The Fatal Revenant Part 50

Mahrtiir still breathed. That was unfortunate. Death would have been a kinder fate.

He lay on his back, gasping at the dusty reek of bloodshed. In spite of his Ramen toughness, he writhed as though he knew that he should not move-and could not restrain himself. He had been cut and pierced as severely as the Humbled; as often as the Ranyhyn. But some weapon, possibly a spear, had struck him near his left temple and carried straight through the front of his skull, ripping away both of his eyes.

Only countless hours in County Hospital's emergency room enabled Linden to study the Manethrall's face until she was sure that the bones behind his eyes remained essentially intact; that this wound had not reached his brain.

Unable to efface her weakness, she strove to ignore it. With desperation and willpower, a kind of grieving rage, she fanned embers of Earthpower into unsteady flames and spilled them over Mahrtiir until he was laved in fire.

In some sense, Linden was still a physician. She could not behold his suffering and remain pa.s.sive.

Please, she prayed, although there was no one who might have heeded her. Please.

Please don't die.

Don't hate me for not letting you die. The Manethrall had chosen to accompany her because he chafed against the predictable and unambitious lives of his people. He had craved a tale which would deserve to be remembered among the Ramen. And he had supported her with complete fidelity.

This was the result. He might live, but he would never see again.

Exhaustion left her defenseless: she could not control the intensity of her health-sense. It was empathy transmogrified into excruciation. She saw every detail of his torn tissues-flesh and muscle, nerve and bone-as if it were replicated in her own body. She could have counted every ripped blood vessel, numbered every delicate channel of lymph and mucus. And she descried precisely how each tiny increment of damage could be repaired by Earthpower and Law.

She did not have the strength for the task. Even if she had been fresh and ready-even if she had not done so much killing-she could not have restored his eyes. There was nothing left of them. But everything that was possible for her, she did, and more. When she began to falter, she reached out to Liand, mutely asking for his aid. Instinctively he gave her what she needed. Summoning light from the orcrest, he gripped her hand so that the Sunstone was pressed between his palm and hers.

With that influx of power, she brought Mahrtiir back from agony and the borderlands of death.

His breathing grew quieter in spite of his pain. Now Linden was the one who gasped. As she released Liand's hand, her surroundings seemed to turn themselves inside out, and she felt herself begin to fall.

But Bhapa surged to his feet and caught her in a fierce hug, ignoring his damaged ribs; staining her with Whrany's blood as well as his own. "Ringthane," he whispered, calling her away from collapse. "Mane and Tail, Ringthane! My life is yours. It was so before. Now it is yours utterly." She heard weeping in his voice. "If the Manethrall and the Ranyhyn do not forbid it, I will accompany you into the depths of Gravin Threndor, or the inferno of Hotash Slay, or the bitter heart of the Sarangrave, and name myself blessed."

She had no answer. She could bear neither his grat.i.tude nor his sorrow. Mahrtiir would never see again. She had given the Manethrall a life of irredeemable darkness.

When Bhapa eased his embrace, she pulled away. "Amanibhavam," she replied, panting raggedly. "Poultices. Bandages. Stop the bleeding." Mahrtiir had too many other wounds, and she had tended none of them. "Then help the Ranyhyn."

"Yes, Ringthane." At once, Bhapa turned to obey.

Pahni had already set to work. Together the Cords mixed water with the crushed, dried blades of their potent gra.s.s to make a salve.

Helplessly Linden looked to Liand. Again he gave her what she needed. Supporting her with one arm, he lifted springwine to her lips. At the same time, he kept his orcrest alight. He may have hoped that the Sunstone's eldritch possibilities would lend vitality to the springwine.

His instincts had not misled him. As she drank, Linden tasted something akin to Glimmermere's lacustrine potency. If she could have bathed in the tarn, she might have been able to wash away the charnel stench of what she had done: the Cavewights burning like brittle sticks, the wolves scoured by sheets of flame-But Revelstone was too far away. She would find no healing there.

Nevertheless springwine and Liand's considerate exertion brought her back from the brink of herself once more. Soon she was able to leave Mahrtiir and the Ranyhyn to the ministrations of Bhapa and Pahni. The Humbled she consigned to their stubbornness. First Woodhelven's people needed more than she had done for them; far more.

There was a breeze blowing, some vagary of the undisturbed sunlight. Gently it carried the dust of battle and butchery away. But it could not s.h.i.+ft the raw choleric stink of bloodshed, or the implications of Linden's inadequacy.

