Kevin's Watch

caamora wrote:They are brought to the former council chamber of Revelstone. It has been altered in that it looks like lava has flown down the walls and erased any former brilliance of the room. No longer the highly polished floor that seemed to have the sun within it. No longer the balconies to sit and listen. The heart of Revelstone has been forgotten. Had Linden not been compelled, I'm sure she would have wailed from the pain of the stone.

Even the sight of Revelstone itself, the Keep of the na-Mhoram rising from the high jungle of a second fertile sun like a great stone ship, could not rouse her spirit. She was only distantly aware of what she was seeing. The gates opened to admit the Rider, closed behind his Courser, and meant nothing.

Santonin na-Mhoram-in was met by three or four other figures like himself; but they greeted him with respect, as if he had stature among them. They spoke to him, words which Linden could not understand. Then he commanded his prisoners to dismount.

Linden, Sunder, and Hollian obeyed in an immense, ill-lit hall. With Santonin striding before them, they walked the ways of the great Keep. Passages and chambers, stairs and junctions, passed unmarked, unremembered. Linden moved like a hollow vessel, unable to hold any impression of the ancient gut-rock. Santonin's path had no duration and no significance.

Yet his purpose remained. He brought his captives to a huge chamber like a pit in the floor of Revelstone. Its sloping sides were blurred and blunt, as if a former gallery or arena had been washed with lava. At its bottom stood a man in a deep ebony robe and a chasuble of crimson. He gripped a tall iron crozier topped with an open triangle. His hood was thrown back, exposing features which were also blurred and blunt in the torchlight.

His presence pierced Linden's remaining scrap of identity like a hot blade. Behind her passivity, she began to wail.

He was a Raver.

"Three fools," he said in a voice like cold scoria. "I had hoped for four."

Then the Rider stepped to one side, and the Raver faced the captives. His visage was a smear of ill across Linden's sight. He gazed at her directly, searched out the vestiges of her self, measured them, scorned them. "You I must not harm," he said dully, almost regretfully. "Unharmed, you will commit all harm I could desire." His eyes left her as if she were too paltry to merit further notice. "But these treachers are another matter." He confronted Sunder and Hollian. "It signifies nothing if they are broken before they are shed."

He held the Stonemight against his chest. Its steam curled up his face. Nostrils dilating, he breathed the steam as if it were a rare narcotic. "Where is Thomas Covenant?"

The Stonedownors did not react, could not react. Linden stood where she had been left, like a disregarded puppet. But her heart contracted in sudden terror.

The Raver made a slight gesture. Santonin muttered softly over his rukh. Abruptly, the geas holding Sunder and Hollian ended. They stumbled as if they had forgotten how to manage their limbs and jerked trembling erect. Fear glazed Sunder's eyes, as if he were beholding the dreadful font and master of his existence. Hollian covered her face like a frightened child.

"Where is Thomas Covenant?"

Animated by an impulse more deeply inbred than choice or reason, the Stonedownors struggled into motion and tried to flee.

The Raver let Hollian go. But with the Stonemight he put out a hand of force which caught Sunder by the neck. Hot emerald gripped him like a garrote, snatched him to his knees.

Reft of her companion, Hollian stopped and swung around to face the Raver. Her raven hair spread about her head like wings.

The Raver knotted green ill at Sunder's throat. "Where is Thomas Covenant?"

Sunder's eyes were blind with fear and compulsion. They bulged in their sockets. But he did not answer. Locking his jaws, he held himself still.

The Raver's fingers tightened. "Speak."

The muscles of Sunder's jaw pulled together, clenched as if he were trying to break his teeth, grind his voice into silence forever. As the force at his throat grew stronger, those muscles became distinct, rigid, etched against the darkness of his fear and strangulation. It seemed impossible that he could so grit his teeth without tearing the ligatures of his jaw. But he did not answer. Sweat seemed to burst from his pores like bone marrow squeezed through his skin. Yet his rictus held.

A frown of displeasure incused the Raver's forehead. "You will speak to me," he soughed. "I will tear words from your soul, if need be." His hand clinched the Stonemight as if he were covetous to use all its power. "Where is Thomas Covenant?"

"Dead." Whimpers contorted Hollian's voice. Linden felt the lie in the core of her helplessness. "Lost."

The Raver did not glance away from Sunder, did not release his garrote. "How so?"

"In Andelain," the eh-Brand panted. "He entered. We awaited him. He did not return." To complete her he, she moaned, "Forgive me, Sunder."

"And the white ring?"

"I know not. Lost. He did not return."

Still the Raver gave no look or answer to Hollian. But he eased slightly his grasp on the Graveler. "Your refusal," he breathed, "says to me that Thomas Covenant lives. If he is lost, why do you wish me to believe that he lives?"

Within the scraps of herself, Linden begged Sunder to support Hollian's lie, for his own sake as well as for Covenant's.

Slowly, the Graveler unlocked his jaw. Clarity moved behind the dullness of his eyes. Terribly through his knotted throat, he grated, "I wish you to fear."

"You have committed murder. are you not evil?"

Ur-Lord Thomas Covenant...Unbeliever and white gold wielder, I salute you. You are remembered among the Haruchai...I am Brinn. Will you set us free?

duchess of malfi wrote:I'm still back on chapter 10, but I had to respond to what Dromond said here...
Yes, I also see what the Raver does to Linden as a form of rape...
And there is a symmetry of sorts to it, for it puts Thomas Covenant in Triock's shoes...now instead of raping an innocent victim, as he did in Lord Foul's Bane, it is the woman that he loved who is violated...
And just as Triock had not fully disclosed his feelings of love to Lena ( he was waiting for her to come of age before he declared himself), Thomas has not fully disclosed his feelings to Linden...
And just as Triock had to attempt to deal with emotional aftermath of what had been done to Lena, so Thomas will have to attempt to deal with the horrible crime done to Linden...
Things have come around in a circle of sorts...

..."No, Linden Avery," the Raver said without pause."Abandon all hope of Thomas Covenant. The principal doom of the Land is upon your shoulders."
No! She had no defence against so much corruption. Night crowded around her, more cruel than any darkness-night as old as the pain of children, parents who sought to die. Never!
"You have been especially chosen for this desecration. You are being forged as iron is forged to achieve the ruin of the Earth." His voice violated all her flesh. " You have been chosen Linden Avery, because you can see. Because you are open to that which no other in the Land can discern, you are open to be forged. Through eyes and ears and touch, you are made to be what the Despiser requires. Descrying destruction, you will be driven to commit all destruction. I will relish that ruin.
Therefore I have forewarned you. So that you will know your peril, and be unable to evade it. So that as you strive to evade it, the Despiser may laugh in scorn and triumph."

I wish you to fear.

She had no defense against so much corruption. Night crowded around her, more cruel than any drakness - night as old as the pain of children, parents who sought to die.

Therefore I have forewarned you. So that you will know your peril, and be unable to evade it. So that as you strive to evade it, the Despiser may laugh in scorn and triumph."