The Wounded Land, Chapter 3, Plight

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danlo
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The Wounded Land, Chapter 3, Plight

Post by danlo »

The Wounded Land, Chapter 3, Plight-submitted by Seafoam Understone:

Covenant uses a lot of rationalization and justification for what he does with Joan. Nobody understands, nobody would. I’m the only one who can do this. Again it’s his cross to bear.

Joan’s subsequent reaction may seem normal for a person riddled with guilt. As TC isn’t the only one. People punish themselves for the things they do all the time. Joan felt guilty of her own failure because she ran out on Covenant. She used the right excuses, protect Roger and all that... but.

When Linden suggest hospitalization on top of Covenants he gets pissed and throws it back into her face and uses the rational that he’s kept since the beginning and showing the cross he bears.
He strove to contain his ire. "Doctors try to cure problems whether they understand them or not. It doesn't always work. This isn't something a doctor can cure."

"Is that a fact?" She did not want to taunt him; but her own compulsions drove her. "Tell me what good you're doing her."

He flinched. Rage and pain struggled in him; but he fought them down. Then he said simply, "She came to me."

"She didn't know what she was doing."

"But I do," His grimness defied her. "I understand it well enough. I'm the only one who can help her."
Also he’s past caring as well, since the “law” didn’t do anything much to help him before.
"What I'm supposed to do is turn her over to the authorities. But I've been living without the benefit of law so long now I don't give a damn."
That shows the long term effects of TC’s past trips to the Land. He seems to have forgotten Troy and believes that he’s still all alone in this. After all it was his dream. To me it’s psychological since folks normally don’t want to have anything to do with lepers he’s all alone. Plus his own ineffectual response to the end of his marriage and his own inner desire to do better next time. He’s the only one who can do it.

He’s seems purposefully avoiding Foul’s part in Joan’s madness. Blaming her need for self-flagellation and probably subconsciously allowing it to appease his own anger at her for leaving him when he needed her most.
He sighed. "She needs to hurt me. She's starving for it-that's what makes her so violent. It's the best way she can think of to punish herself."
The second half of the chapter to me plays out like a bad Satanic movie. Abduction of Joan, the symbol of a bloody triangle on the house and then a minion coming to call and escort Covenant to his doom. LA playing the part of the investigating detective and watching the house and seeing the surreal events being played out. Covenant going willingly and then the Coven (pun) gathered around the Bane fire and offering themselves to it so that Foul can appear. The sacrificial knife. The mad zeal of the coven’s leader to ensure that it’s done. Wonder what Foul had to offer him.

Which brings a question to mind that it’s apparent that Foul has the capability to interact with other people besides Covenant in the “real world”. So the AoT must definitely span from the Land to here. If that is so then Covenant is *not* having a dream and the Land must be some sort of parallel universe (??).

Linden just about goes nuts at watching another apparent suicide take place. Ergo she moves and takes action. No longer a child, helpless and ineffective. Yet rational she knows she’s vastly outnumbered and out-matched by the leader of the group.

She seems to be hung up on the smile Covenant offers Joan. A smile of love? Seems no one has ever smiled at her like that and she hungers for it. Much in the way she hungers for power.
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Shortly after noon, while she was still at work, he came out of his bedroom. He moved groggily, his gait blurred with sleep. He peered at her across the room as if he were summoning anger; but his voice held nothing except resignation. "You can't help her now. You might as well go home."

She stood up to face him. "I want to help you."

"I can handle it."

Linden swallowed bile, tried not to sound acerbic. "Somehow, you don't look that tough. You couldn't stop them from taking her. How are you going to make them give her back?"

His eyes widened; her guess had struck home. But he did not waver. He seemed almost inhumanly calm-or doomed. "They don't want her. She's just a way for them to get at me."

"You?" Was he paranoiac after all? "Are you trying to tell me that this whole thing happened to her because of you? Why?"

"I haven't found that out yet."

