Fatal Revenant

cost him; but he did not flinch from it.

As soon as he closed the door behind him, she began to stride back and forth in front of the hearth, stamping the Staff of Law lightly on the floor with each step. She had told the truth: she needed to think. But she was also restless for action. She had let too much time pass. Surely her foes had already formed new plans and started to carry them out? Roger and the croyel had escaped the convulsion under Melenkurion Skyweir. Moksha Jehannum’s role remained hidden. If they and the skurj and Kastenessen and Esmer and Kevin’s Dirt and Joan’s caesures did not suffice to achieve Lord Foul’s desires, he would devise new threats. The stranger outside Revelstone’s gates might be one such peril. Or he might be an ally as unexpected as the Mahdoubt.

Yet Linden could not leave her rooms without Stave. She did not know her way through Lord’s Keep. And she needed him for other reasons as well. Therefore she had to wait.

While she paced, she tried to imagine what she would have done if she had been free to exact answers from the Theomach.

Slowly the flames in the hearth dwindled, allowing a chill to fill Linden’s rooms. But she did not close the shutters, or put more wood on the fire. The darkness outside Revelstone would be colder.

When she heard a knock at her door, she called out immediately. “Come in!”

As the door opened to admit Stave, she saw all three of the Humbled behind him. But they did not follow him inside, or prevent him from closing the door. Apparently they were content to ensure that she could not leave her quarters without their consent.

“Chosen.” Perhaps to reassure her, Stave bowed yet again. “I have fulfilled your word. All that you have elected to relate, I have conveyed to the Masters.”

Poised and impatient on the verge of attempting to take charge of her fate, Linden found that her mouth and throat had gone dry. She could feel her heart’s labour in her chest. Her voice was unnaturally husky as she asked. “How did they react?”

He gave a small shrug. They are the Masters of the Land.”

She tried to grin, but succeeded only at grimacing. “In other words, they didn’t react at all.”

Stave faced her with his one eye and his flat countenance. “They chafe at my ability to silence my thoughts. For that reason, they seek to mute their own. But they cannot. Their communion precludes them from acquiring my skill.

“They conclude that you propose to confront the stranger who has brought an end to the Demondim. This they conceive in part because it is your way to leave no obstacle unchallenged, and in part because you have declined to speak of the Mahdoubt.”

And that’s why,” muttered Linden harshly. “there are now three of them outside my door.” Then she forced herself to soften her tone. “But do they believe me’?”

“That you have spoken sooth,” he replied without inflection. “is plain to me. Therefore I have made it plain to them.”

“Good.” A small relief lessened her tension briefly. “Thank you.”

While she could still bear to remain passive, she drank the last of Glimmermere’s water. Anele had not touched it, presumably for the same reason that he refused to bathe in the lake, or suffer the touch of hurtloam.

“Tell me,” she said, striving to sound conversational; undemanding. “Why don’t you want to talk about that stranger? Or about the Mahdoubt?”

He did not look away. “Like the Masters, I am uncertain. Therefore I prefer to await the resolution of my doubts.”

Linden scrutinised him. “Uncertain?”

“The Mahdoubt and the stranger are entwined in my thoughts. I speculate concerning them, but my imaginings are unconfirmed. If I am mistaken, I do not wish to compound my error by speaking prematurely.”

She nodded. “I understand. I don’t know why the Mahdoubt disappeared when she did, but she’s my friend. She saved my life. That’s why I didn’t say anything. As far as I’m concerned, she should be allowed to keep her secrets.” Then Linden added, “But I don’t feel that way about our stranger. He’s a bit too fortuitous for my taste.” His defeat of the horde resembled Roger’s and the croyel’s arrival in glamour. “I think that we should go relieve some of our ignorance.”

Stave appeared to hesitate. “Do you conceive that the Masters will permit it’?”

Linden tightened her grip on the Staff. “Oh, they’ll permit it, all right. You told them my story. Right now, they need answers as badly as we do.

“I’m sure that they still don’t trust me. And the fact that they were so wrong about Roger and my son might make them even more suspicious. Now they really don’t know who to trust.

“But you told them about the Theomach. And they know that the Mahdoubt isn’t just a servant of Revelstone. If they want to go on calling themselves the Masters of the Land, they need to know who that stranger is. They need to know how he disposed of the Demondim.” And why. “If I’m willing to risk talking to him, I don’t see how they can object.”

After a slight pause, Stave nodded. “As you say, Chosen. If they reason otherwise, they will reconsider.”

Then he turned to open the door.

In the hall outside, the Humbled stood arrayed like a blockade; and for an instant, Linden’s steps faltered. But Branl, Clyme, and Galt parted smoothly, permitting Stave to walk between them. At the former Master’s back, she left her rooms unopposed. As she followed Stave, the Humbled formed an escort behind her.

So far, at least, they tolerated her actions.

Her boots struck echoes from the smooth stone, but the Haruchai moved soundlessly. Obliquely she regretted that she had sent the rest of her friends away. Their company might have comforted her. You hold great powers. Yet if we determine that we must wrest them from you, do you truly doubt that we will prevail? She had heard too many forecasts of disaster. On some deep level, she feared herself in spite of her granite resolve; or because of it.

Nevertheless she kept pace with Stave as he guided her through the intricate passages of Lord’s Keep. She could acknowledge doubts and distrust, but they did not sway her.

Stairways descended at unexpected intervals. Corridors seemed to branch randomly, running in all directions. At every juncture, however, the way had been prepared. Lamps and torches illumined Stave’s route. And he walked ahead of her with unerring confidence. Apparently the Masters condoned her intentions.

The passages seemed long to her. Yet eventually Stave led her down a short hall that ended in the high cavern inside Revelstone’s inner gates. There, too, lamps and torches had been set out for her; and when she looked past Stave’s shoulder, she saw that the Keep’s heavy interlocking doors stood slightly open.

That they remained poised to close swiftly did not trouble her. The Masters were understandably chary. One man, alone, had defeated the entire horde of the Demondim-had eaten them, according to Liand-in spite of their prodigious theurgies and their apparently limitless power to resurrect themselves. Naturally the defenders of Revelstone wanted to be ready for the possibility-the likelihood? — of calamity.

Now her steps no longer echoed. The vast forehall swallowed the clap of her boots, diminishing her until she seemed laughable in the face of the dangers which crowded the Land’s deep night. Still she followed Stave. Occasionally she touched the cold circle of Covenant’s ring. If at intervals she wished for Liand’s presence, or for Mahrtiir’s, she did not show it.

As she trod the length of the forehall, she hoped that Galt, Clyme, and Branl would remain in Revelstone. She did not want to hold herself responsible for either their actions or their safety. And she was in no mood to argue with them if they disapproved of her choices. But when they accompanied her through the narrow gap between the gates into the walled courtyard that separated the main Keep from the watchtower, she shrugged off her wish to be free of them. She could not pretend, even to herself, that she might not need defenders.

Apparently she was doomed to pursue her fate in the company of halfhands.

While she walked along the passage under the watchtower, the warded throat of Revelstone, she heard her boot heels echoing again. The sound seemed to measure her progress like a form of mockery, a rhythmic iteration of Lord Foul’s distant scorn. And the air became distinctly colder. Involuntarily she shivered. She felt Masters