Thomas Covenant 8 - The Fatal Revenant by Stephen R. Donaldson Read Free Book Online

if obstructing the actions of the Masters were a trivial challenge.
    At least he was still able to hear his people’s thoughts—
    Behind Linden, Covenant appeared to be nearing the end of his exchange with Handir. His voice had become a hoarse rasp, thick with effort. Yet when she glanced at him at last, Linden saw that he was smiling again.
    At Covenant’s side, Jeremiah seemed hardly able to contain his anticipation. The only sign that he might still be in Lord Foul’s power was the rapid beating at the corner of his eye.
    “I know what to do,” Covenant assured the Voice of the Masters. “That’s why we’re here. When we’re done, your problems will be over. But first I’ll have to convince Linden, and that won’t be easy. I’m too tired to face it right now.
    “Just give us a place to rest. And keep her away from us until I’m ready. We’ll take care of everything else.” Darkly he avowed, “I know a trick or two to make the Demondim and even the almighty Despiser wish they had never come out of hiding.”
    In spite of her clenched dismay, Linden found herself wondering where he had learned such things. How much of his humanity had he lost by his participation in Time? What had the
    perspective of eons done to him? How much had he changed?
    And how much pain had her son suffered in the Despiser’s grasp? How much was he suffering at this moment? If even the tainted respite of being in two places at once filled him with such glee—
    In many ways, she had never truly known him. Yet he, too, may have become someone she could no longer
    recognize.
    She needed to do something. She needed to do it now. If she waited for Covenant to explain himself, she would crumble.
    While Handir replied to the ur-Lord, the Unbeliever, the Land’s ancient savior—while the Voice of the Masters promised Covenant everything that he had requested—Linden strode away into the shadows of the forehall,
    trusting Mahrtiir to claim a torch and catch up with her before she lost herself in darkness.

2.
    Difficult Answers
    How Stave accomplished what she had asked of him, Linden could not imagine. Yet when Mahrtiir led her at last past the switchbacks up through the long tunnel which opened onto the plateau above and behind Revelstone—when they finally left gloom and old emptiness behind, and crossed into sunshine under a deep sky stained only by Kevin’s Dirt—she
    [
    and the Manethrall were alone. The Humbled had not followed them. In spite of Stave’s severance from his people, he had found some argument which had persuaded the Masters to leave her alone.
    Here she could be free of their distrust; of denials that appalled her. Here she might be able to think.
    Covenant and Jeremiah had been restored to her. And they would not
    allow her to touch them. They had been changed in some quintessential fashion which excluded her.
    And Kevin’s Dirt still exerted its baleful influence, slowly leeching away her health-sense and her courage—and she had been ordered not to use the Staff of Law. Both Covenant and her son had assured her that its power would undo the theurgy which enabled their presence. In dreams, Covenant’s voice had told her, You need the Staff
    of Law. Through Anele, he had said, You’re the only one who can do this. Yet now she was asked to believe that if she drew any hint of Earthpower from the warm wood, she would effectively erase Covenant and Jeremiah. The two people in all of life whom she had most yearned to see— to have and hold—would vanish.
    She believed them, both of them. She did not know whether or not they had told the truth: she believed them
    nonetheless. They were Thomas Covenant and Jeremiah, her son. She could not do otherwise.
    She had repeatedly insisted that she could not be compared to the Land’s true heroes; and now the greatest of them had come.
    And he had asked the Masters to keep her away from him until he was ready to talk. I’m too tired—But she did not protest. While she could