The Wounded Land (69 page)

“Thomas Covenant,” the First said in a voice like a broadsword, “what is your purpose?”

“Oh, forsooth!” Pitchwife laughed. “Let this lurker await our good readiness. We will not be hastened.” His words could have been sarcastic; but he spoke them in a tone of clean glee. “Are we not Giants? Are not tales more precious to us than life?”

Quietly, almost gently, the First said, “Peace, Pitchwife.”

At her command, Pitchwife stopped; but his grin went on contradicting the grief of the lurker.

In the core of his numbness, Covenant held to the few things he understood, kept his eyes shut so that he would not be distracted. Distanced from himself by darkness and concentration, he hardly heard what he was saying.

“I know that wound. I know what it is. I think I know what to do about it. That’s why we’re here. I need you—your ship, your knowledge—your help.”

The thing you seek is not within the Land
.

The Staff of Law. The One Tree.

Yet Mhoram had also said,
Do not be deceived by the Land’s need. The thing you seek is not what it appears to be
.

Carefully Honninscrave said, “Cable Seadreamer asks that you speak more plainly.”

More plainly? For an instant, Covenant’s grasp on clarity faltered. Do I have to tell you that it’s my fault? That I’m the one who opened the door? But he steadied himself in the eye of all the things he did not understand and began to speak.

There in the night, with his eyes closed against the firelight and the immaculate stars, he described the Sunbane and the purpose for which Lord Foul had created the Sunbane. He outlined its origin in the destruction of the Staff of Law, then told of his own role in that destruction, so that the Giants would understand why the restitution of the Staff was his responsibility. And he talked about what he had learned in Andelain. All these things ran together in his mind; he did not know whether the words he spoke aloud made any sense.

When he finished, he fell silent and waited.

After a time, the First said thoughtfully, “You ask the use of Starfare’s Gem so that you may seek across the world for this One Tree. You ask our aid and our knowledge of the Earth, to aid your seeking.”

Covenant opened his eyes then, let his mortal weariness speak for him. Yes. Look at me. How else can any of this be healed?

“Stone and Sea!” she muttered, “this is a hard matter. If you speak truly, then the path of the Search lies with you.”

“The ur-Lord,” Brinn said without inflection, “speaks truly.”

She rejected his assertion with a brusque shrug. “I doubt not that he speaks truly concerning his own belief. But is his belief a sure knowledge? He asks us to place all the Search into his hands—without any secure vision of what we do. Granted he is mighty, and has known the friendship of Giants. But might and surety are not children of the same parent.”

“Do you”—Covenant could feel himself failing into stupidity again, becoming desperate—“know where the One Tree is?”

“No,” she replied stiffly. She hesitated for only a moment. “But we know where such knowledge may be gained.”

“Then take me there.” His voice was husky with supplication. “The Sunbane’s getting worse. People are killed every day to feed it. The Land is dying,” I swore I’d never kill again—swore it in the name of Foamfollower’s
caamora
. But I can’t stop. “Please.”

Indecision held the First. She glared at the dilemma he had given her. Honninscrave knelt by the fire, tending it as if he needed something to do with his hands. Seadreamer’s face wore pain as if he were maimed by his muteness. Near him, Sunder and Hollian waited in suspense.

Whistling thinly through his teeth, Pitchwife began to repack the Giants’ bundles. His features expressed a complete confidence that the First would make the right choice.

Without warning, a bolt of white shot through the depths of the lake. It flickered, disappeared. Fired again.

Instantly the whole lake caught silver. Ghost-shine sprang into the night. The water came to life.

In the distance, the lurker’s sobbing mounted toward rage. At once, the air seemed to congeal like fear.

Sunder spat a hoarse curse. Harn and Hergrom dove toward the quest’s supplies. Pitchwife tossed a bundle to Honninscrave. Honninscrave caught it, slipped his shoulders into the bindings. The First had already kicked the campfire apart. She and Honninscrave picked up brands to use as torches. Pitchwife threw the other bundle to Seadreamer, then snatched up a torch himself.

Ceer and Cail had lifted Linden. But the splint made her awkward for them. Covenant saw dazedly that they would not be able to carry her, run with her, without hurting her ankle.

