Thomas Covenant 8 - The Fatal Revenant (7 page)

Glimmermere’s reiteration of its protective hills and the overarching heavens. The clustered rocks around the deep shadow of the lake’s bottom looked sharp and near enough to break her as soon as she struck the surface. But she knew that she was not in danger. She remembered well that Glimmermere’s sides were almost sheer, and its depths were unfathomable.

Then she went down into a fiery cold so fierce that it seemed to envelop her in liquid flame.

That, too, was as she remembered it: inextricable from her happiness with Covenant; whetted with hope. Nevertheless its incandescence drove the breath from her lungs. Before she could name her hope, or seek for it, she was forced gasping to the surface.

For a brief time, no more than a

handful of heartbeats, she splashed and twisted as if she were dancing. But she was too human to remain in the lake: not alone, while Covenant’s recalled love ached within her. Scant moments after she found air, she swam to the water’s edge and pulled herself naked up onto the steep grass. There she rested in spite of the wet cold and the chill of spring, giving herself time to absorb, to recognize, Glimmermere’s effects.

Closing her eyes, she used every other aspect of her senses to estimate what had become of her.

The waters healed bruises: they washed away the strain and sorrow of battle. She needed that. They could not undo the emotional cost of the things which she had suffered, but they lifted from her the long physical weariness and privation of recent days, the visceral residue of her passage through caesures, the tangible galls of her

fraught yearning for her son. The eldritch implications of Glimmermere renewed her bodily health and strength as though she had feasted on aliantha.

As cold as the water, Covenant’s ring burned between her breasts.

But the lake did more. The renewed accuracy with which she was able to perceive her own condition told her that the stain of Kevin’s Dirt had been scrubbed from her senses. And when

she reached beyond herself, she felt the ramified richness of the grass beneath her, the imponderable life-pulse of the undergirding soil and stone. She could not detect Mahrtiir’s presence beyond the hills: his emanations were too mortal to penetrate Glimmermere’s glory. Yet spring’s fecundity whispered to her along the gentle breeze, and the faint calling of the birds was as eloquent as melody. The wealth of the lake was now a paean, a sun-burnished

outpouring of the Earth’s essential gladness, as lambent as Earthpower, and as celebratory as an aubade.

In other ways, nothing had changed. Her torn heart could not be healed by any expression of this world’s fundamental bounty. Covenant and Jeremiah had been restored to her— and they would not let her touch them. That hurt remained. Glimmermere held no anodyne for the dismay and bereavement which had brought her

here.

Nevertheless the lake had given her its gifts. It had made her stronger, allowing her to feel capable again, more certain of herself. And it had erased the effects of Kevin’s Dirt, when she had been forbidden to do so with the Staff of Law.

She was as ready as she would ever be.

Steady now, and moving without haste, she donned her clothes and boots; retrieved her Staff. Then she climbed a short way up the hillside, back toward Revelstone, until she found a spot where the slope offered a stretch of more level ground. There she planted her feet as though her memories of Thomas Covenant and love stood at her back to support her. Facing southward across the hillside, she braced the Staff in the grass at her feet and gripped it with one hand while she

lifted the white gold ring from under her damp shirt with the other and closed it in her fist.

She took a deep breath; held it for a moment, preparing herself. Then she lifted her face to the sky.

She had ascended far enough to gain a clear view of the mountainheads in the west. Clouds had begun to thicken behind the peaks, suggesting the possibility of rain. It would not come

soon, however. The raw crests still clawed the clouds to high wisps and feathers that streamed eastward like fluttering pennons. As Glimmermere’s waters flowed between the hills into the south, they caught the sunshine and glistened like a spill of gems.

Now, she thought. Now or never.

With her head held high, she announced softly, “It’s time, Esmer. You’ve done enough harm. It’s time to

do some good.

“I need answers, and I don’t know anyone else who can give them to me.”

Her voice seemed to fall, unheard, to the grass. Nothing replied to her except birdsong and the quiet incantations of the breeze.

