The Wounded Land

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  For a time, her companions rode the River in silence. But at last Hollian spoke. Linden was dimly cognizant of the young woman’s plight. The en-Brand had been surrendered to death by her own village, and had been impossibly rescued—Eventually all the things she did not understand overcame her reluctance. She breathed clenched apprehension into the darkness. “Speak to me. I do not know you.”

  “Your pardon.” Sunder’s tone expressed weariness and useless regret. “We have neglected courtesy. I am Sunder son of Nassic, at one time”—he became momentarily bitter—“Graveler of Mithil Stonedown, fourscore leagues to the south. With me are Linden Avery the Chosen and ur-Lord Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever and white gold wielder. They are strangers to the Land.”

  Strangers, Linden murmured. She saw herself as an unnatural visitant. The thought had sharp edges on all sides.

  The eh-Brand answered like a girl remembering her manners with difficulty. “I am Hollian Amith-daughter, eh-Brand of Crystal Stonedown. I am—” She faltered, then said in a sore voice, “I know not whether to give you thanks for redeeming my life—or curses for damning my home. The na-Mhoram’s Grim will blacken Crystal Stonedown forever.”

  Sunder spoke roughly. “Perhaps not.”

  “How not?” she demanded in her grief. “Surely Sivit na-Mhoram-wist will not forbear. He will ride forthwith to Revelstone, and the Grim will be spoken. Nothing can prevent it.”

  “He will not ride to Revelstone. I have slain his Courser.” Half to himself, Sunder muttered, “The Rede did not reveal to me that a Sunstone may wield such might.”

  Hollian gave a low cry of relief. “And the rukh with which he molds the Sunbane is destroyed. Thus he cannot call down ill upon my people.” A recovery of hope silenced her. She relaxed in the water as if it were a balm for her fears.

  Covenant’s need was loud in Linden’s ears. She tried to deafen herself to it. “The Rider’s scepter—his rukh? Where did he get the blood to use it? I didn’t see him cut himself.”

  “The Riders of the Clave,” Sunder responded dourly, “are not required to shed themselves. They are fortified by the young men and women of the Land. Each rukh is hollow, and contains the blood with which the Sunbane is wielded.”

  Echoes of the outrage which had determined her to rescue Hollian awoke in Linden. She welcomed them, explored them, hunting for courage. The rites of the Sunbane were barbaric enough as Sunder practiced them. To be able to achieve such power without personal cost seemed to her execrable. She did not know how to reconcile her ire with what she had heard of the Clave’s purpose, its reputation for resistance to the Sunbane. But she was deeply suspicious of that reputation. She had begun to share Covenant’s desire to reach Revelstone.

  But Covenant was dying.

  Everything returned to Covenant and death.

  After a while, Hollian spoke again. A different fear prompted her to ask, “Is it wild magic? Wild magic in sooth?”

  “Yes,” the Graveler said.

  “Then why—?” Linden could feel Hollian’s disconcertion. “How did it transpire that Mithil Stonedown did not slay him, as the Rede commands?”

  “I did not permit it,” replied Sunder flatly. “In his name, I turned from my people, so that he would not be shed,”

  “You are a Graveler,” Hollian whispered in her surprise. “A Stonedownor like myself. Such a deed—surely it was difficult for you. How were you brought to commit such transgression?”

  “Daughter of Amith,” Sunder answered like a formal confession, “I was brought to it by the truth of the Rede. The words of the ur-Lord were words of beauty rather than evil. He spoke as one who owns both will and power to give his words substance. And in my heart the truth of the Rede was unbearable.

  “Also,” he went on grimly, “I have been made to learn that the Rede itself contains falsehood.”

  “Falsehood?” protested Hollian. “No. The Rede is the life of the Land. Were it false, all who rely upon it would die.”

  Sunder considered for a moment, then said, “Eh-Brand, do you know the aliantha?”

  She nodded. “It is most deadly poison.”

  “No.” His certitude touched Linden. In spite of all that had happened, he possessed an inner resilience she could not match. “It is good beyond any other fruit. I speak from knowledge. For three suns, we have eaten aliantha at every chance.”

