The Wounded Land (9 page)

But the man with the knife did not flee. The rage of the bonfire exalted him. He slapped his arms around Covenant, threw him to the stone, kicked him so that he lay flat.

The knife—! Covenant was too stunned to move.

Linden hurled herself at the man, grappled for his arms. He was slick with ashes, and strong. She lost her grip.

Covenant struggled to roll over. Swiftly the man stooped to him, pinned him with one hand, raised the knife in the other.

Linden attacked again, blocked the knife. Her fingernails gouged the man’s face.

Yowling, he dealt her a blow which stretched her on the rock.

Everything reeled. Darkness spun at her from all sides.

She saw the knife flash.

Then the eyes of the fire blazed at her, and she was lost in a yellow triumph that roared like the furnace of the sun.

Red agony spiked the center of Thomas Covenant’s chest. He felt that he was screaming. But the fire was too bright; he could not hear himself. From the wound, flame writhed through him, mapping his nerves like a territory of pain. He could not fight it,

He did not want to fight it. He had saved Joan. Saved Joan. That thought iterated through him, consoling him for the unanswerable violence of the wound. For the first time in eleven years, he was at peace with his ex-wife. He had repaid the old debt between them to the limit of his mortality; he had given everything he possessed to make restitution for the blameless crime of his leprosy. Nothing more could be asked of him.

But the fire had a voice. At first, it was too loud to be understood. It retorted in his ears like the crushing of boulders. He inhaled it with every failing breath; it echoed along the conflagration in his chest. But gradually it became clear. It uttered words as heavy as stones.

The arrogance of the words filled him with repudiation. He knew that voice. He had spent ten years strengthening himself against it, tightening his grip on the truth of love and rage which had enabled him to master it. And still it had the power to appall him. It thronged with relish for the misery of lepers. It claimed him and would not let him go.

Now he wanted to fight. He wanted to live. He could not bear to let that voice have its way with him.

But the knife had struck too deeply; the wound was complete. A numbness crept through him, and the red fire faded toward mist. He had no pulse, could not remember breathing. Could not—

Out of the mist, he remembered Linden Avery.

Hellfire!

She had followed him, even though he had warned her—warned her in spite of the fact that she had obviously been chosen to fulfill some essential role. He had been so torn—She had given an excruciating twist to his dilemma, had dismayed and infuriated him with her determination to meddle in matters she could not comprehend. And yet she was the first woman he had met in ten years who was not afraid of him.

And she had fallen beside him, trying to save his life. The man had struck her; the fire had covered her as it reached for him. If she were being taken to the Land—!

Of course she was. Why else had the old man accosted her?

But she had neither knowledge nor power with which to defend herself, had no way to understand what was happening to her.

Blindly Covenant struggled against the numbness, resisted the voice. Linden had tried to save his life. He could not leave her to face such a doom alone. Wrath at the brutality of her plight crowded his heart. By hell! he raged. You can’t do this!

Suddenly a resurgence of fire burned out of him—pure white flame, the fire of his need. It concentrated in the knife wound, screamed through his chest like an apotheosis or cautery. Heat hammered at his heart, his lungs, his half-hand. His body arched in ire and pain.

The next instant, the crisis broke. Palpable relief poured through him. The pain receded, leaving him limp and gasping on the stone. The mist swirled with malice, but did not touch him.

“Ah, you are stubborn yet,” the voice sneered, so personal in its contempt that it might have come from within his mind rather than from the attar-laden air. “Stubborn beyond my fondest desires. In one stroke you have ensured your own defeat. My will commands now, and you are lost. Groveler!”

Covenant flinched at the virulence of the sound.

Lord Foul.

“Do you mislike the title I have given you?” The Despiser spoke softly, hardly above a whisper; but his quietness only emphasized his sharp hate. “You will merit it absolutely. Never have you been more truly mine. You believe that you have been near unto death. That is false, groveler! I would not permit you to die. I will obtain far better service from your life.”

