Stephen Donaldson - Fatal Revenant

“There’s a tunnel on the other side,” added Jeremiah. His muddy gaze had assumed the colour of hunger; avarice. The corner of his eye beat frenetically. In his right hand, his halfhand, he clutched his racecar as though it were a talisman. It leads to the place where the EarthBlood oozes out of the rock. That’s where we have to go. Covenant has to drink right from the source. Otherwise there’s no Power of Command.”

“But how?” Linden asked weakly. “That much water-We’ll be washed away.”

For a moment, Covenant looked at her directly; let her see rocklight like coals in his eyes. In the presence of more Earthpower than she had exerted since the time when she first formed her Staff of Law and unmade the Sunbane, he showed no sign of strain; gave no hint that he could be effaced.

Grinning avidly, he replied, “No, we won’t. I wasn’t when Elena brought me here. You’ll probably have to crawl. But you can do it. All this Earthpower-It’s making you stronger. You just don’t feel the difference because there’s so much more of it.”

Then he turned back to the falls as though he had no more attention to spare for her. Motioning for Jeremiah to join him, he moved toward the gemmed cascade.

Jeremiah complied at once. Side by side, he and Covenant headed through the spray to essay the wet jumble of rocks.

As she watched them stride away, panic tugged at Linden again. She had to blink constantly at the sting of puissance; could hardly breathe against the might and dampness of the mist. Reflections of rocklight confused her, threatening her balance. Covenant was wrong. She could not withstand that torrential mass of water.

But she had already made her decision. She had to try-

For a moment longer, she watched Covenant and Jeremiah take their first steps into the waterfall. As they ascended the clutter of stone, she saw forces which should have crushed them crash onto their heads and shoulders, and splash away swathed in jewels. At erratic intervals, the mountain’s epitonic bones trembled.

Then, fiercely, she set down the Staff so that she could fling off both her robe and her cloak: protections which she had been given by people who wanted to help her. She did not need them in the warm cavern. And she feared that their weight when they became soaked would drag her to her death.

Clad only in her red flannel shirt, her jeans, and her boots, as she had been when she had first left her home to pursue Roger Covenant and his victims, Linden Avery took up the Staff and set herself to bear the brunt of the waterfall.

Spray drenched her before she reached the falls itself. Her face streamed: her shirt and jeans clung to her skin. She felt a fright akin to the alarm which had afflicted her at the Mithil’s Plunge. Ahead of her lay a fatal passage in which everything that she had known and understood might be transmogrified into the stuff of nightmares.

As soon as she felt the first impact of the falls, she knew that she would not be able to climb the rocks standing. The worn granite and obsidian were as slick as glazed ice, and the water had the weight of an avalanche. Helpless to do otherwise, she dropped to her hands and knees. Then she wedged one end of the Staff into a crack between the stones and pulled herself up the shaft as if it were a lifeline.

The wood was smooth and wet: perhaps it should have been as slippery as the rocks and boulders; as unreliable. But she had fashioned it out of love and grief and her passion for healing. Her hands did not lose their grip as she crept slowly deeper into the full force of the waterfall.

It threatened to smash her; carry her away. She could not draw breath. Nevertheless she dragged herself along the Staff until she found a place where she could jam one arm securely among the stones. Anchored there, she used her free hand to haul the Staff after her and brace its iron heel against a boulder. Then she worked her way up its length again while the falls bludgeoned her, filled her eyes and nose and mouth, tore at her clothes.

Once more she anchored herself, raised the Staff higher, gripped it desperately so that she could climb the rocks. And before she reached the end of the shaft, her head emerged from the pitiless cascade into complete darkness.

Gasping, she scrambled out of the waterfall onto flat stone. Her arms and legs quivered as though she had ascended a precipice: she felt too weak to shake the water out of her eyes. No glint or suggestion of rocklight penetrated the falls. She crouched over the Staff in untrammelled midnight. If her companions made any sound-if they waited for her instead of hastening toward their destination-she did not hear it. She only knew that she could hear because her gasping seemed to spread out ahead of her, adumbrated by the constriction of granite.

The rock under her was as slick as the stones of the waterfall. It was not wet; had not been worn to treachery by ages of water. Rather it resisted contact. The scent and taste of Earthpower was far more concentrated here, so thick and poignant that it made her weep: too potent to condone the touch of ordinary flesh. Stone which had become half metaphysical spurned her hands, her knees, her boots.

And the smell-The odour of distilled strength swamped all of her senses. She foundered in it. It transcended her as profoundly as any caesure , although it held no wrongness. In its own way, it was as immense and fraught with mass as Melenkurion Skyweir. Her mere brief mortality could not encompass it.

Instinctively she pressed her forehead to the stone, performing an act of obeisance to the sovereign vitality of Earthpower.

The wood of the Staff had become hot. It radiated heat as if it had been forged of molten iron. It should have burned her unbearably; scalded the skin from her fingers; set fire to her drenched clothing. But it did not. It was hers. Her relationship with it enabled her to hold it, unharmed, in spite of its inherent response to the EarthBlood’s extravagance.

A tunnel, Jeremiah had said. On the other side.

Still she heard nothing. Covenant and Jeremiah must have gone on ahead of her. Covenant had told her that if she did not drink the Blood of the Earth immediately after he and Jeremiah disappeared, she might be too late to save her son from the consequences of Joan’s death. Yet they had left her behind.

She needed light. And she needed to be able to stand on stone which repulsed every touch. If she could not catch up with her companions-

“She made it,” Covenant remarked abruptly. Linden thought that she heard satisfaction in his voice.

I can’t do it without you.

He bore the flagrant hazard of the tunnel easily, as though it had no power to affect him. He had lied about his reasons for seeking to avoid Berek Halfhand’s touch. And hers.

“I told you she would.” Jeremiah sounded like the darkness. “You did, when you were with Elena. And you weren’t half as strong as she is.”

Just be wary of me. Remember that I’m dead.

Tears coursed from Linden’s eyes. She could not stop them.

“Jeremiah, honey,” she panted, still braced on her hands and knees as if in supplication. “where are you? I can’t see.”

The peril of your chosen path I deemed too great. Therefore I have set you upon another.

But if Jeremiah possessed the ability to construct portals which would foil the perceptions of even the Elohim , surely he could evade High Lord Damelon’s discernment? Where was the peril? What had the Theomach meant? Had he simply been ignorant of Jeremiah’s talent? Or had he foreseen some more oblique danger?

I do not desire the destruction of the Earth. If you are wise-if wisdom is possible for one such as you-you also will not desire it.