{"product_id":"fatal-revenant-isbn-9780441016051","title":"Fatal Revenant","description":"The instant \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller, and the return of the Thomas Covenant series \"a landmark fantasy saga.\" (\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the most eagerly-awaited literary sequel in years, Linden Avery, who loved Thomas Covenant and watched him die at the end of Book Six, has returned to the Land in search of her kidnapped son, Jeremiah. As Fatal Revenant begins, Linden watches from the battlements of Revelstone while the impossible happens, riding ahead of the hordes attacking Revelstone are Jeremiah and Covenant himself, apparently very much alive. But Covenant is strangely changed?Stephen R. Donaldson is the author of six previous Covenant books: \u003cb\u003eLord Foul's Bane\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003eThe Illearth War\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003eThe Power That Preserves\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003eThe Wounded Land\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003eThe One Tree\u003c\/b\u003e, and \u003cb\u003eWhite Gold Wielder\u003c\/b\u003e, as well as many other novels.\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003ePart One\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“lest you prove unable to serve me”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e1.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eReunion\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn sunshine as vivid as revelation, Linden Avery knelt on the stone of a low-walled coign like a balcony high in the outward face of Revelstone’s watchtower.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eImplacable as the Masters, Stave of the \u003ci\u003eHaruchai\u003c\/i\u003e stood beside her: he had led her here in spite of the violence with which his kinsmen had spurned him. And at the wall, the young Stonedownor, Liand, stared his surprised concern and incomprehension down at the riders fleeing before the onrush of the Demondim. Like Stave, if by design rather than by blows, he had abandoned his entire life for Linden’s sake; but unlike the former Master, he could not guess who rode with the \u003ci\u003eHaruchai\u003c\/i\u003e far below him. He could only gaze urgently at the struggling horses, and at the leashed seethe of theurgy among the monsters, and gape questions for which he seemed to have no words or no voice.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt that moment, however, neither Liand nor Stave impinged on Linden’s awareness. They were not real to her.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNear Liand, Manethrall Mahrtiir studied the exhausted mounts with Ramen concentration while his devoted Cords, Bhapa and Pahni, protected mad, blind Anele from the danger of a fall that he could not see.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith Linden, they had crossed hundreds of leagues—and many hundreds of years—to come to this place at this time. In her name, they had defied the repudiation of the Masters who ruled over the Land.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut none of her companions existed for her.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTo the north lay the new fields which would feed Revelstone’s inhabitants. To the south, the foothills of the Keep’s promontory tumbled toward the White River. And from the southeast came clamoring the mass of the Demondim, vicious as a host of doom. The monsters appeared to melt and solidify from place to place as they pursued their prey: four horses at the limits of their strength, bearing six riders.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSix riders. But four of them were Masters; and for Linden, they also did not exist. She saw only the others.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the instant that she recognized Thomas Covenant and Jeremiah, the meaning of her entire life changed. Everything that she had known and understood and assumed was altered, rendering empty or unnecessary or foolish her original flight from the Masters, her time among the Ramen, her participation in the horserite of the Ranyhyn. Even her precipitous venture into the Land’s past in order to retrieve her Staff of Law no longer held any significance.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThomas Covenant was alive: the only man whom she had ever loved.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHer son was free. Somehow he had eluded Lord Foul’s cruel grasp.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd Jeremiah’s mind had been restored. His eager encouragement of the Masters and their mounts as they struggled to outrun the horde showed clearly that he had found his way out of his mental prison; or had been rescued—\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTransfixed, she stared at them past the wall of her vantage point, leaping toward them with her gaze and her health-sense and her starved soul. Moments ago, she had seen only the ruinous advance of the Demondim. But now she was on her knees, struck down by the miraculous sight of her adopted son and her dead lover rushing toward Revelstone for their lives.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlready her arms ached to hold them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor two or three heartbeats, surely no more than that, she remained kneeling while Liand tried to find his voice, and Stave said nothing, and Mahrtiir murmured tensely to his Cords. Then she snatched up the Staff and surged to her feet. Mute and compelled, she flung herself back into the watchtower, intending to make her way down to the open gates; to greet Jeremiah and Covenant with her embrace and her straining heart.