The Runes of the Earth

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  She had little experience with wild magic; was not even sure that she could call it up at will. And it was called wild magic for a reason: it tended always toward increase; rampant flame; chaos. After his confrontation with the Banefire, Covenant had turned his back on the use of such power. He had feared that it would tower beyond the reach of his restraint: that it would rage and grow until it shattered Time, and the Despiser was set free.

  Linden’s control would not be delicate enough to help the abused figure in front of her.

  If he had rejected sight, he might not want to be helped.

  Nevertheless she was a physician: she wished to succor him in some way, despite the desperation of her circumstances—and, apparently, of his. Putting aside the surprise of his presence, she cleared her throat, then said cautiously, “Don’t try to move. You’re too weak—and this place isn’t exactly safe. I’m here. I’ll try to help you.”

  In response, he faced her with his blind eyes and broken mien. “Protect Anele.” His voice was a cracked whisper, hoarse with exhaustion, uncertain with disuse. “Protect—”

  “I will,” she answered without hesitation. “I want to. I’ll do what I can. But—”

  Who or what was Anele?

  As if she had not spoken, he moaned, “They search for him. It pursues him. Always he is pursued. If they take him, he will not be able to escape it. His last hope. Poor Anele, who has lost his birthright and harms no one. His sacred trust—” He reached one trembling hand toward her. “Protect.”

  A sound like a dusty sob escaped from his chest.

  “I will,” she said again, more strongly. “You aren’t alone.” She had too many questions—and he was plainly in no state to answer them. “We’re in danger here. I don’t trust this stone. And the only way down is the same way you came up. But I’m sure there’s something I can do.”

  Covenant’s ring would serve her somehow.

  “Power,” the old man croaked, “yes. Anele feels it. He climbed to find it.”

  On his knees, he shuffled toward her, groping with his gnarled hand until he touched her arm. Then, however, his hand flinched away as if he feared to presume—or feared the sensation of contact.

  “They search for him,” he offered abjectly, “but Anele tricks them. They can be tricked, a little.” Again he touched her arm, appealing to her—and flinched back. “But it is not tricked. It knows where Anele is. It pursues him. If it takes him—

  “Ah!” he cried out weakly, “lost! All lost.” Another sob broke his voice. “Anele climbed high. His last trick. If it comes close, he will jump and die.”

  His distress twisted Linden’s heart. “Anele,” she responded, sure now of his name, “listen to me. I’m here. I’ll do everything I can. Don’t jump.”

  She had already felt too much falling.

  His hand fumbled toward her and away as though he feared to believe her. “Lost,” he said again. “All lost.”

  “I understand,” she told him, although she did not; could not. “I’m here. Whatever happens, you aren’t alone.”

  He gaped at her blindly as if she were the one deranged, not he.

  “But I need—” she began. Then, however, she hesitated. She hardly knew where to start. Even if he had been sane, she would not have known which question to ask first. She had to guess at the things he might be able to answer.

  But she had spent years dealing with damaged minds. She had learned how to probe them gently. “You’re Anele?” she inquired quietly. “That’s your name?”

  Begin with something concrete. Unthreatening.

  He nodded as if in confirmation.

  “And you have enemies?” A frail old man in his condition? “What do they want?”

  What was it?

  His white eyes stared at her. “They seek to catch Anele. Imprison him. They are terrible, terrible everywhere. It will take him. They can be tricked. It is not tricked.”

  His reply explained nothing. She tried a different approach.

  “Why does it pursue you? Why do they?”

  “Ah!” Anele broke into a low wail. “His birthright. Sacred trust. Lost, failed. Anele failed. Everything, all lost.”

  Apparently he was too badly hurt to answer in terms that she could comprehend. Perhaps her questions were too abstract; too far removed from his immediate plight.

  “I understand,” she repeated, striving to calm him. “I’m here. I have power.” He had said as much himself. “Whoever they are—whatever it is—they have no idea what I can do.”

