Stephen Donaldson: The Wounded Land

Twenty yards from the house, she stopped, parked her car so that it stood in the open moonlight.

Be true .

She did not know how.

The approach of her headlights must have warned him. An outside lamp came on as she neared the front door. He stepped out to meet her. His stance was erect and forbidding, silhouetted by the yellow light at his back. She could not read his face.

“Dr. Avery.” His voice rasped like a saw. “Go away.”

“No.” The uncertainty of her respiration made her speak abruptly, one piece at a time. “Not until I see her.”

“Her?” he demanded.

“Your ex-wife.”

For a moment, he was silent. Then he grated, “What else did that bastard tell you?”

She ignored his anger. “You need help.”

His shoulders hunched as if he were strangling retorts. “He's mistaken. I don't need help. I don't need you. Go away.”

“No.” She did not falter. “He's right. You're exhausted. Taking care of her alone is wearing you out. I can help.”

“You can't,” he whispered, denying her fiercely. “She doesn't need a doctor. She needs to be left alone.”

“I'll believe that when I see it.”

He tensed as if she had moved, tried to get past him. “You're trespassing. If you don't go away, I'll call the Sheriff.”

The falseness of her position infuriated her. “Goddamn it!” she snapped. “What are you afraid of?”

“You.” His voice was gravid, cold.

“Me? You don't even know me.”

“And you don't know me. You don't know what's going on here. You couldn't possibly understand it. And you didn't choose it.” He brandished words at her like blades. “Berenford got you into this. That old man-” He swallowed, then barked, “You saved him, and he chose you, and you don't have any idea what that means . You haven't got the faintest idea what he chose you for. By hell, I'm not going to stand for it! Go away .”

“What does it have to do with you?” She groped to understand him. “What makes you think it has anything to do with you?”

“Because I do know.”

“Know what?” She could not tolerate the condescension of his refusal. “What's so special about you? Leprosy? Do you think being a leper gives you some kind of private claim on loneliness or pain? Don't be arrogant. There are other people in the world who suffer, and it doesn't take being a leper to understand them. What's so goddamn special about you?”

Her anger stopped him. She could not see his face; but his posture seemed to twist, reconsidering her. After a moment, he said carefully, “Nothing about me. But I'm on the inside of this thing, and you aren't. I know it. You don't. It can't be explained. You don't understand what you're doing.”

“Then tell me. Make me understand. So I can make the right choice.”

“Dr. Avery.” His voice was sudden and harsh. “Maybe suffering isn't private. Maybe sickness and harm are in the public domain. But this is private.”

His intensity silenced her. She wrestled with him in her thoughts, and could find no way to take hold of him. He knew more than she did-had endured more, purchased more, learned more. Yet she could not let go. She needed some kind of explanation. The night air was thick and humid, blurring the meaning of the stars. Because she had no other argument, she challenged him with her incomprehension itself. “'Be true,'” she articulated, “isn't the only thing he said.”

Covenant recoiled. She held herself still until the suspense drove him to ask in a muffled tone, “What else?”

“He said, 'Do not fear. You will not fail, however he may assail you.'” There she halted, unwilling to say the rest. Covenant's shoulders began to shake. Grimly, she pursued her advantage. “Who was he talking about? You?”

He did not respond. His hands were pressed to his face, stifling his emotion.

“Or was it somebody else? Did somebody hurt Joan?”

A shard of pain slipped past his teeth before he could lock them against himself.

“Or is something going to happen to me? What does that old man have to do with me? Why do you say he chose me?”

“He's using you.” Covenant's hands occluded his voice. But he had mastered himself. When he dropped his arms, his tone was dull and faint, like the falling of ashes. “He's like Berenford. Thinks I need help. Thinks I can't handle it this time.” He should have sounded bitter; but he had momentarily lost even that resource. “The only difference is, he knows-what I know.”

“Then tell me,” Linden urged again. “Let me try.”

By force of will, Covenant straightened so that he stood upright against the light. “No. Maybe I can't stop you, but I as sure as hell don't have to let you. I'm not going to contribute to this. If you're dead set on getting involved, you're going to have to find some way to do it behind my back.” He stopped as if he were finished. But then he raged at her, “And tell that bastard Berenford he ought to try trusting me for a change!”

Retorts jumped into her throat. She wanted to yell back, Why should he? You don't trust anybody else! But as she gathered force into her lungs, a scream stung the air.

A woman screaming, raw and heinous. Impossible that anybody could feel such virulent terror and stay sane. It shrilled like the heart-shriek of the night.

Before it ended, Linden was on her way past Covenant toward the front door.

He caught her arm: she broke the grip of his half-hand, flung him off. “I'm a doctor .” Leaving him no time for permission or denial, she jerked open the door, strode into the house.

The door admitted her to the living room. It looked bare, in spite of its carpeting and bookcases; there were no pictures, no ornaments; and the only furniture was a long overstaffed sofa with a coffee table in front of it. They occupied the centre of the floor, as if to make the space around them navigable.

She gave the room a glance, then marched down a short passage to the kitchen. There, too, a table and two straight-backed wooden chairs occupied the centre of the space. She went past them, turned to enter another hall. Covenant hurried after her as she by-passed two open doors-the bathroom, his bedroom-to reach the one at the end of the hall.

It was closed.

At once, she took hold of the knob.

He snatched at her wrist. “Listen.” His voice must have held emotion-urgency, anguish, something-but she did not hear it. “This you have to understand. There's only one way to hurt a man who's lost everything. Give him back something broken.”

She gripped the knob with her free hand. He let her go.

She opened the door, went into the room.

All the lights were on.

Joan sat on an iron-frame bed in the middle of the room. Her ankles and wrists were tied with cloth bonds which allowed her to sit up or lie down but did not permit her to bring her hands together. The long cotton nightgown covering her thin limbs had been twisted around her by her distress.

A white gold wedding ring hung from a silver chain around her neck.

She did not look at Covenant. Her gaze sprang at Linden, and a mad fury clenched her face. She had rabid eyes, the eyes of a demented lioness. Whimpers moaned in her throat. Her pallid skin stretched tightly over her bones.

Intuitive revulsion appalled Linden. She could not think. She was not accustomed to such savagery. It violated all her conceptions of illness or harm, paralyzed her responses. This was not ordinary human ineffectuality or pain raised to the level of despair; this was pure ferocity, concentrated and murderous. She had to force herself forward. But when she drew near the woman and stretched out a tentative hand, Joan bit at her like a baited cat. Involuntarily, Linden recoiled.