More loudly, she continued, “Come on, Esmer. I know you can hear me. You said that the Despiser is hidden from

you, and you can’t tell me where to find my son, but those seem to be the only things that you don’t know. There’s too much going on, and all of it matters too much. It’s time to pick a side. I need answers.”

Still she had no reason to believe that he would heed her. She had no idea what his true powers were, or how far they extended. She could not even be sure that he had returned to her present. He may have sought to avoid

the pain of his conflicting purposes by remaining in the Land’s past; in a time when he could no longer serve either Cail’s devotion or Kastenessen’s loathing.

Hell, as far as she knew, he had arrived to aid and betray her outside the cave of the Waynhim before his own birth. And he had certainly brought the Demondim forward from an age far older than himself. But his strange ability to go wherever and whenever he

willed reassured her obliquely. It was another sign that the Law of Time retained its integrity.

No matter which era of the Earth Esmer chose to occupy, his life and experience remained consecutive, as hers did. His betrayal of her, and of the Waynhim, in the Land’s past had been predicated on his encounters with her among the Ramen only a few days ago. If he came to her now, in his own life he would do so after he had

brought the Demondim to assail her small company. The Law of Time required that, despite the harm which Joan had wrought with wild magic.

Even if he did hear her, however, he had given her no cause to believe that he could be summoned. He was descended—albeit indirectly—from the Elohim; and those self-absorbed beings ignored all concerns but their own. Linden was still vaguely surprised that they had troubled to send warning

of the Land’s peril.

Nevertheless Esmer’s desire to assist her had seemed as strong as his impulse toward treachery. The commitments that he had inherited from Cail matched the dark desires of the merewives.

He might yet come to her.

She was not willing to risk banishing Covenant and Jeremiah with the Staff.

And she was not desperate enough to chance wild magic. But she had found her own strength in Glimmermere. She had felt its cold in the marrow of her bones. When a score of heartbeats had passed, and her call had not been answered, she raised her voice to a shout.

“Esmer, God damn it! I’m keeping score here, and by my count you still owe me!” Even his riven heart could not equate unleashing the

Demondim—and the Illearth Stone— with serving as a translator for the Waynhim. “Cail was your father! You can’t deny that. You’ll tear yourself apart. And the Ranyhyn trust me! You love them, I know you do. For their sake, if not for simple fairness—!”

Abruptly she stopped. She had said enough. Lowering her head, she sagged as if she had been holding her breath.

Without transition, nausea began squirming in her guts.

She knew that sensation; had already become intimately familiar with it. If she reached for wild magic now, she would not find it: its hidden place within her had been sealed away.

She felt no surprise at all as Esmer stepped out of the sunlight directly in front of her.

He was unchanged; was perhaps incapable of change. If she had glimpsed him from a distance, only his strange apparel would have prevented her from mistaking him for one of the Haruchai. He had the strong frame of Stave’s kinsmen, the brown skin, the flattened features untouched by time. However, his gilded cymar marked him as a being apart. Its ecru fabric might have been woven from the foam of running seas, or from the clouds that fled before a thunderstorm, and its

gilding was like fine streaks of light from a setting sun.

But he stood only a few steps away; and at this distance, his resemblance to his father vanished behind the dangerous green of his eyes and the nausea he evoked as though it were an essential aspect of his nature. His emanations were more subtle than those of the Demondim, yet in his own way he seemed more potent and ominous than any of the Vile-spawn.

By theurgy if not by blood, he was Kastenessen’s grandson.

For a moment, nausea and perceptions of might dominated Linden’s attention. Then, belatedly, she saw that he was not alone.

A band of ur-viles had appeared perhaps a dozen paces behind him: more ur-viles than she had known still existed in the world; far more than had enabled her to retrieve the Staff of

Law. Only six or seven of those creatures had lived to reach the ambiguous sanctuary of Revelstone and the plateau. Yet here she saw at least three score of the black Demondim-spawn, perhaps as many as four. None of them bore any sign that they had endured a desperate struggle for their lives, and hers.

