Read Online Fatal Revenant by Stephen R. Donaldson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Stephen R. Donaldson
Ads: Link
Glimmermereâs 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 Covenantâs recalled love ached within her. Scant moments after she found air, she swam to the waterâs 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, Glimmermereâs 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, Covenantâs 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 Kevinâs 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 Mahrtiirâs presence beyond the hills: his emanations were too mortal to penetrate Glimmermereâs glory. Yet springâs 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 Earthâs 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 worldâs fundamental bounty. Covenant and Jeremiah had been restored to herâand 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 Kevinâs 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 Glimmermereâs waters flowed between the hills into the
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 Covenantâs recalled love ached within her. Scant moments after she found air, she swam to the waterâs 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, Glimmermereâs 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, Covenantâs 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 Kevinâs 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 Mahrtiirâs presence beyond the hills: his emanations were too mortal to penetrate Glimmermereâs glory. Yet springâs 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 Earthâs 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 worldâs fundamental bounty. Covenant and Jeremiah had been restored to herâand 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 Kevinâs 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 Glimmermereâs waters flowed between the hills into the
Similar Books
