The Wounded Land

  Her whimpering turned to a rasp in her throat like a death-rattle. She seemed to be groaning, “Covenant.”

  Linden! he moaned. I can’t help you!

  Abruptly her eyes snapped open, staring wildly. They gaped over the rictus which bared her teeth.

  “Cove—” Her throat worked as the muscles knotted, released. Her jaws were locked together like the grip of a vise. Her eyes glared white delirium at him. “Help—”

  Her efforts to speak burned his heart. “I don’t—” He was choking. “Don’t know how.”

  Her lips stretched as if she wanted to sink her teeth into the skin of his cheek. Her neck cords stood out like bone. She had to force the word past her seizure by sheer savagery.

  “Voure.”

  “What?” He clung to her. “Voure?”

  “Give—” Her extremity cut him like a sword. “Voure.”

  The sap that warded off insects? His orbs were as dry as fever. “You’re delirious.”

  “No.” The intensity of her groan pierced the air. “Mind—” Her wild, white stare demanded, beseeched. With every scrap of her determination, she fought her throat. “Clear.” The strain aggravated her convulsions. Her body kicked against his weight as if she were being buried alive. “I—” For an instant, she dissolved into whimpers. But she rallied, squeezed out, “Feel.”

  Feel? he panted. Feel what?

  “Voure.”

  For one more horrific moment, he hung on the verge of understanding her. Then he had it.

  Feel!

  “Brinn!” he barked over his shoulder. “Get the voure!”

  Feel! Linden could feel. She had the Land-born health sense; she could perceive the nature of her illness, understand it precisely. And the voure as well. She knew what she needed.

  The angle of her stare warned him. With a jolt, he realized that no one had moved, that Brinn was not obeying him.

  “Covenant,” Sunder murmured painfully. “Ur-Lord. She— I beg you to hear me. She has the Sunbane sickness. She knows not what she says. She—”

  “Brinn.” Covenant spoke softly, but his lucid passion sliced through Sunder’s dissuasion. “Her mind is clear. She knows exactly what she’s saying. Get the voure.”

  Still the Haruchai did not comply. “Ur-Lord,” he said, “the Graveler has knowledge of this sickness.”

  Covenant had to release Linden’s arms, clench his fists against his forehead to keep from screaming. “The only reason”—his voice juddered like a cable in a high wind—“Kevin Landwaster was able to perform the Ritual of Desecration, destroy all the rife of the Land for hundreds of years, was because the Bloodguard stood by and let him do it. He ordered them not to do anything, and he had knowledge, so they obeyed. For the rest of their lives, their Vow was corrupt, and they didn’t know it. They didn’t even know they were tainted until Lord Foul rubbed their noses in it. Until he proved he could make them serve him.” Foul had maimed three of them to make them resemble Covenant. “Are you going to just stand there again and let more people die?” Abruptly his control shattered. He hammered the sand with his fists. “Get the VOURE!”

  Brinn glanced at Sunder, at Cail. For a moment, he seemed to hesitate. Then he sprang from the gully toward the Coursers.

  He was back almost at once, carrying Memla’s leather flask of voure. With an air of disinterest, as if he eschewed responsibility, he handed it to Covenant.

  Trembling Covenant unstopped the flask. He had to apply a crushing force of will to steady his hands so that he could pour just a few drops through Linden’s teeth. Then he watched in a trance of dread and hope as she fought to swallow.

  Her back arched, went slack as if she had broken her spine.

  His gaze darkened. The world spun in his head. His mind became the swooping and plunge of condors. He could not see, could not think, until he heard her whisper, “Now Cail.”

  The Haruchai responded immediately. Her understanding of Cail’s plight demonstrated her clarity of mind. Brinn took the flask, hurried to Cail’s side. With Stell’s help, he forced some of the voure between Cail’s locked jaws.

  Relaxation spread through Linden, muscle by muscle. Her breathing eased; the cords of her neck loosened. One by one, her fingers uncurled. Covenant lifted her hand, folded her broken nails in his clasp, as he watched the rigor slipping out of her. Her legs became limp along the sand. He held to her hand because he could not tell whether she were recovering or dying.

