The Power That Preserves t1cotc-3

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  His hands and feet and face she would not touch. They were not crucial to his recovery, not worth what they would cost her. And the sickness in his mind was too complex and multifarious to undertake until he was physically whole enough to bear the strain of healing. So she bent her loamy gaze toward his broken ankle.

  As she concentrated on that injury, the light of the fire became browner, richer, more potent and explicit, until it shone like the radiance of her eyes between her face and his ankle. The rest of the cave fell into gloom; soon only the link of sight between her attention and his pain retained illumination. It stretched between them, binding them together, gradually uniting their opposed pieces of need and power. Amid the heat and fragrancy of the fire, they became like one being, annealed of isolation, complete.

  Blindly, tremulously, as if she were no longer aware of herself, she placed her hands on his ankle, explored it with her touch until she unconsciously knew the precise angle and acuteness of its fracture. Then she withdrew.

  Her power subsumed her, made her independent flesh seem transient, devoid of significance; she became an involuntary vessel for her work, anchor and source of the bond which made her one with his wound.

  When the bond grew strong enough, she retreated from him. Without volition or awareness, she stopped and picked up the smooth heavy stone which she used as a pestle; without volition or awareness, she held it like a weighty gift in both hands, offering it to Covenant. Then she raised it high over her head.

  She blinked, and the brown link of oneness trembled.

  With all her strength, she swung the stone down, slammed it against her own ankle.

  The bones broke like dry wood.

  Pain shot through her-pain like the splintering of souls, hers and his. She shrieked once and crumbled to the floor in a swoon.

  Then time passed for her in a long agony that shut and sealed every other door of her mind. She lay on the floor while the fire died into dim embers, and the aroma of spring turned to dust in the air, and the ghostly fibres’ of the roots shone and waned. Nothing existed for her except the searing instant in which she had matched Covenant’s pain-the instant in which she had taken all their pain, his and hers, upon herself. Night passed and came again; still she lay crumbled. Her breathing gasped hoarsely between her flaccid lips, and her heart fluttered along the verges of extinction. If she could have regained consciousness long enough to choose to die, she would have done so gladly, eagerly. But the pain sealed her within herself and had its way with her until it became all she knew of life or death.

  Yet at last she found herself thinking that it had never been this bad when she was younger. The old power had not altogether failed her, but her ordeals at their worst had never been like this. Her body was wracked with thirst and hunger. And this, too, was not as it had ever been before. Where were the people who should have watched over her-who should have at least given her water so that she did not die of thirst before the agony passed? Where were the family or friends who brought the ill and injured to her, and who gladly did all they could to aid the healing?

  In time, such questions led her to remember that she was alone, that she and the sick man were both untended. He, too, had been without food or water during the whole course of her ordeal; and even if her power had not failed, he was in no condition to endure such privation. He might be dead in spite of what she had survived for him.

  With an effort that made her old body tremble exhaustedly, she raised herself from the floor.

  On her hands and knees she rested, panting heavily. She needed to gather the feeble remnant of herself before she faced the sick man. Miserable tasks awaited her if he were dead. She would have to struggle through the Despiser’s winter to take that white gold ring to the Lords of Revelstone. And she would have to live with the fact that her agony had been the agony of failure. Such possibilities daunted her.

  Yet she knew that even this delay might make the difference, might prove fatal. Groaning, she tried to stand up.

  Before she could get her legs under her, movement staggered toward her from the bed. A foot kicked her to the floor again. The sick man lumbered past her and thrashed through the curtain of moss while she sprawled on the packed earth.

  The surprise of the blow hurt her more than the kick itself; the man was far too weak to do her any real harm. And his violence rekindled some of her energy. Panting blunt curses to herself, she stumbled stiffly upright and limped out of the cave after him.

  She caught up with him within twenty feet of the cave’s mouth. The gleaming pale gaze of the tree trunks had stopped his flight. He reeled with fear whimpering in his throat, as if the trees were savage beasts crouched and waiting for him.

