Stephen Donaldson: The Wounded Land

She met his glare with a mordant smile. “Aren't you supposed to ring a bell, or something?”

That stopped him. His eyes narrowed as he reconsidered her. When he spoke again, his words came more slowly, as if he were trying to measure the danger she represented.

“If you know that, you don't need any warning.”

She nodded. “My name is Linden Avery. I'm a doctor.”

“And you're not afraid of lepers.”

His sarcasm was as heavy as a bludgeon; but she matched it. “If I were afraid of sick people, I wouldn't be a doctor,”

His glower expressed his disbelief. But he said curtly, “I don't need a doctor,” and started to swing the door shut again.

“So actually,” she rasped, “you're the one who's afraid.”

His face darkened. Enunciating each word as if it were a dagger, he said, “What do you want, doctor?”

To her dismay, his controlled vehemence made her falter. For the second time in the course of the sunset, she was held by eyes that were too potent for her. His gaze shamed her. The book-her excuse for being there-was in her hand; but her hand was behind her back. She could not tell the lie Dr. Berenford had suggested to her. And she had no other answer. She could see vividly that Covenant needed help. Yet if he did not ask for it, what recourse did she have?

But then a leap of intuition crossed her mind. Speaking before she could question herself, she said, “That old man told me to 'Be true.'”

His reaction startled her. Surprise and fear flared in his eyes. His shoulders winced; his jaw dropped. Then abruptly he had closed the door behind him. He stood before her with his face thrust hotly forward. “What old man?”

She met his fire squarely. “He was out at the end of your driveway-an old man in an ochre robe. As soon as I saw him, he went into cardiac arrest.” For an instant, a cold hand of doubt touched her heart. He had recovered too easily. Had he staged the whole situation? Impossible! His heart had stopped. “I had to work like hell to save him. Then he just walked away.”

Covenant's belligerence collapsed. His gaze clung to her as if he were drowning. His hands gaped in front of him. For the first time, she observed that the last two fingers of his right hand were missing. He wore a wedding band of white gold on what had once been the middle finger of that hand. His voice was a scraping of pain in his throat. “He's gone?”

“Yes.”

“An old man in an ochre robe?”

“Yes.”

“You saved him?” His features were fading into night as the sun dropped below the horizon.

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“I already told you.” Her uncertainty made her impatient. “He said, 'Be true.'”

“He said that to you?”

“Yes!”

Covenant's eyes left her face. “Hellfire.” He sagged as if he carried a weight of cruelty on his back. “Have mercy on me. I can't bear it.” Turning, he slumped back to the door, opened it. But there he stopped.

“ Why you? ”

Then he had re-entered his house, the door was closed, and. Linden, stood alone in the evening as if she had been bereft.

She did not move until the need to do something, take some kind of action to restore the familiarity of her world, impelled her to her car. Sitting behind the wheel as if she were stunned, she tried to think.

Why you?

What kind of question was that? She was a doctor, and the old man had needed help. It was that simple. What was Covenant talking about?

But Be true was not all the old man had said. He had also said, You will not fail, however he may assail you .

He? Was that a reference to Covenant? Was the old man trying to warn her of something? Or did it imply some other kind of connection between him and the writer? What did they have to do with each other? Or with her?

Nobody could fake cardiac arrest!

She took a harsh grip on her scrambled thoughts. The whole; situation made no sense. All she could say for certain was that Covenant had recognized her description of the old man. And Covenant's mental stability was clearly open to question.

Clenching the wheel, she started her car, backed up in order to turn around. She was convinced now that Covenant's problem was serious; but that conviction only made her more angry at Dr. Berenford's refusal to tell her what the problem was. The dirt road was obscure in the twilight; she slapped on her headlights as she put the sedan in gear to complete her turn.

A scream like a mouthful of broken glass snatched her to a halt. It pierced the mutter of her sedan. Slivers of sound cut at her hearing. A woman screaming in agony or madness.

It had come from Covenant's house.

In an instant, Linden stood beside the car, waiting for the cry to-be repeated.

She heard nothing. Lights shone from some of the windows; but no shadows moved. No sounds of violence betrayed the night. She I stood poised to race to the house. Her ears searched the air-. But the dark held its breath. The scream did not come again.

For a long moment, indecision held her. Confront Covenant-demand answers? Or leave? She had met his hostility. What right did she have-? Every right, if he were torturing some woman. But how could she be sure? Dr. Berenford had called it a medical problem.

Dr. Berenford-

Spitting curses, she jumped back into her car, stamped down on the accelerator, and sped away in a rattle of dust and gravel.

Two minutes later, she was back in town. But then she had to slow down so that she could watch for street signs.

When she arrived at the Chief of Staff’s house, all she could see was an outline against the night sky. Its front frowned as if this, too, were a place where secrets were kept. But she did not hesitate. Striding up the steps, she pounded on the front door.

That door led to a screened veranda like a neutral zone between the dwelling itself and the outside world. As she knocked, the porch lights came on. Dr. Berenford opened the inner door, closed it behind him, then crossed the veranda to admit her.

He smiled a welcome; but his eyes evaded hers as if he had reason to be frightened; and she could see his pulse beating in the pouches below their sockets.

“Dr. Berenford,” she said grimly.

“Please.” He made a gesture of appeal. “Julius.”

“ Dr. Berenford .” She was not sure that she wanted this man's friendship. “Who is she?”

His gaze flinched. “She?”

“The woman who screamed.”

He seemed unable to lift his eyes to her face. In a tired voice, he murmured, “He didn't tell you anything.”

“No.”

Dr. Berenford considered for a moment, then motioned her toward two rocking chairs at one end of the veranda. “Please sit down. It's cooler out here.” His attention seemed to wander. “This heat wave can't last forever.”

“Doctor!” she lashed at him. “He's torturing that woman.”

“No, he isn't.” Suddenly, the older man was angry. “You get that out of your head right now. He's doing everything he can for her. Whatever's torturing her, it isn't him.”

Linden held his glare, measuring his candour until she felt sure that he was Thomas Covenant's friend, whether or not he was hers. Then she said flatly, “Tell me.”

By degrees, his expression recovered its habitual irony. “Won't you sit down?”

Brusquely, she moved down the porch, seated herself to one of the rockers. At once, he turned off the lights, and darkness came pouring through the screens. “I think better in the dark.” Before her eyes adjusted, she heard the chair beside her squeak as he sat down.

For a time, the only sounds were the soft protest of his chair and the stridulation of the crickets. Then he said abruptly, “Some things I'm not going to tell you. Some I can't-some I won't. But I got you into this. I owe you a few answers.”