"No. I mean, why do you think this has anything to do with you? If they wanted you, why didn't they just take you? You couldn't have stopped them."

"Because it has to be voluntary." His voice had the fiat timbre of over-stressed cable in a high wind. He should have snapped long ago. But he did not sound like a man who snapped. "He can't just force me. I have to choose to do it. Joan -- " A surge of darkness occluded his eyes. "She's just his way of exerting pressure. He has to take the chance that I might refuse."

He. Linden's breathing came heavily. "You keep saying he, Who is he?

His frown made his face seem even more malformed. "Leave it alone." He was trying to warn her. "You don't believe in possession. How can I make you believe in possessors?"

She took his warning, but not in the way he intended. Hints of purpose-half guesswork, half determination-unexpectedly lit her thoughts. A way to learn the truth. He had said, You're going to have to find some way to do it behind my back. Well, by God, if that was what she had to do, she would do it.

"All right," she said, glaring at him to conceal her intentions. "I can't make you make sense. Just tell me one thing. Who was that old man? You knew him."

Covenant returned her stare as if he did not mean to answer. But then he relented stiffly. "A harbinger. Or a warning. When he shows up, you've only got two choices. Give up everything you ever understood, and take your chances. Or run for your life. The problem is" -- his tone took on a peculiar resonance, as if he were trying to say more than he could put into words, -- "he doesn't usually waste his time talking to the kind of people who run away. And you can't possibly know what you're getting into."

She winced inwardly, fearing that he had guessed her intent. But she held herself firm. "Why don't you tell me?"

"I can't." His intensity was gone, transformed back into resignation. "It's like signing a blank check. That kind of trust, fool-hardiness, wealth, whatever, doesn't mean anything if you know how much the check is going to be for. You either sign or you don't. How much do you think you can afford?"

"Well, in any case" -- she shrugged -- "I don't plan to sign any blank checks. I've done about all I can stand to clean up this place. I'm going home." She could not meet his scrutiny. "Dr. Berenford wants you to eat. Are you going to do it, or do I have to send him back out here?"

He did not answer her question. "Goodbye, Dr. Avery."

"Oh, dear God," she protested in a sudden rush of dismay at his loneliness. "I'm probably going to spend the rest of the day worrying about you. At least call me Linden."

"Linden." His voice denied all emotion. "I can handle it."

"I know," she murmured, half to herself. She went out into the thick afternoon. I'm the one who needs help.
Two very important things are revealed in this exchange.

1. Covenant knows he has to sacrifice himself to Foul to free Joan.

2. Covenant knows that the Creator chose Linden, and he realizes that she is not going to "run away." Even tho he wants her too.

And we have soooooo much foreshadowing here... the sacrifice, Linden't disbelief of possessors and possession, the blood...
The lurching of her heart almost daunted her. But she resisted it. Carefully, she raised her head to the window just as a fist hammered at the door.

Covenant flinched at the sound. Dread knurled his face.

The sight of his reaction stung Linden. He was such a potent individual, seemed to have so many strengths which she lacked. How had he been brought to this?

But an instant later he crushed his fear as if he were stamping on the neck of a viper. Defying his own weakness, he strode toward the door.

It opened before he reached it. A lone man stepped uninvited out of the dark. Linden could see him clearly. He wore burlap wound around him like cerements. Ash had been rubbed unevenly into his hair, smeared thickly over his cheeks. It emphasized the deadness of his eyes, so that he looked like a ghoul in masque.

"Covenant?" Like his mien, his voice was ashen, dead.

Covenant faced the man. He seemed suddenly taller, as if he were elevated by his own hard grasp on life. "Yes."

"Thomas Covenant?"

The writer nodded impatiently. "What do you want?"

"The hour of judgment is at hand." The man stared into the room as if he were blind. "The Master calls for your soul. Will you come?"

Covenant's mouth twisted into a snarl. "Your master knows what I can do to him."

