“Two days!” Covenant spat to keep himself from groaning. “It's getting worse.”
The First stared at him. Bitterly, he explained that the Sunbane had formerly moved in a cycle of three days. Any shortening of that period meant that its power was increasing. And that meant-But he could not say such things aloud. The hurt of them went too deep. It meant that Sunder and Hollian had failed. Or that the na-Mhoram had found a source of blood as large as his malice. Or that Lord Foul was now confident of victory, and therefore the Clave no longer made any pretence of holding back the Sunbane.
Glowering, the First absorbed Covenant's answer. After a moment, she asked carefully, "May it be that this is but a variation-that the essential period remains unaltered?”
That was possible. He remembered one sun of two days. But when he turned to Linden for her opinion, she was not looking at him. Her band had not come down from her mouth. Her teeth were closed on the knuckle of her index finger, and a drop of blood marked her chin.
“Linden.” He grabbed at her wrist, yanked her hand away.
Her dismay slapped at him. “The sun of pestilence.” Her voice came twisted and harsh from her knotted throat. “Have you forgotten what it's like? We don't have any voure.”
At that, a new fear stung Covenant. Voure was the pungent sap of a certain plant-a sap that warded off the insects which thrived under a red sun. And more: it was also an antidote for the Sunbane-sickness. That pestilential disease could attack through any kind of exposed cut or injury. “HeIIfire,” he breathed. Then snapped, “Get a bandage on that finger!” His arm was healed enough to be safe; but this sun might prove the small marks on her knuckle fatal.
Around him, steam rolled like a miasma. Wherever the light touched the vines and trunks, their bark opened and began to ooze. The steam stank of decomposition.
Nameless insects started to whine like augers through the mounting stench. Suddenly, Covenant caught up with Linden's apprehension. In addition to everything else, she had realized before he did that even a Giant might sicken and fail from breathing too much of that vapour-or from being bitten by too many of those insects.
She had not moved. Her eyes appeared glazed and inward, as if she could not move. Small red beads formed around her knuckle and dropped to the dirt.
Fierce with exasperation and alarm, Covenant snarled at her, “By hell! I said, get a bandage on that finger. And think of something. We're in big trouble.”
She flinched. “No,” she whispered. The delicacy of her features seemed to crumble. “No. You don't understand. You don't feel it. It was never this-I can't remember- “ She swallowed heavily to keep herself from crying out. Then her tone became flat and dead. ”You don't feel it. It's hideous. You can't fight it.”
Wisps of steam passed in front of her face as if she, too, had begun to rot.
Urgently, Covenant grabbed her shoulders, ground his numb fingers into her. “Maybe I can't. But you can. You're the Sun-Sage. What do you think you're here for?”
The Sun-Sage. Elohim had given her that title. For an instant, her gaze became wild; and he feared he had torn the thin fabric of her sanity. But then her eyes focused on him with an emotional impact that made him wince. Abruptly, she was alabaster and adamantine in his grasp. “Let go of me,” she articulated distinctly. "You don't give enough to have the right.”
He pleaded with her mutely, but she did not relent. When he dropped his arms and stepped back, she turned away as if she were dismissing him from her life.
To the First, she said, “Get some green wood. Branches or whatever you can find.” She sounded oddly hard and brittle, not to be touched. “Soak the ends in vitrim and light them. The smoke should give us some protection.”
The First cocked an eyebrow at the tension between Covenant and Linden. But the Giants did not hesitate: they were acquainted with Linden's health-sense. In moments, they had wrenched several boughs the size of brands from nearby trees. Pitchwife muttered mournfully at the idea of using his precious vitrim for such a purpose, but he handed one of his pouches to the First readily enough. Shortly, the four Giants and Cail held flaming branches that guttered and spat with enough smoke to palliate the reek of rot. Outsized flying insects hummed angrily around the area, then shot off in search of other prey.
When the supplies had been repacked, the First turned to Linden for instructions, tacitly recognizing the change which had taken place in the Chosen Covenant was Giantfriend and ring-wielder; but it was Linden's percipience upon which the company depended now for survival.
Without a glance at Covenant, Linden nodded. Then she took Pitchwife's place behind the First and Honninscrave; and the company started moving.
Beclouded with smoke and rot, they struggled on through the wild region. Under the particular corruption of the sun's scarlet aura, vines which had been too hard for the First's sword were now marked with swellings that burst and sores that ran. Fetor and borers took hold of some of the trees, ate out their hearts. Others lost wide strips of bark, exposing bald wood fatally veined with termites. The narcoleptic sweetness of the orchids penetrated the acrid smoke from time to time Covenant felt that tie was labouring through the fruition of what Lord Foul had striven to achieve ten years and three and a half millennia ago-the desecration of all of the Land's health to leprosy. Here the Despiser emerged in the throes of victory. The beauty of Land and Law had been broken. With smoke in his eyes and revulsion in his guts, images of gangrene and pain on all sides Covenant found himself praying for a sun of only two days.
Yet the red sun produced one benefit: the rotting of the wood allowed the First to begin cutting a path once more. The company was able to improve its pace. And finally the juniper wilderness opened into an area of tall, thick grass as corrupt and cloying as a tarpit. The First called a halt for a brief meal and a few swallows of diamondraught.
Covenant needed the liquor, but he could hardly eat. His gaze refused to leave the swelling of Linden's bitten finger.
Sunbane-sickness, he thought miserably. She had suffered from it once before. Sunder and Hollian, who were familiar with such sickness, had believed that she would die. He would never forget the look of her as she had lain helpless in the grip of convulsions as flagrant as his nightmares. Only her health-sense and voure had saved her.
That memory compelled him to risk her ire. More harshly than he intended, he began, “I thought I told you- ”
“And I told you,” she retorted, “to leave me alone. I don't need you to mother me.”
But he faced her squarely, forced her to recognize his concern. After a moment, her belligerence failed. Frowning, she turned her head away. “You don't have to worry about it,” she sighed. “I know what I'm doing. It helps me concentrate.”
“Helps-?” He did not know how to understand her.
“Sunder was right,” she responded. “This is the worst-the sun of pestilence. It sucks at me-or soaks into me-I don't know how to describe it. I become it. It becomes me.” The simple act of putting her plight into words made her shudder. Deliberately, she raised her hand, studied her hurt finger. "The pain. The way it scares me. It helps make the distinction. It keeps me separate.”
Covenant nodded. What else could he do? Her vulnerability had become terrible to him. Huskily, he said, “Don't let it get too bad.” Then he made another attempt to force food down into his knotted stomach.
The rest of the day was atrocious. And the next day was worse. But early in the evening, amid the screaming of numberless cicadas and the piercing frustration of huge, smoke-daunted mosquitoes, the company reached a region of hills where wide boulders still protruded from the surrounding morass of moss and ground-ivy. That proved to be a fortuitous camping-place; for when the sun rose again, it was wreathed in dusty brown.