Fatal Revenant

went on shouting; invoking Earthpower on a scale that staggered her foes. When the floor of the cave lurched as though the whole of Melenkurion Skyweir had shrugged, she gave no heed.

But Roger and the croyel cared. Consternation twisted his blunt features: he feared the mountain’s violence. And the creature turned away from her, apparently seeking escape. They assailed her for a moment longer. Then the stone lurched again, and abruptly they fled.

“Melenkurion abatha!”

Pausing only to retrieve Jeremiah’s crumpled racecar, Linden followed them; harried them with fire. As she pursued them along the tunnel, she continued to shout with all of her strength. And she trailed the end of her Staff in the rivulet so that she would not lose the Earth Blood’s imponderable might.

“Duroc minas mill!”

Roger and the croyel did not strike at her now: they fought to preserve themselves. He sent gouts and gobbets of laval ire to hinder the impact of her sunflame. His companion filled the tunnel with a yammer of force, striving to slow her onslaught.

“Harad khabaal!”

Her power was constrained by the tunnel; concentrated by it. But theirs was also. Although she strode after them wreathed in fury, unleashing a continuous barrage of magic and Law, she could not break through their brimstone and repulsion swiftly enough to outpace their retreat. In spite of the EarthBlood and the Seven Words and the Staff of Law-in spite of the extravagance of her betrayed heart-they reached the subterranean waterfall unscathed.

The falls erupted in steam as Roger passed through it; but the croyel’s barrier warded off the scalding detonation. For a moment, no more than a heartbeat or two, Linden lost sight of them as they rushed down the piled rocks. Then the stone shuddered again, harder this time. She lost her footing, fell against the wall of the tunnel. At once, she sprang up again, borne by fire. With Earthpower, she parted the crushing waters and began to hasten perilously over the slick stones. But her foes were already halfway down the length of the cavern, limned in rocklight.

The mountain’s tremors repeated themselves more frequently. Their ferocity mounted. Soon they became an almost constant seizure. As Linden skidded to the cavern floor and tried to race after Roger and her helpless son, slabs of granite and schist the size of houses sheared off from the ceiling and collapsed on all sides.

Thunder filled the air with catastrophe. It seemed as loud as the ruin of worlds.

Now she had to fight for Jeremiah’s life as well as her own. She knew what Roger and the croyel would do. Given any respite from her assault, any relief at all, they would combine their lore to transport themselves out of the mountain. They might fail in the presence of so much Earthpower, but they would certainly make the attempt. She had to do more than compel them to defend themselves. She had to drive them apart, fill the space between them with a ravage of flame. Otherwise her son would be snatched away. She was ten millennia from her proper time, and would never find him again.

But the ceiling was falling. Even the sides of the cavern were falling. Massive stone columns and monoliths toppled as the roots of Melenkurion Skyweir shook. The river danced in its course; overran its rims amid the hail of shattered menhirs and rubble. Orogenic thunder detonated through the cavern.

The croyel repelled the rock. Despite the magnitude of the quake, the creature protected Jeremiah and Roger. But Linden had no defence except Earthpower; no lore except the Seven Words.

The rocklight grew pale and faltered as the damage to the cavern increased.

Screaming, “Melenkurion abatha!” she tuned her fire to the pitch of granite and made powder of every crashing stone that came near her. “Duroc minas mill!” Hardly conscious of what she did, she shaped the mountain’s collapse to her needs; formed pillars to support the Skyweir’s inconceivable mass; dashed debris from her path so that she could strike at Roger and the croyel. “Harad khabaal!” Striding through havoc, she pursued her son’s doom amid the earthquake.

But the titanic convulsion took too much of her strength. More and more, she was forced to ward off her own ruin. And she had lost the direct use of the EarthBlood. She could not reach Roger and Jeremiah; could not strike hard enough, swiftly enough, to penetrate her betrayers’ defences.

In the Staffs flame and the last of the rocklight, she saw lightning arch between Roger’s arms and Jeremiah’s. She saw them vanish.

Then the earthquake took her; the river took her; and she was swept from the cavern.

PART II. “victims and enactors of Despite”

Chapter One: From the Depths

When Linden Avery emerged from the base of Rivenrock into Garroting Deep, the sun was setting behind Melenkurion Skyweir and the Westron Mountains. The trees here had fallen into shadow, and with the loss of the sun, the air had grown cold enough to bite into her bereaved throat and lungs. Winter held sway over the Deep in spite of Caerroil Wildwood’s stewardship. And she had been soaked by frigid springs as well as by diluted EarthBlood during her long struggle through the guts of the mountain. She was chilled to the marrow of her bones, weak with hunger, exhausted beyond bearing.

But she did not care.

Her son was dead, as doomed as she was, shot down when she and Roger had been slain. He belonged to Lord Foul and the croyel: they would never let him go. And she had no hope of reaching him. Too much time separated her arms and his; her love and his torment.

She had become a stillatory of pain, and her heart was stone.

She did not know how she was still alive, or why. After Roger and Jeremiah’s escape, she had somehow preserved herself with Earthpower and instinct, shaping the stone to her will: knocking aside thunderous slabs of granite; plunging in and out of the lashed river; following water and fire as the earthquake shook Melenkurion Skyweir. The upheaval had split the plateau as well as the vast mountain, buried the edges of the forest under a torrent of rubble, sent a vehement fume of dust skyward, but she was aware of none of it. Nor did she notice how much time passed before the roots of the Skyweir no longer trembled. The watercourse was nearly empty now. Deep springs slowly filled the spaces which she had formed under the peak. But she could not tell how long she scrambled and stumbled through the wreckage until she found her way out of the world of ruin.

When she clambered at last over the new detritus along the south bank of the Black River, and saw the fading sky above her, she knew only that she had lost her son-and that some essential part of her had been extinguished, burned away by battles which surpassed her strength. She was no longer the woman who had endured Roger’s cruelties for Jeremiah’s sake.

She had suffered enough; had earned the right to simply lie down and die. Yet she did not surrender. Instead she trudged on into Garroting Deep. Here the Forestal would surely end her travails, if sorrow and privation did not. Nevertheless she continued to plod among the darkening trees. Her right hand remained cramped to the Staff, unhealed and unheeded. In her left, she held Jeremiah’s crumpled racecar. At the core, she had been annealed like granite. The dross of restraint and inadequacy and acceptance had been consumed in flame. Like granite, she did not yield.

The Staff no longer lit her way. She had lost its fire when she left the mountain. In the evening gloom and