Their silence was loud in the air, like the cry of a throat that had no voice.
The sun began to draw sweat from Covenant's scalp.
“Somebody say something,” he muttered through his teeth.
Abruptly, Linden nudged his arm. “That's what they're waiting for. We're on trial. They want to hear what we've got to say for ourselves.”
“Terrific.” He accepted her intuitive explanation at once; she had eyes which he lacked. “What're we on trial for?”
Grimly, she replied, “Maybe they found Nassic.”
He groaned. That made sense. Perhaps Nassic had been killed precisely so that he and Linden would be blamed for the crime. And yet-He tugged at his bonds, wishing his hands were free so that he could wipe the sweat from his face. And yet it did not explain why they had been captured in the first place.
The silence was intolerable. The mountains and the houses cupped the centre of the village like an arena. The Stonedownors sat impassively, like icons of judgment. Covenant scanned them, mustered what little dignity he possessed. Then he began to speak.
“My name is ur-Lord Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever and white gold wielder. My companion is Linden Avery.” Deliberately, he gave her a title. “The Chosen. She's a stranger to the Land.” The dark people returned his gaze blankly. The man leaning against the wall bared his teeth. “But I'm no stranger,” Covenant went on in sudden anger. “You threaten me at your peril.”
“Covenant,” Linden breathed, reproving him.
“I know,” he muttered. “I shouldn't say things like that.” Then he addressed the people again. “We were welcomed by Nassic son of Jous. He wasn't a friend of yours-or you weren't friends of his, because God knows he was harmless.” Nassic had looked so lorn in death- “But he said he had a son here. A man named Sunder. Is Sunder here? Sunder?” He searched the ring. No one responded. “Sunder,” he rasped, “whoever you are-do you know your father was murdered? We found him outside his house with an iron knife in his back. The knife was still hot.”
Someone in the circle gave a low moan; but Covenant did not see who it was. Linden shook her head; she also had not seen.
The sky had become pale brown from edge to edge. The heat of the sun was as arid as dust.
“I think the killer lives here. I think he's one of you. Or don't you even care about that?”
Nobody reacted. Every face regarded him as if he were some kind of ghoul. The silence was absolute.
“Hellfire.” He turned back to Linden. “I'm just making a fool out of myself. You got any ideas?”
Her gaze wore an aspect of supplication. “I don't know-I've never been here before.”
“Neither have I.” He could not suppress his ire. “Not to a place like this. Courtesy and hospitality used to be so important here that people who couldn't provide them were ashamed.” Remembering the way Trell and Atiaran, Lena's parents, had welcomed him to their home, he ground his teeth. With a silent curse, he confronted the Stonedownors. “Are the other villages like this?” he demanded. “Is the whole Land sick with suspicion? Or is this the only place where simple decency has been forgotten?”
The man with the staff lowered his eyes. No one else moved.
“By God, if you can't at least tolerate us, let us go! We'll walk out of here, and never look back. Some other village will give us what we need.”
The man behind the circle gave a grin of malice and triumph.
“Damnation,” Covenant muttered to himself. The silence was maddening. His head was beginning to throb. The valley felt like a desert. “I wish Mhoram was here.”
Dully, Linden asked, “Who is Mhoram?” Her eyes were fixed on the standing man. He commanded her attention like an open wound.
“One of the Lords of Revelstone.” Covenant wondered what she was seeing. “Also a friend. He had a talent for dealing with impossible situations.”
She wrenched her gaze from the gloating man, glared at Covenant. Frustration and anxiety made her tone sedulous. “He's dead. All your friends are dead.” Her shoulders strained involuntarily at her bonds. “They've been dead for three thousand years. You're living in the past. How bad do things have to get before you give up thinking about the way they used to be?”
“I'm trying to understand what's happened!” Her attack shamed him. It was unjust-and yet he deserved it. Everything he said demonstrated his inadequacy. He swung away from her.
“Listen to me!” he beseeched the Stonedownors. 'I've been here before-long ago, during the great war against the Grey Slayer. I fought him. So the Land could be healed. And men and women from Mithil Stonedown helped me. Your ancestors. The Land was saved by the courage of Stonedownors and Woodhelvennin and Lords and Giants and Bloodguard and Ranyhyn.
“But something's happened. There's something wrong in the Land. That's why we're here.” Remembering the old song of Kevin Landwaster, he said formally, “So that beauty and truth should not pass utterly from the Earth.”
With tone, face, posture, he begged for some kind of response, acknowledgment, from the circle. But the Stonedownors refused every appeal. His exertions had tightened the bonds on his wrists, aggravating the numbness of his hands. The sun began to raise heat-waves in the distance. He felt giddy, futile.
“I don't know what you want,” he breathed thickly. “I don't know what you think we're guilty of. But you're wrong about her.” He indicated Linden with his head. “She's never been here before. She's innocent.”
A snort of derision stopped him.
He found himself staring at the man who stood behind the circle. Their eyes came together like a clash of weapons. The man had lost his grin; he glared scorn and denunciation at Covenant. He held violence folded in the crooks of his elbows. But Covenant did not falter. He straightened his back, squared his shoulders, met the naked threat of the man's gaze.
After one taut moment, the man looked away.
Softly, Covenant said, “We're not on trial here. You are. The doom of the Land is in your hands, and you're blind to it.”
An instant of silence covered the village; the whole valley seemed to hold its breath. Then the lone man cried suddenly, “Must we hear more?” Contempt and fear collided in his tone. “He has uttered foulness enough to damn a score of strangers. Let us pass judgment now!”
At once, the man with the staff sprang to his feet. “Be still, Marid,” he said sternly. “I am the Graveller of Mithil Stonedown. The test of silence is mine to begin-and to end.”
“It is enough!” retorted Marid. “Can there be greater ill than that which he has already spoken?”
A dour crepitating of assent ran through the circle.
Linden moved closer to Covenant. Her eyes were locked to Marid as if he appalled her. Nausea twisted her mouth. Covenant looked at her, at Marid, trying to guess what lay between them.
“Very well.” The Graveller took a step forward. “It is enough.” He planted his staff on the stone. “Stonedownors, speak what you have heard.”
For a moment, the people were still. Then an old man rose slowly to his feet. He adjusted his jerkin, pulled his gravity about him. “I have heard the Rede of the na-Mhoram, as it is spoken by the Riders of the Clave. They have said that the coming of the man with the halfhand and the white ring bodes unending ruin for us all. They have said that it is better to slay such a man in his slumber, allowing the blood to fall wasted to the earth, than to permit him one free breath with which to utter evil. Only the ring must be preserved, and given to the Riders, so that all blasphemy may be averted from the Land.”
Blasphemy? Clave? Covenant grappled uselessly with his incomprehension. Who besides Nassic's Unfettered ancestor had foretold the return of the Unbeliever?
The old man concluded with a nod to the Graveller. Opposite him, a middle-aged woman stood. Jabbing her hand toward Covenant, she said, “He spoke the name of the na-Mhoram as a friend. Are not the na-Mhoram and all his Gave bitter to Mithil Stonedown? Do not his Riders reave us of blood-and not of the old whose deaths are nigh, but of the young whose lives are precious? Let these two die! Our herd has already suffered long days without forage.”
“Folly!” the old man replied. “You will not speak so when next the Rider comes. It will be soon-our time nears again. In all the Land only the Clave has power over the Sunbane. The burden of their sacrificing is heavy to us-but we would lack life altogether if they failed to spend the blood of the villages.”