The man did not react. He went on as if his speech had already been arrayed for burial. "The woman will be sacrificed at the rising of the full moon. Expiation must be made for sin. She will pay if you do not. This is the commandment of the Master of life and death. Will you come?"

Sacrificed? Linden gaped. Expiation? A flush of indignation burned her skin. What the hell -- ?

Covenant's shoulders knotted. His eyes flamed with extreme promises, threats. "I'll come."
Whew, powerful stuff that. "Your master knows what I can do to him." Already he is resolved to do what must be done. Covenant is no longer an "Unbeliever" He's ready to accept what he must.
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.

"Stop!"

Covenant's shout scourged the air.

"You've done enough! Let her go!"

The baleful eyes in the fire swung at him, nailed him with denigration. The worshipper at Joan's throat stared whitely upward. "Release her?" he croaked. "Why?"

"Because you don't have to do this!" Anger and supplication thickened Covenant's tone. "I don't know how you were driven to this. I don't know what went wrong with your life. But you don't have to do it."

The man did not blink; the eyes in the fire clenched him. Deliberately, he knotted his free hand in Joan's hair.

"All right!" Covenant barked immediately. "All right. I accept. I'll trade you. Me for her."

"No." Linden strove to shout aloud, but her cry was barely a whisper. "No"

The worshippers were as silent as gravestones.

Slowly, the man with the knife rose to his feet. He alone seemed to have the capacity to feel triumph; he was grinning ferally as he said, "It is as the Master promised."

He stepped back. At the same time, a quiver ran through Joan. She raised her head, gaped around her. Her face was free of possession. Moving awkwardly, she climbed to her feet. Bewildered and afraid, she searched for an escape, for anything she could understand.

She saw Covenant.

"Tom!" Springing from the rock, she fled toward him and threw herself into his arms.

He hugged her, strained his arms around her as if he could not bear to lose her. But then, roughly, he pushed her away. "Go home," he ordered. "It's over. You'll be safe now." He faced her in the right direction, urged her into motion.

She stopped and looked at him, imploring him to go with her.

"Don't worry about me." A difficult tenderness softened his tone. "You're safe now-that's the important thing. I'll be all right." Somehow, he managed to smile. His eyes betrayed his pain. The light from the fire cast shadows of self-defiance across his bruised mien. And yet his smile expressed so much valor and rue that the sight of it tore Linden's heart.
Breathtaking. I remember thinking the very first time I read this. "He's changed so much. Wow. He smiled for her..."
Suicide. Linden's father had killed himself. Her mother had begged for death. Her revulsion toward such things was a compelling obsession.

But Thomas Covenant had chosen to die. And he had smiled.

For Joan's sake.

Linden had never seen one person do so much for another.

She could not endure it. She already had too much blood on her hands. Dashing the tears from her eyes, she looked up.

Covenant moved among the people as if he were beyond hope. The man with the knife guided him into the triangle of blood. The carious eyes in the fire blazed avidly.

It was too much. With a passionate wrench, Linden broke the hold of her dismay, jumped upright.

"Over here!" she yelled. "Police! Hurry! They're over here!" She flailed her arms as if she were signaling to people behind her.

The eyes of the fire whipped at her, hit her with withering force. In that instant, she felt completely vulnerable, felt all her secrets exposed and devoured. But she ignored the eyes. She sped downward, daring the worshippers to believe she was alone.

Covenant whirled in the triangle. Every line of his stance howled, No!

People cried out. Her charge seemed to shatter the trance of the fire. The worshippers were thrown into confusion. They fled in all directions, scattered as if she had unpent a vast pressure of repugnance. For an instant, she was wild with hope.

But the man with the knife did not flee. The rage of the bonfire exalted him. He slapped his arms around Covenant, threw him to the stone, kicked him so that he lay flat.

The knife -- ! Covenant was too stunned to move.

Linden hurled herself at the man, grappled for his arms. He was slick with ashes, and strong. She lost her grip.

