Stephen Donaldson - Fatal Revenant

But she found that she had no desire for any of those things; no desire and no time. The same given percipience which made them possible also made her aware that her enhancement would be ephemeral. She had perhaps a dozen heartbeats, at most two dozen, in which to exercise her whetted perceptions.

And she was already able to descry every single one of the Demondim far below her. The ur-viles and Waynhim had been formed by Demondim: they understood their makers. They had given her the capacity to penetrate all of the defences which the horde had raised against her.

That was enough. She did not need more.

With Stave and Liand beside her, she turned to face the cliff and the siege again. There she raised the Staff high in both hands, gripping her own blood and that of the loremaster to the surface of the incorruptible wood.

Now she beheld plainly all that was required of her. The opalescent surges and crosscurrents of the monsters’ subterfuge were clear, as etched and vivid as fine map-work. And they were transparent. Through them, disguised and concealed by them, she found the means by which the Demondim deployed the IIIearth Stone. With all of her senses, she watched baleful green glints swirl and spit, many thousands of them, outlining precisely the mad hornet-storm of time that allowed the horde to exert the Stone’s evil.

While her heart beat toward the instant when her transcendental percipience would fail, she reached through the veil of emerald to the horde’s caesure .

It was as obvious to her now as the Fall which Esmer had summoned to the Verge of Wandering on her behalf; as unmistakable as the chaos which she herself had ripped in time. Fed by the insight, lore, and vitriol of the wedge at her back, her health-sense at last recognised the exact location and shape, as specific as a signature, of the monsters’ Fall. Each piece of time that Joan shattered with wild magic had its own definitive angles, texture, composition; its own place in the wilderland of rubble at Joan’s feet. With the telic power of the ur-viles and Waynhim in her veins, Linden was able to name unerringly the unique substance which Joan had destroyed to form this particular caesure .

When she was utterly certain of what she saw , she called forth a blaze as bright and cleansing as sunfire from the Staff. In an instant, she had surrounded herself with brilliance and flame, lighting the proud jut of Revelstone as if she had effaced the storm and the gloom, the shroud of rain; as if she had pierced with Earthpower and Law even the vile fug of Kevin’s Dirt.

For perhaps as long as a heartbeat, she considered hurling her fire directly against the IIIearth Stone. Through the open door of the Fall, she could have striven to excise the Stone’s perversion at its source. Then she rejected the idea. If she failed-if she proved inadequate to that unfathomable contest-she would lose her opportunity to unmake the Fall. And if she did not fail, she would alter the Land’s past so profoundly that the Arch of Time itself might break.

Instead, risking everything, she took a moment to search through the rampant insanity of the caesure for Joan, hoping somehow to soothe that tormented woman. In spite of the danger, she spent precious seconds seeking to send care and concern through the maelstrom created by Joan’s pain.

Then she had to stop. She had no more time.

Relinquishing thoughts of Joan, Linden exerted all of her bestowed percipience to concentrate the energies of the Staff. And when she had summoned enough conflagration to reach the heavens, she sent a prodigious wall of fire crashing down like a tsunami on the horde’s Fall.

That caesure was huge, even by the measure of the one which she had created. And it had been nurtured as well as controlled and directed with every resource of cunning and lore that the Demondim could command. It was defended now by the entire virulence and will of the monsters. The woman whom she had been before the loremaster had shared its blood with her would not have been able to overcome such opposition.

As the bestowed potency of her health-sense faltered and failed, however, she heard the horde’s feigned confusion become a feral roar of rage; and she knew that she had succeeded.

Sinking under a sudden wave of exhaustion, Linden might have fallen if Stave and Liand had not caught her, upheld her. As rain and faint dawn returned to the promontory of Lord’s Keep, their gloom filled her heart: as damp as tears, and blocked from the sun by the receding storm.

She felt a kind of grief, the consequences of self-expenditure, as though her success were a complex failure. She had missed her chance to learn the truth about the Demondim-spawn. More than that, she had let slip an opportunity to understand the changes in Jeremiah and Covenant. If only the gift of the wedge had lasted longer-

She had sacrificed her own concerns for the safety of Revelstone. The loss of augmented percipience and blazing Law seemed to blind her.

Nevertheless a grim and satisfied part of her knew what she had accomplished, and how. That was aid , she thought as she blinked at the rain. Out of the Land’s past, Esmer had brought ur-viles and Waynhim to serve her in the truest sense of the word.

So where was his betrayal? How did the presence and assistance of the Demondim-spawn endanger her, or the Land? Had Esmer simply intended to repay a perceived debt? Was that possible?

Linden could not believe that he had come to the end of his self-contradictions.

Still the ur-viles and Waynhim had given her more help than she could have expected or imagined. And in so doing, they had made themselves vulnerable to her. While their bestowed percipience had endured, she could have probed their deepest and most cherished secrets. They had trusted her-

She did not comprehend what motivated them; but she was no longer able to doubt them. Esmer’s intentions were not theirs. When he betrayed her, he would do so through his own deeds, not through the presence or purposes of the Demondim-spawn.

Until her first rush of weariness passed, she did not notice that Liand was speaking to her, murmuring his astonishment.

“Heaven and Earth, Linden.” His voice was husky with wonder. “I know not how to name what you have wrought. Never have I witnessed such fire. Not even in the course of our flight from the Demondim-” She felt his awe through his grasp on her arm. “For a moment while you dazzled me, I seemed to stand at the side of the Land’s redemption.”

Earlier he had told her, You have it within you to perform horrors. But she had not done so here: of that she was certain. Instead she had struck an important blow in Revelstone’s defence.

Sighing to herself, she began to struggle against her fatigue. So much remained to be done

“You have extinguished the Fall,” Stave announced as if she had asked for confirmation. “The bale of the IIIearth Stone is now absent from this time.” Then he added, “Thus the Demondim are enraged. Already they assail the Keep. If the Masters wish to preserve Revelstone, a long and arduous battle awaits them. Yet you have made it conceivable that they will prevail.”

Dully Linden tried to think of some other way that she might oppose the horde. In spite of Stave’s attempt to reassure her, she was not confident that his kinsmen could hold off the Demondim for long. But she had already spent all of her resources. Only the support of her friends and the nourishing touch of the Staff kept her on her feet. And Covenant wanted her to meet him near Furl Falls: a walk of, what, close to two leagues? If she did not rally soon, her friends would have to carry her.