  “Surely”—Hollian groped for arguments—“it is the cause of the ur-Lord’s sickness?”

  “No. This sickness has come upon him previously, and the aliantha gave him healing.”

  At this, she paused, trying to absorb what she had heard. Her head turned from side to side, searching the night for guidance. When she spoke again, her voice came faintly over the wet sounds of the River. “You have redeemed my life. I will not doubt you. I am homeless and without purpose, for I cannot return to Crystal Stonedown, and the world is perilous, and I do not comprehend my fate. I must not doubt you.

  “Yet I would ask you of your goal. All is dark to me. You have incurred the wrath of the Clave for me. You journey great distances under the Sunbane. Will you give me reason?”

  Sunder said deliberately, “Linden Avery?” passing the question to her. She understood; he was discomfited by the answer, and Hollian was not likely to take it calmly. Linden wanted to reject the difficulty, force Sunder and Hollian to fend for themselves. But, because her own weakness was intolerable to her, she responded squarely, “We’re going to Revelstone.”

  Hollian reacted in horror. “Revelstone? You betray me!” At once, she thrust away from the raft, flailing for an escape.

  Sunder lunged after her. He tried to shout something, but his damaged chest changed it to a gasp of pain.

  Linden ignored him. His lunge had rolled the raft, dropping Covenant into the water.

  She grappled for Covenant, brought him back to the surface. His respiration was so shallow that he did not even cough at the water which streamed from his mouth. In spite of his weight, he conveyed a conviction of utter frailty.

  Sunder fought to prevent Hollian’s flight; but he was hampered by his hurt ribs. “Are you mad?” he panted at her. “If we sought your harm, Sivit’s intent would have sufficed!”

  Struggling to support Covenant, Linden snapped, “Let her go!”

  “Let—?” the Graveler protested.

  “Yes!” Ferocity burned through her. “I need help. By God, if she wants to leave, that’s her right!”

  “Heaven and Earth!” retorted Sunder. “Then why have we imperiled our lives for her?”

  “Because she was going to be killed! I don’t care if we need her or not. We don’t have the right to hold her against her will. I need help.”

  Sunder spat a curse. Abruptly he abandoned Hollian, came limping through the water to take some of Covenant’s weight. But he was livid with pain and indignation. Over his shoulder, he rasped at Hollian, “Your suspicion is unjust!”

  “Perhaps.” The eh-Brand trod water twenty feet away; her head was a piece of darkness among the shadows of the River. “Assuredly I have been unjust to Linden Avery.” After a moment, she demanded, “What purpose drives you to Revelstone?”

  “That’s where the answers are.” As quickly as it had come, Linden’s anger vanished, and a bone-deep dread took its place. She had been through too much. Without Sunder’s aid, she could not have borne Covenant back to the raft. “Covenant thinks he can fight the Sunbane. But he has to understand it first. That’s why he wants to talk to the Clave.”

  “Fight?” asked Hollian in disbelief. “Do you speak of altering the Sunbane?”

  “Why not?” Linden clung to the raft. Dismay clogged her limbs. “Isn’t that what you do?”

  “I?”

  “Aren’t you a Sun-Sage?”

  “No!” Hollian declared sharply. “That is a lie, uttered by Sivit na-Mhoram-wist to strengthen his claim upon me. I am an eh-Brand. I see the sun. I do not shape it.”

  To Linden, Sunder growled, “Then we h
ave no need of her.”

  Dimly Linden wondered why he felt threatened by Hollian. But she lacked the courage to ask him. “We need all the help we can get,” she murmured. “I want her with us. If she’s willing.”

  “Why?”

  At the same time, Hollian asked, “Of what use am I to you?”

  Without warning, Linden’s throat filled with weeping. She felt like a lorn child, confronted by extremities she could not meet. She had to muster all her severity in order to articulate, “He’s dying. I can feel it.” In a shudder of memory, she saw Marid’s fangs. “It’s worse than it was before. I need help.” The help she needed was vivid and appalling to her; but she could not stop. “One of you isn’t enough. You’ll just bleed to death. Or I will.” Impelled by her fear of losing Covenant, she wrenched her voice at Hollian. “I need power. To heal him.”

