The Power That Preserves

Thirteen: The Healer

STILL sleep shrouded his sight; at first he saw nothing except the compact, baleful light of the trees. But his ring was in danger from her. He was jealous of his white gold. Sleep or no sleep, he did not mean to give it up. He strove to focus his eyes, strove to come far enough out of hiding to engage her attention.

Then a soft stroke of her hand swept the cobwebs from his eyebrows, and he found that he could see her.

“Lena?” he croaked again.

She was a dusky, loamy woman, with hair like tangled brown grass, and an old face uneven and crude of outline, as if it had been inexpertly moulded in clay. The hood of a tattered fallow-green cloak covered the crown of her head. And her eyes were the brown of soft mud, an unexpected and suggestive brown, as if the silt of some private devotion filled her orbs, effaced her pupils-as if the black, round nexus between her mind and the outside world were something that she had surrendered in exchange for the rare, rich loam of power. Yet there was no. confidence, no surety, in her gaze as she regarded him; the life which had formed her eyes was far behind her. Now she was old, timorous. Her voice rustled like the creaking of antique parchment as she asked, “Lena?”

“Are you still alive?”

“Am I-? No, I am not your Lena. She is dead-if the look of you tells any truth. Mercy.”

Mercy, he echoed soundlessly.

“This is the doing of the amanibhavam. Perhaps you have preserved your life in eating it-but surely you know that it is poison to you, a food too potent for human flesh.”

“Are you still alive?” he repeated with cunning in his throat. Thus he disguised himself, protected that part of him which had come out of hiding and sleep to ward his ring. Only the damaged state of his features kept him from grinning at his own slyness.

“Perhaps not,” she sighed. “But let that pass. You have no knowledge of what you say. You are cold-ill and poison-mad- and-and there is a sickness in you that I do not comprehend.”

“Why aren’t you dead?”

She brought her face close to his, and went on: “Listen to me. I know that the hand of confusion is upon you-but listen to me. Hear and hold my words. You have come in some way into Morinmoss Forest. I am-a Healer, an Unfettered One who turned to the work of healing. I will help you-because you are in need, and because the white gold reveals that great matters are afoot in the Land-and because the Forest found its voice to summon me for you, though that also I do not comprehend.”

“I saw him kill you.” The raw croak of Covenant’s voice sounded like horror and grief, but in his depths he hugged himself for glee at his cunning.

She drew back her head but showed no other reaction to what he had said. “I came to this place from-from my life-because the Forest’s unquiet slumber met my own long ache for repose. I am a Healer, and Morinmoss permits me. Yet now it speaks-Great matters, indeed. Ah, mercy. It is in my heart that the Colossus itself-Well, I wander. I have made my home here for many years. I am accustomed to speak only for my own pleasure.”

“I saw.”

“Do you not hear me?”

“He stabbed you with a wooden spike. I saw the blood.”

“Mercy! Is your life so violent then? Well, let that pass also. You do not hear me-you have fallen too far into the amanibhavam. But violent or not I must aid you. It is well that my eyes have not forgotten their work. I see that you are too weak to harm me, whatever your purpose.”

Weak, he echoed to himself. What she said was true; he was too frail even to clench his fist for the protection of his wedding band. “Have you come back to haunt me?” he gasped. “To blame me?”

” Speak if you must,” she said in a rustling tone, “but I cannot listen. I must be about my work.” With a low groan, she climbed to her feet and moved stiffly away from him.

“That’s it,” he continued, impelled by his grotesque inner glee. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’ve come back to torture me. You’re not satisfied that I killed him. I put that knife all the way into his heart but you’re not satisfied. You want to hurt me some more. You want me to go crazy thinking about all the things I’m guilty of. I did Foul’s work for him, and you came to torture me for it. You and your blood! Where were you when it would have made a difference what happens to me? Why didn’t you try to get even with me after I raped you? Why wait until now? If you’d made me pay for what I did then, maybe I would have figured out what’s going on before this. All that generosity-! It was cruel. Oh, Lena! I didn’t even understand what I’d done to you until it was too late, too late, I couldn’t help myself. What are you waiting for? Torture me! I need pain!”

