Lord Foul's Bane

me?

After a long silence, he whispered, “That's not possible.”

In response, Lena grinned broadly.

“What's so funny?”

Trying to imitate his tone, she said, “I need soap, not more dirt.” Then she laughed, a teasing sparkle in her eyes.

But Covenant was too full of surprise to be distracted. “I'm serious. How can this happen?”

Lena dropped her eyes and answered quietly, “There is power in the Earth-power and life. You must know this. Atiaran my mother says that such things as hurtloam, such powers and mysteries, are in all the Earth-but we are blind to them because we do not share enough, with the Land and with each other.”

“There are-other things like this?”

“Many. But I know only a few. If you travel to the Council, it may be that the Lords will teach you everything. But come”- she swung lightly to her feet “here is another. Are you hungry?”

As if cued by her question, an impression of emptiness opened in his stomach. How long had it been since he had eaten? He adjusted his pant legs, rolled down his sleeves, and shrugged himself to his feet. His wonder was reinforced to find that almost every ache was gone from his muscles. Shaking his head in disbelief, he followed Lena toward one side of the valley.

Under the shade of the trees, she stopped beside a gnarled, waist-high shrub. Its leaves were spread and pointed like a holly's, but it was scattered with small viridian blooms, and nestled under some of the leaves were tight clusters of a blue-green fruit the size of blueberries.

“This is aliantha,” said Lena. “We call them treasure-berries.” Breaking off a cluster, she ate four or five berries, then dropped the seeds into her hand and threw them behind her. “It is said that a person can walk the whole length and breadth of the Land eating only. treasure-berries, and return home stronger and better fed than before. They are a great gift of the Earth. They bloom and bear fruit in all seasons. There is no part of the Land in which they do not grow except, perhaps, in the east, on the Spoiled Plains. And they are the hardiest of growing things the last to die and the first to grow again. All this my mother told me, as part of the lore of our people. Eat,” she said, handing Covenant a cluster of the berries, “eat, and spread the seeds over the Earth, so that the aliantha may flourish.”

But Covenant made no move to take the fruit. He was lost in wonder, in unanswerable questions about the strange potency of this Land. For the moment, he neglected his danger.

Lena regarded his unfocused gaze, then took one of the berries and put it in his mouth. By reflex, he broke the skin with his teeth; at once, his mouth was filled with a light, sweet taste like that of a ripe peach faintly blended with salt and lime. In another moment he was eating greedily, only occasionally remembering to spit out the seeds.

He ate until he could find no more fruit on that bush, then looked about him for another. But Lena put her hand on his arm to stop him. “Treasure-berries are strong food,” she said. “You do not need many. And the taste is better if you eat slowly.”

But Covenant was still hungry. He could not remember ever wanting food as much as he now wanted that fruit-the sensations of eating had never been so vivid, so compulsory. He snatched his arm away as if he meant to strike her, then abruptly caught himself.

What is this? What's happening?

Before he could pursue the question, he became aware of another feeling-overpowering drowsiness. In the space of one instant, he passed almost without transition from hunger to a huge yawn that made him seem top- heavy with weariness. He tried to turn, and stumbled.

Lena was saying, “The hurtloam does this, but I did not expect it. When the wounds are very deadly, hurtloam brings sleep to speed the healing. But cuts on the hands are not deadly. Do you have hurts that you did not show me?”

Yes, he thought through another yawn. I'm sick to death.

He was asleep before he hit the grass.

When he began to drift slowly awake, the first thing that he became conscious of was Lena's firm thighs pillowing his head. Gradually, he grew aware of other things-the tree shade bedizened with glints of declining sunlight, the aroma of pine, the wind murmuring, the grass thickly cradling his body, the sound of a tune, the irregular tingling that came and went from his palms like an atavism-but the warmth of his cheek on Lena's lap seemed more important. For the time, his sole desire was to clasp Lena in his arms and bury his face in her thighs. He resisted it by listening to her song.

In a soft and somehow naive tone, she sang:

Something there is in beauty

which grows in the soul of the beholder

like a flower:

fragile—

for many are the blights

which may waste

the beauty

or the beholder—

and imperishable—

for the beauty may die,

or the beholder may die,

or the world may die,

but the soul in which the flower grows

survives.

Her voice folded him in a comfortable spell which he did not want to end. After a pause full of the scent of pine and the whispering breeze, he said softly, “I like that.”

“Do you? I am glad. It was made by Tomal the Craftmaster, for the dance when he wed Imoiran Moiran- daughter. But oft-times the beauty of a song is in the singing, and I am no singer. It may be that tonight Atiaran my mother will sing for the Stonedown. Then you will hear a real song.”

Covenant gave no answer. He lay still, only wishing to nestle in his pillow for as long as he could. The tingling in his palms seemed to urge him to embrace Lena, and he lay still, enjoying the desire and wondering where he would find the courage.

Then she began to sing again. The tune sounded familiar, and behind it he heard the rumour of dark wings. Suddenly he realized that it was very much like the tune that went with “Golden Boy.”

He had been walking down the sidewalk toward the offices of the phone company-the Bell Telephone Company; that name was written in gilt letters on the door-to pay his bill in person.

He jerked off Lena's lap, jumped to his-feet. A mist of violence dimmed his vision. “What song is that?” he demanded thickly.

Startled, Lena answered, “No song. I was only trying to make a melody. Is it wrong?”

The tone of her voice steadied him-she sounded so abandoned, so made forlorn by his quick anger. Words failed him, and the mist passed. No business, he thought. I've got no business taking it out on her. Extending his hands, he helped her to her feet. He tried to smile, but his stiff face could only grimace. “Where do we go now?”

Slowly the hurt faded from her eyes. “You are strange, Thomas Covenant,” she said.

Wryly, he replied, “I didn't know it was this bad.”

For a moment, they stood gazing into each other's eyes. Then she surprised him by blushing and dropping his hands. There was a new excitement in her voice as she said, “We will go to the Stonedown. You will amaze my mother and father.” Gaily, she turned and ran away down the valley.

She was lithe and light and graceful as she ran, and Covenant watched her, musing on the strange new feelings that moved in him. He had an unexpected sense that this Land might offer him some spell with which he could conjure away his impotence, some rebirth to which he could cling even after he regained consciousness, after