Thomas Covenant 8 - The Fatal Revenant by Stephen R. Donaldson

Author:Stephen R. Donaldson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-03-20T05:00:00+00:00

2.

In the Care of the Mandoubt

Linden awoke slowly, climbing with effort and reluctance through the exhaustion of millennia. The years that she had bypassed or slipped between seemed to multiply her natural age; and her attempts to open her eyes, confirm the substance of her surroundings, felt hampered by caducity. She did not know where she was. She had told herself that she had

reached the plateau above Revelstone in her proper time. She had believed that, trusted it; and slept. But the surface on which she lay was not fresh grass in springtime. Linen rather than soiled garments covered her nakedness, and her feet were bare. The light beyond her eyelids was too dim to be morning.

And she was diminished, truncated, in some fashion that she could not identify.

Yet she was warm, comfortably nestled. The unremitting clench of winter had released her. Her bed supported her softly. Like her eyes, her mouth and throat were too dry for ease, but those small discomforts were the normal consequences of unconsciousness. They did not hamper her.

For a moment like an instant of panic in a dream, quickly forgotten, she imagined that she had been taken to a

hospital; that paramedics had rushed her, sirens wailing, to a place of urgent care. Had the bullet missed her heart? But the deeper levels of her mind knew the truth.

Gradually she recognized how she had been reduced.

Her skin felt nothing except the tactile solace of linen and softness and warm weight. She smelled nothing except the faint tang of wood smoke and the

precious scent of cleanliness; heard nothing except the subtle effort of her own breathing. None of her senses extended beyond the confines of her body.

She did not know where she was, or how, or why-she hardly knew who-because her health-sense was gone. She had grown accustomed to its insights. Its absence diminished her.

Nonetheless she was paradoxically

comforted by the realization that Kevin’s Dirt had regained its hold. Now she could be certain that the Mandoubt had brought her near to her rightful time.

In any case, her benevolent rescuer would not have stranded her earlier than she belonged. Then she would still have posed a threat to the integrity of the Arch. Nor had the Mandoubt greatly overshot the day of Linden’s disappearance in rain from the upland

plateau. She seemed to recall that she had heard Bhapa’s voice announcing her presence. If that were true, then she had also heard Manethrall Mahrtiir and Cord Pahni answer Bhapa’s call.

Surely they would not have awaited her return indefinitely? Not while their choices were constrained by the Masters-and the Demondim. At some point, they would have left Revelstone to rejoin their people, or to seek out a defense against the Land’s foes.

Linden had not been absent long enough to exhaust her friends’ hopes. And she had felt spring in the air—

When she was sure that the Mandoubt had delivered her to the proper season in the proper year, a few of her numberless fears faded. At last, she allowed herself to remember why she was here.

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