The Wounded Land (22 page)

Wielding his knife, Sunder attempted to close with Marid. But a flurry of fangs drove him back.

At once, Marid rushed toward Linden again.

Covenant met the charge. He stopped one serpent head with his right forearm, caught the other scaly body in his left fist.

The free snake reared back to strike.

In that instant, Sunder reached into the struggle. Too swiftly for the snakes to react, he cut Marid’s throat. Viscid fluid splashed the front of Covenant’s clothes.

Sunder dropped his dead friend. Blood poured into the dirt. Covenant recoiled several steps. As she rose to her knees, Linden gagged as if she were being asphyxiated by the Sunbane.

The Graveler paid no heed to his companions. A frenetic haste possessed him. “Blood,” he panted. “Life.” He slapped his hands into the spreading pool, rubbed them together, smeared red onto his forehead and cheeks. “At least your death will be of some avail. It is my guilt-gift.”

Covenant stared in dismay. He had not known that a human body could be so lavish of blood.

Snatching out the Sunstone, Sunder bent his head to Marid’s neck, sucked blood directly from the cut. With the stone held in both palms, he spewed fluid onto it so that it lay cupped in Marid’s rife. Then he looked upward and began to chant in a language Covenant could not understand.

Around him, the air concentrated as if the heat took personal notice of his invocation. Energy blossomed from the
orcrest
.

A shaft of vermeil as straight as the line between life and death shot toward the sun. It crackled like a discharge of lightning; but it was steady and palpable, sustained by blood.

It consumed the blood in Sunder’s hands, drank the blood from Marid’s veins, leeched the blood from the earth. Soon every trace of red was gone. Marid’s throat gaped like a dry grin.

Still chanting, Sunder set down the Sunstone near Marid’s head. The shaft binding the
orcrest
to the sun did not falter.

Almost at once, water bubbled up around the stone. It gathered force until it was a small spring, as fresh and clear as if it arose from mountain rock rather than from barren dust.

As he watched, Covenant’s head began to throb. He was flushed and sweating under the weight of the sun.

Still Sunder chanted; and beside the spring, a green shoot raised its head. It grew with staggering celerity; it became a vine, spread
itself along the ground, put out leaves. In a moment, it produced several buds which swelled like melons.

The Graveler gestured Linden toward the spring. Her expression had changed from suffocation to astonishment. Moving as if she were entranced, she knelt beside the spring, put her lips into the water. She jerked back at once, surprised by the water’s coldness. Then she was drinking deeply, greedily.

A maleficent fire bloomed in Covenant’s right forearm. His breathing was ragged. Dust filled his mouth. He could feel his pulse beating in the base of his throat.

After a time, Linden pulled away from the spring, turned to him. “It’s good,” she said in dim wonder. “It’s good.”

He did not move, did not look at her. Dread spurted up in him like water from dry ground.

“Come on,” she urged. “Drink.”

He could not stop staring at Marid. Without shifting his gaze, he extended his right arm toward her.

She glanced at it, then gave a sharp cry and leaped to him, took hold of his arm to look at it closely.

He was loath to see what she saw; but he forced himself to gaze downward.

His forearm was livid. A short way up from his wrist, two puncture marks glared bright red against the darkness of the swelling. “Bastard bit me,” he coughed as if he were already dying.

“Sunder!” Linden barked. “Give me your knife,”

The Graveler had faltered when he saw the fang marks; and the spring had also faltered. But he recovered quickly, restored the cadence of his chant. The shaft of Sunbane-fire wavered, then grew stable once more. The melons continued to ripen.

Still chanting, he extended his poniard toward Linden. She strode over to him, took the blade. She did not hesitate; all her actions were certain. Stooping to one of Marid’s ankles, she cut a section of the rope which bound the stake.

The pain became a hammer in Covenant’s forearm, beating as if it meant to crush the bones. Mutely, he gripped the elbow with his left hand, squeezed hard in an effort to restrict the spread of the venom. He did not want to die like this, with all his questions unanswered, and nothing accomplished.

A moment later, Linden returned. Her lips were set in lines of command. When she said, “Sit down,” his knees folded as if she held the strings of his will.