  “You are ill,” the Healer muttered wearily. “Understand that if you understand nothing else. Return to the bed.”

  He veered around to face her. “You’re trying to kill me.”

  “I am a Healer. I do not kill.”

  “You hate lepers, and you’re trying to kill me.” His eyes bulged insanely in his haggard face. “You don’t even exist.”

  She could see that inanition had only aggravated his amanibhavam confusion and his inexplicable sickness; they had become so dominant that she could no longer tell them apart. And she was too weak to placate him; she had no strength to waste on words or gentleness which would not reach him. Instead, she simply stepped close to him and jabbed her rigid fingers into his stomach.

  While he fell gagging to the grass, she made her way to the nearest aliantha.

  It was not far from the entrance to her cave, but her fatigue was so extreme that she nearly swooned again before she could pluck and eat a few of the treasure-berries. However, their tangy potency came to her aid as soon as she swallowed them. Her legs steadied. After a moment, she was able to throw the seeds aside and pick more berries.

  When she had eaten half the ripe fruit, she picked the rest and took it back to Covenant. He tried to crawl away from her, but she held him down and forced him to eat. Then she went to a large sheet of moss hanging nearby, where she drank deeply of its rich green moisture. This refreshed her, gave her enough strength to wrestle the sick man back into the cave and control him while she put him back to sleep with a pinch of her rare powder.

  Under other circumstances, she might have pitied the turgid panic with which he felt himself lapsing into helplessness again. But she was too weary-and too full of dread for the work she had yet to do. She did not know how to console him and made no attempt. When he fell into uneasy slumber, she only muttered “Mercy” over him, and turned away.

  She wanted to sleep, too, but she was alone and had to bear the burden of care herself. Groaning at the unwieldiness of her old joints, she built another fire from the graveling and started a meal for herself and the sick man.

  While the food heated, she inspected his ankle. She nodded dully when she saw that it was as whole as her own. Already his pale scars were fading. Soon his bones would be as well and sturdy as if they had never been fractured. Looking at the evidence of her power, she wished that she could take pleasure in it. But she had lost decades ago her capacity to be pleased by the results of her anguish. She knew with certainty that if she had comprehended when she was young what her decisions would cost, she would never have taken the Rites of Unfettering, never have surrendered to the secret power yearning for birth within her.

  But power was not so easily evaded. Costs could not be known until they came to full fruition, and by that time the power no longer served the wielder. Then the wielder was the servant. No escape, no peace or reticence, could then evade the expense, and she could take no pleasure in healing. With the work she had yet to do lying stricken before her, she had no more satisfaction than choice.

  Yet as she resumed her cooking, she turned her back on regret. “Let it pass,” she murmured dimly. “Let it pass. Only let it be done purely-without failure.” At least the work which remained would be a different pain altogether.

  When the fo
od was ready, she fed herself and Covenant, then gave him more of the soporific broth, so that he would not arise to strike her again. Then she banked her cookfire, pulled her tattered cloak tightly around her, and went agedly to sleep leaning against the pile of leaves that had been her bed.

  In the days that followed, she rested, tended Covenant’s madness, and tried to remember courage. His need made her heart quail in her old bosom. Even in his slumber she could see that his mind was being eaten away by its ingrown torments. As his body regained its strength, her potions slowly lost their ability to control the restlessness of his dream-ridden sleep. He began to flail his arms and jabber deliriously, like a man snared in the skein of a nightmare. At unexpected moments, his ring gave out white gleams of passion; and when by chance the Healer saw them squarely, they seemed to pierce her like a voice of misery, beseeching her to her work.

  The Forest itself echoed his distress. Its mood bent in toward her like a demand, a compulsion as unmistakable as the summons which had called her to him in the beginning. She did not know why Morinmoss cared; she only felt its caring brush her cheek like the palm of authority, warning her. He needed to be healed. If it were not done in time, the essential fabric of his being would rot beyond all restitution.