He did not know what to do. His lungs ached. The lurker’s rising howl tore open the scars of past attacks. Sweat burst from the bones of his skull. The
skest
were moving, tightening their fire around the company. There was nothing he could do.

Then Seadreamer reached Cail and Ceer. The Giant took Linden from them; his huge arms supported her as securely as a litter.

The sight unlocked Covenant’s paralysis. He trusted the Giant instinctively. The company began to climb the hillside northward. He left them, turned to confront the water.

Just try it! His fists jerked threats at the fell luster and the howl. Come on! Try to hurt us again!

Brinn yanked him away from the lakeshore and dragged him stumbling up the hill.

Reeling with exertion and anoxia, he fought to keep his feet. Dark trees leaped across his vision like aghast dancers in the nacreous light. He tripped repeatedly. But Brinn upheld him.

The lurker’s cry whetted itself on pain and frustration, shrilled into his ears. At the fringes of his sight, he could see the
skest
. They moved in pursuit, as if the lurker’s fury were a scourge at their backs.

Then Brinn impelled him over the crest of the hill.

At once, the ghost-light was cut off. Torches bounded into the jungle ahead of him. He struggled after them as if he were chasing swamp-fires. Only Brinn’s support saved him from slamming into trunks, thick brush, vines as heavy as hawsers.

The howling scaled toward a shriek, then dropped to a lower, more cunning pitch. But the sound continued to impale Covenant like a swordthorn. He retched for air; the night became vertigo. He did not know where he was going.

A lurid, green blur appeared beyond the torches. The
skest
angled closer on the left, forcing the company to veer to the right.

More
skest
.

The flight of the torches swung farther to the right.

Lacking air, strength, courage, Covenant could hardly bear his own weight. His limbs yearned to fall, his chest ached for oblivion. But Hergrom gripped his other arm. Stumbling between
Haruchai
, he followed his companions.

For long moments, they splashed down the length of a cold stream which ran like an aisle between advancing hordes of
skest
. But then the stream faded into quicksand. The company lost time hunting for solid ground around the quagmire.

They gained a reach of clear dirt, soil so dead that even marshgrass could not grow there. They began to sprint. Brinn and Hergrom drew Covenant along more swiftly than he could move.

Suddenly the whole group crashed to a halt, as if they had blundered against an invisible wall.

The First hissed an oath like a sword-cut. Sunder and Hollian sobbed for air. Pitchwife hugged his crippled chest. Honninscrave swung in circles, scanning the night. Seadreamer stood like a tree with Linden asleep in his arms and stared into the darkness as if he had lost his sight.

With his own breath rending like an internal wound, Covenant jerked forward to see why the company had stopped.

Herded! Bloody hell.

The dead ground stretched like a peninsula out into a region of mud: mire blocked the way for more than a stone’s throw on three sides. The muck stank like a charnel, seething faintly, as if corpses writhed in its depths. It looked thick enough to swallow even Giants without a trace.

Already
skest
had begun to mass at the head of the peninsula, sealing the company in the lurker’s trap. Hundreds of
skest
, scores of hundreds. They made the whole night green, pulsing like worship. Even armed with a mountain of wood, no Giant or
Haruchai
could have fought through that throng; and the company had no wood left except the torches.

Covenant’s respiration became febrile with cursing.

He looked at his companions. Emerald etched them out of the darkness, as distinct as the accursed. Linden lay panting in
Seadreamer’s arms as if her sleep were troubled by nightmares. Hollian’s face was bloodless under her black hair, pale as prophecy. Sunder’s whole visage clenched around the grinding of his teeth. Their vulnerability wrung Covenant’s heart. The
Haruchai
and the Giants could at least give some account of themselves before they fell. What could Linden, Sunder, and Hollian do except die?

“Ur-Lord.” Brinn’s singed hair and dispassion looked ghastly in the green light. “The white ring. May these
skest
be driven back?”

Thousands of them? Covenant wanted to demand. I don’t have the strength. But his chest could not force out words.

One of Honninscrave’s torches burned down to his hand. With a grimace, he tossed the sputtering wood into the mire.

Instantly the surface of the mud lake caught fire.

