The Wounded Land (15 page)

His left arm hung at his side. From elbow to knuckle, it was intaglioed with fine white scars.

He did not speak; he stood facing Covenant and Linden as if he expected them to know why he had come.

Linden lurched to her feet. Covenant took two steps forward, so that they stood shoulder-to-shoulder before the Stonedownor.

The man hesitated, searched Covenant’s face. Then he moved into the room. With his left hand, he reached out to Covenant’s battered cheek.

Covenant winced slightly, then held himself still while the Stonedownor carefully brushed the dried pulp from his face.

He felt a pang of gratitude at the touch; it seemed to accord him more dignity than he deserved. He studied the man’s brown, strong mien closely, trying to decipher what lay behind it.

When he was done, the Stonedownor turned and left the room, holding the curtain open for Covenant and Linden.

Covenant looked toward her to see if she needed encouragement. But she did not meet his gaze. She was already moving. He took a deep breath, and followed her out of the hut.

He found himself on the edge of the broad, round, open center of Mithil Stonedown. It matched his memory of it closely. All the houses
faced inward; and the ones beyond the inner ring were positioned to give as many as possible direct access to the center. But now he could see that several of them had fallen into serious disrepair, as if their occupants did not know how to mend them. If that were true— He snarled to himself. How could these people have forgotten their stone-lore?

The sun shone over the eastern ridge into his face. Squinting at it indirectly, he saw that the orb had lost its blue aurora. Now it wore pale brown like a translucent cymar.

The Stonedown appeared deserted. All the door-curtains were closed. Nothing moved—not in the village, not on the mountainsides or in the air. He could not even hear the river. The valley lay under the dry dawn as if it had been stricken dumb.

A slow scraping of fear began to abrade his nerves.

The man with the staff strode out into the circle, beckoning for Covenant and Linden to follow him across the bare stone. As they did so, he gazed morosely around the village. He leaned on his staff as if the thews which held his life together were tired.

But after a moment he shook himself into action. Slowly he raised the staff over his head. In a determined tone, he said, “This is the center.”

At once, the curtains opened. Men and women stepped purposefully out of their homes.

They were all solid dark people, appareled in leather garments. They formed a ring like a noose around the rim of the circle, and stared at Covenant and Linden. Their faces were wary, hostile, shrouded. Some of them bore blunt javelins like jerrids; but no other weapons were visible.

The man with the staff joined them. Together, the ring of Stonedownors sat down cross-legged on the ground.

Only one man remained standing. He stayed behind the others, leaning against the wall of a house with his arms folded negligently across his chest. His lips wore a rapacious smile like an anticipation of bloodshed.

Covenant guessed instinctively that this man was Mithil Stonedown’s executioner.

The villagers made no sound. They watched Covenant and Linden without moving, almost without blinking. Their silence was loud in the air, like the cry of a throat that had no voice.

The sun began to draw sweat from Covenant’s scalp.

“Somebody say something,” he muttered through his teeth.

Abruptly Linden nudged his arm. “That’s what they’re waiting for. We’re on trial. They want to hear what we’ve got to say for ourselves.”

“Terrific.” He accepted her intuitive explanation at once; she had eyes which he lacked. “What’re we on trial for?”

Grimly she replied, “Maybe they found Nassic.”

He groaned. That made sense. Perhaps Nassic had been killed precisely so that he and Linden would be blamed for the crime. And yet—He tugged at his bonds, wishing his hands were free so that he could wipe the sweat from his face. And yet it did not explain why they had been captured in the first place.

The silence was intolerable. The mountains and the houses cupped the center of the village like an arena. The Stonedownors sat impassively, like icons of judgment. Covenant scanned them, mustered what little dignity he possessed. Then he began to speak.

“My name is ur-Lord Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever and white gold wielder. My companion is Linden Avery.” Deliberately he gave her a title. “The Chosen. She’s a stranger to the Land.” The dark people
returned his gaze blankly. The man leaning against the wall bared his teeth. “But I’m no stranger,” Covenant went on in sudden anger. “You threaten me at your peril.”

“Covenant,” Linden breathed, reproving him.