“You need food,” the Healer muttered as if he had disgusted her. With one hand she fixed his jaw in an odd compelling grip while the other placed two or three treasure-berries in his mouth. “Swallow the seeds. They, too, will sustain you.”

He wanted to spit out the aliantha, but her grip made him chew in spite of himself. Her other hand stroked his throat until he swallowed, then fed him more of the berries. Soon she had coerced him to eat several mouthfuls. He could feel sustenance flowing into him, yet for some reason it seemed to feed his deep slumber rather than his cunning. Before long he could not remember what he had been saying. An involuntary drowsiness shone into him from the trees. He was unable to resist or comply when the Healer lifted him from the grass.

Grunting at the strain, she raised his limp form until he was half erect in her arms. Then she leaned him against her back with his arms over her shoulders, and gripped his upper arms like the handles of a burden. His feet dragged behind him; he dangled on her squat shoulders. But she bore his weight, carried him like a dead sack into the pale white night of Morinmoss.

While he drowsed, she took him laboriously farther and farther into the secret depths of the Forest. And as they left its borders behind, they passed into warmer air and greater health-a region where spring had not been quenched by Lord Foul’s winter. Leaves multiplied and spread out around bird nests to cloak the branches; moss and grass and small woodland animals increased among the trees. A defying spirit was abroad in this place-resisting cold, nourishing growth, affirming Morinmoss’s natural impulse toward buds and new sap and arousal. It was as if the ancient Forestals had returned, bringing with them the wood’s old knowledge of itself.

Yet even in its secret heart Morinmoss was not impervious to the Despiser’s fell influence. Temperatures rose above the freezing point, but failed to climb any higher. The leaves had no spring profusion; they grew thinly, in dark bitter greens rather than in hale verdancy. The animals wore their winter coats over bones that were too gaunt for true spring. If a Forestal had indeed returned to Morinmoss, he lacked the potency of his olden predecessors.

No, it was more likely that the monolithic Colossus of the Fall had shrugged off its brooding slumber to take a hand in the defences of the Forest. And it was more likely still that Caerroil Wildwood was reaching out from his fastness in Garroting Deep, doing what he could across the distance to preserve old Morinmoss.

Nevertheless, this lessening of winter was a great boon to the trees, and to the denizens of the Forest. It kept alive many things which might have been among the first to die when Lord Foul interdicted spring. For that reason among others, the Unfettered Healer trudged onward with Covenant on her back. The defying spirit had not only tolerated both her and him; it had summoned her to him. She could not refuse. Though she was old, and found Covenant painfully heavy, she sustained herself by sucking moisture from the moss, and plodded under him toward her home among the secrets of the Forest.

The tree shine had lapsed into dim grey dawn before her journey ended at a low cave in the bank of a hill. Thrusting aside the moss which curtained its small entrance, she stooped and dragged Covenant behind her into the modest single chamber of her dwelling.

The cave was not large. It was barely deep enough for her to stand erect in its centre, and its oval floor was no more than fifteen feet wide. But it was a cosy home for one person. It had comfort enough in the soft loam of its walls and its beds of piled dry leaves. It was warm, protected from the winter. And when other lights were withdrawn, it was lit in ghostly filigree by the tree roots which held its walls and ceiling. In its underground safety, her small cookfire was not a threat to the Forest.

In addition to the low embers which awaited her against one wall, she possessed a pot of graveling. Dropping Covenant wearily on the bed, she opened the graveling and used some of its heat to resurrect her fire. Then she set her stiff old bones on the floor and rested for a long time.

It was nearly midmorning when her fire threatened to die out. Sighing dryly, she roused herself to stoke up a blaze and cook a hot meal for herself. This she ate without a glance at Covenant. He was in no condition for solid food. She cooked and ate to gather strength for herself, because her peculiar power of healing required strength-so much strength that she had exhausted her reserves of courage before reaching middle age, and had left her work to rest in Morinmoss for the remainder of her days. Decades-four or five, she no longer knew-had passed since she had fled; and during that time she had lived in peace and reticence among the seasons of the Forest, believing that the ordeals of her life were over.

Yet now even Morinmoss had bestirred itself to bring her work back to her. She needed strength. She forced herself to eat a large meal, then rested again.

