The Wounded Land by Stephen R. Donaldson

that he was four thousand feet above the foothills. But he ignored the imminent reel and panic around him and concentrated on Linden.
    She was stunned, rigid. This leap without transition from night’ in the woods to morning on such an eminence staggered her. He wanted to put his arms around her, hide her face against his chest to protecther; but he knew he could not do so, could not give her the strength to bear things which once had almost shattered him. She had to achieve her own survival. Grimly he turned her to look in the opposite direction.
    The mountains rising dramatically there seemed to strike her a blow. They sprang upward out of the clouds a stone’s throw from the Watch. Their peaks were rugged and dour. From the cliff behind the Watch, they withdrew on both sides like a wedge, piling higher into the distance. But off to the right a spur of the range marched back across the clouds before falling away again.
    Linden gaped at the cliff as if it were about to fall on her. Covenant could feel her ribs straining; she was caught in the predicament of the mad and could not find enough air in all the open sky to enable her to cry out. Fearing that she might break away from him, lose herself over the parapet, he tugged her back down to the safety of the floor. She crumpled to her knees, gagging silently. Her eyes had a terrible glazed and empty look.
    â€œLinden!” Because he did not know what else to do, he barked, “Haven’t you even got the guts to go on living?”
    She gasped, inhaled. Her eyes swept into focus on him like swords leaping from their scabbards. The odd sunlight gave her face an aspect of dark fury.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said thickly. Her reaction made him ache as badly as helplessness. “You were so—” Unwittingly he had trespassed on something which he had no right to touch. “I never wanted this to happen to you.”
    She rejected his regret with a violent shake of her head. “Now,” she panted, “you’re going to tell me the other explanation.”
    He nodded. Slowly he released her, withdrew to sit with his back against the parapet. He did not understand her strange combination of strength and weakness; but at the moment his incomprehension was unimportant. “The inside explanation.”
    A deep weariness ran through him. He fought it for the words he needed. “We’re in a place called the Land. It’s a different world—like being on a completely different planet. These mountains are the Southron Range, the southern edge. All the rest of the Land is west and north and east from us. This place is Kevin’s Watch. Below us, and a bit to the west, there used to be a village called Mithil Stonedown. Revelstone is—” But the thought of Revelstone recalled the Lords; he shied away from it. “I’ve been here before.
    â€œMost of what I can tell you about it won’t make much sense until you see it for yourself. But there’s one thing that’s important right now. The Land has an enemy. Lord Foul.” He studied her, trying to read her response. But her eyes brandished darkness at him, nothing else. “For thousands of years,” he went on, “Foul has been trying to destroy the Land. It’s—sort of a prison for him. He wants to break out.” He groaned inwardly at the impossibility of making what he had to say acceptable to someone who had never had the experience. “He translated us out of our world. Brought us here. He wants us to serve him. He thinks he can manipulate us into helping him destroy the Land.
    â€œWe have power here.” He prayed he was speaking the truth. “Since we come from outside, we aren’t bound by the Law, the natural order that holds everything together. That’s why Foul wants us, wants to use us. We can do things nobody else here can.”
    To spare himself the burden of her incredulity, he leaned his head against