  Then he knew. When Brinn came over to him and announced without inflection, “The voure is efficacious. He will mend,” he gave a low sigh of relief.

  TWENTY-THREE: Sarangrave Flat

  Covenant watched her while she slept, human and frail, until sometime after sunset. Then, in the light of a campfire built by the Haruchai, he roused her. She was too weak for solid food, so he fed her metheglin diluted with water.

  She was recovering. Even his blunt sight could not be mistaken about it. When she went back to sleep, he stretched out on the sand near her, and fell almost instantly into dreams.

  They were dreams in which wild magic raged, savage and irremediably destructive. Nothing could be stopped, and every flare of power was the Despiser’s glee. Covenant himself became a waster of the world, became Kevin on a scale surpassing all conceivable Desecrations. The white fire came from the passions which made him who he was, and he could not—!

  But the stirring of the company awakened him well before dawn. Sweating in the desert chill, he climbed to his feet and looked around. The embers of the fire revealed that Linden was sitting up, with her back against the gully wall. Hergrom attended her soundlessly, giving her food.

  She met Covenant’s gaze. He could not read her expression in the dim light, did not know where he stood with her. His sight seemed occluded by the afterimages of nightmare. But the obscurity and importance of her face drew him to her. He squatted before her, studied her mien. After a moment, he murmured to explain himself, “I thought you were finished.”

  “I thought,” she replied in a restrained voice, “I was never going to make you understand.”

  “I know.” What else could he say? But the inadequacy of his responses shamed him. He felt so unable to reach her.

  But while he fretted against his limitations, her hand came to him, touched the tangle of his beard. Her tone thickened. “It makes you look older.”

  One of the Haruchai began to rebuild the fire. A red gleam reflected from her wet eyes as if they were aggravated by coals, were bits of fire in her mind. She went on speaking, fighting the emotion in her throat.

  “You wanted me to look at Vain.” She nodded toward the Demondim-spawn; he stood across the gully from her. “I’ve tried. But I don’t understand. He isn’t alive. He’s got so much power, and it’s imperative. But it’s—it’s inanimate. Like your ring. He could be anything.”

  Her hand covered her eyes. For a moment, she could not steady herself. “Covenant, it hurts. It hurts to see him. It hurts to see anything.” Reflections formed orange-red beads below the shadow of her hand.

  He wanted to put his arms around her; but he knew that was not the comfort she needed. A Raver had touched her, had impaled her soul. Gibbon had told her that her health sense would destroy her. Gruffly he answered, “It saved your life.”

  Her shoulders clenched.

  “It saved Cail’s life.”

  She shuddered, dropped her hand, let him see her eyes streaming in the new light of the fire. “It saved your life.”

  He gazed at her as squarely as he could, but said nothing, gave her all the time she required.

  “After Crystal Stonedown.” The words came huskily past her lips. “You were dying. I didn’t know what to do.” A grimace embittered her mouth. “Even if I’d had my bag— Take away hospitals, labs, equipment, and doctors aren’t much good.” But a moment later she swallowed her insufficiency. “I didn’t know what else to do. So I went inside you. I felt your heart and your blood and your lungs and your nerves— Your
sickness. I kept you alive. Until Hollian was able to help you.”

  Her eyes left his, wandered the gully like guilt. “It was horrible. To feel all that ill. Taste it. As if I were the one who was sick. It was like breathing gangrene.” Her forehead knotted in revulsion or grief; but she forced her gaze back to his visage. “I swore I would never do anything like that again as long as I lived.”

  Pain made him bow his head. He glared into the shadows between them. A long moment passed before he could say without anger, “My leprosy is that disgusting to you.”

  “No.” Her denial jerked his eyes up again. “It wasn’t leprosy. It was venom.”

  Before he could absorb her asseveration, she continued, “It’s still in you. It’s growing. That’s why it’s so hard to look at you.” Fighting not to weep, she said hoarsely, “I can’t keep it out. Any of it. The Sunbane gets inside me. I can’t keep it out. You talk about desecration. Everything desecrates me.”

