Covenant nodded mutely, as if he had been given an unexpected reprieve. He did not want to know how wild magic worked; he did not want to believe in it in any way. Simply carrying it around was dangerous. He covered it with his right hand and gazed dumbly, helplessly, at the Giant.
After a moment, Foamfollower's fatigue quenched his humor. His eyes dimmed, and his respiration sighed wearily between his slack lips. He sagged on the tiller as if laughing had cost him vital energy. "Now, my friend," he breathed. "My courage is nearly spent. I need your story."
Story? Covenant thought. I don't have any stories. I burned them.
He had burned them-both his new novel and his best-seller. They had been so complacent, so abjectly blind to the perils of leprosy, which lurked secretive and unpredictable behind every physical or moral existence-and so unaware of their own sightlessness. They were carrion-like himself, like himself-fit only for flames. What story could he tell now?
But he had to keep moving, act, survive. Surely he had known that before he had become the victim of dreams. Had he not learned it at the leprosarium, in putrefaction and vomit? Yes, yes! Survive! And yet this dream expected power of him, expected him to put an end to slaughter- Images flashed through him like splinters of vertigo, mirror shards: Joan, police car, Drool's Laval eyes. He reeled as if he were falling.
To conceal his sudden distress, he moved away from Foamfollower, went to sit in the prow facing north. "A story," he said thickly. In fact, he did know one story-one story in all its grim and motley disguises. He sorted quickly, vividly, until he found one which suited the other things he need to articulate. "I'11 tell you a story. A true story."
He gripped the gunwales, fought down his dizziness.
"It's a story about culture shock. Do you know what culture shock is?" Foamfollower did not reply. "Never mind. I'll tell you about it. Culture shock is what happens when you take a man out of his own world and put him down in a place where the assumptions, the the standards of being a person-are so different that he can't possibly understand them. He isn't built that way. If he's-facile-he can pretend to be someone
else until he gets back to his own world. Or he can just collapse and let himself be rebuilt however. There's no other way.
"I'll give you an example. While I was at the leprosarium, the doctors talked about a man-a leper -like me. Outcast. He was a classic case. He came from another country-where leprosy is a lot more common-he must have picked up the bacillus there as a child, and years later when he had a wife and three kids of his own and was living in another country, he suddenly lost the nerves in his toes and started to go blind.
"Well, if he had stayed in his own country, he would have been- The disease is common-it would have been recognized early. As soon as it was recognized, he-and his wife-and his kids-and everything he owned-and his houseand his animals-and his close relatives-they would have all been declared unclean. His property and house and animals would have been burned to the ground. And he and his wife and his kids and his close relatives would have been sent away to live in the most abject poverty in a village with other people who had the same disease. He would have spent the rest of his life there-without treatment-without hope-while hideous deformity gnawed his arms and legs and face-until he and his wife and his kids and his close relatives all died of gangrene.
"Do you think that's cruel? Let me tell you what did happen to the man. As soon as he recognized his disease, he went to his doctor. His doctor sent him to the leprosarium-alone-without his family-where the spread of the disease was arrested. He was treated, given medicine and training-rehabilitated. Then he was sent home to live a `normal' life with his wife and kids. How nice. There was only one problem. He couldn't handle it.
"To start with, his neighbors gave him a hard time. Oh, at first they didn't know he was sick-they weren't familiar with leprosy, didn't recognize it-but the local newspaper printed a story on him, so that everyone in town knew he was the leper. They shunned him, hated him because they didn't know what to do about him. Then he began to have trouble keeping up his self-treatments. His home country didn't have medicine and leper's therapy-in his bones he believed that such things were magic, that once his disease was arrested he was cured, pardoned-given a stay of something worse than execution. But, to and behold! When he stops taking care of himself, the numbness starts to spread again. Then comes the clincher. Suddenly he finds that behind his back-while he wasn't even looking, much less alert he has been cut off from his family. They don't share his trouble-far from it. They want to get rid of him, go back to living the way they were before.
