The Wounded Land (24 page)

Covenant turned toward Linden to ask her what she saw in the sun’s green. Her face was slack and puffy, untouched by Sunder’s excitement; she was pushing herself too hard, demanding too much of her worn spirit. And her eyes were dull, as if she were being blinded by the things she saw—essential things neither Covenant nor Sunder could discern.

He started to frame a question; but then the sunshine snatched his attention away. He gaped at the west bank.

The light had moved partway down the side of the watercourse. And wherever it touched soil, new-green sprouts and shoots thrust into view.

They grew with visible rapidity. Above the rim of the river, a few bushes raised their heads high enough to be seen. Green spread downward like a mantle, following the sun-line cast by the east wall; plants seemed to scurry out of the dirt. More bush tops appeared beyond the bank. Here and there, young saplings reached toward the sky. Wherever the anademed sunlight fell, the wasteland of the past three days became smothered by verdure.

“The fertile sun,” Sunder breathed gladly. “None can say when it will rise. But when it rises, it brings life to the Land.”

“Impossible,” Covenant whispered. He kept blinking his eyes, unconsciously trying to clear his sight, kept staring at the way grass and vines came teeming down the riverbank, at the straight new trees which were already showing themselves beyond the shrubs along the river’s edge. The effect was eldritch, and frightening. It violated his instinctive sense of Law, “Impossible.”

“Forsooth,” chuckled the Graveler. He seemed new-made by the sun. “Do your eyes lack credence? Surely you must now acknowledge that there is truth in the Sunbane.”

“Truth—?” Covenant hardly heard Sunder. He was absorbed in his own amazement. “There’s still Earthpower—that’s obvious. But it was never like this.” He felt an intuitive chill of danger. “What’s wrong with the Law?” Was that it? Had Foul found some way to destroy the Law itself? The
Law
?

“Often,” Sunder said, “Nassic my father sang of Law. But he did not know its import. What is Law?”

Covenant stared sightlessly at the Graveler. “The Law of Earthpower.” Fearsome speculations clogged his throat; dread rotted his guts. “The natural order. Seasons. Weather. Growth and decay. What happened to it? What has he done?”

Sunder frowned as if Covenant’s attitude were a denial of his gladness. “I know nothing of such matters. The Sunbane I know—and the Rede which the na-Mhoram has given us for our survival. But seasons—Law. These words have no meaning.”

No meaning, Covenant groaned. No, of course not. If there were no Law, if there had been no Law for centuries, the Stonedownor could not possibly understand. Impulsively he turned to Linden. “Tell him what you see.”

She appeared not to hear him. She stood at the side of the rock, wearing an aspect of defenseless hebetude.

“Linden!” he cried, driven by his mortal apprehension. “Tell him what you
see
.”

Her mouth twisted as if his demand were an act of brutality. She pushed her hands through her hair, glanced up at the green-wreathed sun, then at the green-thick bank.

Shuddering she permitted herself to see.

Her revulsion was all the answer Covenant needed. It struck him like an instant of shared vision, momentarily gifting or blighting his senses with the acuity they lacked. Suddenly the long grass and curling vines, the thick bushes, the saplings no longer seemed lush to him. Instead they looked frenetic, hysterical. They did not spring with spontaneous luxuriance out of the soil; they were forced to grow by the unnatural scourge of the sun. The trees clawed toward the sky like drowners; the creepers writhed along the ground as if they lay on coals; the grass grew as raw and immediate as a shriek.

The moment passed, leaving him shaken.

“It’s wrong.” Linden rubbed her arms as if what she saw made her skin itch like an infestation of lice. The redness of her sunburn aggravated all her features. “Sick. Evil. It’s not supposed to be like this. It’s killing me.” Abruptly she sat down, hid her face in her hands. Her shoulders clenched as if she did not dare to weep.

Covenant started to ask, Killing you? But Sunder was already shouting.

“Your words signify nothing! This is the fertile sun! It is not
wrong
. It simply
is
. Thus the Sunbane has been since the punishment began. Behold!”

He stabbed a gesture toward the sandy patch in which he had planted his seeds. The sun-line lay across one of his furrows. In the light,
ussusimiel
were sprouting.

