The Runes of the Earth: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Book One Read Online Free PDF

room.
    Out in the hall, the characteristic smell of hospitals was less prominent, but here it was unmistakable: an ineradicable admixture of Betadine and blood, harsh cleansers and urine, human sweat, fear, floor wax, and anesthetics, accented by an inexplicable tang of formalin. For some reason, medical care always produced the same scents.
    The room was spacious by the standard of private rooms in County Hospital next door. A large window let in the kind of sunlight that sometimes helped fragile psyches recover their balance. The bed occupied the center of the floor. An unused TV set jutted from one wall near the ceiling. The only piece of advanced equipment present was a pulse monitor, its lead attached to a clip on the index finger of Joan’s left hand. According to the monitor, her pulse was steady, untroubled.
    On a stand by the head of the bed sat a box of cotton balls, a bottle of sterile saline, a jar of petroleum jelly, and a vase of bright flowers. The flowers had been Maxine Dubroff’s idea, but Linden had adopted it immediately. For years now she had arranged for the delivery of flowers to all her patients on a regular basis, the brighter the better. In every language which she could devise or imagine, she strove to convince her patients that they were in a place of care.
    Joan sat upright in the bed, staring blankly at the door. Restraints secured her arms to the rails of the bed. Her bonds were loose enough to let her scratch her nose or adjust her posture, although she never did those things.
    In fact, one of the nurses or orderlies must have placed her in that position. Fortunately for her caregivers, Joan had become a compliant patient: she remained where she was put. Pulled to her feet, she stood. Stretched out on the bed, she lay still. She swallowed food placed in her mouth. Sometimes she chewed. When she was taken into the bathroom, she voided. But she did not react to words or voices, gave no indication that she was aware of the people who tended her.
    Her stare never wavered: she hardly seemed to blink. Standing or reclining, her unfocused gaze regarded neither care nor hope. If she ever slept, she did so with her eyes open.
    Her years of catatonia had marked her poignantly. The skin of her face had hung slack on its bones for so long now that the underlying muscles had atrophied, giving her a look of mute horror. Despite the program of exercises which Linden had prescribed for her, and which the orderlies carried out diligently, her limbs had wasted to a pitiful frailty. And nothing that Linden or the nurses could do—nothing that any of the experts whom Linden had consulted could suggest—spared her from losing her teeth over the years. No form of nourishment, oral or IV, no brushing or other imposed care, could replace her body’s need for ordinary use. In effect, she hadexperienced more mortality than her chronological years could contain. Helpless to do otherwise, her flesh bore the burden of too much time.
    â€œHello, Joan,” Linden said as she always did when she entered the room. The detached confidence of her tone assumed that Joan could hear her in spite of all evidence to the contrary. “How are you today?”
    Nevertheless Joan’s plight tugged at her heart. A sore the size of Linden’s palm stigmatized Joan’s right temple. A long series of blows had given her a deep bruise which had eventually begun to ooze blood as the skin stretched and cracked, too stiff to heal. Now a dripping red line veined with yellow and white ran down her cheek in spite of everything that could be done to treat it.
    When the bruise had first begun to bleed, Linden had covered it with a bandage; but that had made Joan frantic, causing her to thrash against her restraints until she threatened to break her own bones. Now Linden concentrated on trying to reduce the frequency of the blows. On her orders, the wound was allowed to bleed: cleaned several times a day, slathered