His words filled her with horror and protest. “How can it be?” she moaned. “You are not-abominable. What world is it that dares treat you so?”
His muscles jumped still higher in his shoulders, as if his hands were locked on the throat of some tormenting demon. “It's real. That is reality. Fact. The kind of thing that kills you if you don't believe it.” With a gesture of rejection toward the river, he gasped, “This is a nightmare.”
Lena flared with sudden courage. “I do not believe it. It may be that your world-but the Land-ah, the Land is real.”
Covenant's back clenched abruptly still, and he said with preternatural quietness, “Are you trying to drive me crazy?”
His ominous tone startled her, chilled her. For an instant, her courage stumbled; she felt the river and the ravine closing around her like the jaws of a trap. Then Covenant whirled and struck her a stinging slap across the face.
The force of the blow sent her staggering back into the light of the graveling. He followed quickly, his face contorted in a wild grin. As she caught her balance, got one last, clear, terrified look at him, she felt sure that he meant to kill her. The thought paralyzed her. She stood dumb and helpless while he approached.
Reaching her, he knotted his hands in the front of her shift and rent the fabric like a veil. She could not move. For an instant, he stared at her, at her high, perfect breasts and her short slip, with grim triumph in his eyes, as though he had just exposed some foul plot. Then he gripped her shoulder with his left hand and tore away her slip with his right, forcing her down to the sand as he uncovered her.
Now she wanted to resist, but her limbs would not move; she was helpless with anguish.
A moment later, he dropped the burden of his weight on her chest, and her loins were stabbed with a wild, white fire that broke her silence, made her scream. But even as she cried out she knew that it was too late for her. Something that her people thought of as a gift had been torn from her.
But Covenant did not feel like a taker. His climax flooded him as if he had fallen into a Mithil of molten fury. Suffocating in passion, he almost swooned. Then time seemed to pass him by, and he lay still for moments that might have been hours for all he knew-hours during which his world could have crumbled, unheeded.
At last he remembered the softness of Lena's body under him, felt the low shake of her sobbing. With an effort, he heaved himself up and to his feet. When he looked down at her in the graveling light, he saw the blood on her loins. Abruptly, his head became giddy, unbalanced, as though he were peering over a precipice. He turned and hurried with a shambling, unsteady gait toward the river, pitched himself fiat on the rock, and vomited the weight of his guts into the water. And the Mithil erased his vomit as cleanly as if nothing had happened.
He lay still on the rock while the exhaustion of his exacerbated nerves overcame him. He did not hear Lena arise, gather the shreds of her clothing, speak, or climb away out of the shattered ravine. He heard nothing but the long lament of the river-saw nothing but the ashes of his burnt-out passion-felt nothing but the dampness of the rock on his cheeks like tears.
Eight: The Dawn of the Message
THE hard bones of the rock slowly brought Thomas Covenant out of dreams of close embraces. For a time, he drifted on the rising current of the dawn-surrounded on his ascetic, sufficient bed by the searching self-communion of the river, the fresh odours of day, the wheeling cries of birds as they sprang into the sky. While his self- awareness, returned, he felt at peace, harmonious with his context; and even the uncompromising hardness of the stone seemed apposite to him, a proper part of a whole morning.
His first recollections of the previous night were of orgasm, heartrending, easing release and satisfaction so precious that he would have been willing to coin his soul to make such things part of his real life. For a long moment of joy, he re-experienced that sensation. Then he remembered that to get it he had hurt Lena.
Lena!
He rolled over, sat up in the dawn. The sun had not yet risen above the mountains, but enough light reflected into the valley from the plains for him to see that she was gone.
She had left her fire burning in the sand up the ravine from him. He lurched to his feet, scanned the ravine and both banks of the Mithil for some sign of her-or, his imagination leaped, of Stonedownors seeking vengeance. His heart thudded; all those rock-strong people would not be interested in his explanations or apologies. He searched for evidence of pursuit like a fugitive.
But the dawn was as undisturbed as if it contained no people, no crimes or desires for punishment. Gradually, Covenant's panic receded. After a last look around, he began to prepare for whatever lay ahead of him.
He knew that he should get going at once, hurry along the river toward the relative safety of the plains. But he was a leper, and could not undertake solitary journeys lightly. He needed to organise himself.
He did nothing about Lena; he knew instinctively that he could not afford to think about her. He had violated her trust, violated the trust of the Stonedown; that was as close to his last night's rage as he could go. It was past, irrevocable-and illusory, like the dream itself. With an effort that made him tremble, he put it behind him. Almost by accident on Kevin's Watch, he had discovered the answer to all such insanity: keep moving, don't think about it, survive. That answer was even more necessary now. His “Berek” fear of the previous evening seemed relatively unimportant. His resemblance to a legendary hero was only a part of a dream, not a compulsory fact or demand. He put it behind him also. Deliberately, he gave himself a thorough scrutiny and VSE.
When he was sure that he had no hidden injuries, no dangerous purple spots, he moved out to the end of the promontory. He was still trembling. He needed more discipline, mortification; his hands shook as if they could not steady themselves without his usual shaving ritual. But the penknife in his pocket was inadequate for shaving. After a moment, he took a deep breath, gripped the edge of the rock, and dropped himself, clothes and all, into the river for a bath.
The current tugged at him seductively, urging him to float off under blue skies into a spring day. But the water was too cold; he could only stand the chill long enough to duck and thrash in the stream for a moment. Then he hauled himself onto the rock and stood up, blowing spray off his face. Water from his hair kept running into his eyes, blinding him momentarily to the fact that Atiaran stood on the sand by the graveling. She contemplated him with a grave, firm glance.
Covenant froze, dripping as if he had been caught in the middle of a flagrant act. For a moment, he and Atiaran measured each other across the sand and rock. When she started to speak, he cringed inwardly, expecting her to revile, denounce, hurl imprecations. But she only said, “Come to the graveling. You must dry yourself.”
In surprise, he scrutinized her tone with all the high alertness of his senses, but he could hear nothing in it except determination and quiet sadness. Suddenly he guessed that she did not know what had happened to her daughter.
Breathing deeply to control the labour of his heart, he moved forward and huddled down next to the graveling. His mind raced with improbable speculations to account for Atiaran's attitude, but he kept his face to the warmth and remained silent, hoping that she would say something to let him know where he stood with her.
Almost at once, she murmured, “I knew where to find you. Before I returned from speaking with the Circle of elders, Lena told Trell that you were here.”
She stopped, and Covenant forced himself to ask, “Did he see her?”
He knew that it was a suspicious question. But Atiaran answered simply, “No. She went to spend the night with a friend. She only called out her message as she passed our home.”
Then for several long moments Covenant sat still and voiceless, amazed by the implications of what Lena had done. Only called out! At first, his brain reeled with thoughts of relief. He was safe-temporarily, at least. With her reticence, Lena had purchased precious time for him. Clearly, the people of this Land were prepared to make sacrifices
After another moment, he understood that she had not made her sacrifice for him. He could not imagine that she cared for his personal safety. No, she chose to protect him because he was a Berek-figure, a bearer of
