The Wounded Land

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  “The Waynhim are capable of much,” returned Hamako, urging Covenant to lie back. “Rest, I say. Hold only this much trust, and put care aside. It will be bitter to you if you are offered aid, and are too weak to avail yourself of it.”

  Covenant could not resist. The grass exuded a somnolent air. His body was leaden with weariness; and the roborant he had drunk seemed to undermine his anxiety. He allowed Hamako to settle him upon the bed. But as the man prepared to leave, Covenant said distantly, “At least tell me how I ended up here. The last thing I remember”—he did not look at Vain—“I was as good as dead. How did you save me?”

  Hamako sat on the edge of the bed. Once again, his countenance wore an awkward sympathy. “That I will relate,” he said. “But I must tell you openly that we did not save you.”

  Covenant jerked up his head. “No?”

  “Softly.” Hamako pushed him flat again. “There is no need for this concern.”

  Grabbing the man’s arms with both hands, Covenant pulled their faces together. “What the hell am I doing alive?”

  “Covenant,” said Hamako with a dry smile, “how may I tell the tale if you are so upwrought?”

  Slowly Covenant released him. “All right.” Specters crowded his head; but he forced himself to relax. “Tell it.”

  “It came to pass thus,” the man said. “When dhraga Waynhim was set free by your hand, and learned that this Demondim-spawn would not obey the word of command, it desired you to share its flight. But it could not gain your comprehension. Therefore dhraga summoned all the haste which the harm to its body permitted, and sped to inform the rhysh of your plight. Dhraga had been made the bait of a snare. This snare—”

  Covenant interrupted him. “What’s a rhysh?”

  “Ah, pardon me. For a score of turnings of the moon, I have heard no human voice but those warped by the Sunbane. I forget that you do not speak the Waynhim tongue.

  “In our speech, the word rhysh means stead. It gives reference to a community of Waynhim. In all the Land, there are many hundred score Waynhim, but all live in rhysh of one or two score. Each rhysh is private unto itself—though I am told that communication exists between them. In the great war of Revelstone, nigh two score centuries past, five rhysh fought together against the ur-viles of the Despiser. But such sharing is rare. Each rhysh holds to itself and interprets the Weird in its own way. Long has this rhysh lived here, serving its own vision.”

  Covenant wanted to ask the meaning of the term Weird; but he already regretted having halted Hamako’s tale.

  “The rhysh,” Hamako resumed, “was informed of your plight by dhraga. At once we set out to attempt your aid. But the distance was too great. When first dhraga was captured the decision was taken to make no rescue. It was bitter to all the rhysh to abandon one of its own. But we had cause to fear this snare. Long have we labored all too near a strong number of those warped by the Sunbane.” Unexplained tears blurred his eyes. “Long have the ill souls that captured you striven to undo us. Therefore we believed the snare to be for us. Having no wish to slay or be slain, we abandoned dhraga to its doom.”

  Covenant was struck by the closeness with which Hamako identified himself with the rhysh, and by the man’s evident grief over the Sunbane victims. But he did not interrupt again.

  “Also,” Hamako went on, suppressing his emotion, “for three days of desert sun prior to the setting of this snare, the Waynhim tasted Raver spoor.”

  A Raver! Covenant groaned. Hellfire! That explained the trap. And the spider.

  “Therefore we feared the snare deeply. But when we learned that the ring-wielder had fallen prey, we comprehended our error, and ran to succor you. But the distance,” he repeated, “was too great. We arrived only in time to behold the manner in which you redeemed yourself with wild magic.”

  Redeemed—! An ache wrung Covenant’s heart. No!

  “Though your arm was terrible and black, your white ring spun a great fire. The bonds dropped from you. The wood was scattered. The Sunbane-warped were cast aside like chaff, and fled in terror. Rocks were riven from the escarpment. Only this Demondim-spawn stood scatheless amid the fire.

  “The power ended as you fell. Perceiving your venom-ill, we bore you here, and the Waynhim tended you with all their cunning until your death receded from you. Here you are safe until your strength returns.”

  Hamako fell silent. After studying Covenant for a moment, he rose to his feet and began to depart.

