The Wounded Land

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Shortly Sunder returned, bearing a dark oblong the size of a papaya. “Mirkfruit,” he whispered. At once, he moved off again.

  Like spectres, the three of them left Mithil Stonedown.

  From the last houses, Sunder picked his way toward the valley bottom. He traveled in a hah5 crouch, reducing his silhouette as much as possible. Linden followed his example; she seemed to flit through the moonlight as if she had been born sure-footed. But

  Covenant’s toes were numb, and his legs were tired. He stumbled over the uneven ground.

  Abruptly Sunder braced his hands on a rock, vaulted down into the long hollow of the riverbed.

  Linden jumped after him. Sand absorbed her landing. Swiftly, she joined Sunder in the shadow under the bank.

  Covenant hesitated on the edge. Looking downward, he became suddenly queasy with vertigo. He turned his head away. The barren length of the watercourse stretched serpentine out of the mountains on his left toward the South Plains on his right.

  Last night, the Mithil River had been full to overflowing.

  “Come!” whispered Sunder. “You will be seen.”

  Covenant jumped. He landed crookedly, sprawled in the sand. In an instant, Sunder reached his side, urged him to his feet. He ignored the Graveler. He dug his hands into the sand, groping for moisture. But even below the surface, the sand was completely dry. His hands raised dust that made him gag to stifle a cough.

  Impossible!

  The riverbed was as desiccated as a desert. Had the Law itself become meaningless?

  “Covenant!” Linden hissed.

  Sunder tugged at his shoulders. Fighting down a rush of blind rage, Covenant pulled his legs under him, stumbled into the shadow of the bank. A moment passed before he regained himself enough to look outward, away from his dismay.

  Sunder pointed downriver, toward the black arc of a bridge a few hundred feet away. “One guard,” he breathed. “The others can no longer descry us. But him we cannot pass unseen.”

  “What are we going to do?” whispered Linden.

  The Graveler motioned for silence. Hefting his mirkfruit, he crept away along the course, staying carefully under the shelter of the bank.

  Linden and Covenant followed.

  Their progress was slow. The river bottom was littered with rocks and unexpected holes, especially near the banks; Covenant had to watch his footing. Yet his gaze was drawn toward the bridge—the ominous black span blocking their way like a gate. He had crossed that bridge with Lena. And with Atiaran. The memory made his heart squirm.

  He caught no glimpse of the guard. The man must have been hiding behind the parapets of the span.

  Then they drew near the bridge, made their way under it. Covenant held his breath as Sunder moved to the riverbank. The Graveler climbed with acute caution; he eased his way upward as if every pebble and handful of dirt were treacherous. Slowly he disappeared around the base of the bridge.

  Suspense shivered in the air as if the night were about to shatter. Covenant’s lungs knotted, demanding relief. Linden huddled into herself.

  They heard a soft thud—the impact of Sunder’s mirkfruit—followed by a groan, and the sound of a body falling on the stone over their heads.

  The Graveler dropped with alacrity back into the riverbed. “Now we must make haste,” he warned, “before another comes to ward in his place.” He sounded angry. Turning on his heel, he strode away as if what he had just done to someone he had known all his life were unsupportable.

  He set a stiff pace. Covenant and Linden had to hurry to keep up with him.

  Moonlight gave the night a crisp patina of old silver, as if the darkness itself were a work of fine-spun craft. Stars winked like instances of perfection above the rims of the mountains, which rose rugged into the unattainable heavens on either side. While his strength held, Covenant took pleasure in this opportunity to recover the tangible loveliness of the Land.

  But as the moon declined toward setting, and the spur of mountains on his left began to shrink, his momentum faltered. He was too weak. His heart limped as if it could not keep up with him; his muscles felt like sand. And escape was not enough; there was something else he had to do as well. With a dry croak, he called Sunder to a halt. Then he dropped to the ground, stretched out on his back, and sucked air.