Covenant wanted to strike out at the mist, flail it away from him. But he was too weak. He lay on the stone as if his limbs had been bled dry. He needed all his will to dredge his voice back to life. “I don’t believe it,” he panted hoarsely. “You can’t be stupid enough to try this again.”

“Ah, you do not believe,” jeered Lord Foul. “Misdoubt it, then. Disbelieve, and I will rend your very soul from your bones!”

No! Covenant rasped in silence. I’ve had ten years to understand what happened the last time. You can’t do that to me again.

“You will grovel before me,” the Despiser went on, “and call it joy. Your victory over me was nothing. It serves me well. Plans which I planted in my anguish have come to fruit. Time is altered. The world is not what it was. You are changed, Unbeliever.” The mist made that word,
Unbeliever
, into a name of sovereign scorn. “You are no longer free. You have sold yourself for that paltry woman who loathes you. When you accepted her life from me, you became my tool. A tool does not choose. Did not my Enemy expound to you the necessity of freedom? Your very presence here empowers me to master you.”

Covenant flinched. Lord Foul spoke the truth; he was not free. In trading himself for Joan, he had committed himself to something he could neither measure nor recall. He wanted to cry out; but he was too angry to show that much weakness.

“We are foemen, you and I,” continued Lord Foul, “enemies to the end. But the end will be yours, Unbeliever, not mine. That you will learn to believe. For a score of centuries I lay entombed in the Land which I abhor, capable of naught but revulsion. But in time I was restored to myself. For nearly as many centuries more, I have been
preparing retribution. When last comes to last, you will be the instrument of my victory.”

Bloody hell! Covenant gagged on the thickness of the mist and Lord Foul’s vitriol. But his passion was clear. I won’t let you do this!

“Now hear me, groveler. Hear my prophecy. It is for your ears alone—for behold! there are none left in the Land to whom you could deliver it.”

That hurt him. None? What had happened to the Lords?

But the Despiser went on remorselessly, mocking Covenant by his very softness. “No, to you alone I say it: tremble in your heart, for the ill that you deem most terrible is upon you! Your former victory accomplished naught but to prepare the way for this moment. I am Lord Foul the Despiser, and I speak the one word of truth. To you I say it: the wild magic is no longer potent against me! It cannot serve you now. No power will suffice.

“Unbeliever, you cannot oppose me. At the last there will be but one choice for you, and you will make it in all despair. Of your own volition you will give the white gold into my hand.”

No! Covenant shouted. No! But he could not penetrate Lord Foul’s certitude.

“Knowing that I will make use of that power to destroy the Earth, you will place it into my hand, and no hope or chance under all the Arch of Time can prevent you!

“Yes, tremble, groveler! There is despair laid up for you here beyond anything your petty mortal heart can bear!”

The passionate whisper threatened to crush Covenant against the stone. He wailed refusals and curses, but they had no force, could not drive the attar from his throat.

Then Lord Foul began to chuckle. The corruption of death clogged the air. For a long moment, Covenant retched as if the muscles of his chest were breaking.

But as he gagged, the jeering drifted away from him. Wind sifted through it, pulling the mist apart. The wind was cold, as if a chill of laughter rode it, echoing soundlessly; but the atmosphere grew bright as the mist frayed and vanished.

Covenant lay on his back under a brilliant azure sky and a strange sun.

The sun was well up in the heavens. The central glare of its light was familiar, comforting. But it wore a blue corona like a ring of sapphire; and its radiance deepened the rest of the sky to the texture of sendaline.

He squinted at it dumbly, too stunned to move or react.
Of your own volition—
The sun’s aurora disturbed him in a way he could not define.
Plans which I planted in my anguish—
Shifting as it had a mind of its own, his right hand slowly probed toward the spot where the knife had struck him.

His fingers were too numb to tell him anything. But he could feel their pressure on his chest. He could feel their touch when they slipped through the slit in the center of his T-shirt.

There was no pain.

