For a moment, her gaze ached toward him like the arms of an abandoned child. But then her hands bunched into fists. A grimace like a clench of intransigence knotted her mien. “Questions,” she breathed through her teeth. With a severe effort, she took hold of herself. “Yes.”
Her tone accused him as if he were to blame for her distress. But he accepted the responsibility. He could have prevented her from following Mm into the woods. If he had had the courage.
“All right,” she gritted. “You've been here before. What makes you so important? What did you do? Why does Foul want you? What's an ur-Lord?”
Covenant sighed inwardly-an exhalation of relief at her determination to survive. That was what he wanted from her. A sudden weariness dimmed his sight; but he took no account of it.
“I was Berek reborn.”
The memory was not pleasant; it contained too much guilt, too much sorrow and harm. But he accepted it. “Berek was one of the ancient heroes-thousands of years before I came along. According to the legends, he discovered the Earthpower, and made the Staff of Law to wield it. All the lore of the Earthpower came down from him. He was the Lord-Fatherer, the founder of the Council of Lords. They led the defence of the Land against Foul.”
The Council, he groaned to himself, remembering Mhoram, Prothall, Elena. Hell and blood! His voice shook as he continued. “When I showed up, they welcomed me as a sort of avatar of Berek. He was known to have lost the last two fingers of his right hand in a war.” Linden's gaze sharpened momentarily; but she did not interrupt. "So I was made an ur-Lord of the Council. Most of those other titles came later. After I defeated Foul.
“But Unbeliever was one I took for myself. For a long time here, I was sure I was dreaming, but I didn't know what to do about it.” Sourly, he muttered, “I was afraid to get involved. It had something to do with being a leper.” He hoped she would accept this non-explanation; he did not want to have to tell her about his crimes. “But I was wrong. As long as you have some idea of what's happening to you, 'real' or 'unreal' doesn't matter. You have to stand up for what you care about; if you don't, you lose control of who you are.” He paused, met her scrutiny so that she could see the clarity of his conviction. “I ended up caring about the Land a lot.”
“Because of the Earthpower?”
“Yes.” Pangs of loss stung his heart. Fatigue and strain had shorn him of his defences. “The land was incredibly beautiful. And the way the people loved it, served it-that was beautiful, too. Lepers,” he concluded mordantly, “are susceptible to beauty.” In her own way, Linden seemed beautiful to him.
She listened to him like a physician trying to diagnose a rare disease. When he stopped, she said, “You called yourself, 'Unbeliever and white gold wielder.' What does white gold have to do with it?”
He scowled involuntarily. To cover his pain, he lowered himself to the floor, sat against the wall of the hearth. That question touched him deeply, and he was too tired to give it the courage it deserved. But her need for knowledge was peremptory. “My wedding ring,” he murmured. "When Joan divorced me, I was never able to stop wearing it. I was a leper-I felt that I'd lost everything. I thought my only link with the human race was the fact that I used to be married.
“But here it's some kind of talisman. A tool for what they call wild magic-'the wild magic that destroys peace.' I can't explain it.” To himself, he cursed the paucity of his valour.
Linden sat down near him, kept watching his face. “You think I can't handle the truth.”
He winced at her percipience. “I don't know. But I know how hard it is. It sure as hell isn't easy for me.”
Outside, the rain beat with steady ire into the valley; thunder and lightning pummelled each other among the mountains. But inside the hut the air was warm, tinged with smoke like a faint soporific. And he had gone for many days without rest. He closed his eyes, partly to acknowledge his exhaustion, partly to gain a respite from Linden's probing.
But she was not finished. “Nassic-” Her voice was as direct as if she had reached out and touched him. “He's crazy.”
With an effort of will, Covenant forced himself to ask, “What makes you say that?”
She was silent until he opened his eyes, looked at her. Then, defensively, she said, “I can feel it-the imbalance in him. Can't you? It's in his face, his voice, everything. I saw it right away. When he was coming down the ravine.”