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut the chambers within the tower were crowded with tall mounds of firewood and tubs of oil. At first, she could not locate a stairway. And when she discovered the descent, the Masters refused to let her pass. One of them stood on the stair to forbid her.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“We prepare for battle,” he informed her curtly. His people had already refused her claims on them. “You will be endangered here.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe did not add, And you will impede our efforts. Nor did she pause to heed him, or to contest the stair. \u003ci\u003eLinden, find me.\u003c\/i\u003e Her need for haste was too great. In all of her years with her son, she had never seen him react to people and events around him; had never seen an expression of any kind on his slack features. Riding toward Revelstone, however, his face shone with excitement as he waved his arms, urging his companions forward.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe wheeled away from the stair; ran for the suspended wooden bridge which linked the tower to the battlements of Revelstone.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStave came to guide her. He had not wiped the blood from his mouth and chin. Dark stains marked his tunic. But his hurts did not slow him. And Mahrtiir accompanied him, with Bhapa, Pahni, and Liand grouped around Anele at his back.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey were her friends, but she hardly noticed them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFearless with urgency, she followed Stave and Mahrtiir across the unsteady span above the courtyard between the watchtower and Revelstone’s inner gates. Gripping the Staff hard in one hand, she pursued her guides into the sudden gloom of the Keep’s lightless passages.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe did not know the way. She had spent too little time here to learn even a few of Revelstone’s complex intersections and halls. And she required illumination. If she had been willing to move more slowly, using only her enhanced senses, she could have trailed Stave’s hard shape and Mahrtiir’s more legible tension through the wrought gutrock. But she had to \u003ci\u003ehurry.\u003c\/i\u003e Instinctively, irrationally, she felt that her own rush to meet them might enable Jeremiah and Covenant to reach the comparative safety of the massive interlocking gates, the friable sanctuary of the Masters. As the reflected sunshine behind her faded, and the darkness ahead deepened, she called up a gush of flame from one iron heel of the Staff. That warm light, as soft and clean as cornflowers, allowed her to press Stave and the Manethrall to quicken their pace.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNearly running, they descended stairways apparently at random, some broad and straight enough to accommodate throngs, others narrow spirals delving downward. Her need for haste was a fever. Surely she could reach the cavernous hall within the gates ahead of Jeremiah and Covenant and their small band of Masters?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHer friends followed close behind her. Anele was old; but his intimacy with stone, and his decades among the mountains, made him sure-footed: he did not slow Liand and the Cords. And after them came the three Humbled, Galt, Clyme, and Branl, maimed icons of the Masters’ commitments. They were as stubborn and unreadable as Stave; but Linden did not doubt that they intended to protect her—or to protect against her. The Masters had rejected Stave because he had declared himself her ally; her friend. Naturally they would not now trust him to fill any of their self-assigned roles.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFervidly she tried to cast her health-sense farther, striving to penetrate Revelstone’s ancient rock so that she might catch some impression of the Vile-spawn. How near had they come? Had they overtaken Covenant and Jeremiah? But she could not concentrate while she dashed and twisted down the passages. She could only chase after Stave and Mahrtiir, and fear that her loved ones had already fallen beneath the breaking tsunami of the Demondim.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut they had not, she insisted to herself. They had \u003ci\u003enot.\u003c\/i\u003e The Demondim had withdrawn their siege the previous day for a reason. Possessed by some fierce and fiery being, Anele had confronted the Vile-spawn; and they had responded by allowing Linden and those with her to escape—and then by appearing to abandon their purpose against Lord’s Keep. Why had they acted thus, if not so that Jeremiah and Covenant might reach her? If they desired Jeremiah’s death, and Covenant’s, they could have simply awaited their prey in front of Revelstone’s gates.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJeremiah and Covenant were not being hunted: they were being \u003ci\u003eherded.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhy the Demondim—and Anele’s possessor—might wish her loved ones to reach her alive, she could not imagine. But she strove to believe that Covenant and Jeremiah would not fall. The alternatives were too terrible to be endured.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThen Linden saw a different light ahead of her: it spilled from the courtyard into the Keep. A moment later, Stave and Mahrtiir led her down the last stairs to the huge forehall. Now she did not need the Staff’s flame; but she kept it burning nonetheless. She might require its power in other ways.