  At last she became aware of time; she felt in the brightness of the tree shine that somewhere behind the impenetrable clouds moved a dark moon, readying itself for a new phase of the Despiser’s power. She forced herself to unclench her hesitations, one by one, and to face her work again.

  Then she built her high blaze for the second time and made ready her rare powder. While the hard wood took fire, she set both water and food on the shelf above Covenant so that if he regained consciousness before she did, he would not have to search for what he needed. A fatal mood was on her, and she did not believe she would survive. “Mercy,” she muttered as the fire mounted, “mercy.” She uttered the word as if she were seeking a benediction for herself.

  Soon the flames filled her cave with light and heat, flushing the withered skin of her cheeks. The time had come; she could feel the power limping in her like a sere lover, oddly frail and masterful, yearning for its chance to rise up once more and take her-yearning, and yet strangely inadequate, old, as if it could no longer match what it remembered of its desires. For a moment, her blood deserted her; weakness filled all her muscles, so that the leather pouch fell from her fingers. But then she stooped to regain it, thrust her trembling hand into it, threw its dust into the fire as if that gesture were her last, best approximation of courage.

  As the potent aroma of the dust spread its arms, took all the air of the cave into its embrace, began its slow transubstantiation of the firelight, she stood near Covenant’s head and locked her quavering knees. Staring brownly at his forehead while the heat and illumination of the blaze came into consonance with her attention, she passed beyond the verges of volition and became once more the vessel of her power. Around her the cave grew dim as the rich, loamy light of the bond wove itself between her pupilless orbs and his sick, mad mind. And before her Covenant tensed, stiffened-eyes staring gauntly, neck corded, knuckles white-as if her power clutched his very soul with fear.

  Trembling, she reached out her hands, placed her palms flat against the gathered thunder of his forehead.

  The next instant, she recoiled as if he had scalded her. “No!” she cried. Horror flooded her, she foundered in it. ” You ask too much!” Deep within her, she fought to regain her self-command, fought to thrust down the power, deny it, return to herself so that she would not be destroyed. “I cannot heal this!” But the man’s madness came upon her as if he had reached out and caught her wrists. Wailing helplessly, she returned to him, replaced her palms on his forehead.

  The terror of it rushed into her, filled her until it burst between her lips like a shriek. Yet she could not withdraw. His madness pounded through her as she sank into it, trying not to see what lay at its root. And when at last it made her see, forced her to behold itself, the leering disease of its source, she knew that she was ruined. She wrenched her seared hands from his head and went hunting, scrabbling frantically among her possessions.

  Still shrieking, she pounced upon a long stone cooking knife, snatched it up, aimed it at his vulnerable heart.

  He lay under the knife like a sacrifice defiled with leprosy.

  But before she could stab out his life, consummate his unclean pain in death, a host of glaucous, alien gleams leaped like music into the air around her. They fell on her like dew, clung to her like moist melody, stayed her hand; they confined her power and her anguish, held all things within her until her taut, soundless cry imploded. They contained her until she broke under the strain of things that could not be contained. Then they let her fall.

  Gleaming like the grief of trees, they sang themselves away.

  Fourteen: Only Those Who Hate

  COVENANT first awoke after a night and a day. But the stupor of essential sleep was still on him, and he only roused himself at the behest of a nagging thirst. When he sat up in the bed of leaves, he found a water jug on a shelf by his head. He drank deeply, then saw that a bowl of fruit and bread also occupied the shelf. He ate, drank again, and went back to sleep as soon as he had stretched himself out among the warm dry leaves once more.

  The next time, he came languorously out of slumber amid the old gentle fragrance of the bed. When he opened his eyes, he discovered that he was looking up through a dim gloom of daylight at the root-woven roof of a cave. He turned his head, looked around the earthen walls until he located the moss-hung entrance which admitted so little light. He did not know where he was, or how he had come here, or how long he had slept. But his ignorance caused him no distress. He had recovered from fear. On the strength of unknown things which lay hidden behind the veil of his repose, he felt sure that he had no need to fear.

