The Wounded Land t2cotc-1

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  But then a shout snatched him toward Landsdrop.

  The sun was rising.

  Gritting himself against incipient vertigo, he hurried to join his companions on the lip of the cliff.

  Across the east, the sun came up in pale red, as if it had just begun to ooze blood. Light washed the top of the precipice, but left all the Lower Land dark, like a vast region where night was slowly sucked into the ground. But though he could see nothing of the Flat, the sun itself was vivid to him.

  Its aura was weaker.

  Weaker than it had been the previous morning.

  Linden stared intently at it for a moment, then whirled and sent her gaze arcing up and down the length of Landsdrop. Covenant could hear insects burring as if they had been resurrected from the dead ground.

  “By God.” She was exultant. “I was right.”

  He held himself still, hardly daring to exhale.

  “This is the line.” She spoke in bursts of excitement, comprehension. “Landsdrop. It's like a border.” Her hands traced consequences in the air. “You'll see. When the sun passes over the cliff-at noon-the Sunbane will be as strong as ever.”

  Covenant swallowed thickly. “Why?”

  “Because the atmosphere is different. It doesn't have anything to do with the sun. That corona is an illusion. We see it because we're looking at the sun through the atmosphere. The Sunbane is in the air. The sun doesn't change. But the air-”

  He did not interrupt. But in the back of his mind he sifted what she said. Some of it made sense: the power required literally to change the sun was inconceivable.

  “The Sunbane is like a filter. A way of warping the normal energy of the sun. Corrupting it.” She aimed her words at him as if she were trying to drive insight through his blindness. “And it's all west from here. The Upper Land. What you see out there”- she jerked her head eastward — “is just spill-over. That's why it looks weak. The Clave won't be able to reach us anymore. And the Sarangrave might be just as you remember it.”

  All-? Covenant thought. But how? Winds shift-storms-

  Linden seemed to see his question in his face. “It's in the air,” she insisted. “But it's like an emanation. From the ground. It must have something to do with the Earthpower you keep talking about. It's a corruption of the Earthpower.”

  A corruption of the Earthpower! At those words, his head reeled, and his own vague intuitions came into focus. She was right. Absolutely. He should have been able to figure it out for himself. The Staff of Law had been destroyed-

  And Lord Foul had made his new home in Mount Thunder, which crouched on the edge of Landsdrop, facing west. Naturally, the Despiser would concentrate his Sunbane on the Upper Land. Most of the east already lay under his power. It was all so clear. Only a blind man could fail to see such things.

  For a long moment, other facets of the revelation consumed him. Lord Foul had turned the Earthpower itself against the Land.

  The Sunbane was limited in its reach. But if it became intense enough, deep enough-

  But then he seemed to hear for the first time something else Linden had said. The Sarangrave might be -

  Bloody hell! He forced himself into motion, drove his reluctant bones toward Landsdrop so that he could look over the edge.

  The shadow of the horizon had already descended halfway down the cliff. Faint, pink light began to reflect off the waters of the Sarangrave. Pale jewels, rosy and tenuous, spread across the bottom of the shadow, winking together to form reticular lines, intaglios, like a map of the vanishing night. Or a snare. As the sun rose, the gems yellowed and grew more intricate. In links and interstices, they articulated the venous life of the Flat-explication, trap, and anatomy in one. Then all the waterways burned white, and the sun itself shone into Sarangrave Flat.

  After five days in the wasted plains, Covenant felt that the lush green and water below him were exquisite, lovely and fascinating, as only adders and belladonna could be. But Linden stood beside him, staring white-eyed at the marsh. Her lips said over and over again, Oh, my God. But the words made no sound.

  Covenant's heart turned over in fear. “What do you see?”

  “Do you want to go down there?” Horror strangled her voice. “Are you crazy?”

  “Linden!” he snapped, as if her dread were an accusation he could not tolerate. The backs of his hands burned venomously, lusting of their own volition to strike her. Was she blind to the pressures building in him? Deaf to the victims of the Clave? “I can't see what you see.”

