The Runes of the Earth t3cotc-1

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Then he sagged. He may have felt Linden’s shock, although he could not see it. With every word, his anger seemed to fray and drop away, leaving him defenceless.

  “Do you not understand?” His voice shook. “It holds.”

  “Then who?” she returned quickly, trying to catch him while he could still answer. “Who commands you?”

  What secrets had the stones told him?

  Urgently she searched him for hints of the Despiser’s presence-and found none.

  “He does not wish it.” Now each word cost Anele more effort, greater distress. Compulsion seemed to accumulate against him. “He commands. If Anele did not obey, he would whisper what this rock”- he flapped his arms, apparently indicating the cliffs as well as the ridge- “cries out. He would tell of the Appointed Durance, the skurj, the Elohim.

  “He would name Kastenessen-”

  There Anele’s resistance crumbled. Whimpering, he leaped to his feet and fled over the rocks as though he were being whipped away from utterance.

  Linden hung her head. Oh, Anele. Was there no end to his sufferings? He could not tell her the things she needed to know without being tormented in some way. Only his inherited Earthpower kept him alive: a cruel gift which enabled or coerced him to survive more anguish than any mortal heart should have been able to bear.

  He commands-

  Not Lord Foul: not this time. Some other being or power-

  She was being stalked. A potent enemy hunted her steps; someone who wanted her to fail-Someone other than the Despiser.

  After a moment, Manethrall Hami told one of her Cords, “Go. See that no harm comes to him.” At once, the Cord hastened away.

  Liand cleared his throat. “Linden? Do you comprehend him? What are skurj? Who is Kastenessen?”

  Cursing mutely, Linden forced herself to stand. Anele had spoken a name that she recognised.

  Stave must have recognised it as well-

  Instead of answering Liand’s questions, she sighed, “Give me time. I need to think.”

  Anele had referred to skurj several times now, and to a Durance. Under the Mithil’s Plunge, he had wailed those names against the water’s thunder. They meant nothing to her.

  Kastenessen, on the other hand-

  “There is darkness nigh,” Stave announced abruptly, “potent and fatal. We have been warned of such perils. Perhaps it lives among the Ramen, concealing itself from their discernment.”

  Dumb with bafflement, Linden stared at the Master. Liand’s eyebrows rose. Quick indignation flashed from Manethrall Hami to her Cords.

  Stave ignored the Ramen. “We cannot oppose a being who remains hidden from our senses,” he told Linden, “and who is yet able to command the old man’s madness.” Holding her gaze, he added, “Who but the Elohim wield such power?”

  Still she stared at him. She understood him too well. The Elohim were certainly capable of masking their presence from any form of percipience.

  And beyond question the Masters had been forewarned. Years ago, according to

  Liand, an Elohim had visited Mithil Stonedown. That strange, Earthpowerful being had spoken of terrible banes, which he had not explained.

  Beware the halfhand.

  But Hami was not swayed. She held herself on the balls of her feet, poised for combat. “You conceive that we harbour darkness,” she said through her teeth. “You credit that of us.”

  Despite her stiff pride, an undercurrent in her tone hinted to Linden that Stagy’ might be right.

  With an effort, Linden shook off her confusion. “We have to know,” she sighed to the Master. “You can see Anele as well as I can.” Better. “Lord Foul isn’t the only power that uses him. There’s so much he could tell us. We need to know who commanded him not to talk.”

  Whoever it had been, that being lacked the Despiser’s ability to take full possession of the old man. An Elohim could certainly have done so. But this he had not entirely succeeded at coercing Anele. In some sense, he was a weaker foe.

  Damn it, Anele was using too many indefinite pronouns. Behind the Plunge, he had cried, He has broken the Durance. Was that the same he who had just tried to silence the old man? Apparently not.

  How many, enemies did she have?

  She needed to know what the stone had told Anele. Somehow she had to confront his insanity. She had to find the courage somewhere-

  Stave paid no heed to the Manethrall’s anger. Briefly he appeared to consider Linden’s statement. Then he nodded in agreement.

  “The answer lies with the Ramen. We must discover it among them.” He paused again before saying, “There is no other way for us. The Masters must know of this new threat.”

  The scar on his cheek underlined his hard gaze as he turned away, leaving Linden to Liand and the Ramen.

  At the same time, Hami also turned away, concealing her secrets.

  Leaning on Liand for support, Linden followed them to begin the long descent from the ridge. Her frustration had become a swollen blackness within her, a thunderhead fraught with lightning. She did not know how to contain the storm.

  If she did not discover some clear answer to her questions soon, the cistern of her soul would crack open.

