The Power That Preserves t1cotc-3

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Hands cleared the gentle bindings from his head and face.

  “Yes I see-for this reason the Forest called me from my old repose. Injured-cold-ill. And he has eaten amanibhavam. Ah, mercy. How the world intrudes, when even Morinmoss bestirs itself for such things as this. Well, the grass has kept life in him, whatever its penalty. But I mislike the look of his thoughts. He will be a sore trial to me.”

  Covenant heard the words, though they did not penetrate the cold centre of his sleep. He tried to open his eyes, but they kept themselves closed as if out of fear of what he might see. The old woman’s hands as they searched him for other injuries filled him with loathing; yet he lay still, slumberous, shackled in mad dreams. He had no volition with which to oppose her. So he lurked within himself, hid from her until he could spring and strike her down and free himself.

  “Mercy,” she mumbled on to herself, “mercy, indeed. Cold-ill and broken-minded. I left such work. Where will I find the strength for it?” Then her deft fingers bared his left hand, and she gasped, “Melenkurion! White gold? Ah, by the Seven! How has such a burden come to me?”

  The need to protect his ring from her drew him closer to consciousness. He could not move his hand, could not even clench his fist around the ring, so he sought to distract her.

  “Lena,” he croaked through cracked lips, without knowing what he said. “Lena? Are you still alive?”

  With an effort he pried open his eyes.

  Thirteen: The Healer

  STILL sleep shrouded his sight; at first he saw nothing except the compact, baleful light of the trees. But his ring was in danger from her. He was jealous of his white gold. Sleep or no sleep, he did not mean to give it up. He strove to focus his eyes, strove to come far enough out of hiding to engage her attention.

  Then a soft stroke of her hand swept the cobwebs from his eyebrows, and he found that he could see her.

  “Lena?” he croaked again.

  She was a dusky, loamy woman, with hair like tangled brown grass, and an old face uneven and crude of outline, as if it had been inexpertly moulded in clay. The hood of a tattered fallow-green cloak covered the crown of her head. And her eyes were the brown of soft mud, an unexpected and suggestive brown, as if the silt of some private devotion filled her orbs, effaced her pupils-as if the black, round nexus between her mind and the outside world were something that she had surrendered in exchange for the rare, rich loam of power. Yet there was no. confidence, no surety, in her gaze as she regarded him; the life which had formed her eyes was far behind her. Now she was old, timorous. Her voice rustled like the creaking of antique parchment as she asked, “Lena?”

  “Are you still alive?”

  “Am I-? No, I am not your Lena. She is dead-if the look of you tells any truth. Mercy.”

  Mercy, he echoed soundlessly.

  “This is the doing of the amanibhavam. Perhaps you have preserved your life in eating it-but surely you know that it is poison to you, a food too potent for human flesh.”

  “Are you still alive?” he repeated with cunning in his throat. Thus he disguised himself, protected that part of him which had come out of hiding and sleep to ward his ring. Only the damaged state of his features kept him from grinning at his own slyness.

  “Perhaps not,” she sighed. “But let that pass. You have no knowledge of what you say. You are cold-ill and poison-mad- and-and there is a sickness in you that I do not comprehend.”

  “Why aren’t you dead?”

  She brought her face close to his, and went on: “Listen to me. I know that the hand of confusion is upon you-but listen to me. Hear and hold my words. You have come in some way into Morinmoss Forest. I am-a Healer, an Unfettered One who turned to the work of healing. I will help you-because you are in need, and because the white gold reveals that great matters are afoot in the Land-and because the Forest found its voice to summon me for you, though that also I do not comprehend.”

  “I saw him kill you.” The raw croak of Covenant’s voice sounded like horror and grief, but in his depths he hugged himself for glee at his cunning.

  She drew back her head but showed no other reaction to what he had said. “I came to this place from-from my life-because the Forest’s unquiet slumber met my own long ache for repose. I am a Healer, and Morinmoss permits me. Yet now it speaks-Great matters, indeed. Ah, mercy. It is in my heart that the Colossus itself-Well, I wander. I have made my home here for many years. I am accustomed to speak only for my own pleasure.”

