The Wounded Land (16 page)

Covenant did not hesitate. “Nassic was stabbed in the back,” he said softly, “with an iron knife. It was a lousy job—he bled to death. When we left him, the knife was still hot.”

Marid swallowed convulsively. “You are a fool. What man or woman of Mithil Stonedown could wield a knife with the fire yet within it? Out of your own mouth you are condemned.”

“Graveler,” Covenant said, “touch him with your staff.”

Around him, the Stonedownors rose to their feet.

“For what purpose?” the Graveler asked uncertainly. “It is mere wood. It has no virtue to determine guilt or innocence.”

Covenant clinched Marid in his gaze.
“Do it.”

Hesitantly the Graveler obeyed.

As the tip of the staff neared him, Marid shied. But then a savage exaltation lit his face, and he remained still.

The staff touched his shoulder.

Instantly the wood burst into red fire.

The Graveler recoiled in astonishment. Stonedownors gasped, gripped each other for reassurance.

With an explosive movement, Marid backhanded Covenant across the side of his head.

The unnatural power of the blow catapulted Covenant backward. He tumbled heavily to the ground. Pain like acid burned through his sore skull.

“Covenant!” Linden cried fearfully.

He heard the Graveler protest, “Marid!”—heard the fright of the Stonedownors turn to anger. Then the pain became a roaring that deafened him. For a moment, he was too dizzy to move. But he fought the fire, heaved himself to his knees so that everyone could see the mark of Marid’s blow among his bruises. “Nice work, you bastard,” he rasped. His voice seemed to make no sound. “What were you afraid of? Did you think he was going to help us that much? Or were you just having fun?”

He was aware of a low buzzing around him, but could not make out words. Marid stood with arms across his chest, grinning.

Covenant thrust his voice through the roar. “Why don’t you tell us your real name? Is it Herem? Jehannum? Maybe Sheol?”

Linden was beside him. She strove fervidly to free her hands; but the bonds held. Her mouth chewed dumb curses.

“Come on,” he continued, though he could barely see Marid beyond the pain. “Attack me. Take your chances. Maybe I’ve forgotten how to use it.”

Abruptly Marid began to laugh: laughter as gelid as hate. It penetrated Covenant’s hearing, resounded in his head like a concussion. “It will avail you nothing!” he shouted. “Your death is certain! You cannot harm me!”

The Graveler brandished his flaming staff at Marid. Dimly Covenant heard the man rage, “Have you slain Nassic my father?”

“With joy!” laughed the Raver. “Ah, how it fed me to plant my blade in his back!”

A woman shrieked. Before anyone could stop her, she sped in a blur of gray hair across the open space, hurled herself at Marid.

He collapsed as if the impact had killed him.

Covenant’s strength gave out. He fell to his back, lay panting heavily on the stone.

Then a stench of burned flesh sickened the air. One of the Stonedownors cried out, “Sunder! Her hands!”

Another demanded, “Is he slain?”

“No!” came the reply.

Linden was yelling. “Let me go! I’m a doctor! I can help her!” She sounded frantic. “Don’t you know what a doctor is?”

A moment later, hands gripped Covenant’s arms, lifted him to his feet. A Stonedownor swam toward him through the hurt; slowly, the face resolved, became the Graveler. His brow was a knot of anger and grief. Stiffly, he said, “Marid sleeps. My mother is deeply burned. Tell me the meaning of this.”

“A Raver.” Covenant’s breathing shuddered in his lungs. “Bloody hell.” He could not think or find the words he needed.

The Graveler bunched his fists in Covenant’s shirt. “Speak!”

From somewhere nearby, Linden shouted, “Goddamn it, leave him alone! Can’t you see he’s hurt?”

Covenant fought for clarity. “Let her go,” he said to the Graveler. “She’s a healer.”

The muscles along the Graveler’s jaw knotted, released. “I have not been given reason to trust her. Speak to me of Marid.”

Marid, Covenant panted. “Listen.” Sweating and dizzy, he squeezed the pain out of his mind. “It was a Raver.”

The Graveler’s glare revealed no comprehension.

“When he wakes up, he’ll probably be normal again. May not even remember what happened. He was taken over. That Raver could be anywhere. It isn’t hurt. You need a lot of power to knock one of them out, even temporarily. You’ve got to watch for it. It could take over anybody. Watch for somebody who starts acting strange. Violent. Stay away from them. I mean it.”