Grimly, he put off his fatigue. “What are you trying to tell me? That we can't trust him? Can't believe him?”
“Maybe.” Now she could not meet his gaze. She studied the clasp of her hands on her knees. “I'm not sure. All I know is, he's demented. He's been lonely too long. And he believes what he says.”
“He's not the only one,” Covenant muttered. Deliberately, he stretched out to make himself more comfortable. He was too tired to worry about Nassic's sanity. But he owed Linden one other answer. Before he let go of himself, he replied, “No, I can't.”
As weariness washed over him, he was dimly aware that she stood up and began to pace beside his recumbent form.
He was awakened by silence. The rain had stopped. For a moment, he remained still, enjoying the end of the storm. The rest had done him good; he felt stronger, more capable.
When he raised his head, he saw Linden in the entryway, facing the vale and the clear cool night. Her shoulders were tense; strain marked the way she leaned against the stone. As he got to his feet, she turned toward him. She must have replenished the fire while he slept. The room was bright; he could see her face clearly. The corners of her eyes were lined as if she had been squinting for a long time at something which discomfited her.
“It stopped at nightfall.” She indicated the absence of rain with a jerk of her head. “He was right about that.”
The trouble in her worried him. He tried to sound casual as he asked, “What have you been thinking?”
She shrugged. “Nothing new. 'Face it. Go forward. Find out what happens.'” Her gaze was bent inward on memories. “I've been living that way for years. It's the only way to find out how much what you're trying to get away from costs.”
He searched her for some glimpse of what she meant. “You know,” he said slowly, “you haven't told me much about yourself.”
She stiffened, drew severity across her countenance like a shield. Her tone denied his question. “Nassic isn't back yet.”
For a moment, he considered her refusal. Did she have that much past hurt to hide? Were her defences aimed at him, or at herself? But then the import of her words penetrated him. “He isn't?” Even an old man should have been able to make the trip twice in this amount of time.
“I haven't seen him.”
“Damnation!” Covenant's throat was suddenly dry. “What the hell happened to him?”
“How should I know?” Her ire betrayed the fraying of her nerves. “Remember me? I'm the one who hasn't been here before.”
He wanted to snap at her; but he held himself back grimly. “I didn't mean it that way. Maybe he fell off the cliff. Maybe Mithil Stonedown is even more dangerous than he thought. Maybe he doesn't even have a son.”
He could see her swallowing her vexation, wishing herself immune to pressure. “What are we going to do?”
“What choice have we got? We have to go down there ourselves.” Sternly, he compelled himself to face her doubt of Nassic. “It's hard for me to believe we can't trust those people. They were my friends when I didn't deserve to have any friends.”
She considered him. “That was three thousand years ago.”
Yes, he muttered bleakly. And he had given them little in return except harm. If they remembered him at all, they would be justified in remembering only the harm.
With a sudden nausea, he realized that he was going to have to tell Linden what he had done to Mithil Stonedown, to Lena Atiaran-daughter. The doctor was the first woman he had met in ten years who was not afraid of him. And she had tried to save his life. What other protection could he
give her against himself?
He lacked the courage. The words were in his mind, but he, could not utter them. To escape her eyes, he moved abruptly past her out of Nassic's stone dwelling.
The night was a vault of crystal. All the clouds were gone. The air was cold and sharp; and stars glittered like flecks of joy across the immaculate deeps. They gave some visibility. Below the dark crouch of the peaks, he could see the stream flowing turgidly down the length of the dell. He followed it; he remembered this part of the way well enough. But then he slowed his pace as he realized that Linden was not behind him.
“Covenant!”
Her cry scaled the night. Echoes repeated against the mountain-; sides.
He went back to her at a wild run.