  Then she remarked as though she felt no threat herself, “It pursues you. Is it close?”

  “Yes!” he returned instantly. “Yes!” His head nodded vehemently. “Protect him. He must be protected!”

  “Anele!” Linden spoke more sternly. “I’m here.” Perhaps severity would pierce his confusion. “I know you need protection. I want to help you. But I need to know. How close is it? Where is it?”

  Without warning, Anele sprang to his feet. His blind eyes remained fixed on her, but his left arm gestured wildly behind him, indicating some portion of the shrouded cliff-face.

  “There!”

  “Now?” she asked in disbelief. Her senses had detected nothing. “It’s there now?”

  “Yes!” Lifting his head, he shouted into the clear sky, “It pursues him!” Frantically he brandished his arms at the clean sunlight. Under their dirt, they looked as brittle as dry twigs. “Poor Anele. His last trick. He will jump. He must!”

  Then he began to weep as if he had come to the end of himself, and even the vibrant Earthpower in his veins could no longer sustain him.

  At once, Linden stood as well. “Anele!” she called softly, taking hold of his shoulders so that he would not fling himself from the Watch. “Anele! Listen to me. I’m here. I’ll protect you.”

  A heartbeat later, however, a swirl of distortion against the mountains snagged in her peripheral vision: caught and tugged so hard that she almost staggered.

  Still gripping one of Anele’s shoulders, she turned her head.

  God in Heaven! What’s that?

  By standing, she had lifted her high enough to see the thing Anele dreaded.

  The sight of it seemed to crawl over her skin like a rush of formication. The eerie kinesthesia of her health-sense was so intense that she could hardly restrain her impulse to slap at the squirming sensation.

  Hundreds of feet tall, it stood against the western edge of the blunt cliff-face: a spinning chiaroscuro of multicolored dots like the phosphene aura of a migraine. Towering in the shape of a whirlwind, it seethed and danced hotly, each spot of color incandescent with force, each indistinguishable from the others. Its initial impact struck Linden so hard that she could not focus on it clearly: it appeared to be superimposed on the impenetrable shroud below her, as if it swirled in a different dimension. But then her senses sharpened, and she realized that she was seeing the manifestation through the cloud. It was definitely below her, beneath the obscuring blanket.

  In all the region under Kevin’s Watch, that aura was the only thing powerful enough to pierce the shroud.

  And like the shroud, it was wrong. It violated her percipience in similar ways, but more acutely, as if it were the distilled essence of violation. In that swirl, fundamental Laws which enabled this world’s existence were suspended or distorted: reality seemed to flow and melt into itself like the confusion in Joan’s mind. Any living thing swallowed by it might be torn apart.

  And it was moving; advancing along the cliff-face toward the Watch. Soon it would be near enough to touch the spire.

  Moaning in distress, Anele wrenched at Linden’s grasp. Now she understood his reaction. She might leap from Kevin’s Watch herself, if that aura came near her.

  “Release Anele!” he panted urgently. “It pursues him! He must escape!”

  His alarm helped her to step back from her own. Pursues him? she thought fiercely. Not damn likely. His madness misled him. That fatal aura had no interest i
n him. It had no interests at all; no consciousness and no volition. Her senses were certain. It resembled a force of nature hideously perverted: blind, insentient, and entirely destructive.

  Yet it continued to advance on the Watch, drawing closer with every beat of her heart.

  “Anele, no!” she called with as much authority as she could summon. “Don’t!” Deliberately she turned her back on the aura so that she could hold him more tightly. “I said I’ll protect you. I can’t do that if you jump.”

  His white, staring eyes glistened as if they were sweating in terror.

  Why did he think that the mad distortion wanted him?

  But she could not phrase her questions in words that he would be able to answer. With the whirlwind approaching at her back, she could hardly think. And it moved nearer at every moment. Clutching Anele, she abandoned her confusion and reached instead for the memory of her fall to this place. The memory of wild magic.

