The Wounded Land

thighs. The Demondim-spawn did not glance at them. He remained still, as if time meant nothing to him. The clay forms were halfway to the head of the peninsula.

“Honninscrave asks if the sur-jheherrin know this man whom you name Vain. He asks if they were brought to our aid by Vain. They reply that they do not know him. He entered their clay pits to the west, and began journeying at once in this direction, traversing their demesne as if he knew all its ways. Therefore they followed him, seeking an answer to his mystery.” Again, Pitchwife seemed puzzled. “Thus he brought them by apparent chance to an awareness that the people of the Pure One were present in Sarangrave Flat-and imperilled. At once, they discarded the question of this Vain and set themselves to answer their ancient debt.”

Back-lit by emeralds, orange mudfire in his face, Vain gazed enigmatically through the company revealing nothing.

Behind him, the skest began to falter. Some sense of peril seemed to penetrate their dim minds; instead of oozing continuously toward absorption, they started to retreat. The sur- jheherrin advanced more quickly.

Honninscrave made noises with his lips. Pitchwife murmured, “Honninscrave asks the sur- jheherrin to speak to him of this Pure One, whom he does not know.”

“No,” the First commanded over her shoulder. 'Inquire into such matters at another time. Our way clears before us. The sur-jheherrin have offered to aid us from this place. We must choose our path.“ She faced Covenant dourly, as if he had given her a dilemma she did not like. ”It is my word that the duty of the Search lies westward. What is your reply?'

Seadreamer stood at her side, bearing Linden lightly. His countenance wore a suspense more personal than any mere question of west or east.

Covenant hugged his chest, unable to stop rocking. “No.” His mind was a jumble of shards like a broken stoneware pot, each as sharp-edged and vivid as blame, “You're wrong.” The Stonedownors stared at him; but he could not read their faces. He hardly knew who he was. “You need to know about the Pure One.”

The First's eyes sharpened. “Thomas Covenant,” she rasped, “do not taunt me. The survival and purpose of the Search are in my hands. I must choose swiftly.”

“Then choose.” Suddenly, Covenant's hands became fists, jerking blows at the invulnerable air. “Choose, and be ignorant.” His weakness hurt his throat. “I'm talking about a Giant.”

The First winced, as if he had unexpectedly struck her to the heart. She hesitated, glancing past the company to gauge the progress of the sur-jheherrin. The head of the peninsula would be clear in moments. To Covenant, she said sternly, “Very well, Giantfriend. Speak to me of this Pure One.”

Giantfriend! Covenant ached. He wanted to hide his face in grief; but the passion of his memories could not be silenced.

“Saltheart Foamfollower. A Giant. The last of the Giants who lived in the Land. They'd lost their way Home.” Foamfollower's visage shone in front of him. It was Honninscrave's face. All his Dead were coming back to him. 'Every other hope was gone. Foul had the Land in his hands, to crush it. There was nothing left. Except me. And Foamfollower.

“He helped me. He took me to Foul's Creche, so that I could at least fight, at least make that much restitution, die if I had to. He was burned-” Shuddering, he fought to keep his tale in order. 'Before we got there, Foul trapped us. We would have been killed. But the jheherrin- his ancestors-They rescued us. In the name of the Pure One.

“That was their legend-the hope that kept them sane. They believed that someday somebody pure- somebody who didn't have Foul's hands clenched in his soul-would come and free them. If they were worthy. Worthy! They were so tormented. There wasn't enough weeping in all the world to describe their worth. And I couldn't-” He choked on his old rage for victims, the preterite and the dispossessed. “I had power, but I wasn't pure. I was so full of disease and violence-” His hands groped the air, came back empty. “And they still helped us. They thought they had nothing to live for, and they helped-”

His vision of their courage held him silent for a moment. But his friends were waiting; the First was waiting. The sur-jheherrin had begun to move off the peninsula, absorbing skest. He drove himself to continue.

“But they couldn't tell us how to get across Hotash Slay. It was lava. We didn't have any way to get across. Foamfollower-” The Giant had shouted, 'I am the last of the Giants. I will give my life as I choose.' Covenant's memory of that cry would never be healed. “Foamfollower carried me. He just walked the lava until it sucked him down. Then he threw me to the other side.” His grief resounded in him like a threat of wild magic, unaneled power. “I thought he was dead.”

His eyes burned with recollections of magma. “But he wasn't dead. He came back. I couldn't do it alone, couldn't even get into Foul's Creche, never mind find the thronehall, save the Land. He came back to help me. Purified. All his hurts seared, all his hate and lust for killing and contempt for himself gone. He gave me what I needed when I didn't have anything left, gave me joy and laughter and courage. So that I could finish what I had to do without committing another Desecration. Even though it killed him.”

Oh, Foamfollower!

“He was the Pure One. The one who freed the jheherrin. Freed the Land. By laughing. A Giant.”

He glared at the company. In the isolation of what he remembered, he was prepared to fight them all for the respect Foamfollower deserved. But his unquenched passion had nowhere to go. Tears reflected orange and green from Honninscrave's cheeks. Pitchwife's mien was a clench of sorrow. The First swallowed thickly, fighting for sternness. When she spoke, her words were stiff with the strain of self-mastery,

“I must hear more of the Giants you have known. Thomas Covenant, we will accompany you from this place.”

A spasm of personal misery knotted Seadreamer's face. The scar under his eyes ached like a protest; but he had no voice.

In silence, Brinn took Covenant's arm and drew him away toward the end of the peninsula. The company followed. Ahead, the sur-jheherrin had consumed a passage through the skest. Bruin moved swiftly, pulling Covenant at a half-run toward the free night.

When they had passed the skest, the Haruchai turned eastward.

As the company fled, a screech of rage shivered the darkness, rang savagely across the Sarangrave. But in front of Covenant and Brinn, sur-jheherrin appeared, glowing orange and red.

Guided by clay forms, the company began to run.

Twenty Six: Coercri

FIVE days later, they reached the verge of Sarangrave Flat and broke out of jungle and wetland into the late afternoon of a cloudless sky. The sur-jheherrin were unexpectedly swift, and their knowledge of the Flat was intimate; they set a pace Covenant could not have matched. And Sunder and Hollian were in little better condition. Left to their own strength, they would have moved more slowly. Perhaps they would have died.

So for a large portion of each day, the Giants carried them. Seadreamer still bore Linden supine in his arms to protect her leg; but Sunder sat against the First's back, using her shield as a sling; Hollian straddled Pitchwife's hunched shoulders; and Covenant rode in the crook of Honninscrave's elbow. No one protested this arrangement. Covenant was too weary to feel any shame at his need for help. And peril prevented every other form of pride.

At intervals throughout those five days, the air became turgid screams, afflicting the company with an atavistic dread for which there was no anodyne except flight. Four times, they were threatened. Twice, hordes of skest appeared out of dark streams and tar-pits; twice, the lurker itself attacked. But, aided by the sur-jheherrin and by plentiful supplies of green wood, the Haruchai and the Giants were able to repulse the skest. And Covenant opposed the lurker with the light of the krill, lashing white fire from the unveiled