  “The Raver?” Covenant gritted.

  “All spoor of him is gone,” Hamako replied quietly. “I fear his purpose was accomplished.”

  Or else he’s afraid of me, Covenant rasped inwardly. He did not see Hamako leave the chamber. He was consumed by his thoughts. Damnation! First Marid, then the bees, now this. Each attack worse than the one before. And a Raver involved each time. Hell and blood! Why? Bile rose in him. Why else? Lord Foul did not want him dead, not if his ring might fall to a Raver. The Despiser wanted something entirely different. He wanted surrender, voluntary abdication. Therefore the purpose of these attacks lay in their effect on him, in the way they drew power from his delirium, violence over which he had no control.

  No control!

  Was Foul trying to scare him into giving up his ring?

  God bloody damn it to hell! He had always felt an almost overwhelming distrust of power. In the past, he had reconciled himself to the might with which he had defeated Lord Foul only because he had refrained from making full use of it; rather than attempting to crush the Despiser utterly, he had withheld the final blow, though in so doing he had ensured that Lord Foul would rise to threaten the Land again. Deliberately he had made himself culpable for Lord Foul’s future ill. And he had chosen that course because the alternative was so much worse.

  For he believed that Lord Foul was part of himself, an embodiment of the moral peril lurking for the outcast in the complex rage against being outcast, a leper’s doom of Despite for everything including himself. Restraint was the only possible escape from such a doom. If he had allowed his power to rise unchecked, committed himself completely to wild magic in his battle against Lord Foul, he would have accomplished nothing but the feeding of his own inner Despiser. The part of him which judged, believed, affirmed, was the part which refrained. Utter power, boundless and unscrupulous rage, would have corrupted him, and he would have changed in one stroke from victim to victimizer. He knew how easy it was for a man to become the thing he hated.

  Therefore he profoundly feared his wild magic, his capacity for power and violence. And that was precisely the point of Foul’s attack. The venom called up his might when he was beyond all restraint—called it up and increased it. In Mithil Stonedown, he had almost failed to light Sunder’s orcrest; but two days ago he had apparently broken boulders. Without volition.

  And still he did not know why. Perhaps in saving Joan, he had sold himself; perhaps he was no longer free. But no lack of freedom could force him to surrender. And every increase in his power improved his chances of besting the Despiser again.

  His danger lay in the venom, the loss of restraint. But if he could avoid further relapses, learn control—

  He was a leper. Control and discipline were the tools of his life. Let Lord Foul consider that before he counted his victory.

  With such thoughts, Covenant grew grim and calm. Slowly the effects of his illness came over him. The scent of the grass soothed him like an anodyne. After a time, he slept.

  When Hamako nudged him awake again, he had the impression that he had slept for a long time. Nothing in the chamber had changed; yet his instincts were sure. Groaning at the way everything conspired to increase the peril of his friends, he groped into a sitting position, “How many days have I lost now?”

  Hamako placed a large bowl of the dark, musty liquid in Covenant’s hands. “You have been among us for three days of the sun of pestilence,” he answered. “Dawn is not yet nigh, but I have awakened you because there is much I wish to show and
say before you depart. Drink.”

  Three days. Terrific! Dismally Covenant took a deep swallow from the bowl.

  But as the liquid passed into him, he recognized the improvement in his condition. He held the bowl steadily: his whole body felt stable. He looked up at Hamako. To satisfy his curiosity, he asked, “What is this stuff?”

  “It is vitrim.” Hamako was smiling: he seemed pleased by what he saw in Covenant. “It resembles an essence of aliantha, but has been created by the lore of the Waynhim rather than drawn from the aliantha itself.”

  In a long draught, Covenant drained the bowl, and felt immediately more substantial. He returned the bowl, and rose to his feet. “When can I get started? I’m running out of excuses.”

  “Soon after the sun’s rising, you will renew your sojourn,” answered Hamako. “I assure you that you will hold your days among us in scant regret.” He handed the bowl to a Waynhim standing nearby and accepted a leather pouch like a wineskin. This he gave to Covenant. “Vitrim,” he said. “If you consume it prudently, you will require no other aliment for three days.”

