Stephen Donaldson: The Illearth War

Covenant froze, stunned and terrified. No!

Susie Thurston was transported. “Hey!” she called, waving her arms to silence the applause, “Get a spot out here! On him! Berek! Berek, honey!”

From over the stage, a hot white light spiked down at Covenant. Impaled in the glare, he turned to face the singer, blinking rapidly and aching with fear and rage.

No!

“Ladies and gentlemen, kind people, I want you to meet an old friend of mine, a dear man.” Susie Thurston was excited and eager. “He taught me half the songs I know. Folks, this is Berek.” She began clapping for him as she said, “Maybe he'll sing for us:” Good-naturedly, the audience joined her applause.

Covenant's hands limped about him, searching for support. In spite of his efforts to control himself, he stared at his betrayer with a face full of pain. The applause reverberated in his ears, made him dizzy.

No!

For a long moment, he cowered under Susie Thurston's look. Then, like a wash of revelation, all the houselights came on. Over the bewildered murmurs and rustlings of the audience, a commanding voice snapped, “Covenant.”

Covenant spun as if to ward off an attack. In the doorway, he saw two men. They both wore black hats and khaki uniforms, pistols in black holsters, silver badges; but one of them towered over the other. Sheriff Lytton. He stood with his fists on his hips. As Covenant gaped at him, he beckoned with two fingers. “You, Covenant. Come here.”

“Covenant?” the trucker yelped. “You're really Covenant?”

Covenant heeled around awkwardly, as if under tattered canvas, to meet this fresh assault. As he focused his eyes on the driver, he saw that the big man's face was flushed with vehemence. He met the red glare as bravely as he could. “I told you I was.”

“Now I'm going to get it!” the driver grated. “We're all going to get it! What the hell's the matter with you?”

The patrons of The Door were thrusting to their feet to watch what was happening. Over their heads, the sheriff shouted, “Don't touch him!” and began wading through the crowd.

Covenant lost his balance in the confusion. He tripped, caught something like a thumb or the corner of a chair in his eye, and sprawled under a table.

People yelled and milled around. The sheriff roared orders through the din. Then with one heave of his arm, he knocked away the table over Covenant.

Covenant looked gauntly up from the floor. His bruised eye watered thickly, distorting everything over him. With the back of his hand, he pushed away the tears. Blinking and concentrating fiercely, he made out two men standing above him-the sheriff and his former tablemate.

Swaying slightly on locked knees, the solemn man looked dispassionately down at Covenant. In a smudged and expended voice, he delivered his verdict. “My wife is the finest woman in the world.”

The sheriff pushed the man away, then bent over Covenant, brandishing a face full of teeth. "That's enough. I'm just looking for something to charge you with, so don't give me any trouble. You hear me? Get up.

Covenant felt too weak to move, and he could not see clearly. But he did not want the kind of help the sheriff might give him. He rolled over and pushed himself up from the floor.

He reached his feet, listing badly to one side; but the sheriff made no move to support him. He braced himself on the back of a chair, and looked defiantly around the hushed spectators. At last, the gin seemed to be affecting him. He pulled himself erect, adjusted his tie with a show of dignity.

“Get going,” the sheriff commanded from his superior height.

But for one more moment Covenant did not move. Though he could not be sure of anything he saw, he stood where he was and gave himself a VSE.

“Get going,” Lytton repeated evenly.

“Don't touch me.” When his VSE was done, Covenant turned and stalked greyly out of the nightclub.

Out in the cool April night, he breathed deeply, steadying himself. The sheriff and his deputy herded him toward a squad car. Its red warning lights flashed balefully. When he was locked into the back seat behind the protective steel grating, the two officers climbed into the front. While the deputy drove away in the direction of Haven Farm, the sheriff spoke through the grating.

"Took us too long to find you, Covenant. The

Millers reported you were trying to hitch a ride, and we figured you were going to try your tricks somewhere. Just couldn't tell where. But it's still my county, and you're walking trouble. There's no law against you-I can't arrest you for what you've done. But it sure was mean. Listen, you. Taking care of this county is my business, and don't you forget it. I don't want to hunt around like this for you. You pull this stunt again, and I'll throw you in the can for disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, and everything else I can think of. You got that?"

Shame and rage struggled in Covenant, but he could find no way to let them out. He wanted to yell through the grate, It isn't catching! It's not my fault! But his throat was too constricted; he could not release the wail. At last, he could only mumble, “Let me out. I'll walk.”

Sheriff Lytton regarded him closely, then said to the deputy, “All right. We'll let him walk. Maybe he'll have an accident.” Already they were well out of town.

The deputy drove to a halt on the beret, and the sheriff let Covenant out. For a moment, they stood together in the night. The sheriff glared at him as if trying to measure his capacity to do harm. Then Lytton said, “Go home. Stay home.” He got back into the car. It made a loud squealing turn and fled back toward town. An instant later, Covenant sprang into the road and cried after the taillights, “Leper outcast unclean!” They looked as red as blood in the darkness.

His shout did not seem to dent the silence. Before long, he turned back toward Haven Farm, feeling as small as if the few stars in the dense black sky were deriding him. He had ten miles to walk.

The road was deserted. He moved in empty stillness like a hiatus in his surroundings; though he was retreating into open countryside, he could hear no sounds, no night talk of birds or insects. The silence made him feel deaf and alone, vulnerable to the hurrying vultures at his back.

It was a delusion! He raised his protest like a defiance; but even to his ears, it had the hollow ring of despair, composed equally of defeat and stubbornness. Through it, he could hear the girl shouting Berek! like the siren of a nightmare.

Then the road went through a stand of trees which cut out the dim light of the stars. He could not feel the pavement with his feet; he was in danger of missing his way, of falling into a ditch or injuring himself against a tree. He tried to keep up his pace, but the risk was too great, and finally he was reduced to waving his arms before him and testing his footing like a blind man. Until he reached the end of the woods, he moved as if he were wandering lost in a dream, damp with sweat, and cold.

After that, he set a hard pace for himself. He was spurred on by the cries that rushed after him, Berek! Berek! When at last, long miles later, he reached the driveway into Haven Farm, he was almost running,

In the sanctuary of his house, he turned on all the lights and locked the doors. The organized chastity of his living space surrounded him with its unconsoling dogma. A glance at the kitchen clock told him that the time was just past midnight. A new day, Sunday — a day when other people worshiped. He started some coffee, threw off his jacket, tie, and dress shirt, then carried his steaming cup into the living room. There he took a position on the sofa, adjusted Joan's picture on the coffee table so that it looked straight at him, and braced himself to weather the crisis.