  “I'm a doctor,” she panted as if she were bleeding internally. “Or I was. I can't bear all this evil”

  No! His anger vanished at the sight of her distress. Don't say that. You'll damn us both. “I understand. Better than anybody. Tell me what it is.”

  She did not raise her eyes, would not look at him. “It's alive.” Her voice was a whisper of anguish. “The whole thing's alive.” Gibbon had promised her that she would destroy the Land. “It's hungry.” Covenant knew nothing about her. “It's like a Raver.”

  A Raver? He wanted to shout, What kind of person are you? Why did Foul choose you? But he crushed himself to quietness. “Is it a Raver?”

  She shook her head. She went on shaking her head, as if she could not reach the end of all the things she wanted to deny. “Ravers are more-” She had to search herself for an adequate description, “-more specific. Self-conscious. But it's still possession,” She said that word as if it sickened her. Her hands fumbled toward her mouth. “Help me.”

  “No.” He did not mean to refuse her; his arms ached to hold her. But that was not what she needed. “You can stand it. That old man chose you for a reason.” Groping for ways to succour her, he said, “Concentrate on it. Use what you see to help yourself. Know what you're up against. Can that thing see us? Is it that specific? If we try to cross — will it know we're there?”

  She closed her eyes, covered them to shut out the sight. But then she forced herself to look again. Struggling against revulsion, she jerked out, “I don't know. It's so big. If it doesn't notice us-If we don't attract its attention-”

  If, he finished for her, we don't show the kind of power it feeds on. Yes. But a sudden vision of wild magic stunned him. He did not know how long he could contain the pressure. With a wrench, he made himself move, turned to Brinn, then winced at the way his voice spattered emotion. “Get the Coursers ready. Find a way down there. As soon as we eat, we're going through.”

  Swinging away from the Haruchai, he almost collided with Sunder and Hollian. They were leaning against each other as if for support. The knots at the corners of Sunder's jaw bulged; a frown of apprehension or dismay incused his forehead. The young eh-Brand's features were pale with anxiety.

  The sight was momentarily more than Covenant could bear. Why was he forever so doomed to give pain? With unwanted harshness, he rasped, “You don't have to go.”

  Sunder stiffened. Hollian blinked at Covenant as if he had just slapped her face. But before he could master himself enough to apologize, she reached out and placed her hand on his arm. “Ur-Lord, you miscomprehend us.” Her voice was like the simple gesture of her touch. “We have long and long ago given up all thought of refusing you.”

  With an effort, Sunder loosened the clenching of his teeth. “That is sooth. Do you not understand this of us? The peril is nothing. We have sojourned so far beyond our knowledge that all perils are become equal. And Linden Avery has said that soon we will be free of the threat of the Clave.”

  Covenant stared at the Graveller, at the eh-Brand.

  “No, Covenant,” Sunder went on. “Our concern is otherwise. We journey where the Sunbane does not obtain. We do not love the Sunbane. We are not mad. But without it-” He hesitated, then said, “What purpose do we serve? What is our value to you? We have not forgotten Andelain. The Sunbane has made us to be who we are. Perhaps under another sun we will merely burden you.”

  The frankness of their uncertainty touched Covenant. He was a leper; he
understood perfectly what they were saying. But he believed that the Sunbane could be altered, had to believe that it was not the whole truth of their lives. How else could he go on? Against the sudden thickness in his throat, he said, “You're my friends. Let's try it and see.”

  Fumbling for self-control, he went to get something to eat.

  His companions joined him. In silence, they ate as if they were chewing the gristle of their apprehensions.

  Shortly, Ceer brought word of a path down the cliff. Hergrom and Cail began to load the Coursers. Long before Covenant had found any courage, the quest was mounted and moving.

  Ceer, Hergrom, and Cail led the way on Annoy. With Linden's care and the native health of the Haruchai, Cail had essentially recovered from his wound. Brinn, Linden, and Covenant followed on Clash. Then came Harn and Hollian on Clangor, Stell and Sunder on Clang. Vain brought up the rear.

  They went northward for half a league to a wide trail cut into the face of Landsdrop. This was a vestige of one of the ancient Giantways, by which the Unhomed had travelled between Seareach and Revelstone. Covenant locked his hands in Clash's hair, and fought his vertigo as the company began to descend.