But at last she rallied herself to begin the task. She set her pot of fire-stones on a shelf in the wall so that its warm yellow light fell squarely over Covenant. He was still asleep, and this relieved her; she did not want to face either his mad talk or his resistance. But she was made afraid once again by the extent of his sickness. Something bone-deep had hold of him, something she could not recognize or understand. In its unfamiliarity, it reminded her of old nightmares in which she had terrified herself by attempting to heal the Despiser.

The acute fracture of his ankle she did understand; his cold-bitten and battered hands and feet were within her experience, and she saw that they might even heal themselves, if he were kept warm for a long convalescence; his cheeks and nose and ears, his cracked lips with the odd scar on one side, his uncleanly healed forehead, all did not challenge her. But the damage the amanibhavam had done to his mind was another matter. It made his sleeping eyes bulge so feverishly in their sockets that through their lids she could read every flick and flinch of his wild dreams; it knuckled his forehead in an extreme scowl of rage or pain; it locked his hands into awkward fists, so that even if she had dared to touch his white gold she could not have taken it from him. And his essential sickness was still another matter. She caught glimpses of the way in which it was interwoven with his madness. She dreaded to touch that ill with her power.

To steady herself, she hummed an old song under her breath:

When last comes to last,

I have little power:

I am merely an urn.

I hold the bone-sap of myself,

and watch the marrow burn.

When last comes to last,

I have little strength:

I am only a tool.

I work its work; and in its hands

I am the fool.

When last comes to last,

I have little life.

I am simply a deed:

an action done while courage holds:

a seed.

While she strove to master her faintheartedness, she made preparations. First she cooked a thin broth, using hot water and a dusty powder which she took from a leather pouch among her few belongings. This she fed to Covenant without awakening him. It deepened his respose, made rest and unconsciousness so thick in him that he could not have struggled awake to save his own life. Then, when he was entirely unable to interfere with her, she began to strip off his attire.

Slowly, using her own hesitation to enhance the thoroughness of her preparations, she removed all his raiment and bathed him from head to foot. After cleaning away the cobwebs and grime and old sweat and encrusted blood, she explored him with her hands, probed him gently to assure herself that she knew the full extent of his hurts. The process took time, but it was done too soon for her unready courage.

Still hesitating, she unwrapped from her belongings one of her few prized possessions-a long, cunningly woven white robe, made of a fabric both light and tough, easy to wear and full of warmth. It had been given to her decades ago by a great weaver from Soaring Woodhelven, whose life she had saved at severe cost to herself. The memory of his gratitude was precious to her, and she held the robe for a long time in hands that trembled agedly. But she was old now, old and alone; she had no need of finery. Her tattered cloak would serve her well enough as either apparel or cerement. With an expansive look in her loamy eyes, she took the robe to Covenant and dressed him tenderly in it.

The effort of moving his limp form shortened her breathing, and she rested again, muttering out of old habit, “Ah, mercy, mercy. This is work for the young-for the young. I rest and rest, but I do not become young. Well, let that pass. I did not come to Morinmoss in search of youth. I came because I had lost heart for my work. Have I not found it again-in all this time? Ah, but time is no Healer. The body grows old-and now cruel winter enslaves the world-and the heart does not renew itself. Mercy, mercy. Courage belongs to the young, and I am old-old.

“Yet surely great matters are afoot-great and terrible. White gold! — by the Seven! White gold. And this winter is the Despiser’s doing, though Morinmoss resists. Ah, there are terrible purposes-The burden of this man was put upon me by a terrible purpose. I cannot-I must not refuse. Must not! Ah, mercy, but I am afraid. I am old-I have no need to fear-no, I do not fear death. But the pain. The pain. Have mercy-have mercy upon me, I lack the courage for this work.”

Yet Covenant lay on her bed like an irrefusable demand moulded of broken bone and blood and mind, and after she had dozed briefly, she came back to herself. “Well, that too I must set aside. Complaint also is no Healer. I must set it aside, and work my work.”

Stiffly, she got to her feet, went to the far end of the cave to her supplies of firewood. Even now, she hoped in her heart that she would find she did not have enough wood; then she would need to hunt through the Forest for fallen dead branches and twigs before she could begin her main task. But her woodpile was large enough. She could not pretend that it justified any further delay. She carried most of the wood to her cookfire and faced the commencement of her ordeal.

