The Runes of the Earth

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Pain disturbed her at intervals, but it could not rouse her. Exhaustion held her hurts at bay. Jeremiah appeared to her in spikes like coronary crises. She saw the supplication in his muddy gaze. Tousled by neglect and rough treatment, his hair hung in poignant clumps. Horses reared, unregarded, across the blue flannel of his pajamas.

  She wept for him without waking.

  Covenant spoke to her distantly, too far away to be heard. Honninscrave screamed as he contained samadhi Sheol so that Nom the Sandgorgon could rend Lord Foul’s servant. Covenant insisted, but his desire to console or guide her could not cross the boundaries between them. Warped ur-viles fell in butchered clusters, crushed by the unexpected vehemence of Vain’s midnight hands.

  In life, Covenant had drawn her into the light when her darkness had threatened to overwhelm her. He had done so repeatedly. He had taught her that her fears and failures, her inadequacies, were what made her human and precious; worthy of love. But he could not reach her now.

  Because the ur-viles had turned against the Despiser, he had destroyed them all.

  To free Covenant from the fatal stasis imposed by the Elohim, Linden had possessed him with her health-sense. There she had found herself in a field of flowers under a healing sun, full of light and capable of joy. Covenant had appeared as a youth, as dear to her as Jeremiah. He had opened his hands to her open heart, and had been made whole.

  Linden, he called to her faintly, find me.

  If her son could have spoken, he might have begged her for the same thing. In dreams she cried out his name, and still slept.

  Followed by an echo of her lost loves, she drifted finally out of slumber. Tears cooled her cheeks when she opened her eyes.

  A weight of lassitude clung to her limbs, holding her down. Yet she was awake. Dimly lit by small motes and streaks of sunshine from the blocked window, the stone walls of her gaol rose around her.

  When she glanced at the other bed, she saw that it lay vacant, untouched. Anele had slept in the outer room.

  Or the Haruchai had taken him during the night; delivered him to Revelstone—

  He is the hope of the Land.

  Her only companion.

  Stupefied with rest and dreams, Linden rolled her stiff body out of bed.

  Her joints protested sharply as she forced herself to her feet. Standing motionless, she rested for a moment or two; tried to summon her resources. Then she shambled forward like a poorly articulated manikin.

  Beyond the curtain, gloom filled the outer chamber. The lamp had burned out. The only illumination angled in strips past the edges of the leather that hung in the gaol’s entrance.

  She could hear no sound from the village around this small dwelling: no calls or conversation, no passing feet, no children at play. Mithil Stonedown seemed entirely still; lifeless as a graveyard. Only Anele’s hoarse breathing humanized the silence.

  He lay where Linden had left him, curled tightly against the wall as if for comfort. In sleep and gloom, he looked inexpressibly forlorn. Nevertheless she felt a muffled relief to find that he had not been taken from her.

  While she slept, fresh bowls of food and water had been placed on the floor. But they were half empty: Anele must have eaten again during the night.

  For herself, she was not conscious of hunger or thirst. Somnolence and dreams filled her head, crowding out other sensations. But she knew that she needed food; and so she crossed the floor to sit beside the bowls. In Jeremiah’s name, she spooned cold stew into her mouth and drank cool water until she had emptied both bowls.

  Covenant had told her to find him. Trust yourself. Do something they don’t expect.

  Her dreams were going to drive her crazy.

  In an effort to undo their effects, she struggled to her feet and went into the lavatory. There she splashed herself with cold water and rubbed her skin with sand until her bare feet began to cramp against the unwarmed floor. Then she returned to the bedchamber to don her socks and boots.

  Simple things: trivial actions. Meaningless in themselves. Nevertheless they helped her shrug aside her sense of helplessness.

  She had made promises to Anele. She did not regret that. Because of them, however, she was trapped here as much as he. But she was a physician, trained to patience and imprecise solutions; the circadian rhythms of devotion. If she were a woman who gave way to frustration—or to despair—she would have lost courage and will long ago.

  Thomas Covenant had taught her that even the most damaged and frail spirits could not be defeated if they did not elect to abandon themselves.

