The boy's younger sister did what he had done, as if his agony meant nothing to her. And the third waif followed in turn, surrendering her flesh to harm like lifeless tissue animated solely for immolation.
Then Linden would have moved. The rigid abhorrence of Covenant's stance showed that he would have moved. But the fire stopped them, held them. At every taste of flesh, lust flared through it; flames raged higher.
A figure began to take shape in the heart of the blaze.
More people moved to sacrifice their hands. As they did so, the figure solidified. It was indistinct in the flames; but the glaring red outlined a man in a flowing robe. He stood blood-limned with his arms folded across his powerful chest-created by pain out of fire and self-abandonment.
The worshipper with the knife sank to his knees, cried out in exaltation, “Master!”
The figure's eyes were like fangs, carious and yellow; and they raged venomously out of the flames. Their malignance cowed Linden like a personal assault on her sanity, her conception of life. They were rabid and deliberate, like voluntary disease, fetid corruption. Nothing in all her life had readied her to witness such palpable hate.
Across the stillness, she heard Covenant gasp in fury, “Foul! Even children?” But his wrath could not penetrate the dread which paralyzed her. For her, the fiery silence was punctuated only by the screaming of the burned.
Then the moon began to rise opposite her. A rim as white as bone crested the hill, looked down into the hollow like a leer.
The man with the knife came to his feet. Again he raised his arms, brandished his dagger. His personal transport was approaching its climax. In a shout like a moan, he cried, “Now is the hour of apocalypse! The Master has come! Doom is at hand for those who seek to thwart His will. Now we will witness vengeance against sin and life, we who have watched and waited and suffered in His name. Here we fulfil the vision that was given to us. We have touched the fire, and we have been redeemed!” His voice rose until he was shrieking like the burned. “Now we will bring all wickedness to blood and eternal torment!”
He's mad. Linden clung to that thought, fought to think of these people as fanatics, driven wild by destitution and fear. They're all crazy. This is impossible. But she could not move.
And Covenant did not move. She yearned for him to do something, break the trance somehow, rescue Joan, save Linden herself from her extremity. But he remained motionless, watching the fire as if he were trapped between savagery and helplessness.
The figure in the blaze stirred. His eyes focused the flames like twin scars of malice, searing everything with his contempt. His right arm made a gesture as final as a sentence of execution.
At once, the brawny man dropped to his knees. Bending over Joan, he bared her throat. She lay limp under him, frail and lost. The skin of her neck seemed to gleam in the firelight like a plea for help.
Trembling as if he were rapturous or terrified, the man set his blade against Joan's white throat.
Now the people in the hollow stared emptily at his hands. They appeared to have lost all interest in Covenant. Their silence was appalling. The man's hands shook.
“Stop!”
Covenant's shout scourged the air.
“You've done enough! Let her go!”
The baleful eyes in the fire swung at him, nailed him with denigration. The worshipper at Joan's throat stared whitely upward. “Release her?” he croaked. “Why?”
“Because you don't have to do this!” Anger and supplication thickened Covenant's tone. “I don't know how you were driven to this. I don't know what went wrong with your life. But you don't have to do it.”
The man did not blink; the eyes in the fire clenched him. Deliberately, he knotted his free hand in Joan's hair.
“All right!” Covenant barked immediately. “All right. I accept. I'll trade you. Me for her.”
“No.” Linden strove to shout aloud, but her cry was barely a whisper. “
The worshippers were as silent as gravestones.
Slowly, the man with the knife rose to his feet. He alone seemed to have the capacity to feel triumph; he was grinning ferally as he said, “It is as the Master promised.”
He stepped back. At the same time, a quiver ran through Joan. She raised her head, gaped around her. Her face was free of possession. Moving awkwardly, she climbed to her feet. Bewildered and afraid, she searched for an escape, for anything she could understand.
She saw Covenant.
“Tom!” Springing from the rock, she fled toward him and threw herself into his arms.
He hugged her, strained his arms around her as if he could not bear to lose her. But then, roughly, he pushed her away. “Go home,” he ordered. “It's over. You'll be safe now.” He faced her in the right direction, urged her into motion.
She stopped and looked at him, imploring him to go with her.
“Don't worry about me.” A difficult tenderness softened his tone. “You're safe now-that's the important thing. I'll be all right.” Somehow, he managed to smile. His eyes betrayed his pain. The light from the fire cast shadows of self-defiance across his bruised mien. And yet his smile expressed so much valour and rue that the sight of it tore Linden's heart.
Kneeling with her head bowed and hot tears on her cheeks, she sensed rather than saw Joan leave the hollow. She could not bear to watch as Covenant moved down the hillside.
Suicide. Linden's father had killed himself. Her mother had begged for death. Her revulsion toward such things was a compelling obsession.
But Thomas Covenant had chosen to die. And he had smiled.
For Joan's sake.
Linden had never seen one person do so much for another.
She could not endure it. She already had too much blood on her hands. Dashing the tears from her eyes, she looked up.
Covenant moved among the people as if he were beyond hope. The man with the knife guided him into the triangle of blood. The carious eyes in the fire blazed avidly.
It was too much. With a passionate wrench, Linden broke the hold of her dismay, jumped upright.
“Over here!” she yelled. “Police! Hurry! They're over here!” She flailed her arms as if she were signalling to people behind her.
The eyes of the fire whipped at her, hit her with withering force. In that instant, she felt completely vulnerable, felt all her secrets exposed and devoured. But she ignored the eyes. She sped downward, daring the worshippers to believe she was alone.
Covenant whirled in the triangle. Every line of his stance howled,
People cried out. Her charge seemed to shatter the trance of the fire. The worshippers were thrown into confusion. They fled in all directions, scattered as if she had unpent a vast pressure of repugnance. For an instant, she was wild with hope.
But the man with the knife did not flee. The rage of the bonfire exalted him. He slapped his arms around Covenant, threw him to the stone, kicked him so that he lay flat.
The knife-! Covenant was too stunned to move.
Linden hurled herself at the man, grappled for his arms. He was slick with ashes, and strong. She lost her grip.
Covenant struggled to roll over. Swiftly, the man stooped to him, pinned him with one hand, raised the knife in the other.
Linden attacked again, blocked the knife. Her fingernails gouged the man's face.
Yowling, he dealt her a blow which stretched her on the rock.
Everything reeled. Darkness spun at her from all sides.
She saw the knife flash.
Then the eyes of the fire blazed at her, and she was lost in a yellow triumph that roared like the furnace of the sun.