First she took her graveling pot from the shelf above Covenant and made a place for it in the centre of the fire, so that its heat and light were added to the core of the coals. Then, panting already at the thought of what she meant to do, she began to build up the fire. She stoked it, concentrated it with dry hard wood, until its flames mounted toward the cave’s ceiling and its heat drew sweat from her old brows. And when the low roar of its blaze sucked at the air, causing the moss curtains over the entrance to flutter in the draft, she returned to the pouch of powder from which she had made the broth. With her fist clenched in the pouch, she hesitated once more, faltering as if the next step constituted an irretrievable commitment. “Ah, mercy,” she breathed brittlely to herself. “I must remember-remember that I am alone. No one else will tend him-or me. I must do the work of two. For this reason eremites do not Heal. I must do the work.”

Panting in dismay at her own audacity, she threw a small quantity of the powder into the high fire.

At once, the blaze began to change. The flames did not die down, but they muted themselves, translated their energy into a less visible form. Their light turned from orange and red and yellow to brown, a steadily deepening brown, as if they sprang now from thick loam rather than from wood. And as the brightness of the fire dimmed, a rich aroma spread into the cave. It tasted to the Healer like the breaking of fresh earth so that seeds could be planted-like the lively imminence of seeds and buds and spring-like the fructifying of green things which had germinated in wealthy soil. She could have lost herself in that brown fragrance, forgetful of Lord Foul’s winter and the sick man and all pain. But it was part of her work. Through her love for it, it impelled her to Covenant’s side. There she planted her feet and took one last moment to be sure of what she meant to do.

His hands and feet and face she would not touch. They were not crucial to his recovery, not worth what they would cost her. And the sickness in his mind was too complex and multifarious to undertake until he was physically whole enough to bear the strain of healing. So she bent her loamy gaze toward his broken ankle.

As she concentrated on that injury, the light of the fire became browner, richer, more potent and explicit, until it shone like the radiance of her eyes between her face and his ankle. The rest of the cave fell into gloom; soon only the link of sight between her attention and his pain retained illumination. It stretched between them, binding them together, gradually uniting their opposed pieces of need and power. Amid the heat and fragrancy of the fire, they became like one being, annealed of isolation, complete.

Blindly, tremulously, as if she were no longer aware of herself, she placed her hands on his ankle, explored it with her touch until she unconsciously knew the precise angle and acuteness of its fracture. Then she withdrew.

Her power subsumed her, made her independent flesh seem transient, devoid of significance; she became an involuntary vessel for her work, anchor and source of the bond which made her one with his wound.

When the bond grew strong enough, she retreated from him. Without volition or awareness, she stopped and picked up the smooth heavy stone which she used as a pestle; without volition or awareness, she held it like a weighty gift in both hands, offering it to Covenant. Then she raised it high over her head.

She blinked, and the brown link of oneness trembled.

With all her strength, she swung the stone down, slammed it against her own ankle.

The bones broke like dry wood.

Pain shot through her-pain like the splintering of souls, hers and his. She shrieked once and crumbled to the floor in a swoon.

Then time passed for her in a long agony that shut and sealed every other door of her mind. She lay on the floor while the fire died into dim embers, and the aroma of spring turned to dust in the air, and the ghostly fibres’ of the roots shone and waned. Nothing existed for her except the searing instant in which she had matched Covenant’s pain-the instant in which she had taken all their pain, his and hers, upon herself. Night passed and came again; still she lay crumbled. Her breathing gasped hoarsely between her flaccid lips, and her heart fluttered along the verges of extinction. If she could have regained consciousness long enough to choose to die, she would have done so gladly, eagerly. But the pain sealed her within herself and had its way with her until it became all she knew of life or death.

Yet at last she found herself thinking that it had never been this bad when she was younger. The old power had not altogether failed her, but her ordeals at their worst had never been like this. Her body was wracked with thirst and hunger. And this, too, was not as it had ever been before. Where were the people who should have watched over her-who should have at least given her water so that she did not die of thirst before the agony passed? Where were the family or friends who brought the ill and injured to her, and who gladly did all they could to aid the healing?