  At the foot of the arete, with her boots on the marge of the sheltered vale’s rich grass, she released Liand in order to raise her eyes from the long path and look around.

  The mountains seemed to have grown while she stumbled downward. From the perspective of the ridge, they had not appeared so tall; and the grassland cupped among them might have stretched for leagues. Now, however, they reared ponderously into the heavens, stern visages of granite gazing down with the august hauteur of titans. And the lower terrain of the valley looked smaller, reduced in scale by its place among the high massifs. The far mountainsides seemed almost attainable.

  In contrast, the grass was even more lush and prodigal than it had appeared from the ridge’ Over the millennia, time and weather had filled the vale with fertility. Grass the colour of distilled emeralds grew to the height of Linden’s thighs, so thick that she wondered whether she would be able to forge through it.

  Reassured by the sight of so much untrammelled vitality, Linden cast her health-sense wider; and when she did so, she spotted aliantha only a few dozen paces away.

  With treasure-berries to sustain her, she might be able to walk as far as the Ramen wished, and need no help.

  Hami had already sent several of her Cords ahead of the company to announce their coming; and the young Ramen seemed to flow away through the tall grass without disturbing it or forcing passage. They were attuned to it beyond hindrance. The rest of the group had gathered around Linden, apparently waiting for her to recover her strength.

  But Stave remained apart, isolated by the strict intentions of the Masters. And Anele had moved out into the grass, presumably to put a little distance between himself and the Haruchai. One of the Cords had led Somo down the arete in Liand’s place so that the Stonedownor could concentrate on Linden.

  Weakly she headed through the grass toward the aliantha.

  She could not pass as the Ramen did, like a breeze among the blades and tassels. Grass caught at her boots and shins, tearing when she pushed her legs through it. Streaks of green sap stained her pants below the knees. She might have felt mired in the grass, hampered, opposed, if its simple abundance had not soothed her senses.

  Like the grass, the aliantha flourished in the valley’s soil. The shrubs spread their twisted branches widely, and they were heavy with fruit. Plucking clusters of viridian berries hungrily, she fed as if she were feasting until their juice had washed the ache of defeat from her throat, and her exhausted muscles began to relax in relief.

  When she was done, she felt lightened, fundamentally restored, as though she had partaken of a Eucharist. The gifts of the Land touched her to the marrow of her bones.

  Liand and the Ramen had followed Linden to the aliantha. They each ate two or three berries, casting the seeds aside by ancient custom
; but their need was not as great as hers, and they did not consume more.

  Thoughtfully, as if to herself, the Manethrall observed, “No servant of Fangthane craves or will consume aliantha. The virtue of the berries is too potent.”

  As though he had been challenged, Stave stepped forward, claimed one of the berries, and chewed it stolidly.

  Around her, Linden felt a subtle shift in the emanations of the Ramen. Perhaps she and her companions had passed a test of some sort.

  She wanted to pass another. Atop the ridge, she had asked Liand and the Ramen to be patient while she considered Anele’s outburst. Now she felt that she owed explanation.

  It would be easier to talk while she rested.

  “Kastenessen,” she said when she felt able to speak at last. “That name I’ve Heard Before. He was one of the Appointed.” Findail had described them, seeking to explain himself to the Search for the One Tree. “An Elohim.”

  The memory filled her with foreboding. And her tension was reflected in Liand’s eyes. He moved closer as though he feared to miss a word.

  “I don’t know what to tell you about the Elohim. They aren’t mortal. I guess you could call them incarnate Earthpower. They give the impression that they can do anything, and they do what they do for reasons of their own, no matter what anyone else thinks or wants” Findail himself had often behaved like an enemy, encouraging Linden and Covenant to fail. “They live far away, on the other side of the Sunbirth Sea. Most of the time, it seems, they ignore the Land.

  “But sometimes they see a danger and decide to do something about it, I don’t know why.”

  Liand had heard Anele speak of the One Forest and the Elohim.

  “When they do, they pick one of their people, they Appoint him or her, to answer the danger. To be the answer.”

  Findail had said that the Appointed passed out of name and choice and time for the sake of the frangible Earth. He had sung:

  Let those who sail the Sea bow down:

  Let those who walk bow low:

  For there is neither peace nor dream

  Where the Appointed go.

  Manethrall Hami and her Cords regarded Linden gravely, waiting for her to go on. The quality of their attention seemed to hint that they were not ignorant of the Elohim. Liand listened avidly, hungry for understanding. But Stave gazed away as if he disapproved of the Elohim and all their deeds.