  What can I do? he groaned. Why did you follow me? Why did you try to save my life? Why doesn’t my leprosy disgust you? But aloud he tried to give her answers, rather than questions. “That’s how Foul works. He tries to turn hope into despair. Strength into weakness. He attacks things that are precious, and tries to make them evil.” The Despiser had used Kevin’s love of the Land, used the Bloodguard’s service, the Giants’ fidelity, used Elena’s passion, to corrupt them all. And Linden had looked at Vain because he, Covenant, had asked it of her. “But that knife cuts both ways. Every time he tries to hurt us is an opportunity to fight him. We have to find the strength of our weakness. Make hope out of despair.

  “Linden.” He reached out with his half-hand, took one of her hands, gripped it. “It doesn’t do any good to try to hide from him. It boots nothing to avoid his snares. “If you close your eyes, you’ll just get weaker. We have to accept who we are. And deny him.” But his fingers were numb; he could not tell whether or not she answered his clasp.

  Her head had fallen forward. Her hair hid her face.

  “Linden, it saved your life.”

  “No.” Her voice seemed to be muffled by the predawn dusk and the shadows. “You saved my life. I don’t have any power. All I can do is see.” She pulled her hand away. “Leave me alone,” she breathed. “It’s too much. I’ll try.”

  He wanted to protest. But her appeal moved him. Aching stiffly in all his joints, he stood up and went to the fire for warmth.

  Looking vaguely around the gully, he noticed the Stonedownors. The sight of them stopped him.

  They sat a short distance away. Sunder held the rukh. Faint red flames licked the triangle. Hollian supported him as she had when he had first attuned himself to the rukh.

  Covenant could not guess what they were doing. He had not paid any attention to them for too long, had no idea what they were thinking.

  Shortly they dropped their fires. For a moment, they sat gazing at each other, holding hands as if they needed courage.

  “It cannot be regretted.” Her whisper wafted up the gully like a voice of starlight. “We must bear what comes as we can.”

  “Yes,” Sunder muttered. “As we can.” Then his tone softened. “I can bear much—with you.” As they rose to their feet, he drew her to him, kissed her forehead.

  Covenant looked away, feeling like an intruder. But the Stonedownors came straight to him; and Sunder addressed him with an air of grim purpose. “Ur-Lord, this must be told. From the moment of your request”—he stressed the word ironically—“that I take up this rukh, there has been a fear in me. While Memla held her rukh, the Clave knew her. Therefore the Grim came upon us. I feared that in gaining mastery of her rukh I, too, would become known to the Clave.

  “Covenant—” He faltered for only an instant. “My fear is true. We have ascertained it. I lack the skill to read the purpose of the Clave—but I have felt their touch, and know that I am exposed to them.”

  “Ur-Lord,” asked Hollian quietly, “what must we do?”

  “Just what we’ve been doing.” Covenant hardly heard her, hardly heard his answer. “Run. Fight, if we have to.” He was remembering Linden’s face in convulsions, her rigid mouth, the sweat streaks in her hair. And wild magic. “Live.”

  Fearing that he was about to lose control, he turned away.

  Who was he, to talk to others about living and striving, when he could not even handle the frightening growth of his own power? The venom! It was part of him now. As the wild magic became more possible to him, everything else seemed more and more impossible. He was so capable of destruction. And incapable of anything else.

  He picked up a jug of metheglin and drank deeply to keep himself from groaning aloud.

  He was thinking, Power corrupts. Because it is unsure. It is not enough. Or it is too much. It teaches doubt. Doubt makes violence.

  The pressure for power was growing in him. Parts of him were hungry for the rage of wild fire.

  For a time, he was so afraid of himself, of the consequences of his own passions, that he could not eat. He drank the thick mead and stared into the flames, trying to believe that he would be able to contain himself.

  He had killed twenty-one people. They were vivid to him now in the approaching dawn. Twenty-one! Men and women whose only crime had been that their lives had been deformed by a Raver.

  When he raised his head, he found Linden standing near him.

  She was insecure on her feet, still extremely weak; but she was able to hold herself upright. She gazed at him soberly. As he dropped his eyes, she said with an echo of her old severity, “You should eat something.”

