Fatal Revenant

“There we beheld rainfall upon the mountains, and a storm gathering. But we have no fear of the world’s weather. Rather we rejoiced that we were freed from stone and constraint. And we had grown eager for the sight of Glimmermere. Therefore we made haste among the hills, that we might gain the eldritch tarn swiftly.

As we did so, Anele appeared to accompany us willingly”- Liand and Pahni nodded in confirmation- “though you had informed us that he would eschew the waters. He spoke constantly to himself as we hastened-” For a moment, Mahrtiir dropped his gaze as if he felt a touch of chagrin. It may be that we should have attended to his words. You have informed us that his madness is altered by that which lies beneath his feet. Some insight might have been gleaned from him.” Then the Manethrall looked at Linden again. “But we have grown accustomed to his muttering, which is largely incomprehensible to us. And our eagerness distracted us. We were grateful only that he kept pace without urging.”

Linden stared at him. The grass. Damn it, she thought, the grass. The region above Revelstone was not as lush as the Verge of Wandering, but its emerald and fertile greensward resembled the tall grass of that valley. And she had given not one moment’s consideration to how walking across the upland might affect the old man. She had been so shaken by her meeting with Esmer-and so apprehensive about talking to Covenant and Jeremiah-

“I made the same mistake,” she admitted to assuage her own chagrin. “We’ve all had a lot on our minds. Please go on.”

“Nonetheless,” Mahrtiir asserted severely, “the old man was altered. Failing to observe him clearly, we failed both him and you.

“I will not prolong my preamble. Together we gained the shores of the tarn. There we cast no reflection upon the waters, although Anele’s image was plainly visible. True to your word, he would not partake of Glimmermere’s benison. When we drank, however-when we had bathed and been transformed-”

Abruptly the Manethrall stopped, caught by a resurgence of his earlier reluctance.

Leaning forward earnestly, Liand explained on Mahrtiir’s behalf, “Linden, Anele spoke to us. He has not done so ere now. Always his moments of clear speech have been directed to you, or have been uttered in your name.” Bewilderment filled the Stonedownor’s face. “Upon the verges of Glimmermere, however, he addressed each of us in turn. And his manner of speaking-”

When Liand stumbled, Mahrtiir forced himself to resume. His voice was husky as he said, “Ringthane, it appeared to us that his voice resembled his fashion of speech when he accosted you in the Verge of Wandering, before fire and fury possessed him, and he was struck down for your preservation. And his words held such gentleness and sorrow that our hearts were wrung to hear him.”

Linden blinked in shock. Was it possible? Had Covenant spoken to her friends through Anele? Had they heard his voice? Felt his love? While she had been alone with him and her son, struggling to make sense of their strangeness, their disturbing evasions, their glimpses of scorn?

Oh, Linden. I’m so glad to see you.

Covenant had claimed or implied that he was exercising his relationship with Time for several different purposes at once, simultaneously making himself and Jeremiah manifest in Revelstone, seeking the means to oppose Kastenessen, and defending the Arch against Joan’s caesures. Could he also have taken possession of Anele; addressed her friends with “gentleness and sorrow”?

Or-

Not to mention some of the other powers that have noticed what’s happening here and want to take advantage of it.

— were there other beings at work? Forces other than Kastenessen and the Demondim and Esmer and the Elohim? Was some foe whom she had never met endeavouring to manipulate her friends?

Linden, find me. I can’t help you unless you find me.

Oh, God, she thought; groaned. Who’s doing this? How many lies have we been told?

Nevertheless this new surprise galvanised her. Her lassitude vanished: even her inward storm was pushed aside. Throughout her encounter with Covenant, he had sounded subtly false; insidiously out of tune. If Jeremiah had become so much more than the boy whom she had known, Covenant had seemed to be less than himself. The voice that had spoken to her through Anele-like the voice in her dreams-had felt far more true than Covenant himself did.

You need the ring.

Dreaming, she had heard Covenant urge her to trust herself.

“Tell me,” she told the Manethrall and Liand intently. “If that was Covenant-or even if it just sounded like him-I need to know what he said.”

The words themselves might reveal who had spoken them.

In a formal tone, Mahrtiir responded, “First he addressed us generally. His words were these.” Then he altered his voice to produce an unexpected imitation of Covenant’s. “I can only say all of this once. And I can’t explain it. As soon as he notices what I’m doing, he’ll stop me. If I even start to say his name, he’ll stop me before I can finish.

“She can do this. Tell her I said that. It’s hard now. And it’s going to get harder. She’ll have to go places and do things that ought to be impossible. But I think she can do it. And there’s no one else who can even make the attempt.”

The Manethrall paused. When Liand and the Cords nodded, confirming his recitation, he resumed.

“Anele’s possessor then spoke to Liand, saying, “I wish I could spare you. Hell, I wish any of us could spare you. But I can’t see any way around it. What you need is in the Aumbrie. Stave will show you where that is, whether the Masters want him to or not. You’ll know what you’re looking for when you touch it.”

The Aumbrie? Linden gripped the Staff; stifled an interruption. The Aumbrie of the Clave? She had never seen that hidden storeroom herself. But she had heard from Covenant that Vain had found his way to the Aumbrie, seeking the iron bands which had formed the heels of Berek’s original Staff of Law.

“To me,” Mahrtiir was saying. “Anele next addressed himself.” Linden felt the veiled knife-edge of the Manethrall’s eagerness as he quoted. “You’ll have to go a long way to find your heart’s desire. Just be sure you come back. The Land needs you.”

Hurrying past his excitement as if he considered it unseemly, Mahrtiir said, “Last Anele named the Cords. He said, ‘In some ways, you two have the hardest job. You’ll have to survive. And you’ll have to make them listen to you. They won’t hear her. She’s already given them too many reasons to feel ashamed of themselves.’

“We thronged with questions at his words,” the Ramen leader admitted; and Liand nodded vigorously. “We would have urged explanations, though he had said that he could not provide them. But then Anele appeared to grow faint, as though a sudden ailment, or perhaps an undetected forbidding, had fallen upon him. Expressing regret, he fell to the grass, and his eyes rolled as though he had been taken by a seizure.

“The moment was brief,” finished the Manethrall. “He roused himself shortly and became as he had been before, distracted and incomprehensible. To us, it appeared that he was unaware of his words. We surmise that his unnamed foe had indeed become cognisant of him, and had roughly imposed incoherence upon him.

“That is our tale, Ringthane. While we pondered what we had heard, the first of the rain began to fall. Desiring shelter more for the old man than for ourselves, we departed from Glimmermere. Stave met us returning toward Revelstone and guided us hither.”

Pahni continued to rest one hand on Liand’s shoulder, keeping her eyes downcast in an effort to mask her alarm. And Bhapa had lapsed into a reverie: he seemed to study the hearth without seeing it, as if he sought the meaning of Anele’s words behind the restless dance and gutter of the flames.

But when the Manethrall was done, Liand asked at once. “Is it conceivable, Linden? Was Thomas Covenant indeed able to address us through Anele while he was also present with you’?”

Linden held Mahrtiir’s discomfited gaze for a moment, thanking him with her eyes. Then she faced Liand’s question.

“I don’t know.” Her alarm had become a kind of courage. Upon occasion, she had experienced a similar reaction during emergency surgeries. At those times, when detachment and training failed her, her own fear had enabled her to proceed. Under the right circumstances, dread and even inadequacy became as compelling as valour. “Covenant says that he and Jeremiah are ‘in two places at once.’ It’s three if you count taking possession of Anele.