“I know,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t say things like that.” Then he addressed the people again. “We were welcomed by Nassic son of Jous. He wasn’t a friend of yours—or you weren’t friends of his, because God knows he was harmless.” Nassic had looked so forlorn in death— “But he said he had a son here. A man named Sunder. Is Sunder here? Sunder?” He searched the ring. No one responded. “Sunder,” he rasped, “whoever you are—do you know your father was murdered? We found him outside his house with an iron knife in his back. The knife was still hot.”

Someone in the circle gave a low moan; but Covenant did not see who it was. Linden shook her head; she also had not seen.

The sky had become pale brown from edge to edge. The heat of the sun was as arid as dust.

“I think the killer lives here. I think he’s one of you. Or don’t you even care about that?”

Nobody reacted. Every face regarded him as if he were some kind of ghoul. The silence was absolute.

“Hellfire.” He turned back to Linden. “I’m just making a fool out of myself. You got any ideas?”

Her gaze wore an aspect of supplication. “I don’t know—I’ve never been here before.”

“Neither have I.” He could not suppress his ire. “Not to a place like this. Courtesy and hospitality used to be so important here that people who couldn’t provide them were ashamed.” Remembering the way Trell and Atiaran, Lena’s parents, had welcomed him to their home, he ground his teeth. With a silent curse, he confronted the Stonedownors. “Are the other villages like this?” he demanded. “Is the whole Land sick with suspicion? Or is this the only place where simple decency has been forgotten?”

The man with the staff lowered his eyes. No one else moved.

“By God, if you can’t at least tolerate us, let us go! We’ll walk out of here, and never look back. Some other village will give us what we need.”

The man behind the circle gave a grin of malice and triumph.

“Damnation,” Covenant muttered to himself. The silence was maddening. His head was beginning to throb. The valley felt like a desert. “I wish Mhoram was here.”

Dully Linden asked, “Who is Mhoram?” Her eyes were fixed on the standing man. He commanded her attention like an open wound.

“One of the Lords of Revelstone.” Covenant wondered what she was seeing. “Also a friend. He had a talent for dealing with impossible situations.”

She wrenched her gaze from the gloating man, glared at Covenant. Frustration and anxiety made her tone sedulous. “He’s dead. All your friends are dead.” Her shoulders strained involuntarily at her bonds. “They’ve been dead for three thousand years. You’re living in the past. How bad do things have to get before you give up thinking about the way they used to be?”

“I’m trying to understand what’s happened!” Her attack shamed him. It was unjust—and yet he deserved it. Everything he said demonstrated his inadequacy. He swung away from her.

“Listen to me!” he beseeched the Stonedownors. “I’ve been here before—long ago, during the great war against the Gray Slayer. I fought him. So the Land could be healed. And men and women from Mithil
Stonedown helped me. Your ancestors. The Land was saved by the courage of Stonedownors and Woodhelvennin and Lords and Giants and Bloodguard and Ranyhyn.

“But something’s happened. There’s something wrong in the Land. That’s why we’re here.” Remembering the old song of Kevin Landwaster, he said formally, “So that beauty and truth should not pass utterly from the Earth.”

With tone, face, posture, he begged for some kind of response, acknowledgment, from the circle. But the Stonedownors refused every appeal. His exertions had tightened the bonds on his wrists, aggravating the numbness of his hands. The sun began to raise heat-waves in the distance. He felt giddy, futile.

“I don’t know what you want,” he breathed thickly. “I don’t know what you think we’re guilty of. But you’re wrong about her.” He indicated Linden with his head. “She’s never been here before. She’s innocent.”

A snort of derision stopped him.

He found himself staring at the man who stood behind the circle. Their eyes came together like a clash of weapons. The man had lost his grin; he glared scorn and denunciation at Covenant. He held violence folded in the crooks of his elbows. But Covenant did not falter. He straightened his back, squared his shoulders, met the naked threat of the man’s gaze.

After one taut moment, the man looked away.

Softly Covenant said, “We’re not on trial here. You are. The doom of the Land is in your hands, and you’re blind to it.”

An instant of silence covered the village; the whole valley seemed to hold its breath. Then the lone man cried suddenly, “Must we hear more?” Contempt and fear collided in his tone. “He has uttered foulness enough to damn a score of strangers. Let us pass judgment now!”

At once, the man with the staff sprang to his feet. “Be still, Marid,” he said sternly. “I am the Graveler of Mithil Stonedown. The test of silence is mine to begin—and to end.”