  Under her boots, the stone seemed to shiver in anticipation or dread.

  Linden had healed her wounds somehow. Yet wild magic was not inherently apt for healing. Its impulse toward rampage limited its ordinary, mortal uses. She did not know whether she could oppose the aura with white gold. She was not even sure that she could muster its fire consciously.

  But she did not doubt that both she and Anele would die if the seething swirl touched them.

  Moment by moment, the aura advanced. At the same time, the shivering of the stone mounted; became insistent. Earlier she had felt a flaw in the spire, a suggestion of frangibility. Her health-sense had told her that the Watch had been damaged—

  Its instability undermined her balance. Only her grim grip on Anele kept her from stumbling.

  —but she had not been able to guess what form of power had done the spire such harm.

  Now she knew.

  The aura was not the only manifestation of its kind. Or it had existed for a long time—a very long time—roving the Land as its energies dictated. In some form, it had been here before.

  Then it had left Kevin’s Watch barely standing. Even through her boots, the tremors in the stone assured her that the next touch would be the last.

  The swirl would reach the base of the spire in moments.

  “Anele!” she yelled frantically, “get behind me! Hold on! Don’t let go, whatever happens. We’re going down!”

  With all her strength, she wrenched him aside so that she stood between him and the danger.

  Obedient to her desperate command, he flung his arms around her neck, caught her in a hug of panic. When he shoved the side of his head against hers, his gasping sounded like a death rattle in her ear.

  Seething viciously, the aura approached the base of the spire.

  Enveloped it.

  For an instant nothing happened. The stone quivered and quailed—and held.

  Then a rending shriek shivered the Watch, and the ancient granite twisted to splinters like torn kindling.

  3.

  In the Rubble

  Through a din like the destruction of the heavens, the massive spire of Kevin’s

  Watch shuddered and snapped. Between one heartbeat and the next, it became rubble hopelessly poised a thousand feet above the hills.

  Dust and flung detritus obscured the sun. Ponderously at first, and as poignant as augury, it sagged away from the cliff. Stone screams stunned the air as the platform on which Linden and Anele stood tilted outward.

  She had time for one last cry; barely heard Anele’s lorn wail. Then the weight of so much granite took hold, and the ruined Watch collapsed like a cataract.

  With Anele clutching her neck, Linden fell down the sky, accompanied by shattered menhirs—hundreds, thousands of them—heavy enough to crush villages. As she and her burden dropped, they seemed to rebound from one tremendous shard to the next, striking one to be deflected toward another. At any instant, they might have been smashed to pulp between stones; slain long before their flesh was flung against the hard hills.

  Anele’s grasp threatened to crush her larynx: she could not breathe. Already she might have broken bones. Her last outcry was the rending of Kevin’s Watch, an eternity of terror and protest compressed into one small splinter of time.

  And again she was struck, as she had been struck before: her temple collided with a boulder the size of a dwelling, and the whole inside of her head—her mind and her scream and her frantic heart—turned white with pain.

  White and silver.

  In the plunge of her translation here, she had given no thought to wild magic; had made no attempt to call it forth. Instead, beneath or beyond consciousness, she had reached out instinctively for her own strength. But this time she had already begun groping toward Covenant’s ring when the stark wrong of the aura had overwhelmed the spire’s ancient intransigence.

  While the cruel bulk of stones swept her downward, and helpless collisions battered her bones, Linden Avery became a detonation of argent fire.

  In the imponderable gap between instants, she felt that she had dropped into the core of a sun. Its glare appeared to catch and seethe in the earth’s yellow shroud, lighting the obscurity to its horizons like a lightning strike.

  Then rampant flame bore her away, and she vanished into a whiteness like the pure grief of stars.

  Stars, she had heard, were the bright children of the world’s birth, the glad offspring of the Creator, trapped inadvertently in the heavens by the same binding that had imprisoned the Despiser. They could only be set free, restored to their infinite home, by the severing of Time. Hence their crystalline keening: they mourned for the lost grandeur of eternity.

