Stephen Donaldson - Fatal Revenant

She gave it up: it was beyond her comprehension. The aftereffects of synaesthesia left her in disarray. Her synapses seemed to misfire randomly, afflicting her with instants of distortion and bafflement. Sighing, she made an effort to stand without the support of the Staff.

“All right,” she murmured to Covenant. “We don’t have time. This makes me sick. What do you want me to do?”

She could not imagine how she might impede the pursuit of the Viles.

“Finally!” Covenant growled.

“Go down there,” he told her at once, indicating the southeastward slope of the ridge. “Twenty or thirty paces. That should give us enough room. Use the Staff. Make a Forbidding. As big as you can. That won’t stop them, but it’ll slow them down. They’ll want to understand it.”

Linden peered at him, blinking vaguely. “What’s a Forbidding?”

“Hell and blood!” Now his anger was not directed at her. “I keep forgetting how ignorant-” Grimly he stopped himself. For a moment, he appeared to study the air: he may have been searching through his memories of time. Then his gaze returned, smouldering, to hers. “Don’t worry about that. What we need is a wall of power. Any kind of power. It just has to be dangerous. And it has to cover that whole hillside.

“ Go ,” he insisted, gesturing her away. “Do it now .”

Linden watched her son piling wood. In some sense, Covenant was telling her the truth. She felt the garish battle in the distance shift as the Viles adjusted their tactics to counter Caerroil Wildwood’s clinquant melodious onslaught. The creatures might soon break free. She took a step or two, still gazing at Jeremiah with supplication in her eyes. Please , she had tried to urge him earlier. Don’t betray me.

She did not understand why he needed so much wood.

And she could not conceive of any barrier except fire.

Fire on the verge of Garroting Deep.

Hardly aware of what she did, she trudged downward. Her mind was full of flames. Flames at the edge of the forest. Flames which might leap in an instant to dried twigs and boughs. If she did not tend them constantly, keep them under control, any small gust of wind might

Lover of trees.

Still she descended the hillside, trying to find her way through memories of twisted blackness, solid irruptions of sound, music that should have been as bright and beautiful as dew. What choice did she have? They’re going to figure out what happened. They’ll know who to blame. She had baited a trap by trying to reason with the Viles. They would attempt to kill Covenant. They would certainly kill her son. Moment by moment, Caerroil Wildwood was teaching them to share his taste for slaughter.

But fire -? So close to Garroting Deep? The Forestal would turn his enmity against her. If any hint of flame touched the trees, she would deserve his wrath.

As she moved, however, she grew stronger. That simple exertion reaffirmed the interconnections of muscles and nerves and choice: with each pace, she sloughed away her confusion. And when she had taken a dozen steps, she began to sip sustenance from the Staff, risking the effect of Law on Covenant and Jeremiah. That strengthened her as well.

By degrees, she became herself again. She began to think.

What would happen if she raised a wall of fire here ?

Caerroil Wildwood would see it. Of course he would. And he would respond-For the sake of his trees, he would forego his struggle with the Viles in an instant.

Then the Viles would be released to pursue the people who had tricked them. Linden and her companions would be assailed by both forces. It was even conceivable that the Forestal and the Viles would form an alliance-

If that happened, what she knew and understood of the Land’s history would be shattered. The ramifications would expand until they became too fundamental to be contained.

Covenant was urging her to hazard the Arch of Time.

You serve a purpose not your own, and have no purpose.

He and Jeremiah had decided to set Caerroil Wildwood and the Viles against each other before they had entered Bargas Slit. They may have decided it days ago. And they had kept it from her.

In the distance, the battle raged on. The Viles may have been trying to disengage, but they had not succeeded.

“No.” Linden did not shout. She did not care whether or not Covenant heard her. “I won’t do it. I won’t. It’s too dangerous.” Turning sharply, she began to stride back up the slope. “You’ll have to think of something else.”

Quenching the Staff so that it would not imperil her companions, she approached them with her refusal plainly written on her face.

“Linden, God damn it!” Covenant raged down at her. Wailing like a child, Jeremiah protested. “ Mom! ”

She ignored them until she was near enough to meet Jeremiah’s stricken stare, Covenant’s hot ire. Then she stopped.

“It’s too dangerous,” she repeated as if she were as resolute as Stave, as certain as Mahrtiir. “Fire is the only barrier that I know how to make. I won’t risk the trees.

“If you can’t outrun the Viles, you’ll have to come up with another plan,” another trick.

God , she missed Thomas Covenant: the man he had once been. Her disappointment in her companions was too profound for indignation.

They froze, poised on the brink of eruptions. Briefly their disparate faces mirrored each other. In them, Linden saw, not alarm or dismay, but naked anger and frustration. Jeremiah’s eyes were as dark as blood. Ruddy heat shone from Covenant’s gaze. She had time to think, They don’t care about the Deep. Or Caerroil Wildwood. Or me. Maybe they don’t even care about the Arch. They just want to do what they’ve been planning all along.

Then together Covenant and Jeremiah wheeled and ran, rushing to collect the last twigs and branches.

A moment later, they were done: their pile of deadwood was complete. In the distance, music and vitriol vied for harm. Quickly Covenant and Jeremiah moved to stand facing each other, leaving space between them for Linden and the Staff.

Grieving, she entered the ready arch of their arms.

According to Jeremiah, their next dislocation took them four leagues farther along the Last Hills. Another burst of power crossed five. Then three. Then five again. Indirectly they violated time rather than space: they excised the hours and effort necessary to travel such distances.

Their mound of broken wood accompanied them through every imponderable leap. Somehow they drew it with them without enclosing it in their arc of power.

Eventually they stopped. While Linden stumbled to her knees, utterly disoriented by the shifting ground and the veering horizons, the unsteady stagger of the world, Covenant and Jeremiah retreated from her. “This should be far enough.” Covenant seemed to struggle for breath. “We can rest here. At least for a few minutes.”

The anger in his voice was as raw as his respiration.

Linden’s head reeled: her entire sensorium foundered. She could not discern any sign of the distant battle.

“Covenant,” Jeremiah gasped. He sounded more tired than irate. “This isn’t a surprise.” He may have been warning his only friend. “She is who she is. She’s never going to trust us. Not until we prove ourselves.”

Breathing deeply, Linden lifted her head; focused her eyes on the Staff of Law and refused to blink until it no longer yawed from side to side. Through her teeth, she insisted. “It was too dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?” asked Covenant. His tone had become level despite his hard breathing. Apparently he had decided to curb his anger. “All you had to do was give me my ring.”