Flames capered across the mire like souls in torment. Heat like a foretaste of hell blasted against the company, drove them into a tight cluster in the center of the peninsula.

The First discarded her torches, whipped out her sword, and tried to shout something. The lurker drowned her voice. But the Giants understood. They placed themselves around their companions, using their bodies as shields against the heat. The First, Honninscrave, and Pitchwife faced outward; Seadreamer put his back to the fire, protecting Linden.

The next instant, a concussion shook the ground. Pitchwife stumbled. Hollian, Sunder, and Covenant fell.

As Covenant climbed back to his feet, he saw a tremendous spout of flame mounting out of the mud.

It rose like a fire-storm and whirled toward the heavens. Its fury tore a gale through the night. Towering over the peninsula, it leaned to hammer the company. The howl of the lurker became a gyre of conflagration.

No!

Covenant eluded Brinn’s grasp, wrenched past Honninscrave. He forged out into the heat to meet the firespout.

Baring the
krill
, he raised it so that its gem shone clear. Purest argent pierced the orange mudfire, defying it as hotly as lightning.

In the silence of his clogged lungs, Covenant raged words he did not understand. Words of power.

Melenkurion abatha! Duroc minus mill khabaal!

Immediately the firespout ruptured. In broken gouts and fear, it crashed backward as if he had cut off another arm of the lurker. Flames skirted like frustrated ire across the mud. Abruptly the air was free. Wind empty of howling fed the fire. Covenant’s companions coughed and gasped as if they had been rescued from the hands of a strangler.

He knelt on the dead ground. Peals of light rang in his head, tintinnabulating victory or defeat; either one, there was no difference; triumph and desecration were the same thing. He was foundering—

But hands came to succor him. They were steady and gentle. They draped cloth over the
krill
, took it from his power-cramped fingers. Relative darkness poured through his eye-sockets as if they were empty pits, gaping for night. The dark spoke in Brinn’s voice. “The lurker has been pained. It fears to be pained again.”

“Sooth,” the First muttered starkly. “Therefore it has given our deaths into the hands of its acolytes.”

Brinn helped Covenant to his feet. Blinking at numberless
krill
echoes, he fought to see. But the after-flares were too bright. He was still watching them turn to emerald when he heard Hollian’s gasp. The
Giants and
Haruchai
went rigid. Brinn’s fingers dug reflexively into Covenant’s arm.

By degrees, the white spots became orange and green—mudfire and
skest
. The acid-creatures thronged at the head of the peninsula, shimmering like religious ecstasy. They oozed forward slowly, not as if they were frightened, but rather as if they sought to prolong the anticipation of their advance.

Covenant’s companions stared in the direction of the
skest
. But not at the
skest
.

Untouched amid the green forms, as if he were impervious to every conceivable vitriol, stood Vain.

His posture was one of relaxation and poise; his arms hung, slightly bent, at his sides. But at intervals he took a step, two steps, drew gradually closer to the leading edge of the
skest
. They broke against his legs and had no effect.

His gaze was unmistakably fixed on Linden.

In a flash of memory, Covenant saw Vain snatch Linden into his arms, leap down into a sea of graveling. The Demondim-spawn had returned from quicksand and loss to rescue her.

“Who—?” the First began.

“He is Vain,” Brinn replied, “given to ur-Lord Thomas Covenant by the Giant Saltheart Foamfollower among the Dead in Andelain.”

She cleared her throat, searching for a question which would produce a more useful answer. But before she could speak, Covenant heard a soft popping noise like the bursting of a bubble of mud.

At once, Vain came to a halt. His gaze flicked past the company, then faded into disfocus.

Covenant turned in time to see a short figure detach itself from the burning mud, step queasily onto the hard ground.

The figure was scarcely taller than the
skest
, and shaped like them, a misborn child without eyes or any other features. But it was made of mud. Flames flickered over it as it climbed from the fire, then died away, leaving a dull brown creature like a sculpture poorly wrought in clay. Reddish pockets embedded in its form glowed dully.

Paralyzed by recognition, Covenant watched as a second clay form emerged like a damp sponge from the mud. It looked like a crocodile fashioned by a blind man.