Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson Read Free Book Online Page B

him, but did not touch him; and soon after the trouble of Foul's passing had ended, he heard the call of faraway birds. He lay still and breathed deeply, drawing new strength into his limbs- grateful for sunshine and the end of nightmare.
Eventually, however, he remembered that there had been several people nearby during his accident in the street. They were strangely silent; the town itself seemed hushed. The police car must have injured him worse than he realized. Leper's anxiety jerked him up onto his hands and knees.
He found himself on a smooth stone slab. It was roughly circular, ten feet broad, and surrounded by a wall three feet high. Above him arched an unbroken expanse of blue sky. It domed him from rim to rim of the wall as if the slab were somehow impossibly afloat in the heavens.
No. His breath turned to sand in his throat. Where-?
Then a panting voice called, “Hail!” He could not locate it; it sounded vague with distance, like a hallucination. “Hail!”
His heart began to tremble. What is this?
“Kevin's Watch! Are you in need?”
What the hell is this?
Abruptly, he heard a scrambling noise behind him. His muscles jumped; he dove to the wall and flipped around, put his back to it.
Opposite him, across a gap of open air beyond the wall, stood a mountain. It rose hugely from cliffs level with his perch to a sun-bright peak still tipped with snow high above him, and its craggy sides- filled nearly half the slab's horizons. His first impression was one of proximity, but an instant later he realized that the cliff was at least a stone's throw away from him.
Facing squarely toward the mountain, there was a gap in the wall. The low, scrambling sound seemed to come from this gap.
He wanted to go across the slab, look for the source of the noise. But his heart was labouring too hard; he could not move. He was afraid of what he might see.
The sound came closer. Before he could react, a girl thrust her head and shoulders up into the gap, braced her arms on the stone. When she caught sight of him, she stopped to return his stare.
Her long full hair- brown with flashes of pale honey scattered through it- blew about her on the breeze; her skin was deeply shaded with tan, and the dark blue fabric of her dress had a pattern of white leaves woven into the shoulders. She was panting and flushed as if she had just finished a long climb, but she met Covenant's gaze with frank wonder and, interest.
She did not look any older than sixteen.
The openness of her scrutiny only tightened his distress. He glared at her as if she were an apparition.
After a moment's hesitation, she panted, “Are you well?” Then her words began to hurry with excitement. “I did not know whether to come myself or to seek help. From the hills, I saw a grey cloud over Kevin's Watch, and within it there seemed to be a battle. I saw you stand and fall. I did not know what to do. Then I thought, better a small help soon than a large help late. So I came.” She stopped herself, then asked again, “Are you well?”
Well?
He had been hit- His hands were only scraped, bruised, as if he had used them to absorb his fall. There was a low ache of impact in his head. But his clothing showed no damage, no sign that he had been struck and sent skidding over the pavement.
He jabbed his chest with numb fingers, jabbed his abdomen and legs, but no sharp pain answered his probing. He seemed essentially uninjured.
But that car must have hit him somewhere.
Well?
He stared at the girl as if the word had no meaning.
Faced with his silence, she gathered her courage and climbed up through the gap to stand before him against the background of the mountain. He saw that she wore a dark blue shift like a long tunic, with a white cord knotted at the waist. On her feet she had sandals which tied around her ankles. She was slim, delicately figured; and her fine eyes were wide with apprehension, uncertainty, eagerness. She took two steps toward him as if he were a figure of peril,