Stephen Donaldson - The Wounded Land

For Joan's sake.

Linden had never seen one person do so much for another.

She could not endure it. She already had too much blood on her hands. Dashing the tears from her eyes, she looked up.

Covenant moved among the people as if he were beyond hope. The man with the knife guided him into the triangle of blood. The carious eyes in the fire blazed avidly.

It was too much. With a passionate wrench, Linden broke the hold of her dismay, jumped upright.

“Over here!” she yelled. “Police! Hurry! They're over here!” She flailed her arms as if she were signalling to people behind her.

The eyes of the fire whipped at her, hit her with withering force. In that instant, she felt completely vulnerable, felt all her secrets exposed and devoured. But she ignored the eyes. She sped downward, daring the worshippers to believe she was alone.

Covenant whirled in the triangle. Every line of his stance howled, No!

People cried out. Her charge seemed to shatter the trance of the fire. The worshippers were thrown into confusion. They fled in all directions, scattered as if she had unpent a vast pressure of repugnance. For an instant, she was wild with hope.

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 centre 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.

“Your will is mine-

You have no hope of life without me,

Have no hope of life without me.

All is mine.

“Your heart is mine-

There is no love or peace within you,

Is no peace or love within you.

All is mine.

“Your soul is mine-

You cannot dream of your salvation,

Cannot plead for your salvation.

You are mine.”

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 appal 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 fulfil 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 Me. “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.”