Stephen Donaldson - Fatal Revenant

At last, the stabbing glare was blunted enough to let Linden make out blurred details through the slits between her fingers. Gradually her health-sense approached clarity. The sun shone hard on a wide field of snow; snow so pristine and untrampled that it reflected and concentrated the light cruelly. At one time, she guessed, it would have covered her knees. But it had fallen some time ago. Days of hard sunshine had melted its surface often enough to compact the snow and form an icy crust. As her vision improved, she could see the scars which Covenant’s boots had gouged in the snow, leading away from her. But he and his companion or antagonist remained indistinct: they were no more than blots on her straining sight.

The surrounding silence was sharper than the chill, and more ominous.

She did not know where she was. She could be sure only that she was still in the Land. Even through the snow and her freezing boots, she felt its characteristic life-pulse, its unique vitality. But this place was not familiar in any other way.

“Covenant.” Her voice was a hoarse croak, raw with cold. “Where’s Jeremiah?”

Instead of responding to Covenant’s gibes, the stranger said, She requires your consolation.” Now he sounded impatient with Covenant. “Doubtless your merciful heart will urge you to attend to her. I will abide the delay.”

The imprecise stain of Covenant’s shape appeared to gesture in Linden’s direction. “Ignore her. She always thinks what she wants is more important than what anybody else is doing. She’s lost here without me. We’re too far from her time. And she can’t get back without me. She can wait until I’m done with you.”

Too far-

She should have been shocked.

— from her time.

Covenant had removed her from Revelstone, from the upland plateau, from her friends-and from the time in which she belonged.

And she can’t get back-

But the incomprehensible jolt of her dislocation was fading as her senses reasserted themselves. She could not be shocked again, or paralysed: not while Jeremiah was missing. At that moment, nothing else mattered.

Don’t you understand that you can still erase me?

Covenant had cause to fear her. She could compel answers-

Squeezing her eyes shut to dismiss tears of pain, Linden opened them again; dropped her hand. “Covenant!” she gasped harshly as she took a couple of unsteady steps toward him. Her boots broke through the stiff crust and plunged into snow deep enough to reach her shins. “Catch!”

In desperation and dismay, she flung the Staff of Law straight at him.

Panic flared in his eyes. Cursing, he jumped aside.

As he stumbled away, one heel of the Staff jabbed through the ice two or three paces beyond him. Then the wood fell flat. Almost immediately, its inherent warmth melted the crust. In a small flurry of snow, the shaft sank out of sight.

“Hellfire!” Covenant panted. “Hellfire. Hellfire.”

Linden stamped forward another step, then stopped as she saw the newcomer clearly for the first time.

He was moving over the fierce whiteness of the snow. And he was closer to the Staff than she was. When he stooped to retrieve it, she could not stop him. Helplessly she watched him lift it in both hands, examine it from end to end.

With her heart hammering, she clutched at the cold circle of Covenant’s ring: her only remaining instrument of power.

A moment later, the stranger moved again. She feared that he would withdraw, but he did not. Instead he came toward her as if he were gliding over the surface of the ice.

He was wrapped from head to foot in russet cloth: it covered him like a winding sheet. His hands and feet were bound. Even his head was bound, even his eyes, so that only the blunt protrusion of his nose and the hollow of his mouth indicated that his face had any features at all. Soon he stood before Linden, holding the Staff in shrouded hands.

“Lady,” he said, “that was foolish. Yet it was also clever. Already the wisdom of my intervention is manifest.” He paused, obviously studying the Staff. Then he announced, “Sadly, it is incomplete. Your need is great. You will require puissance. I return this implement of Law to you with my thanks for the knowledge of its touch.”

Formally he proffered the Staff to Linden.

With her pulse pounding, Linden released the ring and snatched up her Staff.

Then the stranger touched the spot where Covenant’s ring lay hidden under her clothes. That is another matter altogether. I have dreamed of such might-” The light voice softened with awe and envy-and with compassion. “It is a heavy burden. It will become more so. And it is not for me. Therefore I am grieved. Yet I am also gladdened to learn that I have not dreamed in vain.”

Linden ignored him. She had no attention to spare for anything except Jeremiah’s absence. And she had seen Covenant’s fright. She still had power over him.

Driving her boots into the ice and snow, she surged toward her former lover.

“Understand this!” she shouted as she floundered closer to him. “You want something. I don’t know what it is, but you want it bad. And I can keep you from getting it. You need me.” Her hands itched, eager for fire, where they gripped the Staff. “So answer the damn question. Where is my son? ”

For an instant, crimson glinted in Covenant’s eyes. Then it vanished, replaced by an expression that may have been alarm. “You’ll be lost-” he began.

“I don’t care ! Without Jeremiah, nothing that you do means anything to me!”

He flinched; looked away. “Oh, well. He’ll be here.” His tone may have been intended to placate her. “Esmer helped us get away, but now he’s trying to hold onto your kid. Life would be so much easier if he would just make up his mind. But we were ready for him. And the ur-viles have regrouped. That’s lucky for us. Esmer can’t fight them and keep his grip on your kid at the same time.” Covenant appeared to study the air. “He’ll show up pretty soon. The power we used to slip past time ties us together.”

Aid and betrayal.

Linden was not sure that she believed him. Nevertheless his reply seemed to drain the strength from her limbs; the anger. At the same time, her overwrought nerves finally awoke to the cold. Her cloak had been drenched, and her clothes were wet. God, she was freezing-Winter and ice surrounded her. Wherever she was-and when-this was the coldest time of the year; too cold even for snow.

She had no idea what was going on, or how to understand it. Pretty soon-Deliberately she looked around, hoping to see something that she could recognise; something that would make sense of her situation.

But there was nothing familiar here except Covenant. She stood in ice and snow in the flat bottom of a wide valley surrounded by steep, snow-clad hills, all so white and bright and difficult to gaze upon that they might have been featureless. Sunlight as bitter and cutting as the snow poured down on her from a sky made pale by cold. And the sky held no suggestion of Kevin’s Dirt, or of any other taint. Nothing defined this place except the marks of her boots, and of Covenant’s, and the pain in her lungs. Without her health-sense, she would not have known north from south.

Covenant had told the truth. She was too far from her time .

If she did not find a source of heat soon, she would start to die. She was already shivering. That would grow worse; become uncontrollable. Then would come drowsiness. Soon the cold itself would begin to feel like warmth, and she would be lost.

“All right,” she said, trembling. “Assume that I believe you. I can’t survive this. If I don’t use the Staff-” Her voice shook. “As far as I can see, the cold doesn’t bother you,” either