  Linden stopped nearby, winded but still capable. And Sunder stood erect and impatient; he was tough as well as strong, inured to fatigue by a lifetime of difficult survival. The little he had seen and heard had taught Covenant that life in Mithil Stonedown was arduous and costly. Why else were these villagers willing to sacrifice their own parents—willing to condemn strangers and innocents to death? It was intolerable, that the bountiful Land he loved had come to this.

  He was still hunting fortitude when Sunder said stiffly, “Here we are safe enough until the sun’s rising—at least while our absence remains undiscovered in the Stonedown. But it avails nothing merely to abide here, awaiting chance or doom. The Rider who approaches Mithil Stonedown may come upon us. He will surely pursue when he is told of our flight. You have asked me to guide you. Thomas Covenant, where will you go?”

  Groaning, Covenant pried himself into a sitting position. “First things first.” He had learned enough to be sure Sunder would not like the larger answer to that question. So he concentrated on his immediate purpose. “First I want to find Marid.”

  “Marid?” The Graveler gaped. “Did I not tell you the judgment of the Stonedown? He is condemned by ancient Rede and custom to the mercy of the Sunbane. It has already been done.”

  “I know,” Covenant muttered. “You told me. And I told you. He’s innocent.”

  “Guilt or innocence,” retorted Sunder, “it avails nothing. It has already been done! The men and women entrusted with his doom returned before I came to speak with you.”

  Weariness eroded Covenant’s self-mastery. He could hardly restrain his old rage. “What exactly did they do to him?”

  Sunder cast a look of exasperation at the stars. “They bore him into the Plains, and left him hound to await his judgment.”

  “Do you know where they left him?”

  “Somewhat. They spoke of their intent before departing. I was not among them to behold the very spot.”

  “That’s good enough.” Covenant felt as weak as water; but he climbed to his feet and faced the Graveler. “Take us there.”

  “There is not time!” Sunder’s visage was a tangle of darkness. “The distance is too great. We must find protection, lest we also fall prey to the sun’s rising.”

  “But Marid is innocent.” Covenant sounded wild to himself, but did not care. “The only reason that Raver used him was because of us. I’m not going to let him be punished. Goddamn it.” He grabbed roughly at Sunder’s jerkin. “Guide us! I’ve got too much blood on my hands already.”

  In a low strained tone, as if he had just glimpsed some crucial and frightening truth, the Graveler said, “You do not understand the Sunbane.”

  “Then explain it. What are you so afraid of?”

  “We will suffer Marid’s doom!”

  From behind Sunder, Linden said, “He means it. He thinks something awful is going to happen when the sun comes up.”

  With an effort, Covenant forced himself to release Sunder. He faced Linden, bit down on his voice to keep it quiet. “What do you think?”

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said harshly, “I didn’t believe you when you said Joan was possessed. But I saw that Raver myself. I saw Marid afterward. The Raver was gone.” She carved each word distinctly in the night air. “If you want to stay with Sunder, I’ll go looking for Marid myself.”

  “Heaven and Earth!” protested Sunder. “Did I betray my home merely so that you may meet ruin for a man you cannot save? If you place one foot amiss, you will end in beseeching the stones themselves for death!”

  Covenant gazed into the darkness where Linden stood, gathering strength from her. Softly he replied to Sunder, “He was y
our friend.”

  “You are mad!” Sunder raged. “Nassic my father was mad!” He snatched up a stone, hurled it against the riverbank. “I am mad.” Then he whirled on Covenant. Anger hammered in his voice. “Very well. I will guide you. But I will not”—his fist hit at the night—“suffer the destruction of the Sunbane for any man or woman, mad or sane,”

  Wrenching himself into motion, he turned and scrambled up out of the riverbed.

  Covenant remained looking toward Linden. He wanted to thank her for her support, her willingness to risk herself in the name of Marid’s innocence. But she brushed past him after Sunder. “Come on,” she said over her shoulder. “We’ve got to hurry. Whatever it is he’s afraid of, I don’t think I’m going to like it.”

  He watched her while she climbed the bank. End in beseeching— He rubbed his right hand across his chin, verified his ring against the stiff stubble of his beard. Then he marshaled his waning resources and struggled to follow his companions.