“Because of this, we will have food! The fertile sun gives life to all the Land. In Mithil Stonedown—now, while you stand thus decrying wrong and ill—every man, woman, and child sings. All who have strength are at labor. While the fertile sun holds, they will labor until they fall from weariness. Searching first to discover places where the soil is of a kind to support crops, then striving to clear that ground so seeds may be planted. Thrice in this one day, crops will be planted and harvested, thrice each day of the fertile sun.

“And if people from another Stonedown come upon this place, seeking proper soil for themselves, then there will be killing until one Stonedown is left to tend the crops. And the people will
sing
! The fertile sun is life! It is fiber for rope and thread and cloth, wood for tools and vessels and fire, grab for food, and for the
metheglin
which heals weariness. Speak not to me of wrong!” he cried thickly. But then his passion sagged, leaving him stooped and sorrowful. His arms hung at his sides as if in betraying his home he had given up all solace. “I cannot bear it.”

“Sunder.” Covenant’s voice shook. How much longer could he endure being the cause of so much pain? “That isn’t what I meant.”

“Then enlighten me,” the Graveler muttered. “Comfort the poverty of my comprehension.”

“I’m trying to understand your life. You endure so much—just being able to sing is a victory. But that isn’t what I meant.” He gripped himself so that his anger would not misdirect itself at Sunder. “This isn’t a punishment. The people of the Land aren’t criminals—betrayers. No!”
I have been preparing retribution
. “Your lives aren’t wrong. The Sunbane is wrong. It’s an evil that’s being done to the Land. I don’t know how. But I know who’s responsible. Lord Foul—you call him a-Jeroth. It’s his doing.

“Sunder, he can be fought. Listen to me.” He appealed to the scowling Graveler. “He can be fought.”

Sunder glared at Covenant, clinging to ideas, perceptions, he could understand. But after a moment he dropped his gaze. When he
spoke, his words were a recognition. “The fertile sun is also perilous, in its way. Remain upon the safety of the rock while you may.” With his knife, he went to clean away grass and weeds from around his vines.

Ah, Sunder, Covenant sighed. You’re braver than I deserve.

He wanted to rest, Fatigue made the bones of his skull hurt. The swelling of his forearm was gone now; but the flesh was still deeply bruised, and the joints of his elbow and wrist ached. But he held himself upright, turned to face Linden’s mute distress.

She sat staring emptily at nothing. Pain dragged her mouth into lines of failure, acutely personal and forlorn. Her hands gripped her elbows, hugging her knees, as if she strove to anchor herself on the stiff mortality of her bones.

Looking at her, he thought he recognized his own first ordeals in the Land. He made an effort to speak gently. “It’s all right. I understand.”

He meant to add, Don’t let it overwhelm you. You’re not alone. There are reasons for all this. But her reply stopped him. “No, you don’t.” She did not have even enough conviction for bitterness. “You can’t see.”

He had no answer. The flat truth of her words denied his empathy, left him groping within himself as if he had lost all his fingers. Defenseless against his incapacity, his responsibility for burdens he was unable to carry, he sank to the stone, stretched out his tiredness. She was here because she had tried to save his life. He yearned to give her something in return, some help, protection, ease. Some answer to her own severity. But there was nothing he could do. He could not even keep his eyes open.

When he looked up again, the growth on both sides of the watercourse, and down the west bank to the edge of the rock, had become alarmingly dense. Some of the grass was already knee-deep. He wondered how it would be possible to travel under such a sun. But he left that question to Sunder.

While melon buds ripened on his vines, the Graveler occupied himself by foraging for wild creepers. These he cut into strands. When he was satisfied with what he had gathered, he returned to the rock, and began knotting and weaving the vines to form a mesh sack.

By the time he had finished this chore, the first of the
ussusimiel
were ripe. He sectioned them, stored the seeds in his pocket, then meted out rations to his companions. Covenant accepted his share deliberately, knowing his body’s need for aliment. But Sunder had to nudge Linden’s shoulder to gain her attention. She frowned at the
ussusimiel
as if it were unconscionable, received it with a look of gall.