In time, such questions led her to remember that she was alone, that she and the sick man were both untended. He, too, had been without food or water during the whole course of her ordeal; and even if her power had not failed, he was in no condition to endure such privation. He might be dead in spite of what she had survived for him.

With an effort that made her old body tremble exhaustedly, she raised herself from the floor.

On her hands and knees she rested, panting heavily. She needed to gather the feeble remnant of herself before she faced the sick man. Miserable tasks awaited her if he were dead. She would have to struggle through the Despiser’s winter to take that white gold ring to the Lords of Revelstone. And she would have to live with the fact that her agony had been the agony of failure. Such possibilities daunted her.

Yet she knew that even this delay might make the difference, might prove fatal. Groaning, she tried to stand up.

Before she could get her legs under her, movement staggered toward her from the bed. A foot kicked her to the floor again. The sick man lumbered past her and thrashed through the curtain of moss while she sprawled on the packed earth.

The surprise of the blow hurt her more than the kick itself; the man was far too weak to do her any real harm. And his violence rekindled some of her energy. Panting blunt curses to herself, she stumbled stiffly upright and limped out of the cave after him.

She caught up with him within twenty feet of the cave’s mouth. The gleaming pale gaze of the tree trunks had stopped his flight. He reeled with fear whimpering in his throat, as if the trees were savage beasts crouched and waiting for him.

“You are ill,” the Healer muttered wearily. “Understand that if you understand nothing else. Return to the bed.”

He veered around to face her. “You’re trying to kill me.”

“I am a Healer. I do not kill.”

“You hate lepers, and you’re trying to kill me.” His eyes bulged insanely in his haggard face. “You don’t even exist.”

She could see that inanition had only aggravated his amanibhavam confusion and his inexplicable sickness; they had become so dominant that she could no longer tell them apart. And she was too weak to placate him; she had no strength to waste on words or gentleness which would not reach him. Instead, she simply stepped close to him and jabbed her rigid fingers into his stomach.

While he fell gagging to the grass, she made her way to the nearest aliantha.

It was not far from the entrance to her cave, but her fatigue was so extreme that she nearly swooned again before she could pluck and eat a few of the treasure-berries. However, their tangy potency came to her aid as soon as she swallowed them. Her legs steadied. After a moment, she was able to throw the seeds aside and pick more berries.

When she had eaten half the ripe fruit, she picked the rest and took it back to Covenant. He tried to crawl away from her, but she held him down and forced him to eat. Then she went to a large sheet of moss hanging nearby, where she drank deeply of its rich green moisture. This refreshed her, gave her enough strength to wrestle the sick man back into the cave and control him while she put him back to sleep with a pinch of her rare powder.

Under other circumstances, she might have pitied the turgid panic with which he felt himself lapsing into helplessness again. But she was too weary-and too full of dread for the work she had yet to do. She did not know how to console him and made no attempt. When he fell into uneasy slumber, she only muttered “Mercy” over him, and turned away.

She wanted to sleep, too, but she was alone and had to bear the burden of care herself. Groaning at the unwieldiness of her old joints, she built another fire from the graveling and started a meal for herself and the sick man.

While the food heated, she inspected his ankle. She nodded dully when she saw that it was as whole as her own. Already his pale scars were fading. Soon his bones would be as well and sturdy as if they had never been fractured. Looking at the evidence of her power, she wished that she could take pleasure in it. But she had lost decades ago her capacity to be pleased by the results of her anguish. She knew with certainty that if she had comprehended when she was young what her decisions would cost, she would never have taken the Rites of Unfettering, never have surrendered to the secret power yearning for birth within her.

But power was not so easily evaded. Costs could not be known until they came to full fruition, and by that time the power no longer served the wielder. Then the wielder was the servant. No escape, no peace or reticence, could then evade the expense, and she could take no pleasure in healing. With the work she had yet to do lying stricken before her, she had no more satisfaction than choice.

Yet as she resumed her cooking, she turned her back on regret. “Let it pass,” she murmured dimly. “Let it pass. Only let it be done purely-without failure.” At least the work which remained would be a different pain altogether.