  “I saw.”

  “Do you not hear me?”

  “He stabbed you with a wooden spike. I saw the blood.”

  “Mercy! Is your life so violent then? Well, let that pass also. You do not hear me-you have fallen too far into the amanibhavam. But violent or not I must aid you. It is well that my eyes have not forgotten their work. I see that you are too weak to harm me, whatever your purpose.”

  Weak, he echoed to himself. What she said was true; he was too frail even to clench his fist for the protection of his wedding band. “Have you come back to haunt me?” he gasped. “To blame me?”

  ” Speak if you must,” she said in a rustling tone, “but I cannot listen. I must be about my work.” With a low groan, she climbed to her feet and moved stiffly away from him.

  “That’s it,” he continued, impelled by his grotesque inner glee. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’ve come back to torture me. You’re not satisfied that I killed him. I put that knife all the way into his heart but you’re not satisfied. You want to hurt me some more. You want me to go crazy thinking about all the things I’m guilty of. I did Foul’s work for him, and you came to torture me for it. You and your blood! Where were you when it would have made a difference what happens to me? Why didn’t you try to get even with me after I raped you? Why wait until now? If you’d made me pay for what I did then, maybe I would have figured out what’s going on before this. All that generosity-! It was cruel. Oh, Lena! I didn’t even understand what I’d done to you until it was too late, too late, I couldn’t help myself. What are you waiting for? Torture me! I need pain!”

  “You need food,” the Healer muttered as if he had disgusted her. With one hand she fixed his jaw in an odd compelling grip while the other placed two or three treasure-berries in his mouth. “Swallow the seeds. They, too, will sustain you.”

  He wanted to spit out the aliantha, but her grip made him chew in spite of himself. Her other hand stroked his throat until he swallowed, then fed him more of the berries. Soon she had coerced him to eat several mouthfuls. He could feel sustenance flowing into him, yet for some reason it seemed to feed his deep slumber rather than his cunning. Before long he could not remember what he had been saying. An involuntary drowsiness shone into him from the trees. He was unable to resist or comply when the Healer lifted him from the grass.

  Grunting at the strain, she raised his limp form until he was half erect in her arms. Then she leaned him against her back with his arms over her shoulders, and gripped his upper arms like the handles of a burden. His feet dragged behind him; he dangled on her squat shoulders. But she bore his weight, carried him like a dead sack into the pale white night of Morinmoss.

  While he drowsed, she took him laboriously farther and farther into the secret depths of the Forest. And as they left its borders behind, they passed into warmer air and greater health-a region where spring had not been quenched by Lord Foul’s winter. Leaves multiplied and spread out around bird nests to cloak the branches; moss and grass and small woodland animals increased among the trees. A defying spirit was abroad in this place-resisting cold, nourishing growth, affirming Morinmoss’s natural impulse toward buds and new sap and arousal. It was as if the ancient Forestals had returned, bringing with them the wood’s old knowledge of itself.

  Yet even in its secret heart Morinmoss was not impervious to the Despiser’s fell influence. Temperatures rose above the freezing point, but failed to climb any higher. The leaves had no spring profusion; they grew thinly, in dark bitter greens
rather than in hale verdancy. The animals wore their winter coats over bones that were too gaunt for true spring. If a Forestal had indeed returned to Morinmoss, he lacked the potency of his olden predecessors.

  No, it was more likely that the monolithic Colossus of the Fall had shrugged off its brooding slumber to take a hand in the defences of the Forest. And it was more likely still that Caerroil Wildwood was reaching out from his fastness in Garroting Deep, doing what he could across the distance to preserve old Morinmoss.

