Part 41 (1/2)

Linden did not know how to respond. She was distressed by his troubled condition, gratified by his fairness, and in- censed by the First's att.i.tude. Yet would she not have taken the same position in the Swordmain's place? If Kevin Landwaster had spoken to someone else, would she not have been proud to repose her confidence in the Unbeliever? But that recognition only left her all the more alone. She had no right to try to persuade Pitchwife to her cause. Both he and his wife deserved' better than that she should attempt to turn them against each other*or against Covenant. And yet she had no way to test or affirm her own sanity except by direct opposition to him.

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Even in bis fixed weariness and determination, he was so dear to her that she could hardly endure the acuity of her desire for him.

A fatigue and defeat of her own made her stumble over the uneven turf. But she refused the solace of Pitchwife's support. Wanly, she asked him, ”What are you going to do?”

”Naught,” he replied. ”I am capable of naught.” His empathy for her made him acidulous. ”I have no sight to equal yours. Before the truth becomes plain to me, the time for all necessary doing will have come and gone. That which requires to be done, you must do.” He paused; and she thought that he was finished, that their comrades.h.i.+p had come to an end. But then he gritted softly through his teeth, ”Yet I say this. Chosen. You it was who obtained Vain Demondim-sp.a.w.n's escape from the snares of Elemesnedene.

You it was who made possible our deliverance from the Sandhold. You it was who procured safety for all but Cable Seadieamer from the Worm of the World's End, when the ”Andelaint forgive!9 379 Earthfriend himself had fallen nigh to ruin. And you it was who found means to extinguish the Banefire. Your worth is manifold and certain.

”The First will choose as she wishes. I will give you my life, if you ask it of me.”

Linden heard him. After a while, she said simply, ”Thanks.”

No words were adequate. In spite of his own baffled distress, he had given her what she needed.

They walked on together in silence.

The next morning, the sun's red aura was distinct enough for all the company to see.

Linden's open nerves searched the Hills, probing Andelam's reaction to the Sunbane. At first, she found none. The air had its same piquant savor, commingled of flowers and dew and treesap. Aliantha abounded on the hillsides. No discernible ill gnawed at the wood of the nearby Gildens and willows.

And the birds and animals that flitted or scurried into view and away again were not suffering from any wrong. The Earthpower treasured in the heart of the region still withstood the pressure of corruption.

But by noon that was no longer true. Pangs of pain began t to run up the tree trunks, aching in the veins of the leaves.

^ The birds seemed to become franticas the numbers of insects ^. increased; but the woodland creatures 'had grown frightened .', and gone into hiding. The tips of the gra.s.s-blades turned y-jbrown; some of the shrubs showed signs of blight. A distant fetor came slowly along the breeze. And the ground began to give off faint, emotional tremors*an intangible quivering which no one but Linden felt. It made the soles of her feet hurt in her shoes.

Muttering curses. Covenant stalked on angrily eastward.

In spite of her distrust. Linden saw that his rage for Andelain (311 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:44 PM]

was genuine. He pushed himself past the limits of bis strength to hasten his traversal of the Hills, his progress toward the crisis of the Despiser. The Sunbane welded him to his purpose.

Linden kept up with him doggedly, determined not to let him get ahead of her. She understood his fury, shared it: in this place, the red sun was atrocious, intolerable. But his ire made him appear capable of any madness which might put an end to Andelain's hurt, for good or ill.

Dourly, the Giants accompanied their friends. Covenant's White Gold Wielder 380.

best pace was not arduous for Pitcbwife; the First could have traveled much faster. And her features were sharp with desire for more speed, for a termination to the Search, so that the question which had come between her and her husband would be answered and finished. The difficulty of restraining herself to Covenant's short strides was obvious in her. While the company paced through the day, she held herself grimly silent Her mother had died in childbirth; her father, in the Soulbiter. She bore herself as if she did not want to admit how important Pitchwife's warmth had become, to her.

For that reason. Linden felt a strange, unspoken kins.h.i.+p toward the First. She found it impossible to resent the Swordmain's att.i.tude. And she swore to herself that she would never ask Pitchwife to keep his promise.

Vain strode blankly behind the companions. But of Findail there was no sign. She watched for him at intervals, but he did not reappear.

That evening. Covenant slept for barely half the night: then he went on his way again as if he were trying to steal ahead of his friends. But somehow through her weary slumber Linden felt him leave. She roused herself, called the Giants up from the faintly throbbing turf, and went after him.

Sunrise brought an aura of fertility to the dawn and a soughing rustle like a whisper of dread to the trees and brush. Linden felt the leaves whimpering on their boughs, the greensward aching plaintively. Soon the Hills would be reduced to the victimized helplessness of the rest of the Land. They would be scourged to wild growth, desiccated to ruin, afflicted with rot, pommeled by torrents. And that thought made her as fierce as Covenant, enabled her to keep up with him while he exhausted himself. Yet the mute pain of green and tree was not the worst effect of the Sunbane.

