Stephen Donaldson - Fatal Revenant

At once, Covenant and Jeremiah separated. Her son came to stand in front of her scarcely more than an arm’s length away. His smile may have been intended to reassure her; but the frantic twitching at the corner of his eye made him appear feverish with excitement or dread. His muddy gaze seemed to blur in the wind, losing definition as the air whipped past him.

At the same time, Covenant positioned himself directly behind Linden, facing her and Jeremiah. Like her son, he stood nearly close enough to reach out and touch her.

I can’t do it-

Jeremiah glanced past her toward Covenant; nodded at what he saw. His smile fell away, replaced by an expression of intent concentration. His mouth moved as if he were speaking, although he made no sound that she could hear. Still he and Covenant were closed to her health-sense. She felt the knotted anxiety and frustration of her friends more acutely than the presence of Covenant or Jeremiah. Only ordinary sight assured her that her son and his companion in fact stood near her.

I can’t-

The Masters tightened their cordon, perhaps preparing to intervene if they saw any sign of her power-or if her friends attempted to intrude.

Slowly, and apparently in unison, Jeremiah and Covenant began to raise their arms, holding their fingers splayed. For an instant, Jeremiah’s hands seemed to point straight at Covenant’s through Linden’s shoulders. But their arms continued to rise until together the two men implied an arch over her head.

— the perils which have been prepared-

Without warning, Anele proclaimed, “I have said that I no longer fear the ur-viles! Did you not heed me?”

At the edge of her vision, Linden caught a glimpse of blackness to the north, upstream beside the river. Instinctively she turned to squint across the wind in that direction.

A tight black wedge of ur-viles had appeared with startling suddenness. They might have been translated from some other realm of existence, although Linden knew that they had only concealed themselves until they were ready to be noticed. Their loremaster brandished an iron jerrid or sceptre fraught with vitriol: the entire formation was a seethe of power, bitter and corrosive. And the wedge seemed huge - Every ur-vile that she and Esmer had brought to this time must have joined together, united by some new interpretation of their Weird. Scores of glowing blades flashed among them, as cruel as lava, and as fatal.

They charged toward the poised arc of Masters, running hard. In seconds, they would be near enough to strike. Yet Linden believed instantly that their assault was not intended for the Haruchai . Handir and his kinsmen merely stood in the way.

The point of the wedge was aimed straight at her-or at Covenant and Jeremiah. The loremaster’s weapon spat acrid theurgy and ruin as the creatures rushed forward.

They had created manacles-

Frozen with shock, she had stared at them for two quick heartbeats, or three, before she realised that there were no Waynhim among them. She saw no Waynhim anywhere. Apparently the

ancient servants of the Land had declined to participate in the actions of their black kindred. But if they had not chosen to join the ur-viles, they also did not interfere.

What had their complex intentions required of them now?

If the manacles were intended for Covenant, and the ur-viles were trustworthy, then he was not.

If. If. If.

But the Demondim-spawn could not tell Linden how to reach her son.

Liand and Bhapa shouted warnings. Jeremiah dropped his arms, plainly stricken with dismay. At Linden’s back, Covenant snarled, “Hell and blood !” Then he yelled at the Masters. “ Stop them! We’ve been betrayed !”

The Haruchai had already spun to face the wedge. At Covenant’s command, they moved to intercept the ur-viles.

They were potent and supremely skilled. Nevertheless they were too few to do more than slow the advance of the creatures.

Linden had time to think, Betrayed. Yes. But not by the ur-viles. Suddenly her guts were filled with the nausea that bespoke Esmer’s nearness.

Looking around wildly, she saw him step out of the air on the far side of the river.

His cymar hung loosely along his limbs as if he were impervious to the tangling wind. She could hardly make out his features. In spite of the distance, however, the dangerous and fuming green of his eyes blazed vividly, as incandescent and unclean as small emerald suns tainted by despair.

In a mounting roar, he shouted, You have given birth to havoc, Haruchai , Bloodguard, treachers! Now bear the blame for the Land’s doom!”

Everything happened too quickly: Linden could not react to it. Ignoring Esmer, the ur-viles and the Masters flung themselves toward each other. Vitriol frothed and spattered on the blades of the creatures: the loremaster’s jerrid gathered gouts of darkness. But none of the weapons struck as the Haruchai spread out swiftly to challenge the wedge along its edges. Linden’s companions sprang forward to ward her, Stave and Mahrtiir first among them. And Esmer

Cail’s son made a savage gesture with one hand; gave a howl like a great blaring of horns. Instantly all of the earth under the feet of the ur-viles and the Masters erupted.

Grass and soil spattered upward like oil on hot iron. Gouts of sodden loam and rocks and roots and grass-blades burst into the air and were immediately torn to chaos by the wind. Ur-viles and Haruchai alike were scattered like withered leaves: they could not keep their feet, hold their formations; summon their power. Linden half expected to see them tumble away, hurled across the hillside by Esmer’s violence. But they only fell, and were tossed upward, and fell again, pummelled by a hurtling rain of stones and dirt.

Yet the ground where she stood with Jeremiah and Covenant remained stable. Shock and incomprehension held her friends motionless, but Esmer’s puissance did not threaten them.

He spared them deliberately: Linden could not believe otherwise. Aid and betrayal. He must have wanted Covenant and Jeremiah to succeed-

Abruptly Covenant yelled. “ Now , Jeremiah!”

The boy shrugged off his chagrin. Instantly obedient, he repulsed Linden’s companions with a flick of his hand. Then he raised his arms as he had before; swung them upward until once again they and Covenant’s suggested an arch over Linden’s head. Jeremiah resumed his voiceless incantation. Covenant may have done the same.

For a brief moment, a piece of time too slight to be measured by the convulsive labour of her heart, Linden felt power gather around her: the onset of an innominate theurgy. From Jeremiah, it seemed to be the same force which had stopped her in the forehall, but multiplied a hundredfold. From Covenant, however, it had the ferocity of running magma. If it continued, it would scorch the cloak from her back, char away her clothes until her flesh bubbled and ran.

Liand and Pahni may have shouted her name: even Stave may have called out to her. But their voices could not penetrate the accumulating catastrophe.

Then Linden heard and saw and felt and tasted a tremendous concussion. Lightning completed the arch over her head, striking like the devastation of worlds from Jeremiah’s fingertips to Covenant’s.

After that, Covenant and Jeremiah, all of her friends, Esmer, the geyser-scattered ur-viles and Haruchai , the gradual slopes on either side of the watercourse, the whole promontory of Revelstone: everything vanished. The fierce arc of lightning lingered momentarily, burned onto her retinas. The Earthpower of Glimmermere’s outflow persisted. But such things faded; and when they did, everything that she knew-perhaps everything that she had ever known-was gone.