For a time, Covenant's awareness of his surroundings was etiolated by memories of Andelain. But then a flutter of colour almost struck his face, snatching his attention to the air over his head. The atmosphere thronged with bugs of all kinds. Butterflies the size of his open hand, with wings like flakes of chiaroscuro, winked and skimmed erratically over the water; huge horseflies whined past him; clusters of gnats swirled like mirages. They marked the air with constant hums and buzzings, like a rumour of distant violence. The sound made him uneasy. Itching skirled down his spine.
Sunder showed no specific anxiety. But Linden's agitation mounted. She seemed inexplicably cold; her teeth chattered until she locked her jaws to stop them. She searched the sky and the riverbanks apprehensively, looking -
The air became harder to breathe, humid and dangerous.
Covenant was momentarily deaf to the swelling hum. But then he heard it-a raw thick growling like the anger of bees.
Bees!
The noise augered through him. He gaped in dumb horror as a swarm dense enough to obscure the sun rose abruptly out of the brush along the River and came snarling toward the raft.
“Heaven and Earth!” Sunder gasped.
Linden thrashed the water, clutched at Covenant. “Raver!” Her voice scaled into a shriek. “Oh, my God!”
Ten: Vale of Crystal
THE presence of the Raver, lurid and tangible, burned through Linden Avery's nerves like a discharge of lightning, stunning her. She could not move. Covenant thrust her behind him, turned to face the onslaught. Her cry drowned as water splashed over her.
Then the swarm hit. Black-yellow bodies as long as her thumb clawed the air, smacked into the River as if they had been driven mad. She felt the Raver all around her-a spirit of ravage and lust threshing viciously among the bees.
Impelled by fear, she dove.
The water under the raft was clear; she saw Sunder diving near her. He gripped his knife and the Sunstone as if he intended to fight the swarm by hand.
Covenant remained on the surface. His legs and body writhed; he must have been swatting wildly at the bees.
At once, her fear changed directions, became fear for him. She lunged toward him, grabbed one ankle, heaved him downward as hard as she could. He sank suddenly in her grasp. Two bees still clung to his face. In a fury of revulsion, she slapped them away. Then she had to go up for air.
Sunder rose nearby. As he moved, he wielded his knife. Blood streamed from his left forearm.
She split the surface, gulped air, and dove again.
The Graveller did not. Through the distortion of the water, she watched red sunfire raging from the orcrest. The swarm concentrated darkly around Sunder. His legs scissored, lifting his shoulders. Power burst from him, igniting the swarm; bees flamed like hot spangles.
An instant later, the attack ended.
Linden broke water again, looked around rapidly. But the Raver was gone. Burnt bodies littered the face of the Mithil.
Sunder hugged the raft, gasping as if the exertion of so much force had ruptured something in his chest.
She ignored him. Her swift scan showed her that Covenant had not regained the surface.
Snatching air into her lungs, she went down for him.
She wrenched herself in circles, searching the water. At first, she could find nothing. Then she spotted him. He was some distance away across the current, struggling upward. His movements were desperate. In spite of the interference of the River, she could see that he was not simply desperate for air.
With all the strength of her limbs, she swam after him.
He reached the surface; but his body went on thrashing as if he were still assailed by bees.
She raised her head into the air near him, surged to his aid.
“Hellfire!” he spat like an ague of fear or agony. Water streamed through his hair and his ragged beard, as if he had been immersed in madness. His hands slapped at his face.
“Covenant!” Linden shouted.
He did not hear her. Wildly, he fought invisible bees, pounded his face. An inchoate cry tore through his throat.
“Sunder!” she panted. “Help me!” Ducking around Covenant, she caught him across the chest, began to drag him toward the bank. The sensation of his convulsions sickened her; but she bit down her nausea, wrestled him through the River.
The Graveller came limping after her, dragging the raft. His mien was tight with pain. A thin smear of blood stained his lips.
Reaching the bank, she dredged Covenant out of the water. Spasms ran through all his muscles, resisting her involuntarily. But his need gave her strength; she stretched him out on the ground, knelt at his side to examine him.
For one horrific moment, her fear returned, threatening to swamp her. She did not want to see what was wrong with him. She had already seen too much; the wrong of the Sunbane had excruciated her nerves so long, so intimately, that she half believed she had lost her mind. But she was a doctor; she had chosen this work for reasons which brooked no excuse of fear or repugnance or incapacity. Setting her self aside, she bent the new dimension of her senses toward Covenant.
Clenchings shook him like bursts of brain-fire. His face contorted around the two bee stings. The marks were bright red and swelling rapidly; but they were not serious. Or they were serious in an entirely different way.
Linden swallowed bile, and probed him more deeply.
His leprosy became obvious to her. It lay in his flesh like a malignant infestation, exigent and dire. But it was quiescent.
Something else raged in him. Baring her senses to it, she suddenly remembered what Sunder had said about the sun of pestilence-and what he had implied about insects. He stood over her. In spite of his pain, he swatted grimly at mosquitoes the size of dragonflies, keeping them off Covenant. She bit her lips in apprehension, looked down at Covenant's right forearm.
His skin around the pale scars left by Marid's fangs and Sunder's poniard was already bloated and dark, as if his arm had suffered a new infusion of venom. The swelling worsened as she gazed at it. It was tight and hot, as dangerous as a fresh snakebite. Again, it gave her a vivid impression of moral wrong, as if the poison were as much spiritual as physical.
Marid's venom had never left Covenant's flesh. She had been disturbed by hints of this in days past, but had failed to grasp its significance. Repulsed by aliantha, the venom had remained latent in him, waiting-Both Marid and the bees had been formed by the Sunbane: both had been driven by Ravers. The bee-stings had triggered this reaction.
That must have been the reason for the swarm's attack, the reason why the Raver had chosen bees to work its will. To produce this relapse.
Covenant gaped back at her sightlessly. His convulsions began to fade as his muscles weakened. He was slipping into shock. For a moment, she glimpsed a structure of truth behind his apparent paranoia, his belief in an Enemy who sought to destroy him. All her instincts rebelled against such a conception. But now for an instant she seemed to see something deliberate in the Sunbane, something intentional and cunning in these attacks on Covenant.
The glimpse reft her of self-trust. She knelt beside him, unable to move or choose. The same dismay which had incapacitated her when she had first seen Joan came upon her.
But then the sounds of pain reached her-the moan of Sunder's wracked breathing. She looked up at him, asking mutely for answers. He must have guessed intuitively the connection between venom and bees. That was why he defied his own hurt to prevent further insect bites. Meeting her sore gaze, he said, “Something in me has torn.” He winced at every word. “It is keen-but I think not perilous. Never have I drawn such power from the Sunstone.” She could feel his pain as a palpable emission; but he had clearly rent some of the ligatures between his ribs, not broken any of the ribs themselves, or damaged anything vital.