Read Online Fatal Revenant by Stephen R. Donaldson - Free Book Online Page B

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.
    â€œI 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.
    â€œEsmer, 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