| Chapter 14: Pursuit |
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He was awakened near midnight by the touch of a cold hand on his soul. A chill that resembled regret more than fear ran through him. He jerked up his head.
Three silver forms like distilled moonlight stood before him. When he had squeezed the blur of prostration from his sight, he recognized them. Lena, the woman he had raped. Atiaran and Trell, her parents. Trell--tall, bluff, mighty Trell--had been deeply hurt by the harm Covenant had done to Lena and by the damage Atiaran had inflicted on herself in her efforts to serve the Land by saving her daughter's rapist. But the crowning anguish of his life, the pain which had finally unbalanced his mind, had been dealt him by the love Elena Lena-daughter bore for Covenant. Atiaran had sacrificed all her instincts, all her hard-won sense of rectitude, for Covenant's sake; she had believed him necessary to the Land's survival. But the implications of that self-injury had cost her her life in the end. And Lena--ah, Lena! She had lived on for almost fifty years, serene in the mad belief that Covenant would return and marry her. And when he had returned--when she had learned that he was responsible for the death of Elena, that he was the cause of the immense torment of the Ranyhyn she adored--she had yet chosen to sacrifice herself in an attempt to save his life. |