Fatal Revenant

Tremors ran through Linden’s chest and arms; through her voice. “Then why are we still standing here?” If she did not draw on the Staff for warmth, she would not be able to remain coherent much longer. “Why don’t the two of you transport us right now? Get us to Melenkurion Skyweir before I freeze?”

The scraps of Jeremiah’s pyjamas gave him scant protection; much less than Linden’s cloak and clothes. Nevertheless he seemed unaware of the chill. His encrypted uneasiness had nothing to do with ice and snow.

He looked to Covenant as if he were loath to answer her without Covenant’s support or approval; and as Jeremiah turned his head, the Theomach came lightly up the hillside. His wrapped feet made no mark on the surface of the crust. Once again, he conveyed the eerie impression that he occupied more than one time and place; that with every step he blurred the definitions of reality.

He ascended as if he meant to accost Covenant. But when he was still nearly a dozen paces away, he halted. Behind his bindings, his eyes seemed to study Covenant for some promise of violence.

“That was just a warning,” Covenant pronounced harshly. “Next time, I’ll actually hurt you.”

The Theomach shrugged. His tone implied its own threat as he said. “Do not doubt that I remain able to frustrate your designs. I have counselled wisdom as well as caution, yet you give me cause to doubt that you will heed me.”

“Just so we understand each other,” Covenant retorted. “I’m on your damn path. I’ll stay on your damn path. But I’m tired of being taunted.”

The stranger nodded once, slowly. Then he seemed to slip sideways and was gone. Linden could not detect any evidence that he had ever been present.

Apparently unsurprised, Jeremiah moved closer to Covenant. When Covenant glanced at him, the boy said, “Mom wants to know why we don’t just transport ourselves to Melenkurion Skyweir. But I think there’s something more important.” He seemed unsure of his ability to form an independent opinion. “It’s too cold for her. She’s going to-”

“Oh, bloody hell,” muttered Covenant. “I keep forgetting.”

His halfhand drew a brusque arc in the air. Linden only registered the gesture as a trail of phosphenes like the sweep of a comet: she hardly saw the red flicker of heat in the depths of his eyes. Then a second tide of warmth flooded through her, washing the ice from her skin in an instant, dispelling shivers from the core of her body. Between one heartbeat and the next, she felt a flush of fire as if Covenant had ignited her blood.

Momentarily helpless with relief, she breathed, “God in Heaven. How do you do that?”

Covenant frowned critically at his hand; flexed his fingers as though they did not entirely belong to him. “It doesn’t matter. Being part of the Arch isn’t exactly fun. It ought to be good for at least a few tricks.”

A moment later, he looked at Linden, and his expression changed to a humourless grin. “But as it happens, there’s a perfectly good reason why we can’t ‘just transport ourselves.’ I mean, aside from the fact that the Theomach won’t let us. He may be right. It could be too dangerous.”

Covenant sighed. “This is a pivotal time for the Land. New possibilities are coming to life. Old powers are changing. In the grand scheme of things, it won’t be all that long before the Forestals start to fade.” Some of his earlier scorn returned. “They’ll make the mistake of thinking the Lords can take care of the forests for them. And of course people just naturally like cutting down trees.”

Then he appeared to shake off an impulse to digress. “But that’s not the problem. The problem is those “puissant beings” the Theomach mentioned. If Jeremiah and I risk using power now, well be noticed. And not in a good way. We could run into opposition. The kind of opposition that might damage the Arch.”

Linden wanted to ask, What beings? But she had more immediate concerns. The heat in her veins had given her a sense of urgency. And it had restored a measure of her earlier determination. Covenant and Jeremiah had answered some of her most compelling questions; but she had more.

“All right,” she said, nodding more to herself than to Covenant. “We can’t do this the easy way. So what are we going to do? You said it yourself. We have two hundred leagues to go. On foot in the dead of winter, with no food or shelter. You and Jeremiah don’t look like you feel the cold, but it can kill me. And I assume that you need to eat. How do you expect us to survive?”

Covenant looked away. “Actually,” he said as if he could taste bile. “that’s up to you.” Then he met her gaze again, glaring angrily. “This whole mess is the Theomach’s idea. He expects you to make the decisions.

“Right now, you sort of are the Arch of Time. Or you represent it. You’re the only one of us who’s all here. Or just here. You’re the only one who isn’t already a walking violation of Time. So you’re the only one who might be able to do things safely. Your kid and I can keep you alive-as long as we don’t attract any attention. As long as no one sees us do anything that isn’t supposed to happen in this time. But you have to take charge.

“Should be simple enough,” he growled in disgust. “All we have to do is reach Melenkurion Skyweir. Without going through Garroting Deep.

“I’m ready when you are.”

Linden stared at him. “You can’t be serious.”

In response, Covenant wheeled away from her. Brandishing his fists, he shouted into the air over the valley. “Do you hear that? She thinks you aren’t serious!” He must have believed-or known-that the Theomach was still nearby.

“We don’t really have much choice, Mom,” Jeremiah said tentatively. “We weren’t expecting to end up here. What we wanted to do was pretty easy. This is much more complicated. Right now, we’re as lost as you are.”

Reflexively Linden wanted to reassure him. “That’s all right, honey. I’ll think of something.” In fact, she did not need to think. Her choices were already plain to her. The shaped snow had whispered them to her; or she had seen them in the winter’s irrefusable beauty. “There’s just one more thing that I want to understand.”

She had many other questions, a long list of them. But first she needed to leave this hilltop; needed an answer to the cold. And the potential for redemption in Covenant’s intentions urged movement. For the first time since Roger had taken her son, she seemed to see a road which might lead to Jeremiah’s rescue, and the Land’s.

Covenant spun back toward her as if he meant to yell in her face. But his tone was unexpectedly mild as he said. “Just one? Linden, you astonish me.”

“Just one for now,” she acknowledged. “But it’s important. In spite of the Theomach, you make it sound like there’s hope. If I choose the right path. If we can get to Melenkurion Skyweir. So why did the ur-viles try to stop you?”

The implications of their attack undermined Covenant’s explanations. What did they see that she did not?

“Is that all?” Covenant scowled sourly. “Hell and blood! They’re Demondim-spawn, Linden. Their makers are besieging Revelstone. Don’t tell me you still imagine they want to help you?

“Think, for God’s sake. They made Vain so you could create that Staff, which has effectively prevented me from stopping Foul. Then they guided you to it so you would have the power to erase me anytime you don’t happen to like what I’m doing. Sure, they gave you what you needed to weaken the Demondim. Hell, why not? If I don’t succeed, Revelstone is going to fall eventually, and in the meantime they want to stay on your good side. Every bit of trust they can squeeze out of you serves the Despiser. They’re trying to turn you against me.”

Linden did not believe him: she could not. The ur-viles had done too much-And whenever he reproached her for forming and using the Staff of Law, her instinctive resistance to him stiffened. The man whom she had accompanied to his death would not have said such things.

His scorn and ire made her ache for the Thomas Covenant who had once loved and accepted her.

But she had nothing to gain by arguing. If the ur-viles had intended their manacles for Covenant, they had failed. She would have to live with the consequences of their failure.

All right,” she said as if Covenant’s vehemence had persuaded her. He had enabled her to withstand the cold-temporarily, at least. To that extent, he resembled his former self. “I’m just trying to understand. If I have to decide what we’re going to do, I need to understand as much as I can.”

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Here’s an idea. Why don’t we call the Ranyhyn?”

Hyn would not be born for thousands of years. Even the herd that had reared to Covenant lived millennia in