  On level ground, he found himself in an entirely different landscape. Except for the ragged weal of the Mithil, the Plains were nearly featureless. They spread north and west as far as he could see, marked only by the faint undulations of the terrain—bare even of shrubs or piles of rock. The low moonlight gave them an appearance of ghostly sterility, as if they had been weathered barren by ages of implacable thirst.

  Sunder headed slightly east of north at a canter, roughly paralleling the mountains which still lay to the east. But Covenant could not endure such a pace. And he did not understand his guide’s compelling dread. He called for Sunder to slow down.

  The Graveler spun on his heel. “There is not time.”

  “Then there’s no reason for us to wear ourselves out.”

  Sunder spat a curse, started moving again. But in spite of his almost frantic anxiety, he went no faster than a brisk walk. Some time later, the moon fell below the horizon. But the scant light of the stars sufficed. The terrain was not difficult, and Sunder knew his way. Soon a vague wash of gray from the east began to macerate the night.

  The paling of the horizon agitated Sunder. He searched the earth near him while he walked, made digressions from his path like spurts of fright to study irregularities in the ground. But he could not find what he wanted. Within half a league, dawn had become imminent. Urgently he faced Covenant and Linden. “We must find stone. Any hard rock free of soil. Before the sun’s rising. Search, if you value a hale life and a clean death.”

  Covenant halted woodenly. His surroundings seemed to sway as if they were about to fall apart. He felt stunned by weariness.

  “There,” Linden said. She was pointing off to her right.

  He peered in that direction. He could discern nothing. But he did not have her eyes.

  Sunder gaped at her for a moment, then hastened to investigate. With his hands, he explored the surface.

  “Stone!” he hissed. “It may suffice.” At once, he jumped erect. “We must stand here. The stone will ward us.”

  Fatigue blurred Covenant’s sight. He could not see the Graveler clearly. Sunder’s apprehension made no sense to him. Sunrise was only moments away; luminescence cast the horizon into stark relief. Was he supposed to be afraid of the sun?

  Linden asked Sunder the same question. “Do you think the sun’s going to hurt us? That’s nonsense. We spent half the morning yesterday in that test of silence of yours, and the only thing we suffered from was prejudice.”

  “With stone underfoot!” fumed the Graveler. “It is the first touch which destroys! You did not meet the first touch of the Sunbane unwarded by stone!”

  I don’t have time for this, Covenant muttered to himself. The eyes of his mind saw Marid clearly enough. Left to die in the sun. Unsteadily he lurched into motion again.

  “Fool!” Sunder shouted. “For you I betrayed my born people!”

  A moment later, Linden joined Covenant.

  “Find stone!” The Graveler’s passion sounded like raw despair. “You destroy me! Must I slay you also?”

  Linden was silent for a few steps. Then she murmured, “He believes it.”

  An innominate pang ran through Covenant. Involuntarily he stopped. He and Linden turned to face the east.

  They squinted at the first fiery rim of the rising sun.

  It flared red along the skyline; but the sun itself wore an aura of brown, as if it shone through cerements of dust. It touched his face with dry heat.

  “Nothing,” Linden said tightly. “I don’t feel anything.”

  He glanced back at Sunder. The Graveler stood on his stone. His hands had covered his face, and his shoulders shook.

  Because he did not know what else to do, Covenant turned away, went rigidly in search of Marid.

  Linden stayed with him. Hunger had abused her face, giving her a sunken aspect; and she carried her head as if the injury behind her ear still hurt. But her jaw was set, emphasizing the firm lines of her chin, and her lips were pale with severity. She looked like a woman who did not know how to fail. He braced himself on her determination, and kept moving.

  The rising of the sun had altered the ambience of the Plains. They had been silver and bearable; now they became a hot and lifeless ruin. Nothing grew or moved in the wide waste. The ground was packed and baked until it was as intractable as iron. Loose dirt turned to dust. The entire landscape shimmered with heat like the aftermath of destruction.

  Striving against the stupefaction of his fatigue, Covenant asked Linden to tell him about the condition of the terrain.

