The Wounded Land

All I know is, he's demented. He's been lonely too long. And he believes what he says.”

“He's not the only one,” Covenant muttered. Deliberately, he stretched out to make himself more comfortable. He was too tired to worry about Nassic's sanity. But he owed Linden one other answer. Before he let go of himself, he replied, “No, I can't.”

As weariness washed over him, he was dimly aware that she stood up and began to pace beside his recumbent form.

He was awakened by silence. The rain had stopped. For a moment, he remained still, enjoying the end of the storm. The rest had done him good; he felt stronger, more capable.

When he raised his head, he saw Linden in the entryway, facing the vale and the clear cool night. Her shoulders were tense; strain marked the way she leaned against the stone. As he got to his feet, she turned toward him. She must have replenished the fire while he slept. The room was bright; he could see her face clearly. The corners of her eyes were lined as if she had been squinting for a long time at something which discomfited her.

“It stopped at nightfall.” She indicated the absence of rain with a jerk of her head. “He was right about that.”

The trouble in her worried him. He tried to sound casual as he asked, “What have you been thinking?”

She shrugged. “Nothing new. 'Face it. Go forward. Find out what happens.'” Her gaze was bent inward on memories. “I've been living that way for years. It's the only way to find out how much what you're trying to get away from costs.”

He searched her for some glimpse of what she meant. “You know,” he said slowly, “you haven't told me much about yourself.”

She stiffened, drew severity across her countenance like a shield. Her tone denied his question. “Nassic isn't back yet.”

For a moment, he considered her refusal. Did she have that much past hurt to hide? Were her defences aimed at him, or at herself? But then the import of her words penetrated him. “He isn't?” Even an old man should have been able to make the trip twice in this amount of time.

“I haven't seen him.”

“Damnation!” Covenant's throat was suddenly dry. “What the hell happened to him?”

“How should I know?” Her ire betrayed the fraying of her nerves. “Remember me? I'm the one who hasn't been here before.”

He wanted to snap at her; but he held himself back grimly. “I didn't mean it that way. Maybe he fell off the cliff. Maybe Mithil Stonedown is even more dangerous than he thought. Maybe he doesn't even have a son.”

He could see her swallowing her vexation, wishing herself immune to pressure. “What are we going to do?”

“What choice have we got? We have to go down there ourselves.” Sternly, he compelled himself to face her doubt of Nassic. “It's hard for me to believe we can't trust those people. They were my friends when I didn't deserve to have any friends.”

She considered him. “That was three thousand years ago.”

Yes, he muttered bleakly. And he had given them little in return except harm. If they remembered him at all, they would be justified in remembering only the harm.

With a sudden nausea, he realized that he was going to have to tell Linden what he had done to Mithil Stonedown, to Lena Atiaran-daughter. The doctor was the first woman he had met in ten years who was not afraid of him. And she had tried to save his life. What other protection could he give her against himself?

He lacked the courage. The words were in his mind, but he, could not utter them. To escape her eyes, he moved abruptly past her out of Nassic's stone dwelling.

The night was a vault of crystal. All the clouds were gone. The air was cold and sharp; and stars glittered like flecks of joy across the immaculate deeps. They gave some visibility. Below the dark crouch of the peaks, he could see the stream flowing turgidly down the length of the dell. He followed it; he remembered this part of the way well enough. But then he slowed his pace as he realized that Linden was not behind him.

“Covenant!”

Her cry scaled the night. Echoes repeated against the mountain-; sides.

He went back to her at a wild run.

She knelt on a pile of rubble like a cairn beside the hut-the broken remains of Nassic's temple, fallen into desuetude. She was examining a dark form which lay strangely atop the debris.,

Covenant sprang forward, peered at the body. ',

Bloody hell, he moaned. Nassic.

The old man lay embracing the ruins. From the centre of his back protruded the handle of a knife.;

“Don't touch that,” Linden panted. “It's still hot.” Her mouth was full of crushed horror.

Still-? Covenant kicked aside his dismay. “Take his legs. We'll carry him into the house.”

She did not move. She looked small and abject in the night.

To make her move, he lashed at her, “I told you it was dangerous. Did you think I was kidding? Take his legs!”

Her voice was a still cold articulation of darkness. “He's dead. There's nothing we can do.”

The sound of her desolation choked his protests. For one keening moment, he feared that he had lost her — that her mind had gone over the edge. But then she shifted. Her hair fell forward, hid her face, as she bent to slip her arms under Nassic's legs.

Covenant lifted him by the shoulders. Together, they bore him into his house.

He was already stiff.

They set him down gently in the centre of the floor. Covenant inspected him. His skin was cold. There was no blood in his robe around the knife; it must have been washed away by the rain. He must have lain dead in the rain for a long time.

Linden did not watch. Her eyes clinched the black iron knife. “It didn't kill him right away,” she said hoarsely. “It didn't hit him right. He bled to death.” The bones of her face seemed to throb with vehemence. “This is evil.”

The way she uttered that word evil sent cold fear scrabbling down Covenant's spine. He knew what she meant; he had formerly been able to perceive such things himself. She was looking at the cruelty of the hand which had held that knife, seeing the eager malice which had inspired the blow. And if the iron were still hot-He swallowed harshly. Nassic's killer must have been someone of great and brutal power.

He scrambled for explanations. “Whoever did it knew we were here. Or else why leave him out there? He wanted us to find the body-after he got away.” He closed his eyes, forced some clarity onto his spinning thoughts. “Nassic was killed because of us. To keep him from talking to the Stonedown. Or from talking to us. By hell, this stinks of Foul.”

Linden was not listening; her own reaction dominated her. “Nobody does this.” She sounded lorn, fear- ravaged.

He heard the strangeness of her protest; but he could not stop himself. His old anger for the victims of Despite drove him. “It takes a special kind of killer,” he growled, “to leave a hot knife behind. Foul has plenty of that kind of help. He's perfectly capable of having Nassic killed just to keep us from getting too much information. Or to manipulate us somehow.”

“Nobody kills like this. For pleasure.” Dull anguish blunted her tone, blinded her face. “People don't do that.”

“Of course they don't” Her dismay reached him; but the frailty of Nassic's dead limbs affronted him to the marrow of his bones, made his reply savage. “He probably decided to take a nap in the rain, and this knife just fell on him out of nowhere.”

She was deaf to his sarcasm-too intimately shocked to recognize him at all. “People kill because they're hungry. Afraid.” She struggled for certitude against the indefeasible iron. “Driven. Because someone, something, forces them.” Her tone sharpened as if she were gathering screams. “Nobody likes it.”

“No.” The sight of her distress pulled Covenant to her. He tried to confront her mounting repudiation. “Everybody likes it. Everybody likes power. But most people control it. Because they hate it, too. This is no different than any other murder. It's just more obvious.”