Free The Wounded Land by Stephen R. Donaldson Page B

her where she crouched. All these people were like Joan.
    Then the woman regained her feet and stood as dumbly as if the nerves to her burned hand had been severed. Her gaze returned to Covenant like a compulsion, exerting its demand against him.
    The oldest of her children took her place at the bonfire.
    No! Linden cried, striving uselessly to break the silence.
    The young boy bowed, thrust his emaciated arm into the blaze.
    His wail broke Linden’s will, left her panting in helpless abomination. She could not move, could not look away. Loathings for which she had no name mastered her.
    The boy’s younger sister did what he had done, as if his agony meant nothing to her. And the third waif followed in turn, surrendering her flesh to harm like lifeless tissue animated solely for immolation.
    Then Linden would have moved. The rigid abhorrence of Covenant’s stance showed that he would have moved. But the fire stopped them, held them. At every taste of flesh, lust flared through it; flames raged higher.
    A figure began to take shape in the heart of the blaze.
    More people moved to sacrifice their hands. As they did so, the figure solidified. It was indistinct in the flames; but the glaring red outlined a man in a flowing robe. He stood blood-limned with his arms folded across his powerful chest—created by pain out of fire and self-abandonment.
    The worshipper with the knife sank to his knees, cried out in exaltation, “Master!”
    The figure’s eyes were like fangs, carious and yellow; and they raged venomously out of the flames. Their malignance cowed Linden like a personal assault on her sanity, her conception of life. They were rabid and deliberate, like voluntary disease, fetid corruption. Nothing in all her life had readied her to witness such palpable hate.
    Across the stillness, she heard Covenant gasp in fury, “Foul! Even children?” But his wrath could not penetrate the dread which paralyzed her. For her, the fiery silence was punctuated only by the screaming of the burned.
    Then the moon began to rise opposite her. A rim as white as bone crested the hill, looked down into the hollow like a leer.
    The man with the knife came to his feet. Again he raised his arms, brandished his dagger. His personal transport was approaching its climax. In a shout like a moan, he cried, “Now is the hour of apocalypse! The Master has come! Doom is at hand for those who seek to thwart His will. Now we will witness vengeance against sin and life, we who have watched and waited and suffered in His name. Here we fulfill the vision that was given to us. We have touched the fire, and we have been redeemed!” His voice rose until he was shrieking like the burned. “Now we will bring all wickedness to blood and eternal torment!”
    He’s mad. Linden clung to that thought, fought to think of these people as fanatics, driven wild by destitution and fear. They’re all crazy. This is impossible. But she could not move.
    And Covenant did not move. She yearned for him to do something, break the trance somehow, rescue Joan, save Linden herself from her extremity. But he remained motionless, watching the fire as if he were trapped between savagery and helplessness.
    The figure in the blaze stirred. His eyes focused the flames like twin scars of malice, searing everything with his contempt. His right arm made a gesture as final as a sentence of execution.
    At once, the brawny man dropped to his knees. Bending over Joan, he bared her throat. She lay limp under him, frail and lost. The skin of her neck seemed to gleam in the firelight like a plea for help.
    Trembling as if he were rapturous or terrified, the man set his blade against Joan’s white throat.
    Now the people in the hollow stared emptily at his hands. They appeared to have lost all interest in Covenant. Their silence was appalling. The man’s hands shook.
    â€œStop!”
    Covenant’s shout scourged the