Liand offered to accompany her. She told him to find clean cloth for bandages instead. She felt as laden with death as the dirt of Gallows Howe. If she were alone, she might finally find tears for everything that had been lost.

But before she could move past Galt, Branl, and Clyme toward the Woodhelvennin, Stave stopped her. Somehow she had failed to notice his approach.

"Chosen," he said quietly. "you must accompany me." Like Liand, Pahni, and Anele, he was unharmed. "The Sandgorgons require your attendance."

Linden gestured vaguely. "I'm needed here."

How was it possible that only those who had ridden with her against the kresh were whole?

Stave's gaze held her. "Linden."

His flat tone hinted at compa.s.sion. If he had ever used her given name before, she could not remember it.

"I'm not Linden." She was dimly surprised to hear herself say those words aloud. "I'm not her anymore.

Somebody else took my place under Melenkurion Skyweir."

The Harrow wanted to trade Jeremiah for the Staff of Law and Covenant's ring. Esmer and Roger would ensure that she had no opportunity to accept the lnsequent's offer.

"Nonetheless," Stave stated inflexibly, the Sandgorgons are insistent." He was her only friend among the Haruchai. They will accept no reply except yours. If you do not comply, they will turn against the Woodhelvennin."

Of course, she thought. Perfect. Just what we need.

She was still expected to choose who would live and who would not.

All right." Abruptly she addressed the Humbled. "Before you bleed to death, you might as well make yourselves useful." Her ire was not for them, but she made no attempt to stifle it. "Liand is looking for bandages. We need hot water. Lots of it." Surely cook pots and fabric could be found among the ruins of First Woodhelven? "And get some hurtloam if you can. These poor people don't know what it is. They can't see it."

Kevin's Dirt had deprived them of health-sense. The Masters had deprived them of knowledge.

Clyme nodded. At once, he, Galt, and Branl limped away toward the shredded village. They looked like incarnations of pain: each step exacerbated their injuries. Yet they moved stolidly, undeterred by the cost of their actions.

Soon they were joined by a number of Woodhelvennin, sent by Vernigil to a.s.sist the Humbled.

For reasons of their own, Hyn, Rhohm, and Naharahn galloped off in the direction of the brook. They may have been thirsty.

Shaking her head, Linden let Stave take her to face the Sandgorgons.

They stood in a united cl.u.s.ter as if the six of them shared one mind. Apart from the wounds Roger had inflicted on them-rank burns and boils that had already begun to heal-they matched her memories of Nom. Interminable ages of the Great Desert's iron sun had leached them of color, leaving their hides the distressed whiteness of albinos. They were shorter than Cavewights, but much more powerfully formed, bred to withstand the harshest extremes of sand and heat and gales. Their knees flexed backward, supported by the wide pads of their feet: they could traverse dunes and hardpan alike with tremendous speed.

However, their knees and hides were not their strangest features. Their arms did not include hands. Instead their forearms grew into flexible stumps like elastic truncheons, able to plow through sand or batter down stone. And they had no faces; no features of any kind apart from the subtle ridges of their skulls and two almost hidden slits that resembled gills where humankind and even Cavewights had ears. Like their forearms, their heads were made to crash against obstacles.

Linden remembered Nom well. But she had forgotten how much raw force a Sandgorgon contained. Alone, each of the creatures looked as irrefusable as a tornado. Together they seemed to reify the worst storms of the world. They were cyclones distilled to unmitigated havoc.

Long ago, Thomas Covenant had mastered Nom with wild magic and delirant resolve. At his command, Nom had crossed lands and oceans to aid him against Revelstone and the Clave.

With Honninscrave's help, Nom had torn apart samadhi Sheol. Then, somehow, the Sandgorgon had consumed the sc.r.a.ps of the Raver's existence-and had thereby gained a form of sentience unknown to Sandgorgons: the ability to communicate as the Haruchai did, mind to mind. Millennia ago, Nom had exchanged understandings with the Haruchai who had fought at Covenant's side. Now, apparently, these creatures had been speaking to Stave.

"Much has transpired during the millennia of your absence, Chosen," he said. "I am informed that Nom returned to the Great Desert and Sandgorgons Doom bearing the rent fragments of samadhi Sheol's spirit. These had been forever torn from coherence, but they were not deprived of intention and malice. Nom distributed them among the Sandgorgons, giving to his kind faint remnants of the Raver's memories and lore and cruelty. Thus in small tatters the brutish minds of the Sandgorgons acquired knowledge.

