The 1st Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #2: The Illearth War Read Online Free PDF Page B

well out of town.
    The deputy drove to a halt on the beret, and the sheriff let Covenant out. For a moment, they stood together in the night. The sheriff glared at him as if trying to measure his capacity to do harm. Then Lytton said, “Go home. Stay home.” He got back into the car. It made a loud squealing turn and fled back toward town. An instant later, Covenant sprang into the road and cried after the taillights, “Leper outcast unclean!” They looked as red as blood in the darkness.
    His shout did not seem to dent the silence. Before long, he turned back toward Haven Farm, feeling as small as if the few stars in the dense black sky were deriding him.
    He had ten miles to walk.
    The road was deserted. He moved in empty stillness like a hiatus in his surroundings; though he was retreating into open countryside, he could hear no sounds, no night talk of birds or insects. The silence made him feel deaf and alone, vulnerable to the hurrying vultures at his back.
    It was a delusion! He raised his protest like a defiance; but even to his ears, it had the hollow ring of despair, composed equally of defeat and stubbornness. Through it, he could hear the girl shouting Berek! like the siren of a nightmare.
    Then the road went through a stand of trees which cut out the dim light of the stars. He could not feel the pavement with his feet; he was in danger of missing his way, of falling into a ditch or injuring himself against a tree. He tried to keep up his pace, but the risk was too great, and finally he was reduced to waving his arms before him and testing his footing like a blind man. Until he reached the end of the woods, he moved as if he were wandering lost in a dream, damp with sweat, and cold.
    After that, he set a hard pace for himself. He was spurred on by the cries that rushed after him, Berek! Berek! When at last, long miles later, he reached the driveway into Haven Farm, he was almost running,
    In the sanctuary of his house, he turned on all the lights and locked the doors. The organized chastity of his living space surrounded him with its unconsoling dogma. A glance at the kitchen clock told him that the time was just past midnight. A new day, Sunday -a day when other people worshiped. He started some coffee, threw off his jacket, tie, and dress shirt, then carried his steaming cup into the living room. There he took a position on the sofa, adjusted Joan’s picture on the coffee table so that it looked straight at him, and braced himself to weather the crisis.
    He needed an answer. His resources were spent, and he could not go on the way he was.
    Berek!
    The girl’s shout, and the raw applause of her audience, and the trucker’s outrage, reverberated in him like muffled earth tremors. Suicide loomed in all directions. He was trapped between mad delusion and the oppressive weight of his fellow human beings.
    Leper outcast unclean!
    He gripped his shoulders and hugged himself to try to still the gasping of his heart.
    I can’t stand it! Somebody help me!
    Suddenly, the phone rang-cut through him as stridently as a curse. Disjointedly, like a loose collection of broken bones, he jumped to his feet. But then he did not move.
    He lacked the courage to face more hostility, indemnification.
    The phone shrilled again.
    His breath shuddered in his lungs. Joan seemed to reproach him from behind the glass of the picture frame.
    Another ring, as insistent as a fist.
    He lurched toward the phone. Snatching up the receiver, he pressed it to his ear to hold it steady.
    “Tom?” a faint, sad voice sighed. “Tom-it’s Joan. Tom? I hope I didn’t wake you. I know it’s late, but I had to call. Tom?”
    Covenant stood straight and stiff, at attention, with his knees locked to keep him from falling. His jaw worked, but he made no sound. His throat felt swollen shut, clogged with emotions, and his lungs began to hurt for air.
    “Tom? Are you there? Hello? Tom? Please say something. I need to talk to you.
    I’ve been so