  Nevertheless, this lessening of winter was a great boon to the trees, and to the denizens of the Forest. It kept alive many things which might have been among the first to die when Lord Foul interdicted spring. For that reason among others, the Unfettered Healer trudged onward with Covenant on her back. The defying spirit had not only tolerated both her and him; it had summoned her to him. She could not refuse. Though she was old, and found Covenant painfully heavy, she sustained herself by sucking moisture from the moss, and plodded under him toward her home among the secrets of the Forest.

  The tree shine had lapsed into dim grey dawn before her journey ended at a low cave in the bank of a hill. Thrusting aside the moss which curtained its small entrance, she stooped and dragged Covenant behind her into the modest single chamber of her dwelling.

  The cave was not large. It was barely deep enough for her to stand erect in its centre, and its oval floor was no more than fifteen feet wide. But it was a cosy home for one person. It had comfort enough in the soft loam of its walls and its beds of piled dry leaves. It was warm, protected from the winter. And when other lights were withdrawn, it was lit in ghostly filigree by the tree roots which held its walls and ceiling. In its underground safety, her small cookfire was not a threat to the Forest.

  In addition to the low embers which awaited her against one wall, she possessed a pot of graveling. Dropping Covenant wearily on the bed, she opened the graveling and used some of its heat to resurrect her fire. Then she set her stiff old bones on the floor and rested for a long time.

  It was nearly midmorning when her fire threatened to die out. Sighing dryly, she roused herself to stoke up a blaze and cook a hot meal for herself. This she ate without a glance at Covenant. He was in no condition for solid food. She cooked and ate to gather strength for herself, because her peculiar power of healing required strength-so much strength that she had exhausted her reserves of courage before reaching middle age, and had left her work to rest in Morinmoss for the remainder of her days. Decades-four or five, she no longer knew-had passed since she had fled; and during that time she had lived in peace and reticence among the seasons of the Forest, believing that the ordeals of her life were over.

  Yet now even Morinmoss had bestirred itself to bring her work back to her. She needed strength. She forced herself to eat a large meal, then rested again.

  But at last she rallied herself to begin the task. She set her pot of fire-stones on a shelf in the wall so that its warm yellow light fell squarely over Covenant. He was still asleep, and this relieved her; she did not want to face either his mad talk or his resistance. But she was made afraid once again by the extent of his sickness. Something bone-deep had hold of him, something she could not recognize or understand. In its unfamiliarity, it reminded her of old nightmares in which she had terrified herself by attempting to heal the Despiser.

  The acute fracture of his ankle she did understand; his cold-bitten and battered hands and feet were within her experience, and she saw that they might even heal themselves, if he were kept warm for a long convalescence; his cheeks and nose and ears, his cracked lips with the odd scar on one side, his uncleanly healed forehead, all did not challenge her. But the damage the amanibhavam had done to his mind was another matter. It made his sleeping eyes bulge so feverishly in their sockets that through their lids she could read every flick and flinch of his wild dreams; it knuckled his forehead in an extreme scowl of rage or pain; it locked his hands into awkward fists, so that even if she had dared to touch his white gold she could not have taken it from him. And his essential sickness was still another matter. She caught glimpses of the way in which it was interwoven with his madness. She dreaded to touch that ill with her power.

  To steady herself, she hummed an old song under her breath:

  When last comes to last,

  I have little power:

  I am merely an urn.

  I hold the bone-sap of myself,

  and watch the marrow burn.

  When last comes to last,

  I have little strength:

  I am only a tool.

  I work its work; and in its hands

  I am the fool.

  When last comes to last,

  I have little life.

  I am simply a deed:

  an action done while courage holds:

  a seed.

  While she strove to master her faintheartedness, she made preparations. First she cooked a thin broth, using hot water and a dusty powder which she took from a leather pouch among her few belongings. This she fed to Covenant without awakening him. It deepened his respose, made rest and unconsciousness so thick in him that he could not have struggled awake to save his own life. Then, when he was entirely unable to interfere with her, she began to strip off his attire.