Covenant struggled to roll over. Swiftly, the man stooped to him, pinned him with one hand, raised the knife in the other.

Linden attacked again, blocked the knife. Her fingernails gouged the man's face.

Yowling, he dealt her a blow which stretched her on the rock.

Everything reeled. Darkness spun at her from all sides.

She saw the knife flash.

Then the eyes of the fire blazed at her, and she was lost in a yellow triumph that roared like the furnace of the sun.
she was lost in a yellow triumph that roared like the furnace of the sun.
And I believe in you
altho you never asked me too
I will remember you
and what life put you thru.


~fly fly little wing, fly where only angels sing~

~this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you~

...for then I could fly away and be at rest. Sweet rest, Mom. We all love and miss you.

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Post by dlbpharmd »

Whew, powerful stuff that. "Your master knows what I can do to him." Already he is resolved to do what must be done. Covenant is no longer an "Unbeliever" He's ready to accept what he must.
Excellent point, and thus the need to re-title this sequel "The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant," i/o "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever."
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Post by Furls Fire »

Wow! Looks like quoted the whole chapter!! Guess I got a little quote happy everyone...sorry :oops:

And dlbpharmd, I noticed that too about the naming of the 2nd Chrons :)
And I believe in you
altho you never asked me too
I will remember you
and what life put you thru.


~fly fly little wing, fly where only angels sing~

~this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you~

...for then I could fly away and be at rest. Sweet rest, Mom. We all love and miss you.

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JD
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Post by JD »

Don't apologize, thats a powerful intense section, and you emphasized it well.
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Post by Furls Fire »

Thanks JD :oops:
And I believe in you
altho you never asked me too
I will remember you
and what life put you thru.


~fly fly little wing, fly where only angels sing~

~this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you~

...for then I could fly away and be at rest. Sweet rest, Mom. We all love and miss you.

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Post by Foamfollower1013 »

Whenever she needed a break, she went quietly to look at Covenant. His bruises gave his face a misshapen look. His sleep seemed agitated, but he showed no sign of drifting into coma. Occasionally, the movements of his eyes betrayed that he was dreaming. He slept with his mouth open like a silent cry; and once his cheeks were wet with tears. Her heart went out to him as he lay stretched there, disconsolate and vulnerable. He had so little respect for his own mortality.
She stopped and looked at him, imploring him to go with her.

"Don't worry about me." A difficult tenderness softened his tone. "You're safe now - that's the important thing. I'll be all right." Somehow, he managed to smile. His eyes betrayed his pain. The light from the fire cast shadows of self-defiance across his bruised mien. And yet his smile expressed so much valor and rue that the sight of it tore Linden's heart.

Kneeling with her head bowed and hot tears on her cheeks, she sensed rather than saw Joan leave the hollow. She could not bear to watch as Covenant moved down the hillside. I'm the only one who can help her. He was committing a kind of suicide.

Suicide. Linden's father had killed himself. Her mother had begged for death. Her revulsion toward such things was a compelling obsession.

But Thomas Covenant had chosen to die. And he had smiled.

For Joan's sake.

Linden had never seen one person do so much for another.
-------------------

~Foamy~
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Post by Cloudberry »

Something I don't understand after reading this chapter is how Foul could find Joan. She was the perfect tool to get Covenant's ring, but they hadn't met each other for years. Creepy to think that Foul can reach into our world and just posess anyone he chooses...
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Post by Furls Fire »

It took him ten of our years to do it, too. I think Foul, like the Creator, knew and saw all that was going on in "our" world. Knowing that the only way to get Covenant to sacrifice himself to him would be thru something he loved in "our" world, it's not surprising that he found Joan. Joan and Roger were the only ones in Covenant's real world life that he loved. And Joan, was the perfect target. She was mentally ill, despairing, easily possessable by Foul...
And I believe in you
altho you never asked me too
I will remember you
and what life put you thru.


~fly fly little wing, fly where only angels sing~

~this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you~

...for then I could fly away and be at rest. Sweet rest, Mom. We all love and miss you.