  Covenant acknowledged the gift with a nod and tied the pouch to his belt by its drawstring. As he did so, Hamako said, “Thomas Covenant, it pains me that we have refused to answer your most urgent questions. Therefore I desire you to comprehend the Weird of the Waynhim ere you depart. Then perhaps you will grasp my conviction that their wisdom must be trusted. Are you willing?”

  Covenant faced Hamako with a rueful grimace. “Hamako, you saved my life. I may be a natural-born ingrate, but I can still appreciate the significance of not being dead. I’ll try to understand anything you want to tell me.” Half involuntarily, he added, “Just don’t take too long. If I don’t do something soon, I won’t be able to live with myself.”

  “Then come,” Hamako said, and strode out of the chamber.

  Covenant paused to tuck in his shirt, then followed.

  As he stooped to pass through the entryway, he noted sourly that Vain was right behind him.

  He found himself in a corridor, scrupulously delved out of native rock, where he could barely walk erect. The passage was long, and lit at intervals by small censers set into the walls. In them, a dark fluid burned warmly, without smoke.

  After some distance, the passage branched, became a network

  of tunnels. As Covenant and Hamako passed, they began to meet Waynhim. Some went by in silence; others exchanged a few comments with Hamako in their roynish tongue; but all of them bowed to the ring-wielder.

  Abruptly the tunnel opened into an immense cavern. It was brightly-lit by vats of burning liquid. It appeared to be more than a hundred feet high and three times that across. At least a score of Waynhim were busily at work around the area.

  With a thrill of astonishment, Covenant saw that the whole cavern was a garden.

  Thick grass covered the floor. Flowerbeds lay everywhere, hedged by many different varieties of bushes. Trees—pairs of Gilden, oak, peach, sycamore, elm, apple, jacaranda, spruce, and others—stretched their limbs toward the vaulted ceiling. Vines and creepers grew up the walls.

  The Waynhim were tending the plants. From plot to tree they moved, barking chants and wielding short iron staves; and dark droplets of power sprang from the metal, nourishing flowers and shrubs and vines like a distilled admixture of loam and sunshine.

  The effect was incomparably strange. On the surface of the Land, the Sunbane made everything unnatural; nothing grew without violating the Law of its own being, nothing died without ruin. Yet here, where there was no sunlight, no free air, no pollinating insects, no age-nurtured soil, the garden of the Waynhim blossomed lush and lovely, as natural as if these plants had been born to fructify under a stone sky.

  Covenant gazed about with undisguised wonder; but when he started to ask a question, Hamako gestured him silent, and led him into the garden.

  Slowly they walked among the flowers and trees. The murmurous chanting of the Waynhim filled the air; but none of the creatures spoke to each other or to Hamako; they were rapt in the concentration of their work. And in their concentration, Covenant caught a glimpse of the prodigious difficulty of the task they had set for themselves. To keep such a garden healthy underground must have required miracles of devotion and lore.

  But Hamako had more to show. He guided Covenant and Vain to the far end of the cavern, into a new series of corridors. These angled steadily upward; and as he ascended, Covenant became aware of a growing annual smell. He had already guessed what he was about to see when Hamako entered another large cave, not as high as the garden, but equally broad.

  It was a zoo. The Waynhim here were feeding hundreds of different animals. In small pens cunningly devised to resemble their natural dens and habitats lived pairs of badgers, foxes, hounds, marmosets, moles, raccoons, otters, rabbits, lynx, muskrats. And many of them had young.

  The zoo was less successful than the garden. Animals without space to roam could not be healthy. But that problem paled beside the amazing fact that these creatures were alive at all. The Sunbane was fatal to animal life. The Waynhim preserved these species from complete extinction.

  Once again, Hamako silenced Covenant’s questions. They left the cave, and continued to work upward. They met no Waynhim in these tunnels. Soon their ascent became so pronounced that Covenant wondered just how deep in the Earth he had slept for three days. He felt a pang over the insensitivity of his senses; he missed the ability to gauge the rock weight above him, assess the nature of the vitrim, probe the spirits of his companions. That regret made him ache for Linden. She might have known whether or not he could trust Vain.

