Stephen Donaldson - Fatal Revenant

Damn it, Linden thought as her eyes misted, he’s doing it again. The unaffected gallantry of his attempt to jest undermined her self-control. Striving to master her tears again, she turned her back and pretended to busy herself at the hearth; prodded the logs with the toe of her boot although they plainly did not require her attention.

Over her shoulder, she said thickly, “Sit down, please. Have something to eat. It’s been a long day. I want to tell you about Covenant and Jeremiah, and that’s going to be hard for me. But there’s no hurry.” If the Demondim did not strike unexpectedly, she intended to wait until the next morning to confront the horde. “We can afford a little time.”

She meant to speak first. Surely then she would be able to put her pain behind her and listen more clearly to the tales of her friends? But she had one question which could not wait.

With her nerves as much as her ears, she heard her friends shift their feet, glance uncertainly at each other, then begin to comply with her request. Stave remained standing by the door, his arms folded like bars across his stained tunic. But Liand and Pahni urged Anele into a chair and seated themselves beside him. At once, the old man reached for the tray of food and began to eat. At the same time, Bhapa and Mahrtiir also sat down. The older Cord did so with deliberate composure. In contrast, Mahrtiir was tangibly reluctant: he appeared to desire some more active outlet for his emotions.

While her companions settled themselves, poured water or springwine into flagons, took a little food, Linden gathered her resolve. Facing the wall beside the hearth, nearly resting her forehead on the blunt stone, she said uncomfortably, “There’s something that I have to know. And I need the truth. Please don’t hold anything back.

“It’s about the caesures . About what you felt going through them. I’ve already asked Liand about the first one.” In the cave of Waynhim, he had told her only that he had felt pain beyond description; that he would have broken if the black lore of the ur-viles had not preserved him. Is there anything else that any of you can tell me? I mean about being in that specific Fall?”

A moment of fretted silence seemed to press against her back. Then the Manethrall replied stiffly, “Ringthane, the pain was too great to permit clear perception. Within the caesure was unspeakable cold, a terrible whiteness, agony that resembled being flayed, and fathomless despair. As the Stonedownor has said, we were warded by the theurgy of the ur-viles. But the Ranyhyn also played a part in our endurance. That they did not lose their way in time diminished a measure of our suffering.”

Linden heard the faint rustle of bodies as her friends looked at each other and nodded. With her health-sense, she recognised that Liand, Pahni, and Bhapa agreed with Mahrtiir’s assessment.

“What about you, Stave’?” she asked. He had emerged from the Fall apparently unscathed. “What was it like for you?”

The Haruchai did not hesitate. “As the Manethrall has said, both the ur-viles and the Ranyhyn served us well. We rode upon a landscape of the purest freezing while our flesh was assailed as though by the na-Mhoram’s Grim . Also there stood a woman among rocks, lashing out in anguish with wild magic. Toward her I was drawn to be consumed. However, turiya Herem held her. He is known to me, for no Haruchai has forgotten the touch of any Raver. Therefore I remained apart from her, seeking to refuse the doom which befell Korik, Sill, and Doar.”

Remained apart-Linden thought wanly. Damn , he was strong. From birth, he had communicated mind to mind; and yet he had retained more of himself in the Fall than anyone except Anele. Even she, with the strength of the ur-viles in her veins, had been swept into Joan’s madness.

Stave’s severance from his people must have hurt him more than Linden could imagine.

But she could not afford to dwell on the prices that her friends paid to stand at her side: not now, under these circumstances. She had her own costs to bear.

“All right,” she said after a moment of silence. “That was the first one. What about the second?” The caesure which she had created, bringing herself and her companions back to their proper time-and displacing the Demondim. “It must have been different. I need to know how it was different.”

Mahrtiir spoke first. For the Ramen, the distinction was both subtle and profound. Again we were assailed by a white and frozen agony which we were unable to withstand. The ur-viles no longer warded us. We lack the strength of the Haruchai . And we did not bear the Staff of Law on your behalf.” Liand had served Linden in that way, freeing her to concentrate on wild magic. “Yet the certainty of the Ranyhyn seemed greater, and their assurance somewhat diminished our torment. This, we deem, was made possible by the movement of time within the caesure , for we did not seek to oppose the current of the whirlwind.”

Linden nodded to herself. Yes, that made sense. Days ago, she had chosen to believe that the temporal tornado of any Fall would tend to spin out of the past toward the future. Mahrtiir confirmed what she had felt herself during her passage from the foothills of the Southron Range three thousand years ago to the bare ground before the gates of Revelstone.

Cautiously, approaching by increments the question which Covenant had advised her to ask, she said. “What about you, Stave? Can you offer anything more?”

The former Master did not respond immediately. Behind his apparent dispassion, he may have been weighing risks, striving to gauge the effect that his answer might have on her. When he spoke, however, his tone revealed none of his calculations.

“To that which the Manethrall and I have described, I will add one observation. Within the second Fall, the woman possessed by despair and madness was absent. Rather I beheld you mounted upon Hyn. Within you blazed such wild magic that it was fearsome to witness. As in the first passage, I was drawn toward the mind of the wielder. But again I remained apart.”

So. Twice Stave had preserved his separate integrity. Like the Ramen, he could not tell Linden what she needed to know.

— ask that callow puppy-

Liand did not deserve Covenant’s scorn.

She continued to face the wall as though she wished to muffle her voice; conceal her heart. “And you, Liand? You were carrying the Staff. That must have made a difference.”

By its very nature, the Staff may have imposed a small pocket of Law on the swirling chaos of the caesure .

“Linden-” the young man began. But then he faltered. His reluctance scraped along the nerves of her back and scalp, the skin of her neck. But percipience alone could not tell her why he was loath to speak, or what he might reveal.

“Please,” she said softly, almost whispering. “I need to know.”

She felt him gather himself-and felt the Ramen regard him with a kind of apprehension. Stave gazed steadily at the Stonedownor. Only Anele continued to eat and drink as though he were oblivious to his companions.

“Then I must relate,” Liand answered unsteadily, “that within the caesure I rode Rhohm upon an endless plain of the most bitter emptiness and cold. About me, I felt a swarm of stinging hornets, each striving to pierce and devour me, though they were not visible to my sight. And at the same time-” Again he faltered. But the underlying bedrock of his dignity and courage supported him. “At the same time,” he repeated more firmly. “it appeared to me that I was contained within you-that I sat upon Hyn rather than Rhohm, and that from my heart arose a conflagration such as I have never known. There none of my desires or deeds was my own. In some form, I had ceased to exist, for my thoughts were your thoughts, my pain was yours, and no aspect of Liand son of Fostil remained to me.”