  He could not refuse her. He picked up a piece of dried meat. She nodded, then moved woodenly away to examine Cail. Covenant chewed abstractly while he watched her.

  Cail appeared to be both well and ill. He seemed to have recovered from the Sunbane sickness, regained his native solidity and composure. But his injury was still hotly infected; voure had no efficacy against the poison of the Courser’s spur.

  Linden glared at the wound as if it wrung her nerves, then demanded fire and boiling water. Hergrom and Ceer obeyed without comment. While the water heated, she borrowed Hollian’s dirk, burned it clean in the flames, then used it to lance Cail’s infection. He bore the pain stoically; only a slight tension between his brows betrayed what he felt. Blood and yellow fluid splashed a stain onto the sand. Her hands were precise in spite of her weakness. She knew exactly where and how deeply to cut.

  When the water was ready, she obtained a blanket from Brinn. Slashing the material into strips, she used some of them to wash out the wound; with others, she made a crude bandage. Fine beads of sweat mirrored the firelight from Cail’s forehead; but he did not wince. He did not appear to be breathing.

  “You’ll be all right as soon as we stop the infection.” Her voice sounded impersonal, as if she were reading from some medical tome. “You’re healthy enough for any five people.” Then her severity frayed. “This is going to hurt. If I could think of any way to kill the pain, I’d do it. But I can’t. I left everything in my bag.”

  “Have no concern, Linden Avery,” Cail replied evenly. “I am well. I will serve you.”

  “Serve yourself!” she grated at once. “Take care of that arm.” As she spoke, she made sure that his bandage was secure. Then she poured boiling water over the fabric.

  Cail made no sound. She stumbled to her feet, moved away from him and sat down against the gully wall, as if she could not bear the sight of his courage.

  A moment later, Vain caught Covenant’s attention. The first light of the sun touched Vain’s head, etched it out of the gloaming—a cynosure of blackness and secrets. Sunder and Hollian went quickly to find rock. Covenant helped Linden erect. The Haruchai stood. All the company faced the dawn.

  The sun broached the rim of the gully, wearing brown like the cerements of the world. Thirst and hallucination, bleached bones, fever-blisters. But Linden gasped involuntarily, “It’s weaker!”

  Then, before Coven
ant could grasp what she meant, she groaned in disappointment. “No. I must be losing my mind. It hasn’t changed.”

  Changed? Her bitterness left him in a whirl of anxiety as the quest broke camp, mounted the Coursers, and set off eastward. Was she so badly stressed by fear that she could no longer trust her eyes? In her convulsions, sweat had darkened her hair like streaks of damp anguish. But she seemed to be recovering. Her wound had been relatively minor. The company rode the sun-trammeled wasteland of the North Plains as if they were traversing an anvil. Why did he know so little about her?

  But the next morning she was steadier, surer. She carried her head as if it had ceased to pain her. When she faced the dawn and saw the third desert sun rise, her whole body tensed. “I was right,” she gritted. “It is weaker.” A moment later, she cried, “There!” Her arm accused the horizon. “Did you see it? Right there, it changed! It was weaker and then it became as strong as ever. As if it crossed a boundary.”

  No one spoke. Sunder and Hollian watched Linden as if they feared that the Sunbane sickness had affected her mind. The Haruchai gazed at her without expression.

  “I saw it.” Her voice stiffened. “I’m not crazy.”

  Covenant winced. “We don’t have your eyes.”

  She glared at him for an instant, then turned on her heel and strode away toward the waiting Coursers.

  Now she rode as if she were angry. In spite of the dry brutality of the sun and the strain of clinging to Clash’s back, her strength was returning. And with it came ire. Her ability to see had already cost her so much; and now her companions appeared to doubt what she saw. Covenant himself half disbelieved her. Any weakening of the Sunbane was a sign of hope. Surely therefore it was false? After what she had been through?

  When the company stopped for the night, she ate a meal, tended Cail’s arm, and set herself to sleep. But long before dawn, she was pacing the dead shale as if she were telling the moments until a revelation. Her tension articulated clearly how much she needed to be right, how sorely her exacerbated soul needed relief.