“It is enough!” retorted Marid. “Can there be greater ill than that which he has already spoken?”

A dour crepitating of assent ran through the circle.

Linden moved closer to Covenant. Her eyes were locked to Marid as if he appalled her. Nausea twisted her mouth. Covenant looked at her, at Marid, trying to guess what lay between them.

“Very well.” The Graveler took a step forward. “It is enough.” He planted his staff on the stone. “Stonedownors, speak what you have heard.”

For a moment, the people were still. Then an old man rose slowly to his feet. He adjusted his jerkin, pulled his gravity about him. “I have heard the Rede of the na-Mhoram, as it is spoken by the Riders of the Clave. They have said that the coming of the man with the halfhand and the white ring bodes unending ruin for us all. They have said that it is better to slay such a man in his slumber, allowing the blood to fall wasted to the earth, than to permit him one free breath with which to utter evil. Only the ring must be preserved, and given to the Riders, so that all blasphemy may be averted from the Land.”

Blasphemy? Clave? Covenant grappled uselessly with his incomprehension. Who besides Nassic’s Unfettered ancestor had foretold the return of the Unbeliever?

The old man concluded with a nod to the Graveler. Opposite him, a middle-aged woman stood. Jabbing her hand toward Covenant, she said, “He spoke the name of the na-Mhoram as a friend. Are not the na-Mhoram
and all his Clave bitter to Mithil Stonedown? Do not his Riders reave us of blood—and not of the old whose deaths are nigh, but of the young whose lives are precious? Let these two die! Our herd has already suffered long days without forage.”

“Folly!” the old man replied. “You will not speak so when next the Rider comes. It will be soon—our time nears again. In all the Land only the Clave has power over the Sunbane. The burden of their sacrificing is heavy to us—but we would lack life altogether if they failed to spend the blood of the villages.”

“Yet is there not a contradiction here?” the Graveler interposed. “He names the na-Mhoram as friend—and yet the most dire Rede of the Clave speaks against him,”

“For both they must die!” Marid spat immediately. “The na-Mhoram is not our friend, but his power is sure.”

“True!” voices said around the ring.

“Yes.”

“True.”

Linden brushed Covenant with her shoulder. “That man,” she whispered. “Marid. There’s something— Do you see it?”

“No,” responded Covenant through his teeth. “I told you I can’t. What is it?”

“I don’t know.” She sounded frightened. “Something—”

Then another woman stood. “He seeks to be released so that he may go to another Stonedown. Are not all other villages our foes? Twice has Windshorn Stonedown raided our fields during the fertile sun, so that our bellies shrank and our children cried in the night. Let the friends of our foes die.”

Again the Stonedownors growled, “Yes.”

“True.”

Without warning, Marid shouted over the grumble of voices, “They slew Nassic father of Sunder! Are we a people to permit murder unavenged? They must die!”

“No!” Linden’s instantaneous denial cracked across the circle like a scourge. “We did not kill that harmless old man!”

Covenant whirled to her. But she did not notice him; her attention was consumed by Marid.

In a tone of acid mockery, the man asked, “Do you fear to die, Linden Avery the Chosen?”

“What is it?” she gritted back at him. “What are you?”

“What do you see?” Covenant urged.
“Tell me.”

“Something—” Her voice groped; but her stare did not waver. Perspiration had darkened her hair along the line of her forehead. “It’s like that storm. Something evil.”

Intuitions flared like spots of sun-blindness across Covenant’s mind. “Something hot.”

“Yes!” Her gaze accused Marid fiercely. “Like the knife.”

Covenant spun, confronted Marid. He was suddenly calm. “You,” he said. “Marid. Come here.”

“No, Marid,” commanded the Graveler.

“Hell and blood!” Covenant rasped like deliberate ice. “My hands are tied. Are you afraid to find out the truth?” He did not glance at the Graveler; he held Marid with his will. “Come here. I’ll show you who killed Nassic.”

“Watch out,” Linden whispered. “He wants to hurt you.”

Scorn twisted Marid’s face. For a moment, he did not move. But now all the eyes of the Stonedown were on him, watching his reaction. And Covenant gave him no release. A spasm of fear or glee tightened Marid’s
expression. Abruptly he strode forward, halted in front of Covenant and the Graveler. “Speak your lies,” he sneered. “You will choke upon them before you die.”