  The sheer drop to the Lower Land pulled at him constantly. But the trail had been made by Giants; though it angled and doubled steeply, it was wide enough for the huge Coursers. Still, the swing of Clash's back made him feel that he was about to be pitched over the edge. Even during a brief rest, when Brinn halted the company to refill the waterskins from a rill trickling out of the cliff-face, the Flat seemed to reel upward at him like a green storm. He spun, sweating, down the last slope and lurched out into the humid air of the foothills with a pain in his chest, as if he had forgotten how to breathe.

  The foothills were clear for some distance before they rolled down into the peril of the Sarangrave. Brinn took the Coursers forward at a clattering run, as if he meant to plunge straight into the verdant sea. But he stopped on the verge of the thick marshgrass which lapped the hills. For a moment, he surveyed the quest, studying Vain briefly, as if he wondered what to expect from the Demondim-spawn. Then he addressed Linden.

  “Chosen,” he said with flat formality, “the old tellers say that the Bloodguard had eyes such as yours. That is not true of us. We understand caution. But we also understand that your sight surpasses ours. You must watch with me, lest we fall to the snares of the Sarangrave.”

  Linden swallowed. Her posture was taut, keyed beyond speech by dread. But she answered with a stiff nod.

  Now Clash led. Covenant glared out past Linden and Brinn, past Clash's massive head, toward the Sarangrave. The hillside descended into a breeze-ruffled lake of marshgrass, and beyond the grass stood the first gnarled brush of the Flat. Dark shrubs piled toward trees which concealed the horizon. The green of their leaves seemed vaguely poisonous under the pale red sun. In the distance, a bird cried, then fell silent. The Sarangrave was still, as if it waited with bated breath. Covenant could hardly force himself to say, “Let's go.”

  Brinn nudged Clash forward. Bunched together like a fist, the company entered Sarangrave Flat.

  Clash stepped into the marshgrass, and immediately sank to its knees in hidden mire.

  “Chosen,” Brinn murmured in reproof as the Courser lumbered backward to extricate itself.

  Linden winced. “Sorry. I'm not-” She took a deep breath, straightened her back. “Solid ground to the left.”

  Clash veered in that direction. This time, the footing held. Soon, the beast was breasting its way through chest-high grass.

  An animal the size of a crocodile suddenly thrashed out from under Clash's hooves-a predator with no taste for such large prey. Clash shied; but the rukh steadied it quickly. Clinging to his seat, Covenant forced his gaze ahead and tried not to believe that he was riding into a morass from which there was no outlet and no escape.

  Guided by Linden's senses, Brinn led the company toward the trees. In spite of past suns, the growth here was of normal size; yet even to Covenant's blunt perceptions, the atmosphere felt brooding and chancrous, like an exhalation of disease, the palpable leprosy of pollution.

  As they reached the trees, the quest passed under thickening blotches of shade. At first, clear ground lay between the trunks, wind-riffled swaths of bland grass concealed things at which Covenant could not guess. But as the riders moved inward, the trees intensified. The grass gave way to shallow puddles, stretches of mud which sucked like hunger at the hooves of the Coursers. Branches and vines variegated the sky. At the edges of hearing came the sounds of water, almost subliminal, as if wary behemoths were drinking from a nearby pool. The ambience of the Sarangrave settled in Covenant's chest like a miasma.

  Abruptly, an iridescent bird blundered, squalling, skyward out of the brush. His guts lurched. Sweating, he gaped about him. The jungle was complete; he could not see more than fifty feet in any direction. The Coursers followed a path which wandered out of sight between squat grey trees with cracked bark and swollen trunks. But when he looked behind him, he could see no sign of the way he had come. The Sarangrave sealed itself after the company. Somewhere not far away, he could hear water dripping, like the last blood from Marid's throat.

  His companions' nerves were raw. Sunder's eyes seemed to flinch from place to place. Hollian's mien wore a look of unconscious fright, as if she were a child expecting to be terrified. Linden sat hunched forward, gripping Brinn's shoulders. Whenever she spoke, her voice was thin and tense, etiolated by her vulnerability to the ill on all sides. Yet Vain looked as careless as the accursed, untouched even by the possibility of wrong.