The Graveler listened first with urgency, then with disgust. Exasperation pulsed in the veins of his temples. Before Covenant finished, the Stonedownor turned on his heel, strode away.

Immediately the hands holding Covenant’s arms dragged him out of the center of the village.

Linden was ahead of him. She struggled uselessly between two burly men. They impelled her back into their jail.

“Damnation,” Covenant said. His voice had no force. “I’m trying to warn you.”

His captors did not respond. They thrust him into the hut after Linden, and let him fall.

He sank to the floor. The cool dimness of the room washed over him. The suddenness of his release from the sun’s brown pressure made the floor wheel. But he rested his pain on the soothing stone; and gradually that quiet touch steadied him.

Linden was cursing bitterly in the stillness. He tried to raise his head. “Linden.”

At once, she moved to his side. “Don’t try to get up. Just let me see it.”

He turned his head to show her his hurt.

She bent over him. He could feel her breath on his cheek. “You’re burned, but it doesn’t look serious. First-degree.” Her tone twitched with nausea and helplessness. “None of the bones are cracked. How do you feel?”

“Dizzy,” he murmured. “Deaf. I’ll be all right.”

“Sure you will,” she grated. “You probably have a concussion. I’ll bet you want to go to sleep.”

He mumbled assent. The darkness in his head offered him cool peace, and he longed to let himself drown in it.

She took a breath through her teeth. “Sit up.”

He did not move; he lacked the strength to obey her.

She nudged him with her knee. “I’m serious. If you go to sleep, you might drift into a coma, and I won’t be able to do anything about it. You’ve got to stay awake. Sit up.”

The ragged edge in her voice sounded like a threat of hysteria. Gritting his teeth, he tried to rise. Hot pain flayed the bones of his head; but he pried himself erect, then slumped to the side so that his shoulder was braced against the wall.

“Good,” Linden sighed. The pounding in his skull formed a gulf between them. She seemed small and lonely, aggrieved by the loss of the world she understood. “Now try to stay alert. Talk to me.” After a moment, she said, “Tell me what happened.”

He recognized her need. Marid incarnated the fears which Nassic’s death had raised for her. A being who lived on hate, relished violence and anguish. She knew nothing about such things.

“A Raver.” Covenant tried to slip his voice quietly past the pain. “I should have known. Marid is just a Stonedownor. He was possessed by a Raver.”

Linden backed away from him, composed herself against the opposite wall. Her gaze held his face. “What’s a Raver?”

“Servant of Foul.” He closed his eyes, leaned his head to the stone, so that he could concentrate on what he was saying. “There are three of them. Herem, Sheol, Jehannum—they have a lot of different names. They don’t have bodies of their own, so they take over other people—even animals, I guess. Whatever they can find. So they’re always in disguise.” He sighed—gently, to minimize the effect on his head. “I just hope these people understand what that means.”

“So,” she asked carefully, “what I saw was the Raver inside Marid? That’s why he looked so—so wrong?”

“Yes.” When he focused on her voice, his hurt became less demanding; it grew hotter, but also more specific and limited. As a fire in his skin rather than a cudgel in his brain, it crippled his thinking less. “Marid was just a victim. The Raver used him to kill Nassic—set us up for this. What I don’t know is why. Does Foul want us killed here? Or is there something else going on? If Foul wants us dead, that Raver made a big mistake when it let itself get caught. Now the Stonedown has something besides us to think about.”

“What I don’t know,” Linden said in a lorn voice like an appeal, “is how I was able to see it. None of this is possible.”

Her tone sparked unexpected memories. Suddenly he realized that the way she had stared at Marid was the same way she had regarded Joan. That encounter with Joan had shaken her visibly.

He opened his eyes, watched her as he said, “That’s one of the few things that seems natural to me. I used to be able to see what you’re seeing now—the other times I was here.” Her face was turned toward him, but she was not looking at him. Her attention was bent inward as she struggled with the lunacy of her predicament. “Your senses,” he went on, trying to help her, “are becoming attuned to the Land. You’re becoming sensitive to the physical spirit around you. More and more, you’re going to look at something, or hear it, or touch it, and be able to tell whether it’s sick or healthy—natural or unnatural.” She did not appear to hear him. Defying his pain, he rasped, “Which isn’t happening to me.” He wanted to pull her out of herself before she lost her way. “For all I can see, I might as well be blind.”

