The Wounded Land

grass.

Covenant followed unsteadily, with Linden at his back.

By the time they neared the trees, his arms were latticed with fine scratches from the rough blades; and the grass itself waved above his head.

But later, as Sunder had predicted, the shade of the trees held the undergrowth to more natural proportions. And these trees led to a woodland even more heavily shadowed by cypress, flowering mulberry, and a maple-like tree with yellow leaves which Covenant recognized poignantly as Gilden. The sight of these stately trees, which the people of the Land had once treasured so highly, now being grown like puppets by the Sunbane, made ire pound like vertigo in the bones of his forehead.

He turned to share his outrage with Linden. But she was consumed by her own needs, and did not notice him. Her gaze was haunted by misery; her eyes seemed to wince away from everything around her, as if she could not blind herself to the screaming of the trees. Neither she nor Covenant had any choice but to keep moving.

Shortly after noon, Sunder halted in a bower under a dense willow. There the companions ate a meal of ussusimiel. Then, half a league farther on, they came across another mirkfruit creeper. These things sustained Covenant against his convalescent weakness. Nevertheless, he reached the end of his stamina by mid-afternoon. Finally, he dropped to the ground, allowed himself to lie still. All his muscles felt like mud; his head wore a vice of fatigue that constricted his sight and balance. “That's enough,” he mumbled. “I've got to rest.”

“You cannot,” the Graveller said. He sounded distant. “Not until the sun's setting-or until we have found barren ground.”

“He has to,” panted Linden. “He hasn't got his strength back. He still has that poison in him. He could relapse.”

After a moment, Sunder muttered, “Very well. Remain with him-ward him. I will search for a place of safety.” Covenant heard the Graveller stalking away through the brush.

Impelled by Sunder's warning, Covenant crawled to the shade of a broad Gilden trunk, seated himself against the bark. For a short time, he closed his eyes, floated away along the wide rolling of his weariness.

Linden brought him back to himself. She must have been tired, but she could not rest. She paced back and forth in front of him, gripping her elbows with her hands, shaking her head as if she were arguing bitterly with herself. He watched for a moment, tried to squeeze the fatigue from his sight. Then he said carefully, “Tell me what's the matter.”

“That's the worst.” His request triggered words out of her; but she replied to herself rather than to him. “It's all terrible, but that's the worst. What kind of tree is that?” She indicated the trunk against which he sat.

“It's called a Gilden.” Spurred by memories, he added, “The wood used to be considered very special.”

“It's the worst.” Her pacing tightened. “Everything's hurt. In such pain-” Tremors began to scale upward in her voice. “But that's the worst. All the Gilden. They're on fire inside. Like an auto-da-fe.” Her hands sprang to cover the distress on her face. “They ought to be put out of their misery.”

Put out of-? The thought frightened him. Like Sunder's mother? “Linden,” he said warily, “tell me what's the matter.”

She spun on him in sudden rage. “Are you deaf as well as blind? Can't you feel anything? I said they're in pain! They ought to be put out of their misery!”

“No.” He faced her fury without blinking. That's what Kevin did. The Land's need broke his heart. So he invoked the Ritual of Desecration, trying to extirpate evil by destroying what he loved. Covenant winced to remember how close he had come to walking that path himself. “You can't fight Lord Foul that way. That's just what he wants.”

“Don't tell me that!” she spat at him. “I don't want to hear it. You're a leper. Why should you care about pain? Let the whole world scream! It won't make any difference to you.” Abruptly, she flung herself to the ground, sat against a tree with her knees raised to her chest. “I can't take any more.” Suppressed weeping knurled her face. She bowed her head, sat with her arms outstretched and rigid across her knees. Her hands curled into fists, clinging futilely to thin air. “I can't.”

The sight of her wrung his heart. “Please,” he breathed. “Tell me why this hurts you so much.”

“I can't shut it out.” Hands, arms, shoulders-every part of her was clenched into a rictus of damned and demanding passion. “It's all happening to me. I can see-feel- the trees. In me. It's too-personal. I can't take it. It's killing me.”

Covenant wanted to touch her, but did not dare. She was too vulnerable. Perhaps she would be able to feel leprosy in the contact of his fingers. For a moment, he grappled with a desire to tell her about Kevin. But she might hear that story as a denial of her pain. Yet he had to offer her something.

“Linden,” he said, groaning inwardly at the arduousness of what he meant to say, 'when he summoned us here, Foul spoke to me. You didn't hear him. I'm going to tell you what he said. '

Her hands writhed; but she made no other reply. After a difficult moment, he began to repeat the Despiser's cold scorn.

Ah, you are stubborn yet.

He remembered every word of it, every drop of venom, every infliction of contempt. The memory came upon him like a geas, overwhelming his revulsion, numbing his heart. Yet he did not try to stop. He wanted her to hear it all. Since he could not ease her, he tried to share his sense of purpose.

You will be the instrument of my victory.

As the words fell on her, she coiled into herself-curled her arms around her knees, buried her face against them-shrank from what he was saying like a child in terror.

There is despair laid up for you here beyond anything your petty mortal heart can bear.

Yet throughout his recitation he felt that she hardly heard him, that her reaction was private, an implication of things he did not know about her. He half expected her to break out in keening. She seemed so bereft of the simple instinct for solace. She could have sustained herself with anger at the Despiser, as he did; but such an outlet seemed to have no bearing on her complex anguish. She sat folded trembling into herself, and made no sound.

Finally, he could no longer endure watching her. He crawled forward as if he were damning himself, and sat beside her. Firmly, he pried her right hand loose from its clinch, placed his halfhand in her grip so that she could not let go of his maimed humanity unless she released her hold on herself. “Lepers aren't numb,” he said softly. “Only the body gets numb. The rest compensates. I want to help you, and I don't know how.” Through the words, he breathed, Don't hurt yourself like this.

Somehow, the touch of his hand, or the empathy in his voice, reached her. As if by a supreme act of will, she began to relax her muscles, undo the knots of her distress. She drew a shuddering breath, let her shoulders sag. But still she clung to his hand, held the place of his lost fingers as if that amputation were the only part of him she could understand.

“I don't believe in evil.” Her voice seemed to scrape through her throat, come out smeared with blood. “People aren't like that. This place is sick. Lord Foul is just something you made up. If you can blame sickness on somebody, instead of accepting it for what it is, then you can avoid being responsible for it. You don't have to try to end the pain.” Her words were an accusation; but her grip on his hand contradicted it. “Even if this is a dream.”

Covenant could not answer. If she refused to admit the existence of her own inner Despiser, how could he persuade her? And how could he try to defend her against Lord Foul's manipulations? When she abruptly disengaged her hand, rose to her feet as if to escape the implications of his grasp, he gazed after her with an ache of loneliness indistinguishable from fear in his heart.

Nine: River-ride

A SHORT time later, Sunder returned. If he noticed Linden's tension as she stood there pale and absolute with her back to Covenant, he did not ask for any explanation. Quietly, he announced that he had found a place where they could rest safely until the next morning. Then he offered Covenant his hand.