Stephen Donaldson - Fatal Revenant

With the Staff resting against her exhausted heart, she hardly noticed as she drifted into sleep.

When the sound of knocking at her door awakened her, she sat up suddenly, startled. She could not guess how much time had passed, could scarcely believe that she had fallen asleep. Momentarily befuddled, she thought, Shock. Nervous prostration. The prolonged difficulties of the day had drained her-

Almost at once, however, she remembered her friends. Surging out of bed, she hurried to the door.

Until she saw Stave standing there, with Mahrtiir and Liand behind him, and Pahni, Bhapa, and Anele as well, she did not realise that she had feared some other arrival: a new summons from Covenant and Jeremiah, perhaps; or one of the Masters come to inform her that the Demondim had begun their attack.

Awkwardly, as if she suspected that they might vanish into one of her uninterpretable dreams, she urged her companions to enter. Then she scanned the hall for some sign of the Humbled; for any indication of trouble. But the passageway outside her door was empty. The smooth stone walls held no hint of distress.

Breathing deeply to clear the alarm from her lungs, she closed the door, latched it, and turned to face the concern of her friends.

She was glad to see that they emanated health and vigour, in spite of their concerned expressions. The diminishment of Kevin’s Dirt had been replaced by a vitality so acute that it seemed to cast a palpable penumbra around all of them except Anele and Stave himself. Now she knew what the former Master and Mahrtiir had discerned in her when she had returned from Glimmermere. The eldritch strength of the waters had washed away their bruises and their weariness and perhaps even their doubts. And she perceived with relief that the lake’s effects would last longer than the relatively evanescent restoration which she had performed with her Staff earlier in the day. Kevin’s Dirt would not soon regain its power over them.

For Liand even more than for the Ramen, the experience of Glimmermere must have been like receiving an inheritance; a birthright which should have belonged to him throughout his life, but which had been cruelly denied.

By comparison, Stave’s impassivity resembled a glower. Anele murmured incomprehensibly to himself, apparently lost in his private dissociation: the effect of standing on wrought stone. Yet his blind eyes seemed to regard Linden as though even in his madness he could not fail to recognise the significance of what had happened to her.

In simple relief, Linden would have liked to spend a little time enjoying the presence of her friends. She could have offered them food and drink and warmth, asked them questions; distracted herself from her personal turmoil. But they were clearly alarmed on her behalf. Although the Ramen said nothing, Pahni’s open worry emphasised Mahrtiir’s fierce anger, and Bhapa frowned anxiously.

Liand was less reticent. “Linden,” he breathed softly, fearfully. “Heaven and Earth! What has befallen you? If the Masters plunged a blade into your heart, I would not think to see you so wounded.”

Involuntarily Linden ducked her head as if she were ashamed. His immediate sympathy threatened to release tears which she could not afford. Already the consequences of her encounter with Covenant and Jeremiah resembled the leading edge of the fury which had flailed her after the horserite. If that storm broke now, she would be unable to speak. She would only sob.

“Please don’t,” she replied, pleading. “Don’t look so worried. I understand. If I were you, I would probably do the same. But it doesn’t help.”

Stave folded his arms over his chest as if to close his heart. “Then inform us, Chosen. What form of aid do you require? Your anguish is plain. We who have determined to stand at your side cannot witness your plight and remain unmoved.”

In response, Linden jerked up her head, taken aback by a sudden rush of insight. Perhaps unwittingly, Stave reminded her that behind their stoicism the Haruchai were an intensely passionate people.

The bond joining man to woman is a fire in us, and deep , Brinn had told her long ago. The Bloodguard had broken their Vow of service to the Lords, he had explained, not merely because they had proven themselves unworthy, but more because they had abandoned their wives in the name of a chosen fidelity which they had failed to sustain. The sacrifices that they had made for their Vow had become too great to be endured.

For the same reason, thousands of years later, Brinn and Cail had withdrawn their service to Thomas Covenant. In their eyes, their seduction by the Dancers of the Sea-their vulnerability to such desires-had demonstrated their unworth. Our folly must end now, ere greater promises than ours become false in consequence.

— and remain unmoved. Shaken by memory and understanding, Linden realised abruptly that Stave had made a similar choice when he had declared himself her friend. He had recanted his devotion to the chosen service of the Masters.

Liand had glimpsed the truth when he had suggested that the Masters feared grief. As a race, Stave and his kinsmen had already known too much of it.

Mourning for the former Master, Linden felt her own sorrow recede. It did not lose its force: perhaps it would not. Nevertheless it seemed to become less immediate. Stave’s words and losses had cleared a space in which she could control her tears, and think, and care about her friends.

“You’re already helping,” she told Stave as firmly as she could. “You’re here. That’s what I need most right now.”

There would be more, but for the moment she had been given enough.

When the Haruchai nodded, accepting her reply, she turned to Manethrall Mahrtiir and his Cords.

“I know that being surrounded by stone like this is hard for you,” she began. A faint quaver betrayed her fragility. However, she anchored herself on Mahrtiir’s combative glare; clung to the insight which Stave had provided for her.

As she did so, she discovered that she could see more in the auras of the Ramen-and of Liand as well-than magically renewed vitality and protective concern. Beneath the surface, their emotions were complicated by hints of a subtler unease. Something had happened to trouble them since she had parted from Mahrtiir.

“But we have a lot to talk about,” she continued. “When we’re done, I won’t ask you to stay. We’ll get together again in the morning.”

Bhapa inclined his head as though he were content with whatever she chose to say. But Pahni still stared at Linden with shadows of alarm in her dark eyes. She rested one of her hands on Liand’s shoulder as if she had come to rely on his support-or as if she feared for him as well as for Linden. And Mahrtiir remained as watchful as a raptor, searching Linden as though he expected her to name her enemies; his prey.

The Manethrall’s manner suggested unforeseen events. Yet his reaction to them tasted of an eagerness which his companions did not share.

His manner strengthened Linden’s ability to hold back the effects of her confrontation with Covenant and Jeremiah.

Finally she shifted her gaze to Liand’s, addressing him last because his uncomplicated concern and affection touched her pain directly.

“Liand, please don’t ask me any questions.” He also seemed privately uneasy, although he conveyed none of the Manethrall’s eagerness-and little of Pahni’s fear. “I’ll tell you everything that happened. I’ll tell you what I plan to do about it. But it will be easier for me if I can just talk. Questions make it harder for me to hold myself together.”

Liand mustered a crooked smile. “As you wish. I am able to hold my peace, as you have seen. Yet allow me to say,” he added with a touch of rueful humour. “that since my departure from Mithil Stonedown, no experience of peril and power, no discovery or exigency, has been as unexpected to me as this, that I must so often remain silent.”