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Post by duchess of malfi »

As if her problem really was mental instead of spiritual.
...this about Joan, of course...
One of the things I love about Donaldson as a writer is that he never forgets the spiritual dimension of our lives, our humanity...
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.
...foreshadowings of the fire to come later in this chapter?
Spoiler
or maybe even foreshadowing for what will happen in Runes of the Earth?
She needed to be comforted; but there was no comfort in those grubby walls, in the chipped and peeling floorboards which moaned like victims under her feet. She had accepted that apartment precisely because it offered her no comfort; but the woman who had made that decision was a woman who had never watched herslf buckle under the demands of her profession. Now, for the first time since that moment of murder fifteen years ago, when her hands had accepted the burden of blood, she yearned for solace. She lived in a world where there was no solace.
Spoiler
Here Linden seems as vulnerable to the horrors of her past as poor Joan was...I think that seeing Joan, seeing what has happened to her due to her past acts, seeing how Joan's very humanity has been lost to her guilt, has really shaken up Linden's cold and barren little world...
Sometime during the night, she had given her allegiance to Covenant. She did not understand what was wrong with Joan, or what he thought he could do for about it; but she was attracted to him. That same intransigence which had so infuriated her had also touched her deeply; she was vulnerable to the strange appeal of his anger, his extremity, his paradoxically savage and compassionate determination to stand loyal to his ex-wife.
The day was unnaturally hot; the sunlight hurt her eyes. She felt oddly giddy and detached, as if she were experiencing a hallucination, as she entered the dirt roadway and approached Covenanat's house.
Again, we have this odd foreshadowing when Linden comes to the house...things are obviously a bit unworldly here...
Linden did not respond. She was no longer prepared to try to prevent Thomas Covenant from doing anything. But she was equally determined to learn the truth about Joan, about him - and, yes, about the old man in the ochre robe. For her own sake. And for Covenant's. In spite of his fierce independence, she could not shake the conviction that he was desperately in need of help.
Again, we see Linden's underlying compassion...
"My God, some days I think that man needs a keeper, not a doctor." For the first time since her arrival, he faced her squarely. "Will you keep him?"
She could see he wanted reassurance that she shared his sense of responsibility for Covenant and Joan. She could not make such a promise. But she could offer him something similar. "Well, at any rate," she said severely, "I won't let go of him."
He nodded vaguely. He was no longer looking at her. As he moved toward the door, he murmured, "Be patient with him. It's been so long since he met somebody who isn't afraid of him, he doesn't know what to do about it."
Deep within her, where her guilt and coercion had their roots, she felt that blood was life - a thing of value, too precious to be squandered and denied, as her parents had squandered and denied it.
Spoiler
What awesome foreshadowing for life in the Land under the Clave!!!
And as they moved, the night seemed to mount around her, growing steadily more hostile as her trepidation increased. The trees and brush became malevolent, as if she were passing into another wood altogether, a plce of hazard and cruel intent.
Spoiler
another great piece of foreshadowing...
A red quivering ran through the flames like a spasm of desire. The fire seemed to mount as if it fed on the woman's pain.
All of these people were like Joan.
But the fire stopped them, held them. At every taste of flesh, lust flared through it; flames raged higher.
Spoiler
doesn't this seem to be like the banefire in Revelstone, feeding and becoming stronger on blood, just as Foul and the Ravers feed and become stronger on fear and despair?
Across the stillness, she heard Covenant gasp in fury, "Foul! Even children?"
...echoes of Lord Foul's Bane...
The eyes of the fire whipped at her, hit her with withering force. In that instant, she felt completely vulnerable, felt all her secrets exposed and devoured. But she ignored the eyes...
Again, in this instant we see how strong Linden can be...
Love as thou wilt.

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Post by Cord Hurn »

This chapter shows extraordinary heroism from both Covenant and Linden Avery. And that's what I remember the most about it.
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