  Covenant felt that his lungs were filling up with moisture.

  The Coursers seemed to share his difficulty. He could hear them snuffling stertorously. They grew restive by degrees, choppy of gait, alternately headstrong and timorous. What do they-? he began. But the question daunted him, and he did not finish it.

  At noon, Brinn halted the company on a hillock covered with pimpernels, and defended on two sides by a pool of viscid sludge which smelled like tar. In it, pale flagellant creatures swam. They broke the surface, spread sluggish ripples about them, then disappeared. They looked like corpses, wan and necrotic, against the darkness of the fluid.

  Then Linden pointed through the branches toward the sun. When Covenant peered at the faint aura, he saw it change, just as she had predicted. The full power of the Sunbane returned, restoring pestilence to the Sarangrave.

  At the sight, a nameless chill clutched his viscera. The Sarangrave under a sun of pestilence-

  Hollian's gasp yanked the company toward her. She was gaping at the pool, with her knuckles jammed between her teeth.

  At every spot where sunlight touched the dark surface, pale creatures rose. They thrust blind heads into the light, seemed to yearn upward. A slight wind ruffled the trees, shifting pieces of sunshine back and forth. The creatures flailed to follow the spots of light.

  When any creature had kept its head in the light for several moments, it began to expand. It swelled like ripening fruit, then split open, scattering green droplets around the pool. The droplets which fell in shadow quickly turned black and faded. But the ones which fell in light became bright-Covenant closed his eyes; but he could not shut out the sight. Green flecks danced against red behind his eyelids. He looked again. The droplets were luminescent and baleful, like liquid emeralds. They grew as they swam, feeding on sludge and pestilence.

  “Good God!” Horror compacted Linden's whisper. “We've got to get out of here!”

  Her tone carried complete conviction. The Haruchai sprang into motion. Sunder called the Coursers forward. Cail boosted first Linden, then Covenant, upward, so that Clash would not have to kneel. Stell and Ham did the same for the Stonedownors.

  Skirting the pool, Brinn guided the beasts eastward as swiftly as he dared, deeper into the toils of Sarangrave Hat.

  Fortunately, the Sunbane seemed to steady the Coursers, enforcing the hold of Sunder's rukh. Their ponderous ski
ttishness eased. When malformed animals scuttled out from under their hooves, or shrieking birds flapped past their heads, they remained manageable. After half a league, the riders were able to eat a meal without dismounting.

  As they ate, Covenant looked for a way to question Linden. But she forestalled him. “Don't ask.” Spectres haunted the backs of her eyes. “It hurt. I just knew we were in danger. I don't want to know what it was.”

  He nodded. The plight of the company required her to accept visions which wrung her soul. She was so exposed. And he had no way to help her.

  The Haruchai passed around a pouch of voure. As he dabbed the pungent sap on his face and arms, Covenant became aware that the air was alive with butterflies.

  Fluttering red and blue, yellow like clean sunshine, gleams of purple and peacock-green, they clouded the spaces between the trees like particoloured snow, alert and lovely. The dance of the Sarangrave-Sarangrave Flat under a sun of pestilence. The insects made him feel strangely bemused and violent. They were beautiful. And they were born of the Sunbane. The venom in him answered their entrancement as if, despite himself, he yearned to fry every lambent wing in sight. He hardly noticed when the company began moving again through the clutches of the marsh. At one time, he had watched helplessly while Wraiths died. Now every memory increased the pressure in him, urged him toward power. But in this place power was suicide.

  Piloted by Bruin's caution and Linden's sight, the questors worked eastward. For a time, they travelled the edges of a water channel clogged with lilies. But then the channel cut toward the north, and they were forced to a decision. Linden said that the water was safe. Brinn feared that the lily-stems might fatally tangle the legs of the Coursers.

  The choice was taken out of their hands. Hergrom directed their attention northwestward. For a moment, Covenant could see nothing through the obscure jungle. Then he caught a glimpse.