He withdrew his hand, took his gaze out of the sky to look at his fingers.

There was no blood.

He sat up with a jerk that made his head reel. For a moment, he had to prop himself up with his arms. Blinking against the sun-dazzle, he forced his eyes into focus on his chest.

His shirt had been cut—a slash the width of his hand just below his sternum. Under it lay the white line of a new scar.

He gaped at it. How—?

You are stubborn yet
. Had he healed himself? With wild magic?

He did not know. He had not been conscious of wielding any power. Could he have done such a thing unconsciously? High Lord Mhoram had once said to him,
You are the white gold
. Did that mean he was capable of using power without knowing it? Without being in control of it? Hellfire!

Long moments passed before he realized that he was facing a parapet. He was sitting on one side of a round stone slab encircled by a low wall, chest-high on him in this position.

A jolt of recognition brought him out of his stupor. He knew this place.

Kevin’s Watch.

For an instant, he asked himself, Why here? But then a chain of

connections jumped taut in him, and he whirled, to find Linden stretched unconscious behind him.

He almost panicked. She lay completely still. Her eyes were open, but she saw nothing. The muscles of her limbs hung slack against the bones. Her hair was tangled across her face.

Blood seeped in slow drops from behind her left ear.

You are mine
.

Suddenly Covenant was sweating in the cool air.

He gripped her shoulders, shook her, then snatched up her left hand, started to slap her wrist. Her head rolled in protest. A whimper tightened her lips. She began to writhe. He dropped her arm, clamped his hands to the sides of her face to keep her from hurting herself against the stone.

Abruptly her gaze sprang outward. She drew a harsh gasp of air and screamed. Her cry sounded like destitution under the immense sky and the strange blue-ringed sun.

“Linden!” he shouted. She sucked air to howl again. “Linden!”

Her eyes lurched into focus on him, flared in horror or rage as if he had threatened her with leprosy.

Fiercely, she struck him across the cheek.

He recoiled, more in surprise than in pain.

“You bastard,” she panted, surging to her knees. “Haven’t you even got the guts to go on living?” She inhaled deeply to yell at him. But before she could release her ire, dismay knotted her features. Her hands leaped to her mouth, then covered her face. She gave a muffled groan. “Oh my God.”

He stared at her in confusion. What had happened to her? He wanted to challenge her at once, demand an answer. But the situation was too complex. And she was totally unprepared for it. He remembered vividly his first appearance here. If Lena had not extended her hand to him, he would have died in vertigo and madness. It was too much for any mind to accept. If only she had listened to him, stayed out of danger—

But she had not listened. She was here, and in need. She did not yet know the extent of her need. For her sake, he forced a semblance of gentleness into his voice. “You wanted to understand, and I kept telling you you weren’t equipped. Now I think you’re going to understand whether you want to or not.”

“Covenant,” she moaned through her hands. “Covenant.”

“Linden.” Carefully he touched her wrists, urged her to lower her arms.

“Covenant—” She bared her face to him. Her eyes were brown, deep and moist, and dark with the repercussions of fear. They shied from his, then returned. “I must have been dreaming.” Her voice quavered, “I thought you were my father.”

He smiled for her, though the strain made his battered bones ache. Father? He wanted to pursue that, but did not. Other questions were more immediate.

But before he could frame an inquiry, she began to recollect herself. She ran her hands through her hair, winced when she touched the injury behind her ear. For a moment, she looked at the trace of blood on her fingers. Then other memories returned. She gasped sharply. Her eyes jerked to his chest. “The knife—” Her urgency was almost an attack. “I saw—” She grabbed for him, yanked up his shirt, gaped at the new scar under his sternum. It appalled her. Her hands reached toward it, flinched away. Her voice was a hoarse whisper. “That’s not possible.”

“Listen.” He raised her head with his left hand, made her meet his gaze. He wanted to distract her, prepare her. “What happened to you? That man hit you. The fire was all over us. What happened after that?”