She sat in front of him, straightened his arm between them. Deftly she looped the rope just above his elbow, pulled it tight until he winced; then she knotted it.

“Now,” she said evenly, “I’m going to have to cut you. Get out as much of the venom as I can.”

He nodded. He tried to swallow, but could not.

She set the point of the blade against the swelling, abruptly snatched it back. Her tone betrayed a glimpse of strain. “Goddamn knife’s too dirty.”

Frowning, she snapped, “Don’t move,” and jumped to her feet. Purposefully she went to the hot red shaft of Sunder’s power. He hissed a warning, but she ignored him. With a physician’s care, she touched the poniard to the beam.

Sparks sprayed from the contact; fire licked along the knife. When she withdrew it, she nodded grimly to herself.

She rejoined Covenant, braced his arm. For a moment, she met his gaze. “This is going to hurt,” she said straight into his eyes. “But it’ll be worse if I don’t do it.”

He fought to clear his throat. “Go ahead.”

Slowly, deliberately, she cut a deep cross between the fang marks. A scream tore his flesh. He went rigid, but did not permit himself to flinch. This was necessary; he had done such things himself. Pain was life; only the dead felt no pain. He remained still as she bent her head to suck at the incisions. With his free hand, he gripped his forehead, clutching the bones of his skull for courage.

Her hands squeezed the swelling, multiplying fire. Her lips hurt him like teeth as she drew blood and venom into her mouth.

The taste shattered her composure; she spat his blood fiercely at the ground. “God!” she gasped. “What kind—?” At once, she attacked the wound again, sucked and spat with violent revulsion. Her hands shuddered as she gripped his arm.

What kind
—? Her words throbbed along the pressure in his head. What was she talking about?

A third time she sucked, spat. Her features strained whitely, like clenched knuckles. With unintended brutality, she dropped his arm; a blaze shot up through his shoulder. Springing to her feet, she stamped
on the spat blood, ground it into the dirt as if it were an outrage she wanted to eradicate from the world.

“Linden,” he panted wanly through his pain, “what is it?”

“Venom!” She fulminated with repugnance. “What kind of place is this?” Abruptly she hastened to Sunder’s spring, began rinsing her mouth. Her shoulders were knots of abhorrence.

When she returned to Covenant, her whole body was trembling, and her eyes were hollow. “Poison.” She hugged herself as if she were suddenly cold. “I don’t have words for it. That wasn’t just venom. It was something more—something worse. Like the Sunbane. Some kind of moral poison.” She pulled her hands through her hair, fighting for control. “God, you’re going to be so sick—! You need a hospital. Except there’s no antivenin in the world for poison like that.”

Covenant whirled in pain, could not distinguish between it and fear. Moral poison? He did not understand her description, but it clarified other questions. It explained why the Raver in Marid had allowed itself to be exposed. So that Marid would be condemned to the Sunbane, would become a monster capable of inflicting such poison. But why? What would Lord Foul gain if Covenant died like this? And why had Marid aimed his attack at Linden? Because she was sensitive to the Land, could see things the Despiser did not want seen?

Covenant could not think. The reek of blood on his shirt filled his senses. Everything became dread; he wanted to wail. But Linden came to his aid. Somehow she suppressed her own distress. Urging him upright, she supported him to the water so that he could drink. He was already palsied. But his body recognized its need for water; he swallowed thirstily at the spring.

When he was done, she helped him into the shade of the shelf. Then she sat beside him and held his livid arm with her hands, trying in that way to make him comfortable.

Blood dripped unremarked from his cuts. The swelling spread darkness up toward his elbow.

Sunder had been chanting continuously; but now he stopped. He had at last been able to make his invocation briefly self-sustaining. When he fell silent, the
orcrest
’s vermeil shaft flickered and went out, leaving the stone empty, like a hole in the ground; but the spring continued to flow for a few moments. He had time to drink deeply before the water sank back into the barren earth.

With his poniard, he cut the melons from their vine, then bore them into the shade, and sat down on Covenant’s left. Unsteadily he began slicing the melons into sections, scooping out the seeds. The seeds he put away in a pocket of his jerkin. Then he handed sections of melon across to Linden.