  She had not seen the eh-Brand approach; but now Hollian was swimming at her side. Softly the young woman said, “Perhaps such shedding is unnecessary. It may be that I can succor him. An eh-Brand has some knowledge of healing. But I do not wish to fall prey to the Clave a second time.”

  Linden gritted her teeth until her jaw ached, containing her desperation. “You’ve seen what he can do. Do you think he’s going to walk into Revelstone and just let them sacrifice him?”

  Hollian thought for a moment, touched Covenant’s swelling gently. Then she said, “I will attempt it. But I must await the sun’s rising. And I must know how this harm came upon him.”

  Linden’s self-command did not reach so far. Sunrise would be too late. Covenant could not last until dawn. The Chosen! she rasped at herself. Dear God. She left the eh-Brand’s questions for Sunder to answer. As he began a taut account of what had happened to Covenant, Linden’s attention slipped away to the Unbeliever’s wracked and failing body.

  She could feel the poison seeping past the useless constriction of his shirt sleeve. Death gnawed like leprosy at the sinews of his life. He absolutely could not last until dawn.

  Her mother had begged to die; but he wanted to live. He had exchanged himself for Joan, had smiled as if the prospect were a benison; yet his every act showed that he wanted to live. Perhaps he was mad; perhaps his talk about a Despiser was paranoia rather than truth. But the conclusions he drew from it were ones she could not refute. She had learned in Crystal Stonedown that she shared them.

  Now he was dying.

  She had to help him. She was a doctor. Surely she could do something about his illness. Impossible that her strange acuity could not cut both ways. With an inward whimper, she abandoned resistance, bared her heart.

  Slowly she reached her awareness into him, inhabited his flesh with her private self. She felt his eviscerated respiration as her own, suffered the heat of his fever, clung to him more intimately than she had ever held to any man.

  Then she was foundering in venom. She was powerless to repel it. Nausea filled her like the sick breath of the old man who had told her to Be true. No part of her knew how to give life in this way. But what she could do, she did. She fought for him with the same grim and secretly hopeless determination which had compelled her to study medicine as if it were an act of rage against the ineffectuality of her parents—a man and woman who had understood nothing about life except death, and had coveted the thing they understood with the lust of lovers. They had taught her the importance of efficacy. She had pursued it without rest for fifteen years.

  That pursuit had taken her to Haven Farm. And there her failure in the face of Joan’s affliction had cast her whole life into doubt. Now that doubt wore the taste and corruption of Covenant’s venom. She could not quench the poison. But she tried by force of will to shore up the last preterite barriers of his life. This sickness was a moral evil; it offended her just as Marid had offended her, as Nassic’s murder and the hot knife had offended her; and she denied it with every beat of her heart. She squeezed air into his lungs, pressured his pulse to continue, opposed the gnawing and spread of the ill.

  Alone, she kept him alive through the remainder of the night.

  The bones of her forehead ached with shared fever when Sunder brought her back to herself. Dawn was in the air. He and Hollian had drawn the raft toward the riverbank. Linden looked about her tabidly. Her soul was full of ashes. A part of her panted over and over, No. Never again. The River ran through a lowland which should have been composed of broad leas; but instead, the area was a gray waste where mountains of preternatural grass had been beaten down by three days of torrential rain, then rotted by the sun of pestilence. As the approach of day stirred the air, currents of putrefaction shifted back and forth across the Mithil.

  But she saw why Sunder and Hollian had chosen this place. Near the bank, a sandbar angled partway across the watercourse, forming a swath where Covenant could lie, away from the fetid grass.

  The Stonedownors secured the raft, lilted Covenant to the sand, then raised him into Linden’s arms. Hugging him erect, though she herself swayed with exhaustion, she watched as Sunder and Hollian hastened to the riverbank and began hunting for stone. Soon they were out of sight.

  With the thin remnant of her strength, Linden confronted the sun.

  It hove over the horizon wearing incarnadine like the sails of a plague-ship. She welcomed its warmth—needed to be warm, yearned to be dry—but its corona made her moan with empty repugnance. She lowered Covenant to the sand, then sat beside him, studied him as if she were afraid to close her eyes. She did not know how soon the insects would begin to swarm.

