Stephen Donaldson - Fatal Revenant

Although the details of their situation were very different, Covenant and Jeremiah faced the same problem. With the Staff of Law and Covenant’s ring, Linden had the power to alter the Land’s past irrevocably. If she acted on knowledge which she should not have been able to possess-

More to herself than to her companion, she muttered, “Are we having fun yet?” Then she resumed her questions.

“We’re going to Berek’s camp because we’re in an impossible position. We need help, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else to get it. But it’s pretty obvious that this is what you had in mind for us. If all you wanted was to interfere with Covenant’s plans, you could have left us anywhere. You picked this place. This time.

“I assume that what we’re doing suits your purpose, whatever that is. But isn’t it dangerous ? For God’s sake, we’re about to meet the most famous of the Land’s old heroes.” Covenant had warned her about ripples. No matter how careful we are, he’ll see and hear things-”

“Lady,” the Theomach put in, be at peace.” His tone was gentle; meant to soothe her. “I have said that you serve my purpose. Therefore I must serve yours.

“Here the preservation of the Arch need not trouble you. That burden is mine. At great cost, I have garnered knowledge which you lack, and my knowledge is profound. Be assured that I will watch over you. Indeed, I have already done so. I have set you at a distance which ensured that my theurgy would not be witnessed, but which will not prevent the accomplishment of your intent.

“Where my guidance is needed, I will provide it. And I will accommodate the effects of both your presence and your deeds. You need only trust in yourself-and heed my counsel. In the fullness of time, my aid will demonstrate its worth.”

To her surprise, Linden found that she believed him. He was not closed to her: she could hear his sincerity.

In dreams, Covenant had told her to trust herself. And he had sounded like himself; like the Covenant whom she remembered rather than the man who led her eastward. The man who had lied-

“And I guess,” she murmured to the cold and the waiting night, “that I’ll have to take your promises on faith.”

Her companion answered her with a silence that seemed to imply assent.

By slow degrees, stars began to prick the darkening sky as if they were manifesting themselves like Covenant and Jeremiah across an unfathomable gulf of time. Warmed by Earthpower, Linden could endure the piercing accumulation of the cold. Nevertheless the first few stars seemed as chill as absolute ice, gelid with distance and loneliness. She could have considered herself one of them, unfathomably alone in spite of the Theomach’s presence.

Still she had to make use of the time which had been given to her-or imposed upon her.

“In that case,” she went on. “can you tell me why you interfered with Covenant and Jeremiah in the first place? What was so dangerous about what they were trying to do’?”

“Lady,” the Insequent answered without hesitation, “I do not consider it plausible that you would have been able to avoid High Lord Damelon’s notice. From this arises the true peril. He holds the Staff of Law. The first Staff, of which yours is but an unfinished semblance.”

Linden wanted to ask, Unfinished? But the Theomach did not pause.

“Surely it is plain that the simultaneous proximity in Damelon’s presence of two such implements of Earthpower would cause a convulsion in the Arch. And your own knowledge that such an event both did not and should not occur would increase the violence of the violation. You are fully aware that your Staff was created many centuries after the destruction of the Staff which Damelon Giantfriend will hold upon his approach to Melenkurion Skyweir. That awareness would sever the continuity of the Land as it exists within your own experience. It would sever the essential continuity of Time.”

In this circumstance, her mind cannot be distinguished from the Arch of Time.

His explanation shocked her. “Then why-?” She faltered in dismay, unable to complete the question. Why would Covenant want to take that kind of risk? What had he hoped to accomplish?

“Lady, nothing is certain,” her companion said as if he wanted to reassure her. “Yet the peril cannot be doubted. In fear, I disturbed the Halfhand’s designs. And also in pride,” he admitted, “for assuredly the Elohim would have done so if I did not. Here both your presence and your ignorance ward the Halfhand. But neither would suffice to forestall the Elohim if High Lord Damelon became cognisant of your Staff.”

He paused for a moment, then added carefully, “It is sooth that you aid my purposes. But I do not require such service. I am able to achieve what I must. I was not compelled by my own needs to thwart the Halfhand.”

His tone asked Linden to believe him. She heard an emotion in it which may have been sympathy or pleading.

The heavens held too many stars: she could not imagine them all. They seemed as profligate and irredeemable as the motes of dust in a wilderland. Directly or indirectly, Covenant had lied to her. And he had planned to chance exposing Linden and Jeremiah and the Land and Time itself to the possibility of a catastrophic encounter with Berek’s son.

As she walked on across the surface of the snow and ice into the unknown dark, she clung to the Staff of Law, her Staff; and to Covenant’s ring on its chain under her shirt; and to the warning that Esmer had given her.

You must be the first to drink of the EarthBlood.

She absolutely did not trust the man who had brought her son back to her with his mind restored and his heart shut against her.

Some time later, long after her comparatively easy progress had become a stupefied trudge of hunger and weariness, and even the Staffs given warmth had been enclosed in a cold as pitiless as the sky’s bedizened infinity, she caught the first scent of smoke.

When she noticed it initially, she was not sure of it. But soon it became unmistakable: wood smoke, the distinctive tang of a campfire. Somewhere within the range of her senses, people had lit flames against the winter’s cruelty.

She lifted her head as her pulse quickened. “Is that-?” she asked the Theomach. Studying the smells, she detected many fires. And now the smoke carried faint intimations of cooking; of meats being roasted, stews bubbling, poultices steeping over the fires.

“Berek’s camp is nigh,” her companion confirmed. “Half a league, no more. Shortly we will encounter those who scout the night for the protection of their comrades.”

As her percipience attuned itself, Linden became conscious of more than fires and food. She heard or felt muffled groans, oaths muttered in anger or pain, occasional sharp commands. They came to her through the silence, carried on the frigid air. And her nerves found an early taste of suffering; of wounds that threatened death, and hurts that were worse than dying. Among them, she perceived the sickly odours of illness, malnutrition, infection: fetid bowels, running sores, flesh in all of the crippling stages of putrefaction: the consequences of a prolonged and brutal struggle. Camped somewhere ahead of her were the remnants of two desperate armies; forces which had warred against each other season after season in a running battle across much of the Land’s terrain. Berek and his warriors-and their enemies-must have been marching and fighting and dying for two years or more. Those among them who had somehow remained hale enough to give battle must be pitifully few-and growing fewer by the day.

“If I am not mistaken,” the Theomach remarked after a brief pause, “the Halfhand and your son have marked the presence of Berek’s scouts, and have concealed themselves in darkness, awaiting our accompaniment ere they venture farther.”