nearly as tall as she was. Because it was riddled with gaps, it resembled the framework for a sculpture more than a finished piece. Puzzled, she looked at it from all sides, but could not make sense of it. But then she took several steps backward, and saw that the stones outlined a large head. After a moment, she realised that the statue was the bust of a Giant.

The stones had been cunningly set so that the gaps between them suggested an expression. There was the mouth in a wide grin: there, the heavy bulge of the nose. And there, the holes of the eyes seemed to have crinkles of laughter at their corners.

Linden could almost have believed that the rocks had been selected and placed to convey an impression of Pitchwife’s visage. But clearly the bust had been fashioned long before Pitchwife’s sojourn in the Land.

“Who do you suppose this is?” she asked.

Stave appeared to consider his memories. The Haruchai do not recall the Stonedownor who crafted this countenance, or the name of the Giant here revealed, or indeed the name given to this Gift. The craft itself, however, is suru-pa-maerl. In the ages of the Lords, artisans among the Stonedowns sought long and patiently to discover unwrought stones which might be combined and balanced to form such depictions.”

“When you stand back,” Linden murmured. “it’s pretty impressive.” If Jeremiah had been free, he might have constructed works like this one. Distantly she added. “I’m trying to put the pieces together myself. There’s one thing that I’m sure of now.

“I know why Roger didn’t want me to go to Andelain. Or Esmer either, for that matter.” After she had spoken of her intentions, Cail’s son had left the cave of the Waynhim in apparent vexation or distress. “It’s not just that they don’t want me to meet the Dead. They don’t want me to find the krill . They’re afraid of what I might be able to do with it.”

She had seen how its gem answered to the presence of white gold. According to Thomas Covenant, High Lord Loric had formed the krill so that it would be strong enough to bear any might.

Stave considered her flatly. “Then what is it that you seek to comprehend? You have not yet named your true query.”

Linden turned from the suru-pa-maerl Giant as if she were shying away. Aimlessly she carried the flame of her Staff among the columns, describing in fire slippages and connections which she did not want to put into words. She should have obtained an answer from the Mahdoubt-and had missed her only opportunity.

After a few steps, she asked, still indirectly, “How many times was Covenant summoned to the Land? I mean, before he and I came here together?”

“Four of which the Bloodguard had knowledge,” answered Stave.