  When she had secured her resolve, she left the bedchamber again, intending to open the outer curtain, locate the nearest Haruchai, and insist on talking to Stave once more. She wanted to hear everything that he might be able to tell her about how the Staff of Law had been lost.

  She needed to understand what had become of the Land.

  In the larger room, however, she found Anele awake, sitting with his back to the wall.

  Clearly sleep and food had done him good. His skin tone and color had improved, and some of the wreckage was gone from his features. He did not rise to greet her; but his small movements as he turned his head and shifted his shoulders seemed more elastic now, less fragile.

  “Anele,” she inquired quietly, “how are you? Why didn’t you use the bed? You would have slept better.”

  He dropped his chin to his chest, avoiding her gaze. His fingertips moved aimlessly over the stone on either side of him. “Anele does not sleep in beds. Dreams are snares. He will be lost in them. They cannot find him here.”

  Without her health-sense, Linden felt profoundly truncated, almost crippled. But she needed to understand him. As gently as she could, she pursued him.

  “Here?” she prompted, her voice soft. “On the floor?”

  “On stone,” he acknowledged. “You do not protect Anele. He has no friend but stone.”

  In another phase of his madness, he had claimed that the rocks around him spoke.

  “Anele—” Muttering to herself at the pain in her muscles, Linden squatted to sit beside him. Deliberately she set her shoulder against his, hoping to reassure him. “I said I would protect you. I meant it. I just haven’t figured out how yet.”

  Then she asked, “What does stone do for you? Why do you need it?”

  How could walls and floors guard him from dreaming?

  The old man struggled for an answer. “Anele tries—He strives—So hard. It pains him. Yet he tries and tries.”

  She waited.

  After a long moment, he finished, “Always. Trapped and lost. Anele tries. He must remember.”

  Remember what? she wanted to ask. What kind of knowledge did his fractured mind conceal from him? Why had he chosen madness?

  But if he could have answered that question, he would not have been in such straits. Seeking a way to slip past his barricades, she asked instead, “Do you remember me?”

  He flashed her a blind glance, then turned his head away. “Anele found you. High up. The Watch. It pursued him. He fled. You were there.”

  So much he retained, if no more.

  “Do you remember what happened to us?” Linden kept her tone calm, almost incurious. She wanted him to believe that he was safe with her. “Do you remember what happened to the Watch?”

  In spite of her caution, however, she had disturbed him. He seemed to shrink into himself. “It came. Anele fell. Fire and darkness. White. Terrible.”

  Perhaps she had not phrased her question simply enough. Gently, softly, she tried again.

  “Anele, are you still alive?”

  If he could have caused the wall to swallow him, he might have done so. “It came,” he repeated. “They came. Worse than death.”

  Linden sighed to herself. Her brief percipience on Kevin’s Watch had given her the impression that he was fundamentally responsible for his own condition. He had chosen insanity as a form of self-defense. Having chosen it, however, he could not simply set it asid
e. He would have to find his own way through it, for good or ill.

  The same necessity ruled her, as it ruled Jeremiah.

  Hoping to comfort him, she reached out to squeeze the old man’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.” Covenant had said the same to her. “It’s easier to remember when you don’t try too hard.

  “Once I figure out what to do, we’ll get out of here. In the meantime, I’m sure the Masters will bring us more food and water. And I need someone to talk to”—a new idea occurred to her in mid-sentence—“preferably someone who isn’t one of them.”

  She wanted to talk to a Stonedownor. If the Haruchai would allow her.

  Deliberately she climbed to her feet. Limping to the outer doorway, she pushed the leather curtain aside and leaned her head into the sunlight.

  The door opened on a narrow passage of packed dirt between flat-roofed stone dwellings. A mid-morning sky arched overhead, deep blue and apparently untrammeled in spite of Kevin’s Dirt. A few birds called to each other in the distance, but she heard nothing else; saw no one. The whole village might have been deserted.

  She wanted to bask in the sun’s warmth for a moment, let its touch sink into her hurts; but almost immediately one of the Haruchai appeared around the corner of her gaol.