"Across a great span of years, they learned to unmake the Doom in which Kasreyn of the Gyre had imprisoned them. And across a far greater span, they discovered purpose. A host of them, all those who share samadhi Sheol's spirit, have now come to the Land. For that reason, they were able to answer your call without delay.

"Of their host, these are but a few. The rest await the outcome of your summons."

Linden frowned in confusion. "I'm needed, Stave." Bhapa had marked her with Whrany's blood, and his own. "Get to the point."

The former Master studied the Sandgorgons for a moment. Then he told Linden, "They seek your acknowledgment that they have fulfilled your desire."

As if so many deaths were not acknowledgment enough.

"Oh, h.e.l.l." Bitterly she looked around at the battlefield, the crushed and splattered bodies of the Cavewights. "Sure. Of course." This, too, was her doing. "There's nothing left for them here. We can always get more corpses."

They had threatened to attack the Woodhelvennin Her spirit also had been torn. But she resembled Esmer more than samadhi Sheol: she was appalled by what she had become.

She needed Thomas Covenant to make her whole.

In response, Stave's manner became more formal. "Then they are done with you. You are not the ur-Lord. You did not defeat or compel Nom. But you are the last of his companions. In grat.i.tude for the quality of mind which they now possess, they answered your summons. They will not do so again."

Linden nodded, too weary and aghast to find words. She hardly understood what Stave was saying.

He lowered his voice. "There is darkness in them, Chosen. Rent, samadhi Sheol's spirit yet clings to Corruption. They have beheld majesty in the Raver's visions of Doriendor Corishev, of kings and queens and rule. They have learned a hunger for suzerainty. In the Land, samadhis thoughts a.s.sure them, they will know what it means to hold sway.

"They avow that if you oppose them, they will crush you as ferociously as they slew these Cavewights, and with the same joy."

"I don't care." Linden started to turn away. "I just want them to do their crus.h.i.+ng somewhere else."

But then she stopped. Impulsively she suggested, "Try telling them where Doriendor Corishev is." Let them follow Doom's Retreat to the Southron Waste; away from the Land. She trembled to imagine what would happen if a host of Sandgorgons struck at Revelstone. "If they want to 'hold sway,' they can start there. No one has held that region for thousands of years."

Doriendor Corishev's rulers had made a wilderland of their kingdom. But the Sandgorgons were born to deserts, formed for harsh landscapes. They might like the Southron Waste.

Perhaps the fragmentation of samadhi Sheol's memories would prevent the Raver from directing the Sandgorgons elsewhere.

"Or if that doesn't work," she added. "tell them about the skurj. Tell them that those monsters are more powerful than they can imagine." Perhaps the Sandgorgons could be taunted into defending the Land. "If they want to rule here, they'll have to deal with Kastenessen's creatures."

For a moment, Stave regarded her as if her advice surprised him. Then he turned back to the Sandgorgons.

Leaving him to be as persuasive as he could, Linden headed toward the tree-dwellers again.

While she stumbled among the bodies, however, the Ramen caught her attention. Unfortunately Mahrtiir was conscious. Linden wished him a respite from the enormity of his hurts. With the Staff, she might have imposed a little sleep on his wracked body and mind. But his life was in no immediate danger. Bhapa tended him diligently while Pahni did what she could for the Ranyhyn. And some of the Woodhelvennin had worse injuries. Simple triage required her to conserve her scant resources.

Liand, the Humbled, and a few villagers had emerged from the wreckage of the banyan-grove bearing bundles of garments for bandages. Three or four of them carried cook pots which could be used to heat water. In a moment, Liand rejoined the Ramen.

Although she ached for Mahrtiir, Linden pushed herself back into motion.

The Manethrall stopped her with a ragged croak. "Ringthane."

In spite of his agony, his health-sense enabled him to discern her presence.

"I'm here." Linden's voice resembled his. "You shouldn't try to talk. You've lost a lot of blood. And there isn't much that I can do about your pain right now."

He shook his head as if he were wincing. "My hurts are naught." The shattered mess of his eye sockets wept slow drops of blood. "I rue only that I am made useless to you."

She tried to say, Mahrtiir, stop. But she could not force her mouth and throat to form words.

