Fatal Revenant

Trust yourself. You’re the only one who can do this.

Her time with Thomas Covenant long ago had taught her to ignore the dictates of panic.

All right, she told herself. All right. So she could not guess how the Demondim had decided on their present stratagems. So what? She had come to the rim of Revelstone to attempt a kind of surgery; and surgery demanded attention to what was immediately in front of her. The underlying motivations of the monsters were irrelevant. At this moment, under these circumstances, Kastenessen’s and even Covenant’s designs were irrelevant. Her task was simply and solely to extirpate the cancer of the horde’s access to the IIIearth Stone. For the surgeon in her, nothing else mattered.

With assiduous care, Linden Avery the Chosen reclaimed her focus on the manipulative masque of the Demondim.

She had spotted quick instances of the Stone’s green and lambent evil earlier: she saw more of them now. But they were widely scattered throughout the horde; brief as single raindrops; immediately absorbed. And they were in constant motion, glinting like fragments of lightning reflected on storm-wracked seas. When she had studied them for a time, she saw that they moved like the whirling migraine miasma of a caesure-

Then she understood why she could not discern the Fall itself. Certainly the Demondim concealed it with every resource at their command. Behind their feigned confusion, they seethed with conflicting energies and currents, seeking to disguise the source of their might. But still they exerted that might, using it to obscure itself. Each glimpse and flicker of the IIIearth Stone was so immediate, immanent, and compelling that it masked the disruption of time which made it possible.

Linden understood-but the understanding did not help her. Now that she had recognised what was happening, she could focus her health-sense past the threat inherent in each individual glint of emerald; and when she did so, she saw hints of time’s enabling distortion, the swirl of instants which severed the millennia between the horde and the Stone. But those hints were too brief and unpredictable. Their chaotic evanescence obscured them. They were like haemorrhaging blood vessels in surgery: they prevented her from seeing the precise place where her scalpel and sutures were needed.

There she knew the truth. The task that she had chosen for herself was impossible. She was fundamentally inadequate to it. The tactics of the Demondim were too alien for her human mind to encompass: she could not find her way through the complex chicanery and vehemence of the monsters. She would not be able to unmake the caesure unless she found a way to grasp what all of the Demondim were thinking and doing at every moment.

Therefore-

Groaning inwardly, she retreated a little way so that she could rest her forehead on the wet grass. She wanted to console herself with the sensation of its fecund health, its fragile and tenacious grip on the aged soil of the plateau; its delicate demonstration of Earthpower. Even the chill of the rain contradicted in some fashion the hurtful machinations of the Demondim, the savage emerald of the Stone, the quintessential wrong of the caesure; the impossibility of her task. Rain was appropriate; condign. It fell because the earth required its natural sustenance. Such things belonged to the organic health of the world. They deserved to be preserved.

She could not cut the caesure away as she had intended. Therefore she would have to approach the problem in a less surgical-and far more hazardous-manner. She would have to risk a direct assault on the monsters, hoping that they would strike back with the force of the IIIearth Stone. Then, during the imponderable interval between the instant of their counterattack and the moment when she was incinerated, she would have to locate the horde’s now-unveiled Fall; locate and extinguish it. If she survived long enough-

She had no reason to believe that she could succeed. The challenge would be both swift and overwhelming. And if she effaced the caesure, she would be no closer to rescuing Jeremiah or relieving the Land’s other perils. If she failed, she might not live long enough to see Revelstone destroyed because of her.

In her son’s name, she had twice risked absolute ruin. But now the question of his survival had become far more complex. In spite of the fact that he remained Lord Foul’s prisoner, he was here. He had regained his mind. And Covenant, whose every word disturbed her, had averred that his own plans would free Jeremiah at last-

Covenant was concerned that an assault by the horde might prevent him from carrying out his designs. If she confronted the Demondim directly, she might do more than cause a catastrophe for the Land: she might cost her son his only real chance to live.

And yet-and yet-

The Demondim were here. The power of the IIIearth Stone was here. Kastenessen and the skurj were already at work, seeking the destruction of the Land. And somewhere the Worm of the World’s End awaited wakening. How could she turn her back on any immediate threat when she did not understand Covenant, and the Masters had no effective defence?

Trapped in her dilemma, she was conscious of nothing except the ravening powers of the horde and the extremity of her hesitation. She did not feel the rain falling on her back or the dampness of the grass. And she did not sense Stave’s approach. Until he said, “Attend, Chosen,” she had forgotten that she was not alone.

He had said those exact words twice before, both times in warning-and both because either Esmer or the ur-viles had taken her by surprise.

Dragging herself up from the grass, she braced her doubts on the Staff of Law and climbed to her feet.

As if without transition, Liand reached her side and took hold of her arm so that she would not stumble or fall as she turned to find herself peering dumbly into the black face of the ur-viles’ loremaster.

The creature’s nostrils gaped, scenting her through the rain. Behind the storm-clouds, dawn had reached the Upper Land, and the sun drove a dim illumination into the dark; just enough light to reveal the dire shape of the loremaster. Now that she was aware of the creature, she felt rain spatter against its obsidian flesh, run down its torso and limbs-and hiss into steam as droplets struck the blade of molten iron gripped in its fist.

Behind the larger creature stood a packed wedge of Demondim-spawn, as black as ebony and midnight, and as ominous. Even the Waynhim scattered among them seemed as dark as demons. As far as she could tell, those few creatures that had accompanied her here had joined the larger force which Esmer had delivered beside Glimmermere. And they all seemed to be muttering imprecations as they crowded close to each other and Linden, aiming their combined might through the loremaster and its hot blade.

When it smelled her attention, the loremaster lifted its free hand and held its ruddy knife over its palm, apparently offering to cut itself on her behalf.

This same creature had behaved in the same fashion when she was preparing herself for her first experience of a caesure; when she had been sick with fear and the aftereffects of the horserite. At that time, a much smaller wedge of ur-viles had healed her, giving her the strength to find her way through Joan’s madness; to reach the Land’s past and the Staff of Law.

Now the loremaster appeared to be making a similar offer-

Yesterday Esmer had said to her, I have enabled their presence here, and they have accepted it, so that they may serve you. They will ward you, and this place- Revelstone- with more fidelity than the Haruchai, who have no hearts.

Covenant had jeered at Esmer’s assertion. He had warned her that the manacles of the ur-viles were intended for him. They’ve been Foul’s servants ever since they met him. And she had her own reasons for wondering what secret purpose lay behind the assistance of the ur-viles. Esmer’s involvement cast doubt in all directions.

“Linden”- the rain muffled Liand’s voice- “your distress is plain. You fear that you will fail. But here is aid. Few of these creatures are those that have served you with both lore and valour. Yet those ur-viles are here, and the Waynhim with them. It may be that they will strengthen you to succeed.”

He gave his faith too easily-Covenant would have mocked him for it.

Out of the dim dawn, Mahrtiir added, “The Ramen have long known some few of these ur-viles. They have acted for our benefit. And they have succoured Anele.”

Stave said nothing. He had felt Esmer’s fury and might therefore suspect the motives of the ur-viles.

When she did not respond, the Stonedownor turned to Handir. “You speak for the Masters,” he said more strongly. “What is your word now? I have learned that in their time your kind fought long and bitterly against such