  She recognized the unscarred Master who had helped Stave capture Anele and her.

  “Linden Avery.” He bowed as Stave had done, with both fists extended from the level of his heart. “I am Bornin. You are welcome among us. What is your desire?”

  She nodded a bow. His characteristic stolidity brought back her sense of betrayal and outrage. However, she kept her reaction to herself. “Thank you, Bornin,” she replied evenly. “There are a couple of things you could do for me, if you don’t mind.”

  Expressionlessly he waited for her to continue.

  “We could use more water and something to eat,” she explained. “And I want to talk to one of the Stonedownors. Is there anyone around who can spare me a little time?”

  If she could not seek out comprehension, she would make it come to her.

  Bornin appeared momentarily uncertain. “What will a Stonedownor reveal to you that we cannot?”

  “I’m not sure,” she answered noncommittally. “I might ask what it’s like to live without Earthpower. Or I might just want some company. Anele isn’t much of a conversationalist.”

  The Haruchai seemed to consult the open air. Then he nodded. “Very well, Linden Avery. Do you wish to accompany me, or will you await my return?”

  Thinking of Anele, she swallowed her desire for freedom and sunshine, and let the curtain drop between herself and Bornin.

  The old man lifted his head briefly, then returned to his fractured thoughts.

  “Anele,” she said on an impulse, “you’ve scrambled to survive for a long time. Decades. Does anyone ever help you? Do you have any friends?”

  How was it possible for a demented old man to keep himself alive? Hunger and injuries, if not sheer loneliness, should have killed him long ago.

  Again he raised his white eyes. For a moment, he appeared to consider her question seriously. “Anele is lost,” he said almost calmly. “Always alone. And always harried. They seek him.

  “But—” Concentration and gloom filled his sightless gaze. “Folk are kind. When they are far away. Even here—Anele is fed. Given raiment. When they are far away.

  “And—”

  His voice trailed off as if he had lost the thread of a memory.

  “And?” Linden prompted.

  Come on, Anele. Give me something. I can’t do it all alone.

  “And—” he began again. He seemed to cower against a wall deep inside himself. “Creatures. Dark. Fearsome. Lost things, long dead. Anele fears them. He fears—

  “They feed him. Force blackness into him. Make him strong. Heal him, whispering madness.

  “Madness.”

  Without warning, he shouted in protest, “Creatures make Anele remember!” Then he collapsed to his side, clutching his knees to his chest, hiding his face.

  “Anele!” At once, Linden dropped to the floor beside him, tugged him into the cradle of her arms. “Oh, Anele, I’m so sorry. I know you suffer. I didn’t mean to remind you. I just—”

  She had no way of knowing what might cause him pain. Helpless to do otherwise, she held him and rocked him until his tension eased and he grew still.

  At the same time, she tried to comfort herself. She had been in worse straits than this. The Clave had imprisoned her for days: a Raver had demeaned her utterly. In Kiril Threndor, moksha Jehannum had tortured her while Covenant confronted the Despiser. Oh, she had been in worse straits. Much worse.

  But Jeremiah had not. Even when he had held his right hand in the bonfire: even then. That agony had been relatively brief; and he had found a way to escape from it. It could not be compared to the torments Lord Foul might devise for him. His dissociation would not defend him from the malice of a being who could possess him—

  While you are apart from him, you cannot know his sufferings.

  And he could hope for nothing from her. She did not know where to look for him—and might not have been able to reach him if she had known.

  Anele’s state frustrated and pained her; but it also protected her. If she had not felt compelled to care for him, she might not have been able to contain her own anguish.

  Later the old man left her to use the lavatory. When he returned, he sat beside her again, his shoulder touching hers like a recognition of companionship.

  For that she was grateful.

  Eventually a hesitant scratching came to the outer curtain; and the stocky frame of a Stonedownor ducked inward with a large stone bowl cupped in each hand. “Anele?” he asked uncertainly. “Linden Avery? You wished to speak with me? I was told—”

  His voice faded into doubt. Unsure of himself, he stooped to set his bowls on the floor.

