The Wounded Land t2cotc-1

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  But Hollian could not bear her own trouble in silence. After a moment, she addressed the Unbeliever. “You say that I am to name you Covenant-though it is a name of ill omen, and sits unquietly in my mouth. Very well. Covenant. Have you considered where you go? The Graveller and Linden Avery say that you are destined for Revelstone. My heart shrinks from the thought-but if such is your goal, I will not gainsay it. Yet Revelstone lies there.” She pointed northwestward. “Eleven score leagues distant. The Mithil no longer shares your way.”

  “That is known to us, eh-Brand,” Sunder muttered.

  She ignored him. “It may be that we can journey afoot, with the aid of voure.” She hesitated, recognizing the difficulty of what she proposed. “And great good fortune.” Her eyes did not leave Covenant's face.

  “Maybe.” His tone betrayed that he had already made his decision. “But I don't want to take the chance of getting stung again. We'll stay on the River for another day or two, anyway.”

  “Covenant.” Hollian's gaze was poignant. “Do you know what lies that way?”

  “Yes.” He met her squarely. “Andelain.”

  Andelain? The concealed intensity with which he said that name brought Linden to alertness.

  “Do you-” Hollian wrestled against her apprehension. “Do you choose to approach Andelain?”

  “Yes.” Covenant's resolution was complete. But he studied the eh-Brand closely, as if her concern disturbed him. “I want to see it. Before I go to Revelstone.”

  His assertion appalled her. She recoiled. Gasping, she strove to shout, but could not find enough air in all the wide morning. “You are mad. Or a servant of a-Jeroth, as the Rede proclaims.” She turned toward Linden, then Sunder, beseeching them to hear her. “You must not permit it.” She snatched a raw breath, cried out, “You must not!”

  Covenant sprang at her, dug his fingers into her shoulders, shook her. “What's wrong with Andelain?”

  Hollian's mouth worked; but she could find no words.

  “Sunder!” Covenant barked.

  Stiffly, the Graveller replied, “I am fourscore leagues from my home. I know nothing of this Andelain.”

  Hollian fought to master herself. “Covenant,” she said in a livid tone, “you may eat aliantha. You may defy the Clave. You may trample upon the Rede, and cast your challenge to the Sunbane itself. But you must not enter Andelain.”

  Covenant lowered his voice, demanded dangerously, “Why not?”

  “It is a snare and a delusion!” she moaned. "An abomination in the Land. It lies lovely and cruel before the eyes, and seduces all who look upon it to their destruction. It is impervious to the Sunbane!"

  “Impossible!” snapped Sunder.

  “No!” Hollian panted. “I speak truly. Sun after sun, it remains unaltered, imitating paradise.” She thrust all her dismay at Covenant. "Many people have been betrayed-The tale of them is often told in all this region. But I speak not only of tales. I have known four-four brave Stonedownors who succumbed to that lure. Distraught by their lives, they left Crystal Stonedown to test the tale of Andelain. Two entered, and did not return. Two made their way to Crystal Stonedown once more-and the madness in them raved like the na-Mhoram's Grim. No succour could anile their violence. Croft was driven to sacrifice them.

  “Covenant,” she begged, “do not journey there. You will meet a doom more terrible than any unshielded Sunbane.” Her every word vibrated with conviction, with honest fear. “Andelain is a desecration of the soul.”

  Roughly, Covenant thrust the eh-Brand away from him. He whirled, strode down the slope to stand at the water's edge. His fists clenched and unclenched, trembling, at his sides.

  Linden went to him at once, seeking a way to dissuade him. She believed Hollian. But when she touched his arm, the savagery in him struck her mute. “Andelain.” His voice was taut with fatality and rage. Without warning, he turned on her. His eyes blazed through her. “You say you've stood by me.” His whisper expressed more bloodshed than any shout. “Do it now. Nothing else matters. Stand by me.”

  Before she could try to respond, he spun toward Sunder and Hollian. They stared at him, dumbfounded by his passion. The sun limned his profile like a cynosure. “Andelain used to be the heart of the Land.” He sounded as if he were strangling. “I have to find out what happened to it.” The next moment, he was in the water, swimming downriver with all his strength.

  Linden checked herself, did not follow him. He could not keep up that pace; she would be able to rejoin him. Stand by me. Her senses told her that Hollian spoke the truth. There was something heinous concealed in Andelain. But Covenant's appeal outweighed any conviction of peril. She had striven with the intimacy of a lover to save his life. The cost of that intimacy she could not endure; but she could do other things for him. She faced the Stonedownors. “Sunder?”

  The Graveller glanced away along the River, then over at Hollian, before he met Linden's demand. “The eh-Brand is a Stonedownor,” he replied, “like myself. I trust her fear. But my lot now lies with the ur-Lord. I will accompany him.”

  With a simple nod, Linden accepted his decision. “Hollian?”

