Between rising walls of agony, the River ran on toward the east and Mount Thunder after a long south-eastward stretch. Slowly, Linden fell into a strange, bifurcated musing. She held to the First's shoulder, kept her head above water, watched the riverbanks pass, the verdure teem. But on another level she was not aware of such things. Within her, the darkness which had germinated at Gibbon's touch also grew. Fed by the Sunbane, it twined through her and yearned. She remembered now as if she had never forgotten that behind the superficial grief and pain and abhorrence had lurked a secret glee at the act of strangling her mother-a wild joy at the taste of power.
In a detached way, she knew what was happening to her. She had been too long exposed to Lord Foul's corruption. Her command over herself, her sense of who she wanted to be, was fraying.
She giggled harshly to herself-a snapping of mirth like the sound of a Raver. The idea was bitterly amusing. Until now it had been the sheer difficulty and pain of travelling under the Sunbane which had enabled her to remember who she was. The Despiser could have mastered her long ago by simply allowing her to relax.
Fierce humour rose in her throat Fertility seemed to caper along her blood, frothing and chuckling luridly. Her percipience sent out sneaky fingers to touch Covenant's latent fire as if at any moment she would muster the courage to take hold of it for herself.
With an effort of will, she pulled at the First's shoulder. The Giant turned her head, murmured over the wet mutter of the River, “Chosen?”
So that Covenant would not hear her. Linden whispered, “If I start to laugh, hit me. Hold me under until I stop.”
The First returned a glance of piercing incomprehension. Then she nodded.
Somehow, Linden locked her teeth against the madness and did not let it out.
Noon rose above her and passed by. From the truncated perspective of the water-line, she could see only a short distance ahead. The Soulsease appeared to have no future. The world contained nothing except tortured vegetation and despair. She should have been able to heal that. She was a doctor. But she could not. She had no power.
But then without transition the terrain toward which the company was borne changed. Beyond an interdict as precise as a line drawn in the Earth, the wild fertility ended; and a natural woodland began on both sides of the Soulsease.
The shock of it against her senses told her what it was. She had seen it once before, when she had not been ready for it. It rushed into her even from this distance like a distillation of all vitrim and diamondraught, a cure for all darkness.
The First nudged Covenant, nodded ahead. Thrashing his legs, he surged up in the water; and his crow split the air; “Andelain!”
As he fell back, he pounded at the current like a boy, sent sun-glistened streams of spray arcing across the Soulsease.
In silence. Linden breathed, Andelain, Andelain, as if by repeating that name she might cleanse herself enough to enter among the Hills. Hope washed through her in spite of everything she had to fear. Andelain.
Brisk between its banks, the River ran swiftly toward the Forestal's demesne, the last bastion of Law.
As they neared the demarcation. Linden saw it more acutely. Here thronging, tormented brush and bracken, mimosas cracked by their own weight, junipers as grotesque as the dancing of demons, all stopped as if they had met a walclass="underline" there a greensward as lush as springtime and punctuated with peonies like music swept up the graceful hill slopes to the stately poplars and red-fruited elders that crowned the crests. At the boundary of the Forestal's reign, mute hurt gave way to aliantha, and the Sunbane was gone from the pristine sky.
Gratitude and gladness and relief made the world new around her as the Soulsease carried the company out of the Land's brokenness into Andelain.
When she looked behind her, she could no longer see the Sunbane's green aura. The sun shone out of the cerulean heavens with the yellow warmth of loveliness.
Covenant indicated the south bank. The First and Pitchwife turned in that direction, angling across the current Covenant swam with all his strength; and Linden followed. The water had already changed from ordinary free-flowing cleanness to crystal purity, as special and renewing as dew. And when she placed her hands on the grass-rich ground to boost herself out of the River, she received a new thrill, a sensation of vibrancy as keen as the clear air. She had been exposed to the Sunbane for so long that she had forgotten what the Earth's health felt like.
But then she stood on the turf with all her nerves open and realized that what she felt was more than simple health. It was Law quintessenced and personified, a reification of the vitality which made life precious and the Land desirable. It was an avatar of spring, the revel of summer; it was autumn glory and winter peace. The grass under her feet sprang and gleamed, seemed to lift her to a taller stature. The sap in the trees rose like fire, beneficent and alive. Flowers scattered colour everywhere. Every breath and scent and sensation was sapid beyond bearing-and yet they urged her to bear them. Each new exquisite perception led her onward instead of daunting her, carried her out of herself like a current of ecstasy.
Laughter and weeping rose in her together and could not be uttered. This was Andelain, the heart of the Land Covenant loved. He lay on his face in the grass, arms outspread as if to hug the ground; and she knew that the Hills had changed everything. Not in him, but in her. There were many things she did not understand; but this she did: the bale of the Sunbane had no power here. She was free of it here. And the Law which brought such health to life was worth the price any heart was willing to pay.
That affirmation came to her like a clean sunrise. It was the positive conviction for which she had been so much in need. Any price. To preserve the last beauty of the Land. Any price at all.
Pitchwife sat on the grass and stared hungrily up the hillsides, his face wide with astonishment. “I would not have credited- ” he breathed to himself. “Not have believed- ” The First stood behind him, her fingertips resting on his shoulders. Her eyes beamed like the sun flashes dancing on the gay surface of the Soulsease. Vain and Findail had appeared while Linden's back had been turned. The Demondim-spawn betrayed no reaction to Andelain; but Findail's habitual distress had lightened, and he took the crisp air deep into his lungs as if, like Linden, he knew what it meant.
Free of the Sunbane and exalted, she wanted to run-wanted to stretch and bound up the Hills and tumble down them, sport like a child, see everything, taste everything, race her bruised nerves and tired bones as far as they would go into the luxuriant anodyne of this region, the sovereign solace of Andelain's health. She skipped a few steps away from the River, turned to call Covenant after her.
He had risen to his feet, but was not looking at her. And there was no joy in his face.
His attention was fixed on Sunder.
Sunder! Linden groaned, instantly ashamed that she had forgotten him in her personal transport.
He stood on the bank and bugged Hollian upright against his chest, seeing nothing, comprehending no part of the beauty around him. For a time, he did not move. Then some kind of focus came into his eyes, and he stumbled forward. Too weak now to entirely lift the eh-Brand's death heavy form, he half dragged her awkwardly in front of him across the grass.
Ashen with hunger and exhaustion and loss, he bore her to the nearest aliantha. There he laid her down. Under its holly like leaves, the bush was thick with viridian treasure-berries. The Clave had proclaimed them poison; but after Marid had bitten Covenant, aliantha had brought the Unbeliever back from delirium. And that experience had not been lost on Sunder. He picked some of the fruit.