  That feeling was the only emotion in him. He was calm, steady, and hollow-empty and therefore undisturbed-as if the same cleansing or apotheosis which had quenched his terror had also drained every other passion from him. For a time, he could not even remember what those passions had been; between him and his past lay nothing but sleep and an annealed gulf of extravagant fear.

  Then he caught the first faint scent of death in the air. It was not urgent, and he did not react to it immediately. While he took its measure, made sure of it, he stretched his sleep-stiff muscles, feeling the flex of their revitalization. Whatever had brought him to this place had happened so long ago that even his body appeared to have forgotten it. Yet his recovery gave him little satisfaction. He accepted it with complete and empty confidence, for reasons that were hidden from him.

  When he was ready, he swung his feet off the bed and sat up. At once, he saw the old brown woman lying crumpled on the floor. She was dead with an outcry still rigid on her lips and a blasted look in the staring loam of her eyes. In the dim light, she seemed like a wracked mound of earth. He did not know who she was-he gazed at her with an effort of recollection and could not remember ever having seen her before-but she gave him the vague impression that she, too, had died for him.

  That’s enough, he said dimly to himself. Other memories began to float to the surface like the dead seaweed and wreckage of his life. This must not happen again.

  He looked down at the unfamiliar white robe for a moment, then pushed the cloth aside so that he could see his ankle.

  It was broken, he thought in hollow surprise. He could remember breaking it; he could remember wrestling with Pietten, falling-he could remember using Pietten’s spear to help him walk until the fracture froze. Yet now it showed no sign of any break. He tested it against the floor, half expecting its wholeness to vanish like an illusion. He stood up, hopped from foot to foot, sat down again. Muttering dully to himself, By hell, by hell, he gave himself his first VSE in many days.

  He found that he was more healed than he would have believed possible. The damage which he had done to his feet was almost completely gone. His
gaunt hands flexed easily-though they had lost flesh, and his ring hung loosely on his wedding finger. Except for a faint numbness at their tips, his ears and nose had recovered from frostbite. His very bones were full of deep, sustaining warmth.

  But other things had not changed. His cheeks felt as stiff as ever. Along his forehead was the lump of a badly healed scar; it was tender to the touch, as if beneath the surface it festered against his skull. And his disease still gnawed its way remorselessly up the nerves of his hands and feet. His fingers were numb to the palms, and only the tops of his feet and the backs of his heels remained sensitive. So the fundamental condition of his existence remained intact. The law of his leprosy was graven within him, carved with the cold chisel of death as if he were made of dolomite or marble rather than bone and blood and humanity.

  For that reason he remained unmoved in the hollow centre of his healing. He was a leper and had no business exposing himself to the risks of passion.

  Now when he looked back at the dead woman, he remembered what he had been doing before the winter had reft him of himself; he had been carrying a purpose of destruction and hate eastward, toward Foul’s Creche. That purpose now wore the aspect of madness. He had been mad to throw himself against the winter alone, just as he had been mad to believe that he could ever challenge the Despiser. The path of his past appeared strewn with corpses, the victims of the process which had brought him to that purpose-the process of manipulation by which Lord Foul sought to produce the last fatal mistake of a direct challenge. And the result of that mistake would be a total victory for the Despiser.

  He knew better now. The fallen woman taught him a kind of wisdom. He could not challenge the Despiser for the same reason that he could not make his way through the Despiser’s winter alone: the task was impossible, and mortal human beings accomplished nothing but their own destruction when they attempted the impossible. A leper’s end-prescribed and circumscribed for him by the law of his illness-awaited him not far down the road of his life. He would only hasten his journey toward that end if he lashed himself with impossible demands. And the Land would be utterly lost.