  Slowly, using her own hesitation to enhance the thoroughness of her preparations, she removed all his raiment and bathed him from head to foot. After cleaning away the cobwebs and grime and old sweat and encrusted blood, she explored him with her hands, probed him gently to assure herself that she knew the full extent of his hurts. The process took time, but it was done too soon for her unready courage.

  Still hesitating, she unwrapped from her belongings one of her few prized possessions-a long, cunningly woven white robe, made of a fabric both light and tough, easy to wear and full of warmth. It had been given to her decades ago by a great weaver from Soaring Woodhelven, whose life she had saved at severe cost to herself. The memory of his gratitude was precious to her, and she held the robe for a long time in hands that trembled agedly. But she was old now, old and alone; she had no need of finery. Her tattered cloak would serve her well enough as either apparel or cerement. With an expansive look in her loamy eyes, she took the robe to Covenant and dressed him tenderly in it.

  The effort of moving his limp form shortened her breathing, and she rested again, muttering out of old habit, “Ah, mercy, mercy. This is work for the young-for the young. I rest and rest, but I do not become young. Well, let that pass. I did not come to Morinmoss in search of youth. I came because I had lost heart for my work. Have I not found it again-in all this time? Ah, but time is no Healer. The body grows old-and now cruel winter enslaves the world-and the heart does not renew itself. Mercy, mercy. Courage belongs to the young, and I am old-old.

  “Yet surely great matters are afoot-great and terrible. White gold! — by the Seven! White gold. And this winter is the Despiser’s doing, though Morinmoss resists. Ah, there are terrible purposes-The burden of this man was put upon me by a terrible purpose. I cannot-I must not refuse. Must not! Ah, mercy, but I am afraid. I am old-I have no need to fear-no, I do not fear death. But the pain. The pain. Have mercy-have mercy upon me, I lack the courage for this work.”

  Yet Covenant lay on her bed like an irrefusable demand moulded of broken bone and blood and mind, and after she had dozed briefly, she came back to herself. “Well, that too I must set aside. Complaint also is no Healer. I must set it aside, and work my work.”

  Stiffly, she got to her feet, went to the far end of the cave to her supplies of firewood. Even now, she hoped in her heart that she would find she did not have enough wood; then she would need to hunt through the Forest for fallen dead branches and twigs before she could begin her main task. But her woodpile was large enough. She could not pretend that it justified any further delay. She carried most of the wood to her cookfire and faced the commencement of her ordeal.

  First she took her graveling pot from the shelf above Covenant and ma
de a place for it in the centre of the fire, so that its heat and light were added to the core of the coals. Then, panting already at the thought of what she meant to do, she began to build up the fire. She stoked it, concentrated it with dry hard wood, until its flames mounted toward the cave’s ceiling and its heat drew sweat from her old brows. And when the low roar of its blaze sucked at the air, causing the moss curtains over the entrance to flutter in the draft, she returned to the pouch of powder from which she had made the broth. With her fist clenched in the pouch, she hesitated once more, faltering as if the next step constituted an irretrievable commitment. “Ah, mercy,” she breathed brittlely to herself. “I must remember-remember that I am alone. No one else will tend him-or me. I must do the work of two. For this reason eremites do not Heal. I must do the work.”

  Panting in dismay at her own audacity, she threw a small quantity of the powder into the high fire.

  At once, the blaze began to change. The flames did not die down, but they muted themselves, translated their energy into a less visible form. Their light turned from orange and red and yellow to brown, a steadily deepening brown, as if they sprang now from thick loam rather than from wood. And as the brightness of the fire dimmed, a rich aroma spread into the cave. It tasted to the Healer like the breaking of fresh earth so that seeds could be planted-like the lively imminence of seeds and buds and spring-like the fructifying of green things which had germinated in wealthy soil. She could have lost herself in that brown fragrance, forgetful of Lord Foul’s winter and the sick man and all pain. But it was part of her work. Through her love for it, it impelled her to Covenant’s side. There she planted her feet and took one last moment to be sure of what she meant to do.