  Then the passageway became a spiral stair which rose to a small round chamber. No egress was visible; but Hamako placed his hands against a section of the wall, barked several Waynhim words, and thrust outward. The stone divided along an unseen crack and opened.

  Leaving the chamber, Covenant found himself under the stars. Along the eastern horizon, the heavens had begun to pale. Dawn was approaching. At the sight, he felt an unexpected reluctance to leave the safety and wonder of the Waynhim demesne. Grimly he tightened his resolve. He did not look back when Hamako sealed the entrance behind him.

  Vague in the darkness, Hamako led him through an impression of large, crouching shapes to a relatively open area. There he sat down, facing the east. As he joined Hamako, Covenant discovered that they were on a flat expanse of rock—protection against the first touch of the Sunbane.

  Vain stood off to one side as if he neither knew nor cared about the need for such protection.

  “Now I will speak,” Hamako said. His words went softly into the night. “Have no fear of the Sunbane-warped who sought your life. Never again will they enter this place. That much at least of mind and fear they retain.” His tone suggested that he held the area sacred to some private and inextinguishable sorrow.

  Covenant settled himself to listen; and after a deep pause Hamako began.

  “A vast gulf,” he breathed, a darker shape amid the dark crouching of the night, “lies between creatures that are born and those that are made. Born creatures, such as we are, do not suffer torment at the simple fact of physical form. Perhaps you desire keener sight, greater might of arm, but the embodiment of eyes and limbs is not anguish to you. You are born by Law to be as you are. Only a madman loathes the nature of his birth.

  “It is far otherwise with the Waynhim. They were made—as the ur-viles were made—by deliberate act in the breeding dens of the Demondim. And the Demondim were themselves formed by lore rather than blood from the Viles who went before them. Thus the Waynhim are not creatures of law. They are entirely alien in the world. And they are unnaturally long of life. Some among this rhysh remember the Lords and the ancient glory of Revelstone. Some tell the tale of the five rhysh which fought before the gates of Revelstone in the great siege—and of the blue Lord who rode to their aid in folly and valor. But let that pass.

  “The numbers of the Waynhim are only replenished
because the ur-viles continue the work of their Demondim makers. Much breeding is yet done in the deeps of the Earth, and some are ur-viles, some Waynhim—and some are altogether new, enfleshed visions of lore and power. Such a one is your companion. A conscious making to accomplish a chosen aim.”

  In the east, the sky slowly blanched. The last stars were fading. The shapes around Covenant and Hamako grew more distinct, modulating toward revelation.

  “That is the Weird of all Demondim-spawn. Each Waynhim and ur-vile beholds itself and sees that it need not have been what it is. It is the fruit of choices it did not make. From this fact both Waynhim and ur-viles draw their divergent spirits. It has inspired in the ur-viles a quenchless loathing for their own forms and an overweening lust for perfection, for the power to create what they are not. Their passion is extreme, careless of costs. Therefore they have given millennia of service to the Despiser, for Lord Foul repays them with both knowledge and material for their breedings. Thus comes your companion.

  “And therefore the Waynhim have been greatly astonished to find no ill in him. He is an—an apotheosis. In him, it appears that the ur-viles have at last transcended their unscrupuling violence and achieved perfection. He is the Weird of the ur-viles incarnate. More of him I may not say.

  “But the spirit of the Waynhim is different entirely. They are not reckless of costs; from the great Desecration which Kevin Landwaster and Lord Foul conceived upon the Land, they learned a horror of such passions. They foresaw clearly the price the ur-viles paid, and will ever pay, for self-loathing, and they turned in another way. Sharing the Weird, they chose to meet it differently. To seek self-justification.”

  Hamako shifted his position, turned more squarely toward the east.

  “In the Waynhim tongue, Weird has several meanings. It is fate or destiny—but it is also choice, and is used to signify council or decision-making. It is a contradiction—fate and choice. A man may be fated to die, but no fate can determine whether he will die in courage or cowardice. The Waynhim choose the manner in which they meet their doom.