When they had eaten, Sunder picked the rest of the melons and put them in his sack. He appeared to be in a lighter mood; perhaps his ability to provide food had strengthened his sense of how much he was needed; or perhaps he was now less afraid of pursuit. Firmly he announced, “We must leave the riverbed. We will find no water here.” He nodded toward the east bank. “At first it will be arduous. But as the trees mount, they will shade the ground, slowing the undergrowth. But mark me—I have said that the fertile sun is perilous. We must travel warily, lest we fall among plants which will not release us. While this sun holds, we will sojourn in daylight, sleeping only at night.”

Covenant rubbed lightly at the scabs on his forearm, eyed the rim of the bank. “Did you say water?”

“As swiftly as strength and chance permit.”

Strength, Covenant muttered. Chance. He lacked one, and did not trust the other. But he did not hesitate. “Let’s go.”

Both men looked at Linden.

She rose slowly to her feet. She did not raise her eyes; but she nodded mutely.

Sunder glanced a question at Covenant; but Covenant had no answer. With a shrug, the Graveler lifted his sack to his shoulder and started down the river bottom. Covenant followed, with Linden behind him.

Sunder avoided the grass and weeds as much as possible until he reached a place where the sides were less steep. There he dug his feet into the dirt, and scrambled upward.

He had to burrow through the underbrush which lipped the slope to gain level ground. Covenant watched until the Graveler disappeared, then attempted the climb himself. Handholds on long dangling clumps of grass aided his ascent. After a moment of slippage, he crawled into Sunder’s burrow.

Carefully he moved along the tunnel of bracken and brush which Sunder had brunted clear. The teeming vegetation made progress difficult; he could not rise above his hands and knees. He felt enclosed by incondign verdancy, a savage ecstasy of growth more insidious than walls, and more stifling. He could not control the shudders of his muscles.

Crawling threatened to exhaust him; but after some distance, the tunnel ended. Sunder had found an area where the bracken was only waist-high, shaded by a crowded young copse of wattle. He was stamping down the brush to make a clearing when Covenant and then Linden caught up with him.

“We are fortunate,” Sunder murmured, nodding toward one of the nearest trees. It was a new mimosa nearly fifteen feet tall; but it would not grow any more; it was being strangled by a heavy creeper as thick as Covenant’s thigh. This plant had a glossy green skin, and it bore a cluster of yellow-green fruit which vaguely resembled papaya. “It is
mirkfruit
.”

Mirkfruit?
Covenant wondered, remembering the narcoleptic pulp with which he and Linden had been captured by Mithil Stonedown. “How is that fortunate?”

Sunder took out his knife. “The fruit is one matter, the vine another.” Drawing Covenant with him, he stepped toward the creeper, gripped his poniard in both hands. “Stand ready,” he warned. Then he leaped upward and spiked his blade into the plant above the level of his head.

The knife cut the vine like flesh. When Sunder snatched back his blade, clear water gushed from the wound.

In his surprise, Covenant hesitated.

“Drink!” snapped Sunder. Brusquely he thrust Covenant under the spout.

Then Covenant was gulping at water that splashed into his face and mouth. It was as fresh as night air.

When he had satisfied his body’s taut thirst, Linden took his place, drank as if she were frantic for something, anything, which did not exacerbate the soreness of her nerves. Covenant feared the vine would run dry. But after she stepped aside, Sunder was able to drink his fill before the stream began to slacken.

While the water lasted, the companions used it to wash their hands and faces, sluice some of the dust from their clothes. Then the Graveler shouldered his sack. “We must continue. Nothing motionless is free of hazard under this sun.” To demonstrate his point, he kicked his
feet, showed how the grass tried to wind around his ankles. “And the Rider will be abroad. We will journey as near the Mithil as soil and sun allow.”

He gestured northward. In that direction, beyond the shade of the copse, lay a broad swath of raw gray grass, chest-high and growing. But then the grass faded into a stand of trees, an incongruous aggregation of oak and sycamore, eucalyptus and jacaranda. “There is great diversity in the soil,” Sunder explained, “and the soil grows what is proper to it. I cannot foresee what we will encounter. But we will strive to stay among trees and shade.” Scanning the area as if he expected to see signs of the Rider, he began to breast his way through the thick grass.

Covenant followed unsteadily, with Linden at his back.

By the time they neared the trees, his arms were latticed with fine scratches from the rough blades; and the grass itself waved above his head.