"So they pack him off to the leprosarium again. But after getting on the plane-they didn't have planes in his home country, either-he goes into the bathroom as if he had been disinherited without anyone ever telling him why and slits his wrists."
He gaped wide-eyed at his own narration. He would have been willing, eager, to weep for the man if he had been able to do so without sacrificing his own defenses. But he could not weep. Instead, he swallowed thickly, and let his momentum carry him on again.
"And I'll tell you something else about culture shock. Every world has its own ways of committing suicide, and it is a lot easier to kill yourself using methods that you're not accustomed to. I could never slit my wrists. I've read too much about it-talked about it too much. It's too vivid. I would throw up. But I could go to that man's world and sip belladonna tea without nausea. Because I don't know enough about it. There's something vague about it, something obscure-something not quite fatal.
"So that poor man in the bathroom sat there for over an hour, just letting his lifeblood run into the sink. He didn't try to get help until all of a sudden, finally, he realized that he was going to die just as dead as if he had sipped belladonna tea. Then he tried to open the door-but he was too weak. And he didn't know how to push the button to get help. They eventually found him in this grotesque position on the floor with his fingers broken, as if he-as if he had tried to crawl under the door. He-"
He could not go on. Grief choked him into silence, and he sat still for a time, while water lamented dimly past the prow. He felt sick, desperate for survival; he could not submit to these seductions. Then Foamfollower's voice reached him. Softly, the Giant said, "Is this why you abandoned the telling of stories?"
Covenant sprang up, whirled in instant rage. "This Land of yours is trying to kill me!" he spat fiercely. "It-you're pressuring me into suicide! White gold! -Berek!-Wraiths! You're doing things to me that I can't handle. I'm not that kind of person-I don't live in that kind of world. All these-seductions! Hell and blood! I'm a leper! Don't you understand that?"
For a long moment, Foamfollower met Covenant's dot gaze, and the sympathy in the Giant's eyes stopped his outburst. He stood glaring with his fingers Jawed while Foamfollower regarded him sadly, wearily. He could see that the Giant did not understand; leprosy was a word that seemed to have no meaning in the Land. "Come on," he said with an ache. "Laugh about it. Joy is in the ears that hear."
But then Foamfollower showed that he did understand something. He reached into his jerkin and drew oat a leather packet, which he unfolded to produce a large sheet of supple hide. "Here," he said, "you will see much of this before you are done with the Land. It is clingor. The Giants brought it to the Land long ages ago-but I will spare us both the effort of telling." He tore a small square from the comer of the sheet and handed the piece to Covenant. It was sticky on both sides, but transferred easily from hand to hand, and left no residue of glue behind. "Trust it. Place your ring upon that piece and hide it under your raiment. No one will know that you bear a talisman of wild magic."
Covenant grasped at the idea. Tugging his ring from his finger, he placed it on the square of clingor. It stuck firmly; he could not shake the ring loose, but he could peel the clingor away without difficulty. Nodding sharply to himself, he placed his ring on the leather, then opened his shirt and pressed the clingor to the center of his chest. It held there, gave him
no discomfort. Rapidly, as if to seize an opportunity before it passed, he rebuttoned his shirt. To his surprise, he seemed to feel the weight of the ring on his heart, but he resolved to ignore it.
Carefully, Foamfollower refolded the clingor, replaced it within his jerkin. Then he studied Covenant again briefly. Covenant tried to smile in response, express his gratitude, but his face seemed only capable of snarls. At last, he turned away, reseated himself in the prow to watch the boat's progress and absorb what Foamfollower had done for him.
After musing for a time, he remembered Atiaran's stone knife. It made possible a self-discipline that he sorely needed. He leaned over the side of the boat to wet his face, then took up the knife and painstakingly shaved his whiskers. The beard was eight days old, but the keen, slick blade slid smoothly over his cheeks and down his neck, and he did a passable job of shaving without cutting himself. But he was out of practice, no longer accustomed to the risk; the prospect of blood made his heart tremble. Then he began to see how urgently he needed to return to his real world, needed to recover himself before he altogether lost his ability to survive as a leper.
