The Wounded Land

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.”

Paul 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 hah-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