“This is
ussusimiel
,” he said in a fragile tone, as if he were exhausted and feared contradiction. “At need it will sustain life with no other food.” Wearily he began to eat.

Linden tasted the fruit. She nodded her approval, then started to devour the sections Sunder had given her. Dully Covenant accepted a piece for himself. But he felt unable to eat. Pain excruciated the bones of his right arm; and that fire seemed to draw all other strength out of him, leaving him to drown in a wide slow whirl of lassitude. He was going to pass out—And there were so many things his companions did not understand.

One was more important than the others. He tried to focus his sight on the Graveler. But he could not keep his vision clear. He closed his eyes so that he would not have to watch the way the Stonedownor blurred and ran.

“Sunder.”

“Ur-Lord?”

Covenant sighed, dreading Sunder’s reaction. “Listen.” He concentrated the vestiges of his determination in his voice. “We can’t stay here. I haven’t told you where we’re going.”

“Let it pass,” said his guide quietly. “You are harmed and hungry. You must eat. We will consider such questions later.”

“Listen.” Covenant could feel midnight creeping toward him. He strove to articulate his urgency. “Take me to Revelstone.”

“Revelstone?” Sunder exploded in protest. “You wander in your wits. Do you not know that Revelstone is the Keep of the na-Mhoram? Have I not spoken of the Rede concerning you? The Riders journey throughout the Land, commanding your destruction. Do you believe that they will welcome you courteously?”

“I don’t care about that.” Covenant shook his head, then found that he could not stop. The muscles of his neck jerked back and forth like the onset of hysteria. “That’s where the answers are. I’ve got to find out how this happened.” He tried to gesture toward the barrenness; but all his horizons were dark, blinded by dust and dead air. “What the Sunbane is. I can’t fight it if I don’t know what it is.”

“Ur-Lord, it is three hundred leagues.”

“I know. But I’ve got to go. I have to know what happened.” He insisted weakly, like a sick child. “So I can fight it”

“Heaven and Earth!” Sunder groaned. “This is the greatest madness of all.” For a long moment, he remained still, scouring himself for endurance or wisdom. Please, Covenant breathed into the silence. Sunder. Please.

Abruptly the Graveler muttered, “Ah, well. I have no longer any other demand upon me. And you are not to be denied. In the name of Nassic my father—and of Marid my friend, whose life you strove to redeem at your cost—I will guide you where you wish to go. Now eat. Even prophets and madmen require sustenance.”

Covenant nodded dimly. Shutting his mind to the smell of blood, he took a bite of the
ussusimiel
.

It could not compare with
aliantha
for taste and potency; but it felt clean in his mouth, and seemed to relieve some of the congestion of his pain. As he ate, the darkness receded somewhat.

After he had consumed his share of the fruit, he settled himself to rest for a while. But Sunder stood up suddenly. “Come,” he said to Linden. “Let us be on our way.”

“He shouldn’t be moved,” she replied flatly.

“There will be
aliantha
nigh the River. Perhaps they will have power to aid him.”

“Maybe. But he shouldn’t be moved. It’ll make the venom spread.”

“Linden Avery,” Sunder breathed. “Marid was my friend. I cannot remain in this place.”

Covenant became conscious of a dim fetor in the air. It came from his arm. Or from Marid’s corpse.

For a moment, Linden did not respond. Then she sighed, “Give me the knife. He can’t travel with his arm like that.”

Sunder handed her his poniard. She looked closely at Covenant’s swelling. It had grown upward past his elbow. Its black pressure made the rope bite deeply into his arm.

He watched tacitly as she cut away the tourniquet.

Blood rushed at his wound. He cried out.

Then the darkness came over him for a time. He was on his feet, and his arms were hooked over the shoulders of his companions, and they
were moving westward. The sun beat at them as if they were an affront to its suzerainty. The air was turgid with heat; it seemed to resist respiration. In all directions, the stone and soil of the Plains shimmered as if they were evaporating. Pain laughed garishly in his head at every step. If Linden or Sunder did not find some kind of febrifuge for him soon—

Linden was on his left now, so that her stumbling would not directly jar his sick arm. Oblivion came and went. When Covenant became aware of the voice, he could not be sure of it. It might have been the voice of a dream.