  But when Sunder and Hollian returned, they were excited. The tension between them had not relaxed; but they had found something important to them both. Together they carried a large bush which they had uprooted as if it were a treasure.

  “Voure!” Hollian called as she and Sunder brought the bush to the sandbar. Her pale skin was luminous in the sunlight. “This is good fortune. Voure is greatly rare.” They set the bush down nearby, and at once began to strip its leaves.

  “Rare, indeed,” muttered Sunder. “Such names are spoken in the Rede, but I have never beheld voure.”

  “Does it heal?” Linden asked faintly.

  In response, the eh-Brand gave her a handful of leaves. They were as pulpy as sponges; clear sap dripped from their broken stems. Their pungent odor made her wince.

  “Rub the sap upon your face and arms,” said Hollian. “Voure is a potent ward against insects.”

  Linden stared until her senses finally registered the truth of the eh-Brand’s words. Then she obeyed. When she had smeared sap over herself, she did the same to Covenant.

  Sunder and Hollian were similarly busy. After they had finished, he stored the remaining leaves in his knapsack.

  “Now,” the eh-Brand said promptly, “I must do what lies within my capacity to restore the Halfhand.”

  “His name is Covenant,” Linden protested dimly. To her, Halfhand was a Clave word: she did not like it.

  Hollian blinked as if this were irrelevant, made no reply.

  “Do you require my aid?” asked Sunder. His stiffness had returned. In some way that Linden could not fathom, Hollian annoyed or threatened him.

  The eh-Brand’s response was equally curt. “I think not.”

  “Then I will put this voure to the test.” He stood up. “I will go in search of aliantha.” Moving brusquely, he went back to the riverbank, stalked away through the rotting grass.

  Hollian wasted no time. From within her shift, she drew out a small iron dirk and her lianar wand. Kneeling at Covenant’s right shoulder, she placed the lianar on his chest, took the dirk in her left hand.

  The sun was above the horizon now, exerting its corruption. But the pungence of the voure seemed to form a buckler against putrefaction. And though large insects had begun to buzz and gust in all directions, they did not come near the sandbar. Linden ached to concentrate on such things. She did not want to watch the eh-Brand’s bloody rites. Did not want to see them fail. Yet she attached her eyes to the knife,
forced herself to follow it.

  Like Sunder’s left forearm, Hollian’s right palm was laced with old scars. She drew the iron across her flesh. A runnel of dark rich blood started down her bare wrist.

  Setting down her dirk, she took up the lianar in her bleeding hand. Her lips moved, but she made no sound.

  The atmosphere focused around her wand. Abruptly flames licked the wood. Fire the color of the sun’s aura skirled around her fingers. Her voice became an audible chant, but the words were alien to Linden. The fire grew stronger; it covered Hollian’s hand, began to tongue the blood on her wrist.

  As she chanted, her fire sent out long delicate shoots like tendrils of wisteria. They grew to the sand, stretched along the water like veins of blood in the current, went searching up the riverbank as if they sought a place to root.

  Supported by a shimmering network of power tendrils, she tightened her chant, and lowered the lianar to Covenant’s envenomed forearm. Linden flinched instinctively. She could taste the ill in the fire, feel the preternatural force of the Sunbane. Hollian drew on the same sources of power which Sunder tapped with his Sunstone. But after a moment Linden discerned that the fire’s effect was not ill. Hollian fought poison with poison. When she lifted her wand from Covenant’s arm, the tension of his swelling had already begun to recede.

  Carefully she shifted her power to his forehead, set flame to the fever in his skull.

  At once, his body sprang rigid, head jerked back; a scream ripped his throat. From his ring, an instant white detonation blasted sand over the two women and the River.

  Before Linden could react, he went completely limp.

  The eh-Brand sagged at his side. The flame vanished from her lianar, leaving the wood pale, clean, and whole. In the space of a heartbeat, the fire-tendrils extinguished themselves; but they continued to echo across Linden’s sight.

  She rushed to examine Covenant. Apprehension choked her. But as she touched him, he inhaled deeply, began to breathe as if he were only asleep. She felt for his pulse; it was distinct and secure.