The Wounded Land by Stephen R. Donaldson Page B

it doesn’t matter. And if it’s—” She had difficulty saying the words. “If it’s real, it’s not your problem. You can ignore it.”
    Covenant tasted old rage. “Foul laughs at lepers.”
    At that, a glare of comprehension touched her eyes. Her scowlsaid plainly, Nobody has the right to laugh at illness.
    In a tight voice, she asked, “What do we do now?”
    â€œNow?” He was weak with fatigue; but her question galvanized him. She had reasons, strengths, possibilities. The old man had not risked her gratuitously. “Now,” he said grimly, “if I can hold off my vertigo, we get down from here, and go find out what kind of trouble we’re in.”
    â€œDown?” She blinked at him. “I don’t know how we got up.”
    To answer her, he nodded toward the mountains. When she turned, she noticed the gap in the curve of the parapet facing the cliff. He watched as she crawled to the gap, saw what he already knew was there.
    The parapet circled the tip of a long spire of stone which angled toward the cliff under the Watch. There were rude stairs cut into the upper surface of the shaft.
    He joined her. One glance told him that his dizziness would not be easily overcome. Two hundred feet below him, the stairs vanished in the clouds like a fall into darkness.

FIVE: Thunder and Lightning
    â€œI’ll go first.” Covenant was trembling deep in his bones. He did not look at Linden. “This stair joins the cliff—but if we fall, it’s four thousand feet down. I’m no good at heights. If I slip, I don’t want to take you with me.” Deliberately he set himself at the gap, feet first so that he could back through it.
    There he paused, tried to resist the vertigo which unmoored his mind by giving himself a VSE. But the exercise aroused a pang of leper’s anxiety. Under the blue-tinged sun, his skin had a dim purple cast, as if his leprosy had already spread up his arms, affecting the pigmentation, killing the nerves.
    A sudden weakness yearned in his muscles, making his shoulders quiver. The particular numbness of his dead nerves had not altered, for better or worse. But the diseased hue of his flesh looked fatal and prophetic; it struck him like a leap of intuition. One of his questions answered itself. Why was Linden here? Why had the old man spoken to her rather than to him? Because she was necessary. To save the Land when he failed.
    The wild magic is no longer potent
. So much for power. He had already abandoned himself to Lord Foul’s machinations. A groan escaped him before he could lock his teeth on it.
    â€œCovenant?” Concern sharpened Linden’s voice. “Are you all right?”
    He could not reply. The simple fact that she was worried about him, was capable of worrying about him when she was under so much stress, multiplied the dismay in his bones. His eyes clung to the stone, searching for strength.
    â€œCovenant!” Her demand was like a slap in the face. “I don’t know how to help you. Tell me what to do.”
    What to do. None of this was her fault. She deserved an answer. He pulled himself down into the center of his fatigue and dizziness. Had he really doomed himself by taking Joan’s place? Surely he did not have to fail? Surely the power for which he had paid such a price was not so easily discounted? Without raising his head, he gritted, “At the bottom of the stairs, to my left, there’s a ledge in the cliff. Be careful.”
    Coercing himself into motion, he backed through the gap.
    As his head passed below the level of the Watch, he heard her whisper fiercely, “Damn you, why do you have to act so impervious? All I want to do is help.” She sounded as if her sanity depended on her ability to be of help.
    But he could not afford to think about her; the peril of the stairs consumed his attention. He worked his way down them as if they were a ladder,