When the food was ready, she fed herself and Covenant, then gave him more of the soporific broth, so that he would not arise to strike her again. Then she banked her cookfire, pulled her tattered cloak tightly around her, and went agedly to sleep leaning against the pile of leaves that had been her bed.

In the days that followed, she rested, tended Covenant’s madness, and tried to remember courage. His need made her heart quail in her old bosom. Even in his slumber she could see that his mind was being eaten away by its ingrown torments. As his body regained its strength, her potions slowly lost their ability to control the restlessness of his dream-ridden sleep. He began to flail his arms and jabber deliriously, like a man snared in the skein of a nightmare. At unexpected moments, his ring gave out white gleams of passion; and when by chance the Healer saw them squarely, they seemed to pierce her like a voice of misery, beseeching her to her work.

The Forest itself echoed his distress. Its mood bent in toward her like a demand, a compulsion as unmistakable as the summons which had called her to him in the beginning. She did not know why Morinmoss cared; she only felt its caring brush her cheek like the palm of authority, warning her. He needed to be healed. If it were not done in time, the essential fabric of his being would rot beyond all restitution.

At last she became aware of time; she felt in the brightness of the tree shine that somewhere behind the impenetrable clouds moved a dark moon, readying itself for a new phase of the Despiser’s power. She forced herself to unclench her hesitations, one by one, and to face her work again.

Then she built her high blaze for the second time and made ready her rare powder. While the hard wood took fire, she set both water and food on the shelf above Covenant so that if he regained consciousness before she did, he would not have to search for what he needed. A fatal mood was on her, and she did not believe she would survive. “Mercy,” she muttered as the fire mounted, “mercy.” She uttered the word as if she were seeking a benediction for herself.

Soon the flames filled her cave with light and heat, flushing the withered skin of her cheeks. The time had come; she could feel the power limping in her like a sere lover, oddly frail and masterful, yearning for its chance to rise up once more and take her-yearning, and yet strangely inadequate, old, as if it could no longer match what it remembered of its desires. For a moment, her blood deserted her; weakness filled all her muscles, so that the leather pouch fell from her fingers. But then she stooped to regain it, thrust her trembling hand into it, threw its dust into the fire as if that gesture were her last, best approximation of courage.

As the potent aroma of the dust spread its arms, took all the air of the cave into its embrace, began its slow transubstantiation of the firelight, she stood near Covenant’s head and locked her quavering knees. Staring brownly at his forehead while the heat and illumination of the blaze came into consonance with her attention, she passed beyond the verges of volition and became once more the vessel of her power. Around her the cave grew dim as the rich, loamy light of the bond wove itself between her pupilless orbs and his sick, mad mind. And before her Covenant tensed, stiffened-eyes staring gauntly, neck corded, knuckles white-as if her power clutched his very soul with fear.

Trembling, she reached out her hands, placed her palms flat against the gathered thunder of his forehead.

The next instant, she recoiled as if he had scalded her. “No!” she cried. Horror flooded her, she foundered in it. ” You ask too much!” Deep within her, she fought to regain her self-command, fought to thrust down the power, deny it, return to herself so that she would not be destroyed. “I cannot heal this!” But the man’s madness came upon her as if he had reached out and caught her wrists. Wailing helplessly, she returned to him, replaced her palms on his forehead.

The terror of it rushed into her, filled her until it burst between her lips like a shriek. Yet she could not withdraw. His madness pounded through her as she sank into it, trying not to see what lay at its root. And when at last it made her see, forced her to behold itself, the leering disease of its source, she knew that she was ruined. She wrenched her seared hands from his head and went hunting, scrabbling frantically among her possessions.

Still shrieking, she pounced upon a long stone cooking knife, snatched it up, aimed it at his vulnerable heart.

He lay under the knife like a sacrifice defiled with leprosy.

But before she could stab out his life, consummate his unclean pain in death, a host of glaucous, alien gleams leaped like music into the air around her. They fell on her like dew, clung to her like moist melody, stayed her hand; they confined her power and her anguish, held all things within her until her taut, soundless cry imploded. They contained her until she broke under the strain of things that could not be contained. Then they let her fall.

Gleaming like the grief of trees, they sang themselves away.