Hurtloam? Linden's expression asked.
“Hurtloam?” queried Nassic. “What is hurtloam?”
What is-? Distress lurched across Covenant's features. What-? Shouts flared in him like screams, Hurtloam! Earthpower!
“Forgive me, Ur-Lord. Be not angry. I-”
“It was here! In this valley!” Lena had healed him with it.
Nassic found a moment of dignity. “I know nothing of hurtloam. I am an old man, and have never heard the name spoken.”
“Damnation!” Covenant spat. “Next you're going to tell me you've never heard of Earthpower!”
The old man sagged. “Earthpower?” he breathed. “Earthpower?”
Covenant's hands ground his giddy dismay into Nassic's thin arms. But Linden was at his side, trying to loosen his grip. “Covenant! He's telling the truth!”
Covenant jerked his gaze like a whip to her face.
Her lips were tight with strain, but she did not let herself flinch. “He doesn't know what you're talking about.”
She silenced him. He believed her; she could hear the truth in Nassic's voice, just as she could see the lack of infection in his cuts. No hurtloam? He bled inwardly. Forgotten?
Linden stood over him. She was groping for decision, insight; but he could not help her. After a moment, she said, “Nassic.” Her tone was severe. “Do you have any food?”
“Food?” he replied as if she had reminded him of his inadequacy. “Yes. No. It is unworthy.”
“We need food.”
Her statement brooked no argument. Nassic bowed, went at once to the opposite wall, where he began lifting down crude bowls and pots from the shelves.
Linden came to Covenant, knelt in front of him. “What is it?” she asked tightly. He could not keep the despair out of his face. “What's wrong?”
He did not want to answer. He had spent too many years in the isolation of his leprosy; her desire to understand him only aggravated his pain. He could not bear to be so exposed. Yet he could not refuse the demand of her hard mouth, her soft eyes. Her life was at issue as much as his. He made an effort of will. “Later.” His voice ached through his teeth. “I need time to think about it.”
Her jaws locked; darkness wounded her eyes. He looked away, so that he would not be led to speak before he had regained his self-mastery.
Shortly, Nassic brought bowls of dried meat, fruit, and unleavened bread, which he offered tentatively, as if he knew they deserved to be rejected. Linden accepted hers with a difficult smile; but Nassic did not move until Covenant had mustered the strength to nod his approval. Then the old man took pots and collected rainwater for them to drink.
Covenant stared blindly at his food without tasting it. He seemed to have no reason to bother feeding himself. Yet he knew that was not true; in fact, he was foundering in reasons. But the impossibility of doing justice to them all made his resolution falter. Had he really sold his soul to the Despiser-?
But he was a leper; he had spent long years learning the answer to his helplessness. Leprosy was incurable. Therefore lepers disciplined themselves to pay meticulous attention to their immediate needs. They ignored the abstract immensity of their burdens, concentrated instead on the present, moment by moment. He clung to that pragmatic wisdom. He had no other answer.
Numbly, he put a piece of fruit in his mouth, began to chew.
After that, habit and hunger came to his aid. Perhaps his answer was not a good one; but it defined him, and he stood by it.
Stood or fell, he did not know which.
Nassic waited humbly, solicitously, while Covenant and Linden ate; but as soon as they finished, he said, “Ur-Lord.” He sounded eager. “I am your servant. It is the purpose in my life to serve you, as it was the purpose of Jous my father and Prassan his father throughout the long line of the Unfettered.” He seemed unmindful of the quaver in his words. “You are not come too soon. The Sunbane multiplies in the Land. What will you do?”
Covenant sighed. He felt unready to deal with such questions. But the ritual of eating had steadied him. And both Nassic and Linden deserved some kind of reply. Slowly, he said, “We'll have to go to Revelstone-” He spoke the name hesitantly. Would Nassic recognize it? If there were no more Lords — Perhaps Revelstone no longer existed. Or perhaps all the names had changed. Enough time had passed for anything to happen.
But Nassic crowed immediately, “Yes! Vengeance upon the Clave! It is good!”
The Clave? Covenant wondered. But he did not ask. Instead, he tested another familiar name. “But first we'll have to go to Mithil Stonedown-”
“No!” the man interrupted. His vehemence turned at once into protest and trepidation. “You must not. They are wicked-wicked! Worshippers of the Sunbane. They say that they abhor the Clave, but they do not. Their fields are sown with blood!”
Blood again; Sunbane; the Clave. Too many things he did not know. He concentrated on what he was trying to ascertain. Apparently, the names he remembered were known to Nassic in spite of their age. That ended his one dim hope concerning the fate of the Earthpower. A new surge of futility beat at him. How could he possibly fight Lord Foul if there were no Earthpower? No, worse-if there were no Earthpower, what was left to fight for?
But Nassic's distraught stare and Linden's clenched, arduous silence demanded responses. Grimacing, he thrust down his sense of futility. He was intimately acquainted with hopelessness, impossibility, gall; he knew how to limit their power over him.
He took a deep breath and said, “There's no other way. We can't get out of here without going through Mithil Stonedown.”
“Ah, true,” the old man groaned. “That is true.” He seemed almost desperate. 'Yet you must not-They are wicked! They harken to the words of the Clave-words of abomination. They mock all old promises, saying that the Unbeliever is a madness in the minds of the Unfettered. You must not go there.'
“Then how-?” Covenant frowned grimly. What's happened to them? I used to have friends there.
Abruptly, Nassic reached a decision. “I will go. To my son. His name is Sunder. He is wicked, like the rest. But he is my son. He comes to me when the mood is upon him, and I speak to him, telling him what is proper to his calling. He is not altogether corrupted. He will aid us to pass by the Stonedown. Yes.” At once, he threw himself toward the entryway.
“Wait!” Covenant jumped to his feet. Linden joined him.
“I must go!” cried Nassic urgently.
“Wait until the rain stops.” Covenant pleaded against the frenzy in Nassic's eyes. The man looked too decrepit to endure any more exposure. “We're not in that much of a hurry.”
“It will not halt until nightfall. I must make haste!”
“Then at least take a torch!”
Nassic flinched as if he had been scourged. “Ah, you shame me! I know the path. I must redeem my doubt.” Before Covenant or Linden could stop him, he ran out into the rain.
Linden started after nun; but Covenant stayed her. Lightning blazed overhead. In the glare, they saw Nassic stumbling frenetically toward the end of the dell. Then thunder and blackness hit, and he disappeared as if he had been snuffed out. “Let him go,” sighed Covenant. “H we chase him, we'll probably fall off a cliff somewhere.” He held her until she nodded. Then he returned wearily to the fire.
She followed him. When he placed his back to the hearth, she confronted him. The dampness of her hair darkened her face, intensifying the lines between her brows, on either side of her mouth. He expected anger, protest, some outburst against the insanity of her situation. But when she spoke, her voice was flat, controlled.
“This isn't what you expected.”
“No.” He cursed himself because he could not rise above his dismay. “No. Something terrible has happened,”