Later that day came rain, a light drizzle which spattered the surface of the river, whorling the sky mirror into myriad pieces. The drops brushed his face like spray, seeped slowly into his clothes until he was as soaked and uncomfortable as if he had been drenched. But he endured it in a gray, dull reverie, thinking about what he gained and lost by hiding his ring.
At last, the day ended. Darkness dripped into the air as if the rain were simply becoming blacker, and in the twilight Covenant and Foamfollower ate their supper glumly. The Giant was almost too weak to feed himself, but with Covenant's help he managed a decent meal, drank a great quantity of diamondraught.
Then they returned to their respective silences. Covenant was glad for the dusk; it spared him the sight of Foamfollower's exhaustion. Unwilling to lie down on the damp floorboards, he huddled cold and wet
against the side of the boat and tried to relax, sleep.
After a time, Foamfollower began to chant faintly:
Stone and Sea are deep in life,
two unalterable symbols of the world:
permanence at rest, and permanence in motion;
participants in the Power that remains.
He seemed to gather strength from the song, arid with it he impelled the boat steadily against the current, drove northward as if there were no fatigue that could make him falter.
Finally, the rain stopped; the cloud cover slowly broke open. But Covenant and Foamfollower found no relief in the clear sky. Over the horizon, the red moon stood like a blot, an imputation of evil, on the outraged background of the stars. It turned the surrounding terrain into a dank bloodscape, full of crimson and evanescent forms like uncomprehended murders. And from the light came a putrid emanation, as if the Land were illumined by a bane. Then Foamfollower's plainsong sounded dishearteningly frail, futile, and the stars themselves seemed to shrink away from the moon's course.
But dawn brought a sunlight-washed day unriven by any taint or memory of taint. When Covenant raised himself to look around, he saw mountains directly to the north. They spread away westward, where the tallest of them were still snow-crested; but the range ended abruptly at a point in line with the White River. Already the mountains seemed near at hand.
"Ten leagues," Foamfollower whispered hoarsely. "Half a day against this current."
The Giant's appearance filled Covenant with sharp dismay. Dull-eyed and slack-upped, Foamfollower looked like a corpse of himself. His beard seemed grayer, as if he had aged several years overnight, and a trail of spittle he was helpless to control ran from the corner of his mouth. The pulse in his temples limped raggedly. But his grip on the tiller was as hard as a gnarled knot of wood, and the boat plowed stiffly up the briskening river.
Covenant moved to the stern to try to be of help. He wiped the Giant's lips, then held up the jug of diamondraught so that Foamfollower could drink. The fragments of a smile cracked the Giant's lips, and he breathed, "Stone and Sea. It is no easy thing to be your friend. Tell your next ferryman to take you downstream. Destinations are for stronger souls than mine."
"Nonsense," said Covenant gruffly. "They're going to make up songs about you for this. Don't you think it's worth it?"
Foamfollower tried to respond, but the effort made him cough violently, and he had to retreat into himself, concentrate the fading fire of his spirit on the clench of his fist and the progress of the boat.
"That's all right," Covenant said softly. "Everyone who helps me ends up exhausted-one way or another. If I were a poet, I would make up your song myself." Cursing silently at his helplessness, he fed the Giant sections of tangerine until there was no fruit left. As he looked at Foamfollower, the tall being shriven of everything except the power to endure, self-divested, for reasons Covenant could not comprehend, of every quality of humor or even dignity as if they were mere appurtenances, he felt irrationally in debt to Foamfollower, as if he had been sold-behind his back and with blithe unregard for his consent-into the usury of his only friend. "Everyone who helps me," he muttered again. He found the prices the people of the Land were willing to pay for him appalling.
Finally he was no longer able to stand the sight. He returned to the bow, where he stared at the looming mountains with deserted eyes and grumbled, I didn't ask for this.
Do I hate myself so much? he demanded. But his only answer was the rattle of Foamfollower's breathing.
