When he raised his head, he found Linden standing near him.
She was insecure on her feet, still extremely weak; but she was able to hold herself upright. She gazed at him soberly. As he dropped his eyes, she said with an echo of her old severity, “You should eat something.”
He could not refuse her. He picked up a piece of dried meat. She nodded, then moved woodenly away to examine Cail. Covenant chewed abstractly while he watched her.
Cail appeared to be both well and ill. He seemed to have recovered from the Sunbane sickness, regained his native solidity and composure. But his injury was still hotly infected; voure had no efficacy against the poison of the Courser's spur.
Linden glared at the wound as if it wrung her nerves, then demanded fire and boiling water. Hergrom and Ceer obeyed without comment. While the water heated, she borrowed Hollian's dirk, burned it clean in the flames, then used it to lance Cail's infection. He bore the pain stoically; only a slight tension between his brows betrayed what he felt. Blood and yellow fluid splashed a stain onto the sand. Her hands were precise in spite of her weakness. She knew exactly where and how deeply to cut.
When the water was ready, she obtained a blanket from Brinn. Slashing the material into strips, she used some of them to wash out the wound; with others, she made a crude bandage. Fine beads of sweat mirrored the firelight from Cail's forehead; but he did not wince. He did not appear to be breathing.
“You'll be all right as soon as we stop the infection.” Her voice sounded impersonal, as if she were reading from some medical tome. “You're healthy enough for any five people.” Then her severity frayed. “This is going to hurt. If I could think of any way to kill the pain, I'd do it. But I can't. I left everything in my bag.”
“Have no concern, Linden Avery,” Cail replied evenly. “I am well. I will serve you.”
“Serve yourself!” she grated at once. “Take care of that arm.” As she spoke, she made sure that his bandage was secure. Then she poured boiling water over the fabric.
Cail made no sound. She stumbled to her feet, moved away from him and sat down against the gully wall, as if she could not bear the sight of his courage.
A moment later, Vain caught Covenant's attention. The first light of the sun touched Vain's head, etched it out of the gloaming-a cynosure of blackness and secrets. Sunder and Hollian went quickly to find rock. Covenant helped Linden erect. The Haruchai stood. All the company faced the dawn.
The sun broached the rim of the gully, wearing brown like the cerements of the world. Thirst and hallucination, bleached bones, fever-blisters. But Linden gasped involuntarily, “It's weaker!”
Then, before Covenant could grasp what she meant, she groaned in disappointment. “No. I must be losing my mind. It hasn't changed.”
Changed? Her bitterness left him in a whirl of anxiety as the quest broke camp, mounted the Coursers, and set off eastward. Was she so badly stressed by fear that she could no longer trust her eyes? In her convulsions, sweat had darkened her hair like streaks of damp anguish. But she seemed to be recovering. Her wound had been relatively minor. The company rode the sun-trammelled wasteland of the North Plains as if they were traversing an anvil. Why did he know so little about her?
But the next morning she was steadier, surer. She carried her head as if it had ceased to pain her. When she faced the dawn and saw the third desert sun rise, her whole body tensed. “I was right,” she gritted. “It is weaker.” A moment later, she cried, “There!” Her arm accused the horizon. “Did you see it? Right there, it changed! It was weaker and then it became as strong as ever. As if it crossed a boundary.”
No one spoke. Sunder and Hollian watched Linden as if they feared that the Sunbane sickness had affected her mind. The Haruchai gazed at her without expression.
“I saw it.” Her voice stiffened. “I'm not crazy.”
Covenant winced. “We don't have your eyes.”
She glared at him for an instant, then turned on her heel and strode away toward the waiting Coursers.
Now she rode as if she were angry. In spite of the dry brutality of the sun and the strain of clinging to Clash's back, her strength was returning. And with it came ire. Her ability to see had already cost her so much; and now her companions appeared to doubt what she saw. Covenant himself half disbelieved her. Any weakening of the Sunbane was a sign of hope. Surely therefore it was false? After what she had been through?
When the company stopped for the night, she ate a meal, tended Cail's arm, and set herself to sleep. But long before dawn, she was pacing the dead shale as if she were telling the moments until a revelation. Her tension articulated clearly how much she needed to be right, how sorely her exacerbated soul needed relief.
That morning, the sun rose in red pestilence. It tinged the stark outlines of the wilderland crimson, making the desert roseate, lovely, and strange, like a gilded burial ground; but though he strained his sight until his brain danced with images of fire, Covenant could not descry any lessening of the Sunbane. Yet Linden gave a fierce nod as if she had been vindicated. And after a moment, Brinn said impassively, “The Chosen is farsighted.” He used her title like a recognition of power. “The corruption about the sun has lessened.”
“I am surpassed,” Sunder muttered in frustration. “I do not see this lessening.”
“You will,” Linden replied. “We're getting closer.”
Covenant was suddenly dizzy with hope. “Closer to what?” Was the Sunbane failing?
“Inquire of the Chosen.” Brinn's shrug disavowed all responsibility for what he saw. “We know nothing of this.”
Covenant turned to her.
“I'll tell you.” She did not meet his gaze. “When I'm sure.”
He swallowed a curse, gritted himself still. It's too much, she had said. I'll try. He understood. She was trying. She wanted to trust what she saw and feared to be misled, to be hurt again. With difficulty, he left her alone.
She continued to stare eastward while the Haruchai distributed food, water, and voure. She ate heedlessly, ignoring Brinn's people as they readied the Coursers. But then, just as Sunder brought the beasts forward, her arm stabbed out, and she barked, “There!”
Brinn glanced at the sun. “Yes. The corruption regains its strength.”
Covenant groaned to himself. No wonder she did not wish to explain what she saw. How could she bear it?
Morosely, he mounted Clash behind Linden and Brinn. The quest moved out across the ragged wasteland.
Under this sun, the desert became a place of silence and scorpions. Only the rattle of the Coursers' hooves punctuated the windless air; and soon that noise became part of the silence as well. Insects scuttled over the rocks, or waded the sand, and made no sound. The sky was as empty of life as a tomb. Slowly, Covenant's mood became red and fatal. The Plains seemed eerie with all the blood he had shed. Involuntarily, he toyed with his ring, turning it around his finger as if his bones itched for fire. Yet he loathed killing, loathed himself. And he was afraid.
We have to accept who we are. Where had he learned the arrogance or at least the insensitivity to say such things?
That night, his memories and dreams made his skin burn as if he were eager for immolation, for a chance to anneal his old guilt in flame. Lena filled his sight as if she had been chiselled on the backs of his eyes. A child, in spite of her body's new maturity. He had struck her, knotted his hands in her shift and rent-The memory of her scream was distilled nightmare to him. A moral leper.