And on either side of the ur-viles waited small groups of Waynhim. The grey servants of the Land numbered

only half as many as the ur-viles; yet even they were more than the mere dozen or so that had accompanied her to Lord’s Keep. Like the ur-viles, they showed no evidence that they had been in a battle.

What—? Involuntarily Linden took a startled step backward. Esmer—?

Millennia ago, he had brought the Demondim out of the Land’s ancient past to assail her.

In alarm, she threw a glance around the surrounding hills—and found more creatures behind her. These, however, she recognized: twelve or fourteen Waynhim and half that many ur-viles, most of them scarred by the nacre acid of the Demondim, or by the cruel virulence of the II!earth Stone. They had formed separate wedges to concentrate their strength. And both formations were aimed at Esmer. The battered loremaster of the ur-viles pointed its iron jerrid or scepter like a

warning at Cail’s son.

Esmer, what have you done?

Where else could he have found so many ur-viles, so many Waynhim, if not in a time before she and Covenant had faced the Sunbane? A time when the ur-viles had served Lord Foul, and the Waynhim had defended the Land, according to their separate interpretations of their Weird?

Instinctively Linden wanted to call up fire to protect herself. But the creatures at her back had supported her with their lives as well as their lore when no one else could have aided her. They intended to defend her now, although they were badly outnumbered. And the force of her Staff would harm them. For their sake—and because there were Waynhim among the ur-viles with Esmer—she fought down her fear.

As she mastered herself, all of the

Demondim-spawn began to bark simultaneously.

Their raucous voices seemed to strike the birdsong from the air. Even the breeze was shocked to stillness. Guttural protests as harsh as curses broke over her head like a prolonged crash of surf. Yet among the newcomers appeared none of the steaming ruddy iron blades which the ur-viles used as weapons. None of them resembled a loremaster. And

neither they nor the Waynhim with them stood in wedges to focus their power.

Then Linden understood that the newcomers did not mean to strike at her. They were not even prepared to ward themselves. Their voices sounded inherently hostile; feral as the baying of wild dogs. Nevertheless no power swelled among them. Their yells were indistinguishable from those of her allies.

And Esmer himself sneered openly at her apprehension. A sour grin twisted his mouth: the baleful green of disdain filled his gaze.

“God in Heaven,” Linden muttered under her breath. Trembling, she forced herself to loosen her grip on the Staff; drop Covenant’s ring back under her shirt. Then she met Esmer’s eyes as squarely as she could.

“So which is it this time?” She almost

had to shout to make herself heard. Aid and betrayal. “I’ve never seen so many—”

She was familiar with Esmer’s inbred rage at the Haruchai. He had nearly killed Stave with it. If Hyn’s arrival, and Hynyn’s, had not stayed his hand—

Because of the Haruchai, there will be endless havoc!

The Masters would not expect an

assault from the direction of the plateau.

If the Waynhim condoned—or at least tolerated—the presence of the ur-viles, she could be sure that she was not in danger. Perhaps the Masters and Revelstone were also safe. Yet she could not imagine any explanation for Esmer’s actions except treachery.

Fervently she hoped that Mahrtiir would not rush to her aid. She trusted

him; but his presence would complicate her confrontation with Esmer.

However, Kevin’s Dirt had blunted the Manethrall’s senses. And the Demondim-spawn were able to disguise their presence. If the shape of the hills contained the clamor—or if the sound of the river muffled it—he might be unaware of what transpired.

-Keeping score’?” replied Esmer sardonically. -Count’? Such speech is

unfamiliar to me. Nonetheless your meaning is plain. In the scales of your eyes, if by no other measure, my betrayals have outweighed my aid. You are ignorant of many things, Wildwielder. Were your misjudgments not cause for scorn, they would distress me.”

She had often seen him look distressed when he spoke to her.

“Stop it, Esmer,” she ordered flatly. “I’m

tired of hearing you avoid simple honesty.” And she was painfully aware of her ignorance. “I called you because I need answers. You can start with the question I just asked. Why are these creatures here’?”

A flicker that might have been uncertainty or glee disturbed the flowing disdain in his eyes. “And do you truly conceive that I have come in response to your summons? Do you imagine that you are in any fashion