The Wounded Land (30 page)

He lurched to a stop, stood glaring flames around him. “Linden,” he croaked in a parched voice. “Linden.”

Covenant!

Without hesitation, she dropped from the roof. Before they could realize what was happening, she thrust her way between the Stonedownors, hastened to Covenant.

“Linden?” He recognized her with difficulty; confusion and venom wrestled across his visage. “You left me.”

“The Halfhand!” Sivit yelled. “The white ring!”

The air was bright with peril; it sprang from the bonfire, leaped off the walls of the barranca. Scores of people trembled on the verge of violence. But Linden held everything else in abeyance, concentrated on Covenant. “No. We didn’t leave you. We came to find food. And to save her.” She pointed at Hollian.

The stare of his delirium did not shift. “You left me.”

“I say it is the Halfhand!” shouted the Rider. “He has come as the Clave foretold! Take him! Slay him!”

The Stonedownors flinched under Sivit’s demand; but they made no move. Covenant’s intensity held them back.

“No!” Linden averred to him urgently. “Listen to me! That man is a Rider of the Clave. The
Clave
. He’s going to kill her so that he can use her blood. We’ve got to save her!”

His gaze twisted toward Hollian, then returned to Linden. He blinked at her uncomprehendingly. “You left me.” The pain of finding himself alone had closed his mind to every other appeal.

“Fools!” Sivit raged. Suddenly he flourished his scepter. Blood covered his lean hands. Gouts of red fire spewed from the iron triangle. Swift as vengeance, he moved forward.

“She’s going to be sacrificed!” Linden cried at Covenant’s confusion. “Like Joan!
Like Joan
!”

“Joan?” In an instant, all his uncertainty became anger and poison. He swung to face the Rider. “Joan!”

Before Sivit could strike, white flame exploded around Covenant, enveloping him in conflagration. He burned with silver fury, coruscated the air. Linden recoiled, flung up her hands to ward her face. Wild magic began to erupt in all directions.

A rampage of force tore Sivit’s scepter from his hands. The iron fired black, red, white, then melted into slag on the ground. Argent lashed the bonfire; flaming brands scattered across the circle. Wild lightning sizzled into the heavens until the sky screamed and the crystal walls rang out celestial peals of power.

The very fabric of the dirt stretched under Linden’s feet, as if it were about to tear. She staggered to her knees.

The Stonedownors fled. Shrieks of fear escaped among the houses. A moment later, only Croft, Hollian, and Sivit remained. Croft and Hollian were too stunned to move. Sivit huddled on the ground like a craven, with his arms over his head.

Abruptly as if Covenant had closed a door in his mind, the wild magic subsided. He emerged from the flame; his ring flickered and went out. His legs started to fold.

Linden surged to her feet, caught him before he fell. Wrapping her arms around him, she held him upright.

Then Sunder appeared, carrying the knapsack. He ran forward, shouting, “Flee! Swiftly lest they regain their wits and pursue us!” Blood still marked a new cut on his left forearm. As he passed her, he snatched at Hollian’s arm. She resisted; she was too numb with shock to understand what was happening. He spun on her, fumed into her face, “
Do you covet death
?”

His urgency pierced her stupor. She regained her alertness with a moan. “No. I will come. But—but I must have my
lianar
.” She pointed at the wand in Croft’s hands.

Sunder marched over to the tall Stonedownor. Croft’s grasp tightened reflexively on the wood.

Wincing with pain, Sunder struck Croft a sharp blow in the stomach. As the taller man doubled over, Sunder neatly plucked the
lianar
from him.

“Come!” Sunder shouted at Linden and Hollian. “Now!”

A strange grim relief came over Linden. Her first assessments of Covenant had been vindicated; at last, he had shown himself capable of significant power. Bracing his left arm over her shoulders, she helped him out of the center of the Stonedown.

Sunder took Hollian’s wrist. He led the way among the houses as fast as Covenant could move.

The vale was dark now; only the crescent moon, and the reflection of dying embers along the walls, lit the ravine. The breeze carried a sickly odor of rot from across the Mithil, and the water looked black and viscid, like an evil chrism. But no one hesitated. Hollian seemed to accept her rescue with mute incomprehension. She helped Linden ease Covenant into the water, secure him across the raft. Sunder urged them out into the River, and they went downstream clinging to the wood.

There was no pursuit. Covenant’s power had stunned the people of Crystal Stonedown; the Rider had lost both scepter and Courser; and the River was swift. Soon Linden stopped looking behind her, stopped listening for the sounds of chase. She gave her concern to Covenant.

He had no strength left, made no effort to grip the raft, did not even try to hold up his head. She could not hear his respiration over the lapping of the water, and his pulse seemed to have withdrawn to a place beyond her reach. His face looked ghastly in the pale moonlight. All her senses groaned to her that he suffered from a venom of the soul.

His condition galled her. She clung to him, searching among her ignorances and incapacities for some way to succor him. A voice in her insisted that if she could feel his distress so acutely she ought to be able to affect it somehow, that surely the current of perception which linked her to him could run both ways. But she shied away from the implications. She had no power, had nothing with which to oppose his illness except the private blood of her own life. Her fear of so much vulnerability foiled her, left her cursing because she lacked even the limited resources of her medical bag—lacked anything which could have spared her this intimate responsibility for his survival.

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 have 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.”