She knelt on a pile of rubble like a cairn beside the hut-the broken remains of Nassic's temple, fallen into desuetude. She was examining a dark form which lay strangely atop the debris.,
Covenant sprang forward, peered at the body. ',
Bloody hell, he moaned. Nassic.
The old man lay embracing the ruins. From the centre of his back protruded the handle of a knife.;
“Don't touch that,” Linden panted. “It's still hot.” Her mouth was full of crushed horror.
Still-? Covenant kicked aside his dismay. “Take his legs. We'll carry him into the house.”
She did not move. She looked small and abject in the night.
To make her move, he lashed at her, “I told you it was dangerous. Did you think I was kidding? Take his legs!”
Her voice was a still cold articulation of darkness. “He's dead. There's nothing we can do.”
The sound of her desolation choked his protests. For one keening moment, he feared that he had lost her — that her mind had gone over the edge. But then she shifted. Her hair fell forward, hid her face, as she bent to slip her arms under Nassic's legs.
Covenant lifted him by the shoulders. Together, they bore him into his house.
He was already stiff.
They set him down gently in the centre of the floor. Covenant inspected him. His skin was cold. There was no blood in his robe around the knife; it must have been washed away by the rain. He must have lain dead in the rain for a long time.
Linden did not watch. Her eyes clinched the black iron knife. “It didn't kill him right away,” she said hoarsely. “It didn't hit him right. He bled to death.” The bones of her face seemed to throb with vehemence. “This is evil.”
The way she uttered that word evil sent cold fear scrabbling down Covenant's spine. He knew what she meant; he had formerly been able to perceive such things himself. She was looking at the cruelty of the hand which had held that knife, seeing the eager malice which had inspired the blow. And if the iron were still hot-He swallowed harshly. Nassic's killer must have been someone of great and brutal power.
He scrambled for explanations. “Whoever did it knew we were here. Or else why leave him out there? He wanted us to find the body-after he got away.” He closed his eyes, forced some clarity onto his spinning thoughts. “Nassic was killed because of us. To keep him from talking to the Stonedown. Or from talking to us. By hell, this stinks of Foul.”
Linden was not listening; her own reaction dominated her. “Nobody does this.” She sounded lorn, fear-ravaged.
He heard the strangeness of her protest; but he could not stop himself. His old anger for the victims of Despite drove him. “It takes a special kind of killer,” he growled, “to leave a hot knife behind. Foul has plenty of that kind of help. He's perfectly capable of having Nassic killed just to keep us from getting too much information. Or to manipulate us somehow.”
“Nobody kills like this. For pleasure.” Dull anguish blunted her tone, blinded her face. “People don't do that.”
“Of course they don't” Her dismay reached him; but the frailty of Nassic's dead limbs affronted him to the marrow of his bones, made his reply savage. “He probably decided to take a nap in the rain, and this knife just fell on him out of nowhere.”
She was deaf to his sarcasm-too intimately shocked to recognize him at all. “People kill because they're hungry. Afraid.” She struggled for certitude against the indefeasible iron. “Driven. Because someone, something, forces them.” Her tone sharpened as if she were gathering screams. “Nobody likes it.”
“No.” The sight of her distress pulled Covenant to her. He tried to confront her mounting repudiation. “Everybody likes it. Everybody likes power. But most people control it. Because they hate it, too. This is no different than any other murder. It's just more obvious.”
A flinch of revulsion twisted her face; his assertion seemed to hurt her. For an instant, he feared that her mind was going to fail. But then her eyes climbed to his face. The effort of self-mastery darkened them like blood. “I want-” Her voice quavered; she crushed it flat. “I want to meet the sonofabitch who did this. So I can see for myself.”
Covenant nodded, gritted his own black ire. “I think you're going to get the chance.” He, too, wanted to meet Nassic's slayer. “We can't try to second-guess Foul. He knows more than we do. And we can't stay here. But we've lost our guide-our only chance to learn what's happening. We have to go to Mithil Stonedown.” Grimly, he concluded, “Since the killer didn't attack us here, he's probably waiting for us in the village.”