Her head flinched from side to side. “What if I’m wrong?” she breathed miserably. “What if I’m losing my mind?”

“No! That part of you is never going to be wrong. And you can’t lose your mind unless you let it happen.” Wildness knuckled her features.
“Don’t give up.”

She heard him. With an effort that wrung his heart, she compelled her body to relax, muscle by muscle. She drew a breath that trembled; but when she exhaled, she was calmer. “I just feel so helpless.”

He said nothing, waited for her.

After a moment, she sniffed sharply, shook her hair away from her face, met his gaze. “If these Ravers can possess anybody,” she said, “why not us? If we’re so important—if this Lord Foul is what you say he is—why doesn’t he just make us into Ravers, and get it over with?”

With a silent groan of relief, Covenant allowed himself to sag. “That’s the one thing he can’t do. He can’t afford it. He’ll manipulate us every way he can, but he has to accept the risk that we won’t do what he wants. He needs our freedom. What he wants from us won’t have any value if we don’t do it by choice.” Also, he went on to himself, Foul doesn’t dare let a Raver get my ring. How could he trust one of them with that much power?

Linden frowned. “That might make sense—if I understood what makes us so important. What we’ve got that he could possibly want. But never mind that now.” She took a deep breath. “If I could see the Raver—why couldn’t anybody else?”

Her question panged Covenant. “That’s what really scares me,” he said tautly. “These people used to be like you. Now they aren’t.” And I’m not. “I’m afraid even to think about what that means. They’ve lost—” Lost the insight which taught them to love and serve the Land—to care about it above everything else. Oh, Foul, you bastard, what have you done? “If they can’t see the difference between a Raver and a normal man, then they won’t be able to see that they should trust us.”

Her mouth tightened. “You mean they’re still planning to kill us.”

Before Covenant could reply, the curtain was thrust aside, and the Graveler entered the room.

His eyes were glazed with trouble, and his brow wore a scowl of involition and mourning, as if his essential gentleness had been harmed. He had left his staff behind; his hands hung at his sides. But he could not keep them still. They moved in slight jerks, half gestures, as if they sought unconsciously for something he could hold onto.

After a moment of awkwardness, he sat down on his heels near the entryway. He did not look at his prisoners; his gaze lay on the floor between them.

“Sunder,” Covenant said softly, “son of Nassic.”

The Graveler nodded without raising his eyes.

Covenant waited for him to speak. But the Graveler remained silent, as if he were abashed. After a moment, Covenant said, “That woman who attacked Marid. She was your mother.”

“Kalina Nassic-mate, daughter of Alloma.” He held himself harshly quiet. “My mother.”

Linden peered intently at Sunder. “How is she?”

“She rests. But her injury is deep. We have little healing for such hurts. It may be that she will be sacrificed.”

Covenant saw Linden poised to demand to be allowed to help the woman. But he forestalled her. “Sacrificed?”

“Her blood belongs to the Stonedown.” Sunder’s voice limped under a weight of pain. “It must not be wasted. Only Nassic my father would
not have accepted this. Therefore”—his throat knotted—“it is well he knew not that I am the Graveler of Mithil Stonedown. For it is I who will shed the sacrifice.”

Linden recoiled. Aghast, Covenant exclaimed, “You’re going to sacrifice your own mother?”

“For the survival of the Stonedown!” croaked Sunder. “We must have blood.” Then he clamped down his emotion. “You also will be sacrificed. The Stonedown has made its judgment. You will be shed at the rising of the morrow’s sun.”

Covenant glared at the Graveler. Ignoring the throb in his head, he rasped, “Why?”

“I have come to make answer.” Sunder’s tone and his downcast eyes reproved Covenant. The Graveler plainly loathed his responsibility; yet he did not shirk it. “The reasons are many. You have asked to be released so that you may approach another village.”

“I’m looking for friends,” Covenant countered stiffly. “If I can’t find them here, I’ll try somewhere else.”

“No.” The Graveler was certain. “Another Stonedown would do as we do. Because you came to them from Mithil Stonedown, they would sacrifice you. In addition,” he continued, “you have spoken friendship for the na-Mhoram, who reaves us of blood.”

Covenant blinked at Sunder. These accusations formed a pattern he could not decipher. “I don’t know any na-Mhoram. The Mhoram I knew has been dead for at least three thousand years.”