The burning tree and the campfire shed heat like a benediction. The ground was thick with leaves which formed the softest bed Covenant and his companions had had for days. Sometime after sunset, the tree collapsed, but it fell away from them; after that they were able to rest without concern.
Early in the dawn, Sunder roused Covenant and Linden so that they would have time to break their fast before the sun rose. The Graveller was tense and distracted, anticipating a change in the Sunbane. When they had eaten, they went down to the riverbank and found a stretch of fiat rock where they could stand to await the morning. Through the gaunt and blackened trees, they saw the sun cast its first glance over the horizon.
It appeared baleful, fiery and red; it wore coquelicot like a crown of thorns, and cast a humid heat entirely unlike the fierce intensity of the desert sun. Its corona seemed insidious and detrimental. Linden's eyes flinched at the sight. And Sunder's face was strangely blanched. He made an instinctive warding gesture with both hands. “Sun of pestilence,” he breathed; and his tone winced. “Ah, we have been fortunate. Had this sun come upon us after the desert sun, or the fertile-” The thought died in his throat. “But now, after a sun of rain-” He sighed. “Fortunate, indeed.”
“How so?” asked Covenant. He did not understand the attitude of his companions. His bones yearned for the relief of one clear clean day. “What does this sun do?”
“Do?” Sunder gritted. “What harm does it not? It is the dread and torment of the Land. Still water becomes stagnant. Growing things rot and crumble. All who eat or drink of that which has not been shaded are afflicted with a disease which few survive and none cure. And the insects-!”
“He's right,” Linden whispered with her mouth full of dismay, “Oh, my God.”
“It is the Mithil River which makes us fortunate, for it will not stagnate. Until another desert sun, it will continue to flow from its springs, and from the rain. And it will ward us in other ways also.” The reflected red in Sunder's eyes made him look like a cornered animal. “Yet I cannot behold such a sun without faintheartedness. My people hide in their homes at such a time and pray for a sun of two days. I ache to be hidden also. I am homeless and small against the wideness of the world, and in all the Land I fear a sun of pestilence more than any other thing.”
Sunder's frank apprehension affected Covenant like guilt. To answer it, he said, “You're also the only reason we're still alive.”
“Yes,” the Graveller responded as if he were listening to his own thoughts rather than to Covenant.
“Yes!” Covenant snapped. “And someday every Stonedown is going to know that this Sunbane is not the only way to live. When that day comes, you're going to be just about the only person in the Land who can teach them anything.”
Sunder was silent for a time. Then he asked distantly, “What will I teach them?”
“To remake the Land.” Deliberately, Covenant included Linden in his passion. “It used to be a place of such health and loveliness-if you saw it, it would break your heart.” His voice gave off gleams of rage and love. “That can be true again.” He glared at his companions, daring them to doubt him.
Linden covered her gaze; but Sunder turned and met Covenant's ire. “Your words have no meaning. No man or woman can remake the Land. It is in the hands of the Sunbane, for good or ill. Yet this I say to you,” he grated when Covenant began to protest. “Make the attempt.” Abruptly, he lowered his eyes. “I can no longer bear to believe that Nassic my father was a mere witless fool.” Retrieving his sack of melons, he went brusquely and tied it to the centre of the raft.
“I hear you,” Covenant muttered. He felt an unexpected desire for violence. “I hear you.”
Linden touched his arm. “Come on.” She did not meet his glance. “It's going to be dangerous here.”
He followed mutely as she and Sunder launched the raft.
Soon they were out in the centre of the Mithil, riding the current under a red-wreathed sun and a cerulean sky. The warmer air made the water almost pleasant; and the pace of the River had slowed during the night, easing the management of the raft. Yet the sun's aurora nagged at Covenant. Even to his superficial sight, it looked like a secret threat, mendacious and bloodthirsty. Because of it, the warm sunlight and clear sky seemed like concealment for an ambush.
His companions shared his trepidation. Sunder swam with a dogged wariness, as if he expected an attack at any moment. And Linden's manner betrayed an innominate anxiety more acute than anything she had shown since the first day of the fertile sun.
But nothing occurred to justify this vague dread. The morning passed easily as the water lost its chill. The air filled with flies, gnats, midges, like motes of vehemence in the red-tinged light; but such things did not prevent the companions from stopping whenever they saw aliantha. Slowly, Covenant began to relax. Noon had passed before he noticed that the River was becoming rougher.
During the days of rain, the Mithil had turned directly northward; and now it grew unexpectedly broader, more troubled. Soon, he descried what was happening. The raft was moving rapidly toward the confluence of the Mithil and another river.
Their speed left the companions no time for choice. Sunder shouted, “Hold!” Linden thrust her hair away from her face, tightened her grip. Covenant jammed his numb fingers in among the branches of the raft. Then the Mithil swept them spinning and tumbling into the turbulent centre of the confluence.
The raft plunged end over end. Covenant felt himself yanked through the turmoil, and fought to hold his breath. But almost at once the current rushed the raft in another direction. Gasping for air, he shook water from his eyes and saw that now they were travelling north-eastward.
For more than a league, the raft seemed to hurtle down the watercourse. But finally the new stream eased somewhat between its banks. Covenant started to catch his breath.
“What was that?” Linden panted.
Covenant searched his memory. “Must have been the Black River.” From Garroting Deep. And from Melenkurion Skyweir, where Elena had broken the Law of Death to summon Kevin Landwaster from his grave, and had died herself as a result. Covenant flinched at the recollection, and at the thought that perhaps none of the Land's ancient forests had survived the Sunbane. Gritting himself, he added, “It separates the South and Centre Plains.”
“Yes,” said the Graveller. “And now we must choose. Revelstone lies north of northwest from us. The Mithil no longer shortens our way.”
Covenant nodded. But the seine of his remembering brought up other things as well. “That's all right. It won't increase the distance.” He knew vividly where the Mithil River would take him. “Anyway, I don't want to walk under this sun.”
Andelain.
He shivered at the suddenness of his hope and anxiety. If aliantha could endure the Sunbane, could not Andelain also preserve itself? Or had the chief gem and glory of the Land already been brought to ruin?
That thought outweighed his urgency to reach Revelstone. He estimated that they were about eighty leagues from Mithil Stonedown. Surely they had outdistanced any immediate pursuit. They could afford this digression.
He noticed that Sunder regarded him strangely. But the Graveller's face showed no desire at all to brave the sun of pestilence afoot. And Linden seemed to have lost the will to care where the River carried them.
By turns, they began trying to get some rest after the strain of the confluence.