  “It’s wrong.” She bit out words as if the sight were an obloquy directed at her personally. “It shouldn’t be like this. It’s like a running sore. I keep expecting to see it bleed. It isn’t supposed to be like this.”

  Isn’t supposed to be like this! he echoed. The Land had become like Joan. Something broken.

  The heat haze stung his eyes. He could not see the ground except as a swath of pale ichor; he felt that he was treading pain. His numb feet stumbled helplessly.

  She caught his arm, steadied him. Clenching his old sorrow, he drew himself upright. His voice shook. “What’s causing it?”

  “I can’t tell,” she said grimly. “But it has something to do with that ring around the sun. The sun itself”—her hands released him slowly—“seems natural.”

  “Bloody hell,” he breathed. “What has that bastard done?”

  But he did not expect an answer. In spite of her penetrating vision, Linden knew less than he did. Deliberately he gave himself a VSE. Then he went on looking for Marid. In his rue and pain, the thought of a man lying bound at the mercy of the sun loomed as the one idea which made everything else abominable.

  Wearily, doggedly, he and Linden trudged through the heat-leeched landscape. The dust coated his mouth with the taste of failure; the glare lanced through his eyeballs. As his weakness deepened, he drifted into a vague dizziness. Only the landmark of the mountains, now east and somewhat south of him, enabled him to keep his direction. The sun beat down as if onto an anvil, hammering moisture and strength out of him like a smith shaping futility. He did not know how he stayed on his feet. At times, he felt himself wandering over the colorless earth, through the haze, as if he were a fragment of the desolation.

  He might have wandered past his goal; but Linden somehow retained more alertness. She tugged him to a stop, dragged his attention out of the slow eddying sopor of the heat. “Look.”

  His lips framed empty questions. For a moment, he could not understand why he was no longer moving.

  “Look,” she repeated. Her voice was an arid croak.

  They stood in a wide bowl of dust. Clouds billowed from every shuffle of their feet. Before them, two wooden stakes had been driven into the ground. The stakes were some distance apart, as if they had been set to secure the arms of a man lying outstretched. Tied to the stakes were loops of rope.

  The loops were intact.

  A body’s length from the stakes were two holes in the ground—the
kind of holes made by stakes pounded in and then pulled out.

  Covenant swallowed dryly. “Marid.” The word abraded his throat.

  “He got away,” Linden said hoarsely.

  Covenant’s legs folded. He sat down, coughing weakly at the dust he raised. Got away.

  Linden squatted in front of him. The nearness of her face forced him to look at her. Her voice scraped as if it were full of sand. “I don’t know how he did it, but he’s better off than we are. This heat’s going to kill us.”

  His tongue fumbled. “I had to try. He was innocent.”

  Awkwardly she reached out, wiped beads of useless sweat from his forehead. “You look awful.”

  He peered at her through his exhaustion. Dirt caked her lips and cheeks, collected in the lines on either side of her mouth. Sweat-trails streaked her face. Her eyes were glazed.

  “So do you.”

  “Then we’d better do something about it.” A tremor eroded her effort to sound resolute. But she stood up, helped him to his feet. “Let’s go back. Maybe Sunder’s looking for us.”

  He nodded. He had forgotten the Graveler.

  But when he and Linden turned to retrace their way, they saw a figure coming darkly through the shimmer.

  He stopped, squinted. Mirage? Linden stood near him as if to prevent him from losing his balance. They waited.

  The figure approached until they recognized Sunder.

  He halted twenty paces from them.

  In his right hand, he gripped his poniard. This time, he seemed perfectly familiar with its use.

  Covenant watched the Graveler dumbly, as if the knife had made them strangers to each other. Linden’s hand touched a warning to his arm.

  “Thomas Covenant.” Sunder’s face looked like hot stone. “What is my name?”

  What—? Covenant frowned at the intervening heat.

  “Speak my name!” the Graveler spat fiercely. “Do not compel me to slay you.”

  Slay? Covenant made an effort to reach through the confusion.