The Wounded Land

could see the relief which lay half-hidden behind his convalescence and his unkempt beard.

“Are you alone?”

“No. They're coming. Sunder talked her into it.”

He did not respond. Lowering his head to his knees, he hid his face as if he did not want to admit how intensely he felt that he had been reprieved.

Shortly, Sunder and Hollian swam into view; and soon the companions were on their way downriver again. Covenant rode the current in silence, with his gaze always fixed ahead. And Linden, too, remained still, trying to gather up the scattered pieces of her privacy. She felt acutely vulnerable, as if any casual word, any light touch, could drive her to the edges of her own secrets. She did not know how to recollect her old autonomy. Through the day, she could feel the sun of pestilence impending over her as she swam; and her life seemed to be composed of threats against which she had no protection.

Then, late in the afternoon, the River began to run straight into the east, and the terrain through which it flowed underwent a dramatic change. Steep hills lay ahead on both sides like poised antitheses. Those on the right were rocky and barren-a desolation unlike the wilderland of the desert sun. Linden saw at once that they were always dead, that no sun of fertility ever alleviated their detrition. Some ancient and concentrated ruin had blasted their capacity for life long ago, before the Sunbane ever came upon them.

But the hills on the left were a direct contradiction. The power with which they reached her senses sent a shock through all her nerves.

North of the Mithil lay a lush region untouched by stress or wrong. The stands of elm and Gilden which crowned the boundary were naturally tall and vividly healthy; no fertile sun had aggravated their growth, no sun of pestilence had corroded their strong wood and clean sap. The grass sweeping away in long greenswards from the riverbank was pristine with aliantha and amaryllis and buttercups. An analystic air blew from these hills, forever sapid and virginal.

The demarcation between this region and the surrounding terrain was as clear as a line drawn in the dirt; at that border, the Sunbane ended and loveliness began. On the riverbank, like a marker and ward to the hills, stood an old oak, gnarled and sombre, wearing long shrouds of bryony like a cloak of power-a hoary majesty untrammelled by desert or rot. It forbade and welcomed, according to the spirit of those who approached.

“Andelain,” Covenant whispered thickly, as if he wanted to sing, and could not unclose his throat. “Oh, Andelain.”

But Hollian gazed on the Hills with unmitigated abhorrence. Sunder glowered at them as if they posed a danger he could not identify.

And Linden, too, could not share Covenant's gladness. Andelain touched her like the taste of aliantha embodied in the Land. It unveiled itself to her particular percipience with a visionary intensity. It was as hazardous as a drug which could kill or cure, according to the skill of the physician who used it.

Fear and desire tore at her. She had felt the Sunbane too personally, had exposed herself too much in Covenant. She wanted loveliness as if her soul were starving for it. But Hollian's dread was entirely convincing. Andelain's emanations felt as fatal as prophecy against Linden's face. She saw intuitively that the Hills could bereave her of herself as absolutely as any wrong. She had no ability to gauge or control the potency of this drug. Impossible that ordinary trees and grass could articulate so much might! She was already engaged in a running battle against madness. Hollian had said that Andelain drove people mad.

No, she repeated to herself. Not again. Please.

By mute consent, she and her companions stopped for the night among the ruins opposite the oak. A peculiar spell was on them, wrapping them within themselves. Covenant gazed, entranced, at the shimmer of health. But Hollian's revulsion did not waver. Sunder carried distrust in the set of his shoulders. And Linden could not shake her senses free of the deadness of the southern hills. The waste of this region was like a shadow cast by Andelain, a consequence of power. It affected her as if it demonstrated the legitimacy of fear.

Early in the evening, Hollian pricked her palm with the point of her dirk, and used the blood to call up a slight green flame from her Iianar. When she was done, she announced that the morrow would bring a fertile sun. But Linden was locked within her own apprehensions, and hardly heard the eh-Brand.

When she arose in the first grey of dawn with her companions, she said to Covenant, “I'm not going with you.”

The crepuscular air could not conceal his surprise. “Not? Why?” When she did not answer immediately, he urged her. “Linden, this is your chance to taste something besides sickness. You've been so hurt by the Sunbane. Andelain can heal you.”

“No.” She tried to sound certain, but memories of her mother, of the old man's breath, frayed her self- command. She had shared Covenant's illness, but he had never shared his strength. “It only looks healthy. You heard Hollian. Somewhere in there, it's cancerous.” I've already lost too much.

“Cancerous?” he demanded. “Are you losing your eyes? That is Andelain.”

She could not meet his dark stare. “I don't know anything about Andelain. I can't tell. It's too powerful. I can't stand anymore. I could lose my mind in there.”

“You could find it in there,” he returned intensely. 'I keep talking about fighting the Sunbane, and you don't know whether to believe me or not. The answer's in there. Andelain denies the Sunbane. Even I can see that. The Sunbane isn't omnipotent.

“Of course Andelain's powerful,” he went on in a rush of ire and persuasion. 'It has to be. But we need power. We've got to know how Andelain stays clear.

'I can understand Hollian. Even Sunder. The Sunbane made them what they are. It's cruel and terrible, but it makes sense. A world full of lepers can't automatically trust someone with good nerves. But you. You're a doctor. Fighting sickness is your business.

“Linden.” His hands gripped her shoulders, forced her to look at him. His eyes were gaunt and grim, placing demands upon her as if he believed that anybody could do the things he did. As if he did not know that he owed her his life, that all his show of determination or bravery would already have come to nothing without her. “Come with me.”

In spite of his presumption, she wanted to be equal to him. But her recollections of venom were too acute to be endured. She needed to recover herself. “I can't. I'm afraid.”

The fury in his gaze looked like grief. She dropped her eyes. After a moment, he said distantly, “I'll be back in two or three days. It's probably better this way. Numbness has its advantages. I probably won't be so vulnerable to whatever's in there. When I get back, we'll decide what to do.”

She nodded dumbly. He released her.

The sun was rising, clothed in a cymar of emerald. When she raised her head again, he was in the River, swimming toward Andelain as if he were capable of anything. Green-tinged light danced on the ripples of his passing. The venom was still in him.

PART II. VISION

Twelve: The Andelainian Hills

AS Thomas Covenant passed the venerable oak and began angling his way up into Andelain, he left a grieved and limping part of himself with Linden. He was still weak from the attack of the bees, and did not want to be alone. Unwillingly, almost unconsciously, he had come to depend on Linden's presence. He felt bound to her by many cords. Some of them he knew: her courage and support; her willingness to risk herself on his behalf. But others seemed to have no name. He felt almost physically linked to her without knowing why. Her refusal to accompany him made him afraid.