73 Days to Opening Day

Opening Day 2008 for the Timber Rattlers is April 3. That is 73 days from today. This off-season, the countdown will be based on books. Each day between now and Opening Day 2008, I will pick a random book out of my library and excerpt a passage off the page number corresponding with the number of days remaining to the first pitch of the new season. I will try not to repeat a book during the countdown.

Today’s book is The Wounded Land by Stephen R. Donaldson. This is book one in The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

The old man stood in the center of the room, still clutching his torch though a bright fire blazed in the hearth beyond him. He peered at Covenant with trepidation, ready to cringe, like a child expecting punishment.

Covenant stopped. His bruises ached to be near the fire; but he remained still to look around the room.

At once, a pang of anxiety smote him. Already, he could see that something had changed in the Land. Something fundamental.

The dwelling was furnished with an unexpected mixture of wood and stone. Stoneware bowls and urns sat on wooden shelves affixed to the sidewalls; wooden stools stood around a wooden table in one stone corner. And iron – there were iron utensils on the shelves, iron nails in the stools. Formerly, the people of stone and wood, Stonedownor and Woodhelvennin, had kept to his own lore – not because they wished to be exclusive, but rather because their special skills and knowledge required all their devotion.

For a moment, he faced the man, bore the old, half-wild gaze. Linden, too, studied the old man, measuring him uncertainly. But Covenant knew she was asking herself questions unlike the ones which mobbed into his mind. Had the Stonedownors and Woodhelvennin grown together, blended their lore? Or had -- ?

The world is not what it was.

A raw sickness twisted his heart.

Put today’s excerpt in a baseball context.