  The eh-Brand seemed unable to confront the choice she had to make. Her eyes wandered the stone, searching it for answers it did not contain. “Does it come to this?” she murmured bitterly, “that I have been rescued from peril into peril?” But slowly she summoned up the strength which had enabled her to face Croft and Sivit with dignity. “It is stated in the Rede beyond any doubt that the Halfhand is a servant of a-Jeroth.”

  Flatly, Linden said, “The Rede is wrong.”

  “That cannot be!” Hollian's fear was palpable in the air. “If the Rede is false, how can it sustain life?”

  Unexpectedly, Sunder interposed himself. “Eh-Brand.” His voice knotted as if he had arrived without warning or preparation at a crisis. “Linden Avery speaks of another wrong altogether. To her, all things are wrong which arise from the Sunbane.”

  Hollian stared at him. And Linden, too, watched him narrowly. She chaffed to be on her way; but the Graveller's efforts to resolve his own feelings kept her still.

  “Eh-Brand,” he went on, gritting his teeth, "I have held you in resentment. Your presence is a reproach to me. You are a Stonedownor. You comprehend what has come to pass when a Graveller betrays his home. Whether you choose or no, you accuse me. And your plight is enviable to me. You are innocent of where you stand. Whatever path you follow from this place, none can lay blame upon you. All my paths are paths of blame.

  "My vindication has been that I am necessary to the ur-Lord, and to Linden Avery, and to their purpose. His vision touched my heart, and the survival of that vision has been in my hands. Lacking my aid, they would be long dead, and with them the one clear word of beauty I have been given to hear.

  “Whether you choose or no, you deprive me of my necessity. Your knowledge of the Sunbane and of the perils before us surely excels mine. You give healing where I cannot. You have not shed life. In your presence, I have no answer to my guilt.”

  “Sunder,” Hollian breathed. “Graveller. This castigation avails nothing. The past is beyond change. Your vindication cannot be taken from you.”

  “All things change,” he replied tightly. “Ur-Lord Covenant alters the past at every turning. Therefore”- he cut off her protest. “I am without choice, I cannot bear that this alteration should be undone. But there is choice for you. And because you own choice, eh-Brand, I implore you. Give your service to the ur-Lord. He offers much-and is in such need. Your aid is greater than mine.”

  Hollian's gaze scoured him as he spoke. But she did not find any answer to her fear. “Ah,” she sighed bitterly, “I do not see this choice. Death lies behind me and horror before. This is not choice. It is torment.”

  “It is choice!” Sunder shouted, unable to restrain his vehemence. “Neither death nor horror is compulsory for you. You may depart from us. Find a new people to be your home. They will distrust you for a time-but that wil
l pass. No Stonedown would willingly sacrifice an eh-Brand.”

  His words took both Hollian and Linden by surprise. Hollian had plainly given no thought to the idea he raised. And Linden could not guess why he used such an argument. “Sunder,” she said carefully, “what do you think you're doing?”

  “I seek to persuade her.” He did not take his eyes from Hollian. “A choice made freely is stronger than one compelled. We must have her strength-else I fear we will not gain Revelstone.”

  Linden strove to understand him. “Do you mean to tell me that now you want to go to Revelstone?”

  “I must,” he responded; but his words were directed toward the eh-Brand. “No other purpose remains to me. I must see the lies of the Rede answered. Throughout all the generations of the Sunbane, the Riders have taken blood in the name of the Rede. Now they must be required to speak the truth.”

  Linden nodded, bent her attention on Hollian as the eh-Brand absorbed his argument, hunted for a reply. After a moment, she said slowly, holding his gaze, “In the aliantha- if in no other way-I have been given cause to misdoubt the Rede. And Sivit na-Mhoram-wist sought my death, though it was plain for all to see that I was of great benefit to Crystal Stonedown. If you follow ur-Lord Covenant in the name of truth, I will accompany you.” At once, she turned to Linden. “But I will not enter Andelain. That I will not do.”

  Linden acknowledged this proviso. “All right. Let's go.” She had been too long away from Covenant; her anxiety for him tightened all her muscles. But one last requirement held her back. “Sunder,” she said deliberately. “Thanks.”

  Her gratitude seemed to startle him. But then he replied with a mute bow. In that gesture, they understood each other.

  Leaving the knapsack and the raft to the Stonedownors, Linden dove into the water and went after Covenant.

  She found him resting on a sand-spit beyond a bend in the River. He looked weary and abandoned, as if he had not expected her to come. But when she pulled herself out of the water near him, shook her eyes clear, she 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 upo
n 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.

  Part of his fear arose from the fear of his companions; he dreaded to learn that behind its beauty Andelain was secretly chancrous. But he had been a leper for too long, was too well acquainted with cunning disease; that kind of dread could only increase his determination. Most of his trepidation sprang from Linden's rejection, from what that decision might mean.