  Without hesitation, Anele rose to cross the room and drink from one of the bowls.

  Linden struggled to rouse herself. She had asked to speak to a Stonedownor, but she no longer remembered why. Nothing that he might say would enable her to help her son.

  The man waited for a long moment, indecisive. Then he made an attempt to pull up his dignity.

  “I see now that I was mistaken. Pardon my intrusion.”

  With the constrained light behind him, his face lay in shadows. Yet his eyes found a way to appeal to her. Somehow he conveyed the impression that he had come, not because a Master had requested it, but because he wanted to.

  “Wait,” Linden murmured hoarsely. “I’m sorry. Wait.”

  Somewhere she found the strength to gain her feet.

  “I don’t mean to be rude.” Her own voice seemed to reach her from a great distance. “I’m just”—her throat closed convulsively—“just scared.”

  She took a step or two forward. While the Stonedownor waited for her, she rubbed her hands across her face; pulled her hair back over her shoulders.

  “There’s something I didn’t tell the Masters.” She sounded too far away from herself to speak coherently. “The Haruchai.

  “It’s my son—”

  Unable to go on, she stopped, hoping that her visitor would reach out to her in some way.

  He seemed to swallow conflicting responses. After a last hesitation, he said, “I am Liand son of Fostil. The Master did not say that you wished to speak to me. He said only that you wished to speak to a Stonedownor. I presumed to offer myself.”

  As if he understood that she needed an explanation—a chance to gather herself—he continued.

  “My duties are among the horses rather than in the fields, and horses are easily tended. They are few in any event, and not needed today. Having no other demands upon me, I often accompany the Masters, or do their bidding.

  “I was—” Sudden embarrassment made him falter. “I had concealed myself nearby when they took you and your companion. I helped them to bear you here.

  “
Since that moment, I have wished to speak with you. You are strange in the South Plains, and to me, and I am hungry to learn of new things.”

  While he spoke, Linden rallied her resources. She felt the delicacy of his manner, the instinctive consideration: his unprompted account of his presence gave her time to prepare. He may have felt awkward, but he did not appear so to her. Instead he seemed spontaneously kind.

  That contrast with Stave and the Haruchai encouraged her to gather her courage.

  “Thank you, Liand,” she said when she could breathe more easily. “I’m glad you’re willing to talk to me.”

  Anele turned his back, dismissing the Stonedownor, and moved to sit once again against the far wall.

  “Oh, I am willing in all truth.” Liand’s voice was an intent baritone, full of concentration and interest. “Your speech is foreign to my ears, and your raiment is unlike any I have beheld.” Frankly he admitted, “I am eager to offer whatever I may.”

  “Thank you,” she said again. Inadvertently she had provided herself with an opening, an approach to her immediate concerns. As she considered how she might proceed, she tried to see his face more clearly. However, the gloom shrouded his features, blurring their definitions. Tentatively she asked, “Can you let in more light? The Masters won’t release Anele, and I promised not to leave him. But I want to be able to look at you.”

  “Surely.” Liand reached at once to the side of the doorframe, located a hook which must have been formed or attached for the purpose, and hung the curtain there. “Will this suffice?”

  The sunlight did not stretch far into the chamber; but enough reflected illumination washed inward to brighten the room considerably.

  “It will”—Linden smiled wanly—“as soon as we sit down.” Easing herself to the floor, she indicated a spot for him inside the doorway. “Anele and I had a rough time yesterday,” she explained as neutrally as she could. “I haven’t got my strength back yet.”

  When Liand complied, the light revealed him plainly. He was a young man, perhaps half her age, with broad shoulders and sturdy, workman’s hands, wearing a jerkin and leggings of rough wool dyed the hue of sand. Thick leather sandals protected his feet. His features reminded her distantly of Sunder, the only Stonedownor whom she had known well: he had Sunder’s blunt openness without the bereavements and guilt which had complicated her friend’s native simplicity. And he was characteristically brown-skinned, brown-eyed. Above his square jaw, imprecise nose, and eager gaze, his loose hair and eyebrows were a startling black, as dark as crow’s wings.