Her senses had been scoured to raw sensitivity: she knew that beneath the sod, under the roots of the woods, the fever Of Andelain's bones had become so argute that it was almost physical. A nausea of revulsion was rising into the Earthpower of the Hills. It made her guts tremble as if she were walking across an open wound.

By degrees. Covenant's pace became labored. Andelain no longer sustained him. More and more of its waning (312 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:44 PM]

strength went to ward off the corruption of the Sunbane. As a result, the fertile sun had little superficial effect A few ”Andelain! forgive!” 381 trees groaned taller, grew twisted with hurt; some of the shrubs raised their branches like limbs of desecration. All the birds and animals seemed to have fled. But most of the woods and gra.s.s were preserved by the power of the soil in which they grew. Aliantha clung stubbornly to themselves, as they had for centuries. Only the a.n.a.lystic refulgence of the Hills was gone*only the emanation of superb and concentrated health*only the exquisite vitality.

However, the sickness in the underlying rock and dirt mounted without cessation. That night, Covenant slept the sleep of exhaustion and diamondraught. But for a long time Linden could not rest, despite her own fatigue. Whenever she laid her head to the gra.s.s, she heard the ground grinding its teeth against a backdrop of slow moans and futile outrage.

Well before dawn, she and her companions arose and went on. She felt now that they were racing the dissolution of the Hills.

That morning, they caught their first glimpse of Mount Thunder.

It was still at least a day away. But it stood stark and fearsome above Andelain, with the sun leering past its shoulder and a furze of unnatural vegetation darkening its slopes. From this distance, it looked like a t.i.tan that had been beaten to its knees. - - Somewhere inside that mountain. Covenant intended to find Lord Foul.

He turned to Linden and the Giants, his eyes red-rimmed and flagrant Words yearned m him, but he seemed unable to utter them. She had thought him uncognizant of the Giants disconsolation, offended by her own intransigent refusal; but she saw now that he was not. He understood her only too well. A fierce and recalcitrant part of him felt as she did, fought like loathing against his annealed purpose.

He did not want to die, did not want to lose her or the Land. And he had withheld any explanation of himself from the Giants so that they would not side with him against her.

So that she would not be altogether alone.

He wished to say all those things. They were plain to her aggrieved senses. But his throat closed on them like a fist, would not let them out.

She might have reached out to him then. Without altering any of her promises, she could have put her love around White Gold Wielder 382.

him. But horror swelled in the ground on which they stood, and it s.n.a.t.c.hed her attention away from him.

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Abhorrence. Execration. Sunbane and Earthpower locked in mortal combat beneath her feet. And the Earthpower could not win. No Law defended it Corruption was going to tear the heart out of the Hills. The ground had become so unstable that the Giants and Covenant felt its tremors.

”Dear Christ!” Linden gasped. She grabbed at Covenant's arm. ”Come on!” With all her strength, she pulled him away from the focus of Andelain's horror.

The Giants were aghast with incomprehension; but they followed her. Together, the companions began to run.

A moment later, the gra.s.s where they had been standing erupted.

Buried boulders shattered. A large section of the greensward was shredded; stone-shards and dirt slashed into the sky. The violence which broke the Earthpower in that place sent a shock throughout the region, gouged a pit in the body of the ground. Remnants of ruined beauty rained everywhere.

And from the naked walls of the pit came squirming and clawing the sick, wild verdure of the fertile sun. Monstrous as murder, a throng of ivy teemed upward to spread its pall over the ravaged turf.

In the distance, another eruption boomed. Linden felt it like a wail through the ground. Piece by piece, the life of Andelaiu was being torn up by the roots.

”b.a.s.t.a.r.d!” Covenant raged. ”Oh, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d! You've crippled everything else. Aren't you content?”

Turning, he plunged eastward as if he meant to launch himself at the Despiser's throat.

Linden kept up with him. Pain belabored her senses. She could not speak because she was weeping.

SEVENTEEN: Into the Wightwarrens EARLY the next morning, the company climbed into the foothills of Mount Thunder near the constricted rush of the Soulsease River. Covenant was gaunt with fatigue, his gaze as gray as ash. Linden's eyes burned like fever in their sockets; strain throbbed through the bones of her skull. Even the Giants were tired. They had only stopped to rest in s.n.a.t.c.hes during the night The First's lips were the color of her fingers clinching the hilt of her sword. Pitchwife's visage looked like it was being torn apart. Yet the four of them were united by their urgency. They attacked the lower slopes as if they were racing the sun which rose behind me fatal bulk of the mountain.

A desert sun.