The Wounded Land by Stephen R. Donaldson Read Free Book Online Page B

Like the care with which he moved, it was part of the discipline he needed to keep his illness arrested. Because of the damage leprosy had done to his nerves, the largest single threat to his health was the possibility that he might bump, burn, scrape, cut, or bruise himself without realizing it. Then infection would set in because the wound was not tended. So he moved with all the caution he could muster. The furniture in his house was arranged to minimize the risk of protruding corners, obstacles, accidents. And he scanned himself regularly, looking for signs of danger.
    Watching him in this objective, professional way helped restore her sense of who she was. Slowly she became better able to listen to his indirect explanation without impatience.
    He had not paused; he was saying, “First she tried psychology. She wanted to believe it was all in her mind—and minds can be fixed, like broken arms. She started going through psychological fads the way some people trade in cars, a new one every year. As if her problem really was mental instead of spiritual.
    â€œNone of it made sense to her parents, but they tried to be tolerant, just did what they could to give Roger a stable home.
    â€œSo they thought she was finally going to be all right when she suddenly gave that up and went churchy. They believed all along that religion was the answer. Well, it’s good enough for most people, but it didn’t give her what she needed. It was too easy. Her disease was progressing all the time. A year ago, she became a fanatic. Took Roger and went to join a commune. One of those places where people learn the ecstasy of humiliation, and the leader preaches love and mass suicide.
    â€œShe must have been so desperate—For most of her life, the only thing she really wanted to believe was that she was perfectly allright. But after all those years of failure, she didn’t have any defenses left. What did she have to lose?”
    Linden was not wholly convinced. She had no more use for God than for conceptions of good and evil. But Covenant’s passion held her. His eyes were wet with violence and grief; his mouth was as sharp as a blade. He believed what he was saying.
    Her expression must have betrayed some of her doubt; his voice took on an echo of Joan’s ferocity. “You don’t have to believe in God to grasp what she was going through. She was suffering from an affliction for which there’s no mortal cure. She couldn’t even arrest the way it rotted her. Maybe she didn’t know what it was she was trying to cure. She was looking for magic, some power that could reach into her and heal—When you’ve tried all the salves in the world and they don’t work, you start thinking about fire. Burn out the pain. She wanted to punish herself, find some kind of abnegation to match her personal rot.”
    His voice broke; but he controlled it instantly. “I know all about it. But she didn’t have any defenses. She opened the door for him, and he saw she was the perfect tool, and he’s been using her—
using
her, when she’s too damaged to even understand what he’s using her for.”
    Using her? Linden did not comprehend. He?
    Slowly Covenant suppressed his anger. “Of course, her parents didn’t know anything about that. How could they? All they knew was that about six weeks ago she woke them up in the middle of the night and started babbling. She was a prophet, she’d had a vision, the Lord had given her a mission. Woe and retribution to the wicked, death to the sick and the unbelieving. The only sense they could make out of it was that she wanted them to take care of Roger. Then she was gone. They haven’t seen her since.
    â€œAfter a couple weeks, they called me. I hadn’t seen her—that was the first I’d heard about it. But about two weeks ago she showed up here. Sneaked into my room during the night and tried to tear my face off.