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe time-burnished stone echoed her boot heels as she ran into the broad hall and cast her gaze past the gates toward the courtyard and the passage under the watchtower.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeyond the sunshine in the courtyard, the shrouded gloom and angle of the wide tunnel obscured her line of sight. She felt rather than saw the open outer gates, the slope beyond them. With her health-sense, she descried as if they were framed in stone the four Masters astride their laboring horses. Covenant clung to the back of one of the \u003ci\u003eHaruchai.\u003c\/i\u003e Jeremiah balanced precariously behind another.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe mustang that bore her son was limping badly: it could not keep pace with the other beasts. And Covenant’s mount staggered on the verge of foundering. All of the horses were exhausted. Even at this distance, Linden sensed that only their terror kept them up and running. Yet somehow they remained ahead of the swarming Demondim. If the monsters did not strike out with the might of the Illearth Stone, the riders would reach the outer gates well before their pursuers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe fact that the Vile-spawn had not already made use of the Stone seemed to confirm Linden’s clenched belief that Jeremiah and Covenant were being herded rather than hunted.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe wanted to cry out her own encouragement and desperation; wanted to demand why the Masters had not organized a sally to defend her loved ones; wanted to oppose the horde with Law and Earthpower in spite of the distance. But she bit down on her lip to silence her panic. Jeremiah and Covenant would not hear her. The \u003ci\u003eHaruchai\u003c\/i\u003e could not combat the Demondim effectively. And she did not trust herself to wield power when the people whom she yearned to save were between her and the horde.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrimly she forced herself to wait, holding her fire over her head like a beacon, nearly a stone’s throw from the courtyard so that the Keep’s defenders would have room in which to fight if the monsters could not be prevented from passing the gates.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAbruptly the Masters and their horses surged between the outer gates into the dark tunnel. Hooves clanged on the worn stone as first Covenant and then Jeremiah fell into shadow.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA heartbeat later, ponderous as leviathans, the outer gates began to close.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe heavy stone seemed to move slowly, far too slowly to close out the rapacity of the monsters. Through her fear, however, Linden realized that the Demondim had once again slackened their pace, allowing their foes to escape. She felt the impact as the gates thudded together, shutting out the Vile-spawn, plunging the tunnel into stark blackness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThen the riders reached daylight in the courtyard, and she saw that all six of them were safe. She did not know how far they had fled the Demondim; but she recognized at once that none of them had suffered any harm.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe mounts had not fared so well. Like their riders, the horses were uninjured. But their terror had driven them to extremes which might yet kill them: they had galloped hard and long enough to break their hearts. Yet they did not stop until they had crossed the courtyard and passed between the inner gates. Then, as those gates also began to close, shutting out the last daylight, Jeremiah’s mount stumbled to its knees; fell gasping on its side with froth and blood on its muzzle. Jeremiah would have plunged to the stone, but the Master with him caught him and lifted him aside. The horse bearing Covenant endured only a moment longer before it, too, collapsed. But Covenant and his fellow rider were able to leap clear.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen the inner gates met and sealed like the doors of a tomb, the flame of the Staff was the only light that remained in the forehall.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Ramen protested at the condition of the horses; but Linden ignored them. She had already begun to rush forward, avid to clasp her loved ones, when Covenant yelled as if in rage, “Hellfire, Linden! \u003ci\u003ePut that damn thing out!\u003c\/i\u003e”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe stopped, gasping as though his vehemence had snatched the air from her lungs. Her power fell from her, and instant darkness burst over her head like a thunderclap.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOh, God—\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eJust be wary of me. Remember that I’m dead.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIf she could have found her voice, or drawn sufficient breath, she might have cried out at the Despiser, You \u003ci\u003ebastard\u003c\/i\u003e! What have you \u003ci\u003edone\u003c\/i\u003e?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ace","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302035443941,"sku":"NP9780441016051","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780441016051.jpg?v=1767726764","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/fatal-revenant-isbn-9780441016051","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}