Half the morning passed that way, measured in butchered hunks out of the impenetrable circumstance of time by the rasp of Foamfollower's respiration. Around the boat the terrain stiffened, as if preparing itself for a leap into the sky. The hills grew higher and more ragged, gradually leaving behind the heather and banyan trees of the plains for a stiffer scrub grass and a few scattered cedars. And ahead the mountains stood taller beyond the hills with every curve of the river. Now Covenant could see that the east end of the range dropped steeply to a plateau like a stair into the mountains-a plateau perhaps two or three thousand feet high that ended in a straight cliff to the foothills. From the plateau came a waterfall, and some effect of the light on the rock made the cascade gleam pale blue as it tumbled. Furl Falls, Covenant said to himself. In spite of the rattle of Foamfollower's breathing, he felt a stirring in his heart, as if he were drawing near to something grand.
But the drawing near lost its swiftness steadily. As the White wound between the hills, it narrowed; and as a result, the current grew increasingly stiff. The Giant seemed to have passed the end of his endurance. His respiration sounded stertorous enough to strangle him at any time; he moved the boat hardly faster than a walk. Covenant did not see how they could cover the last leagues.
He studied the riverbanks for a place to land the boat; he intended somehow to make the Giant take the boat to shore. But while he was still looking, he heard a low rumble in the air like the running of horses. What the hell-? A vision of ur-viles flared in his mind. He snatched up his staff from the bottom of the boat and clenched it, trying to control the sudden drum of his trepidation.
The next moment, like a breaking wave over the crest of a hill upstream and east from the boat, came cantering a score of horses bearing riders. The riders were human, men and women. The instant they saw the boat, one of them shouted, and the group broke into a gallop, sweeping down the hill to rein in at the edge of the river.
The riders looked like warriors. They wore high, soft-soled boots over black leggings, black sleeveless shirts covered by breastplates molded of- a yellow metal, and yellow headbands. A short sword hung from each belt, a bow and quiver of arrows from each back. Scanning them rapidly, Covenant saw the characteristic features of both Woodhelvennin and Stonedownor; some were tall and fair, light-eyed and slim, and others, square, dark, and muscular.
As soon as their horses were stopped, the riders slapped their right fists in unison to their hearts, then extended their arms, palms forward, in
the gesture of welcome. A man distinguished by a black diagonal line across his breastplate shouted over the water, "Hail, Rockbrother! Welcome and honor and fealty to you and to your people! I am Quaan, Warhaft of the Third Eoman of the Warward of Lord's Keep!" He paused for a reply, and when Covenant said nothing, he went on in a more cautious tone, "Lord Mhoram sent us. He saw that important matters were moving on the river today. We are come as escort."
Covenant looked at Foamfollower, but what he saw only convinced him that the Giant was past knowing what happened around him. He slumped in the stern, deaf and blind to everything except his failing effort to drive the boat. Covenant turned back toward the Eoman and called out, "Help us! He's dying!"
Quaan stiffened, then sprang into action. He snapped an order, and the next instant he and two other riders plunged their horses into the river. The two others headed directly for the west bank, but Quaan guided his horse to intercept the boat. The mustang swam powerfully, as if such work were part of its training. Quaan soon neared the boat. At the last moment, he stood up on his mount's back and vaulted easily over the gunwales. On command, his horse started back toward the east bank.
Momentarily, Quaan measured Covenant with his eyes, and Covenant saw in his thick black hair, broad shoulders, and transparent face that he was a Stonedownor. Then the Warhaft moved toward Foamfollower. He gripped the Giant's shoulders and shook them, barking words which Covenant could not understand.
At first, Foamfollower did not respond. He sat sightless, transfixed, with his hand clamped like a deathgrip onto the tiller. But slowly Quaan's voice seemed to penetrate him. The cords of his neck trembled as he lifted his head, tortuously brought his eyes into focus on Quaan. Then, with a groan that seemed to spring from the very marrow of his bones, he released the tiller and fell over sideways.