  And wild magic was the keystone of Time, the pivot, the crux. Bound by Law, and yet illimitable, it both sustained and threatened the processes which made existence possible, for without causality and sequence there could be no life; no creation; no beauty.

  No evil.

  Joan held a white gold ring.

  Lord Foul had taken Jeremiah.

  Although she had failed at everything else, Linden took hold of Covenant’s power and with it transcended the necessary strictures of gravity and mass, of falling and mortal frailty. Bearing Anele clasped at her neck, she became the center of a fire which emblazoned the sky. Not knowing what she did, guided only by instinct and passion, she briefly set aside the bonds of life.

  For a time which she could not have measured or understood, she passed among the sorrows of the stars, and wept with them, and felt no other hurt.

  Eventually, however, the stars drew nearer until they became the pressure of the sun against her eyelids. Warmth soothed her battered face while constellations danced into dazzles across her vision. A vast silence seemed to cover her—a silence given depth and definition by the delicate soughing of the breeze, and by the distant call of birds. Under her, cool edges of rock punctuated the encompassing warmth.

  A deep lassitude held her, as if she had expended all her strength and could have slept where she lay.

  Every breath hurt her chest. She felt beaten from head to foot: a woman caught in a profound wreck, and surrounded by devastation. Yet she could breathe. As far as she knew, she had been merely bruised, not broken. The air tasted of dust and torn earth, and soon it would make her cough; but for now she responded only to its sweetness.

  The stone beneath her seemed recently damaged. Faintly she tasted its granite pain, the raw hurt of new wounds. If she could have slowed her perceptions to the pace of its ineffable pulse, she might have been able to hear it groaning.

  Somehow she had landed atop the fragments of the Watch rather than under them. And she had survived the impact. Falling so far, she had come down gently enough to live.

  Wild magic again.

  But where was Anele? She had lost him while she fell. His arms were no longer around her neck.

  At the thought, she inhaled sharply, and immediately began coughing. Tears welled in her eyes to wash away grit and dirt. When the pressure in her chest eased, she found that
she could blink her sight clear and look around for the old man.

  Damn it, she had to be able to save somebody.

  She lay amid a chaos of shattered stone. Apparently the collapse of Kevin’s Watch had struck a hillside and spread itself down into a low valley, burying grass, shrubs, and trees under mounds and monoliths of granite. Hillcrests softened by verdure constricted her horizons on all sides. In the direction of her feet, the vale wandered away toward more hills.

  Above her, a new scar marked the cliff-face where Kevin’s Watch had clung for all its millennia. The sun hung almost directly over the mountains, suggesting that she had not been unconscious long. Yet the dire swirling which had caused the fall of the spire was gone. It had dissipated or moved on.

  Still, enough time had passed for the heavy debris of the Watch to settle, and for most of the dust to drift away. And the birds had apparently forgotten the event. Already they had resumed their piping soars and flits among the hills.

  After a moment, she realized that the tumbling stone must have been seen or heard by everyone who lived in the vicinity. Simple curiosity might bring them out to look at the wreckage. The help she needed might be on its way to her.

  Or Anele’s enemies might come—

  In spite of the intervening shock, she remembered his fears. He had been right to fear that aura of wrongness. He might be right to fear them as well.

  Were there truly people in the Land now who meant harm to crazy old men?

  She needed to find him.

  If she could move—

  Groaning and wincing, she shifted her arms in an attempt to prop herself up. But her limbs were as weak as an infant’s: she could hardly move them. And when after a while she succeeded, the effort left her gasping. Although her bones were apparently intact, she felt as broken as the stone.

  Sitting, she rested. Unaware at first of what she did, she gazed dully at her hands as though she wondered what had become of them. They seemed strange to her; pallid with powdered stone. Dumbly she stared at them, trying to determine how they had changed.