For a long moment, she remained motionless, mustering her resources. Then she said tightly, “Let's go.”
He did not hesitate. Nassic had not even been given the dignity of a clean death. With Linden at his side, he marched out into the night.
But in spite of the violence in him, he did not allow himself to rush. The stars did not shed an abundance of light; and the rain had left the floor of the dell slick with mud. The path to Mithil Stonedown was hazardous. He did not intend to come to harm through recklessness.
He made his way strictly down the valley; and at its end, he followed the stream into a crooked file between sheer walls, then turned away along a crevice that ascended at right angles to the file. The crevice was narrow and crude, difficult going in the star-blocked dark; but it levelled after a while, began to tend downward. Before long, he gained a steep open slope-the eastern face of the Mithil valley.
Dimly in the distance below him, the valley widened like a wedge northward toward an expanse of plains. A deeper blackness along the valley bottom looked like a river.
Beside the river, somewhat to his right, lay a cluster of tiny lights.
“Mithil Stonedown,” he murmured. But then vertigo forced him to turn away leftward along a faint path. He could not repress his memory of the time he had walked this path with Lena. Until he told Linden what he remembered, what he had done, she would not know who he was, would not be able to choose how she wished to respond to him. Or to the Land.
He needed her to understand his relationship to the Land. He needed her support, her skills, her strength. Why else had she been chosen?
A cold, penetrating dampness thickened the air; but the exertion of walking kept him warm. And the path became steadily less difficult as it descended toward the valley bottom. As the moon began to crest the peaks, he gave up all pretence of caution. He was hunting for the courage to say what had to be said.
Shortly, the path curved off the slopes, doubled back to follow the river outward. He glanced at Linden from time to time, wondering where she had learned the toughness, unwisdom, or desperation which enabled or drove her to accompany him. He ached for the capacity to descry the truth of her, determine whether her severity came from conviction or dread.
She did not believe in evil.
He had no choice; he had to tell her.
Compelling himself with excoriations, he touched her arm, stopped her. She looked at him. “Linden.” She was alabaster in the moonlight-pale and not to be touched. His mouth winced. “There's something I've got to say.” His visage felt like old granite. “Before we go any farther.” Pain made him whisper.
"The first time I was here, I met a girl. Le
na. She was just a kid, — but she was my friend. She kept me alive on Kevin's Watch, when I was so afraid it could have killed me." His long loneliness cried out against this self-betrayal.
“I raped her.”
She stared at him. Her lips formed soundless words: Raped-? In her gaze, he could see himself becoming heinous.
He did not see the shadow pass over their heads, had no warning of their danger until the net landed on them, tangling them instantly together. Figures surged out of the darkness around them. One of the attackers hit them in the faces with something which broke open and stank like a rotten melon.
Then he could no longer breathe. He fell with Linden in his arms as if they were lovers.
Six: The Graveller
HE awoke urgently, with a suffocating muck on his face that made him strain to move his arms to clear the stuff away. But his hands were tied behind his back. He gagged helplessly for a moment, until he found that he could breathe.
The dry, chill air was harsh in his lungs. But he relished it. Slowly, it drove back the nausea.
From somewhere near him, he heard Linden say flatly, “You'll be all right. They must have hit us with some kind of anaesthetic. It's like ether-makes you feel sick. But the nausea goes away. I don't think we've been hurt.”
He rested briefly on the cold stone, then rolled off his chest and struggled into a sitting position. The bonds made the movement difficult; a wave of dizziness went through him, “Friends,” he muttered. But the air steadied him. “Nassic was right.”
“Nassic was right,” she echoed as if the words did not interest her.
They were in a single room, as constricted as a cell. A heavy curtain covered the doorway; but opposite the entrance a barred window let the pale grey of dawn into the room-the late dawn of a sunrise delayed by mountains. The bars were iron.
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