"Many needs press upon you," he continued, wrenching speech past his wounds. "I ask but one boon. There is no other Manethrall here, and a witness is required. I ask you to stand in the stead of those who lead the Ramen."

A moment pa.s.sed before Linden realized that Bhapa was whispering as if he were horrified. "No. No. No."

With an effort that felt like anguish, she managed to repeat, "I'm here." She may have been making another promise that she would be unable to keep.

Hoa.r.s.ely Mahrtiir said, "I am no longer able to bear the burdens of a Manethrall. Among the Ramen, those who have been blinded do not command the deeds of those who see. Cord Bhapa must a.s.sume my place. We cannot now perform the full ceremony of Maneing, but your witness will suffice.

"I ask Liand of Mithil Stonedown to remove the garland from my neck and set it upon Bhapa's." His woven necklace of yellow flowers, amanibhavam in faded bloom, was splashed with blood. It hung in tatters, but had not been severed. "Then he will take his long delayed place among the Manethralls, and I will serve him and you as I do the Ranyhyn, until my last breath."

In dismay, Liand flung a look of appeal at Linden. He did not move to touch Mahrtiir's garland.

Mahrtiir, no. Linden could not find her voice. Please. I can't do this right now. I can't let you do it. If she had been able to speak, she might have said, This can wait. Then she might have turned away.

But Bhapa rushed to his feet. Softly, as if he were in tears, he cried. "No, Manethrall. No. I will not. I am not fit for Maneing. And I cannot abide-"

Abruptly he wheeled toward Linden. His eyes were dry, but every line of his face resembled sobbing.

"Ringthane," he said, pleading with her, "do not permit this. It was not my tarnished sight-the sight which you have healed-that caused me to remain a Cord when others of my years had become Manethralls. It was my hesitancy. I bear uncertainties and doubts which consort ill with decision and command. I follow willingly. I am not suited to lead."

Linden stared at him. She herself had uncertainties and doubts enough to cripple a legion. But she did not mean to let Jeremiah's suffering continue unopposed-or unpunished.

However, Bhapa seemed to need no answer from her. At once, he turned back to Mahrtiir.

"And you cannot so lightly set aside your tasks," he told the Manethrall, "or your yearning to be worthy of tales. You are merely hurt and blinded. You are not unmade. You are a Manethrall blood and bone. It determines you.

"Nor may you set aside the geas that was placed upon you." The Cord's pa.s.sion mounted. "You were informed that you must go far, seeking 'your heart's desire.' And you were urged to return when you had found it, for the Land has need of you. Those words were not granted to me. They were for you alone."

Anele had spoken to Mahrtiir on the rich gra.s.s of Revelstone's plateau. Linden believed that her friends had heard Thomas Covenant's voice through the old man.

Bhapa and Pahni had been given a different message. In some way, you two have the hardest job. You'll have to survive. And you'll have to make them listen to you.

"Manethrall Mahrtiir," Bhapa concluded, "I have obeyed you in all things. In this I will not."

Mahrtiir bared his bloodied teeth. For a moment, he appeared to struggle with imprecations. An involuntary groan wrenched his chest. When he spoke, his voice was taut and raw.

"Then be Ramen, if you will not be Manethrall. Aid Pahni among the Ranyhyn. The needs of the great horses come foremost."

Briefly he coughed, splas.h.i.+ng his chest with arterial droplets. But Liand called up light from the orcrest and touched it to Mahrtiir's sternum. By degrees, Mahrtiir relaxed.

"And Liand tends me well," he said: a brittle rustling like the sound of dried leaves in a breeze. "I will not impose my garland upon you by peris.h.i.+ng."

Shamed in spite of her exhaustion, Linden found somewhere enough gentle fire to stop the Manethrall's bleeding and grant him sleep. For years, she had wept too easily. She wanted to weep now. But she could not. Her stone heart held no tears.

The Sandgorgons departed a short time later; pelted avidly into the east as if they were eager for more destruction. Presumably they were returning to their host. And when they were gone, Esmer reappeared.

He still wore his wounds and his shredded raiment. Perhaps his many powers did not include the ability to heal himself.

He did not approach Linden. He spoke to no one. Indeed, he seemed unaware that anyone watched him as he sent waves of force through the ground to gather up corpses: Cavewights and kresh; slain villagers. Intimidated by powers beyond their comprehension, the Woodhelvennin did not object.

Whrany's body he took as well: he made no distinctions among the fallen.