  For the time being, at least, Anele had disappeared into the grass, perhaps seeking to avoid reminders of coercion.

  “Kastenessen was Appointed a long time ago,” Linden explained as the implications of her memories crowded around her. “Dozens of millennia, for all I know,” if the years had any meaning to the Elohim. “Apparently something deadly happened in the north” the farthest north of the world, where winter has its roots of ice and cold. “Some kind of catastrophe. A fire that might have split open the Earth.

  “Kastenessen was Appointed to stop it.” Set as a keystone for the threatened foundation of the north.

  Thus was the fire capped, and the Earth preserved, and Kastenessen lost.

  “But he didn’t go willingly. He’d broken one of the commandments of the Elohim, violated their Wurd or Weird, “by falling in love with a mortal woman. His people chose him, Appointed him, to punish the wrong he did her.”

  He had brought harm to a woman who could not have harmed him, and he had called it love.

  “He refused to go. He didn’t want to give her up. For her sake, he rejected his people and their Wurd.” Their destiny-or the Earth’s. “When the Elohim demanded submission, he fought back. Finally they had to force him into place. So that the world wouldn’t end in fire.”

  Was that what “Durance” meant? Did it refer to the power that had contained Kastenessen? And had he found some way to free himself? If so, a fire would be set loose fatal enough to rive the shell of the world.

  During her translation to the Land, Linden had seen fiery beasts suppurate from the ground in order to devour all that lived.

  She sighed, then spread her hands. “That’s as much as I know about Kastenessen.”

  The Ramen plainly wanted to question her further; but it was Liand who admitted, “I still do not understand. Did this Kastenessen not pass away?” Certainly that was the fate of the Elohim who had become the Colossus of the Fall. “How then does he command Anele not to speak of him?”

  Linden shrugged, trying to do so without bitterness. “I don’t think that was Kastenessen. The Elohim wouldn’t command him to be quiet. They would just shut him up.”

  Behind the Mithil’s Plunge, no force had demanded silence from the old man. Yet here, so close to the Verge of Wandering

  “I can’t explain it,” she added after a moment’s hesitation. “All I know is that we have enemies we haven’t even met yet.”

  “Yet your knowledge surpasses ours,” the Manethrall announced quietly. “The Ramen remember much, but we have no tales of these matters.” Once again, her tone Implied that she could have said more. “It becomes ever more imperative that we take counsel together. We must banish misapprehension between us.

  “Ringthane”- she faced Linden squarely- “our encampment is but two leagues distant. Are you able now to walk so far? Does your heart hold other troubles to delay you?”

  Two leagues, Linden thought. Six miles? On even ground, with aliantha in her veins-She attempted a smile; failed. “I think I can make it. I need all the counsel I can get.” of time but

  She had enough other troubles in her heart to delay her until the end she did not mean to let them hold her back.

  Fortunately several of the Cords travelled ahead of her, and she found that if she followed in their steps the grass did not hinder her. Somo could have borne her easily now-Liand offered her that-but she preferred to keep her burdens to herself.

  She needed time to think; to prepare for what lay ahead.

  At first, the distance passed easily. Aliantha sustained her, and the vernal grassland itself seemed to lift her from stride to stride. Every instance of health and Earthpower nourished her in some way. For a time, she watched the mood of the mountains modulate as the westering sun shifted shadows across them. When she encountered the occasional bursts of amanibhavam, she studied their dancing yellow flowers and their sharp scent, trying to understand their potency.

  By degrees, however, she lapsed to numbness again. Step after step, her walking became a kind of ambulant doze. Guided by the Ramen, she made her slow way toward the centre of the Verge of Wandering, and did not notice how far she had come.

  Yet around her more and more Ramen appeared out of the grass, answering the summons of Hami’s Cords. From the crest of the arete, Linden might have believed the vale empty, but it was not. When she finally shook herself out of her somnolence, she found that perhaps three score Ramen had joined her companions. Most of them were Cords, garrotes at their waists, hair flying loose; but three or four wore their hair as Hami did, tied back by their garrotes, and around their necks were garlands of amanibhavam.

  And still more of them merged with the company as Linden took note of them. Soon they became a throng among the grass. Yet somehow they sifted through it rather than trampling it down. In spite of their numbers, she could hardly tell where they had been.

  She had not expected to find so many of them thriving here: five or six score now, with more continuing to arrive. Before long, however, she noticed that they had no children among them-and no old men or women. Two or three of the Manethralls had grey in their hair, and their scars had acquired the pallor of years. A certain number of the Cords appeared older than those who followed Hami. But no children? No grandmothers or grandfathers?

  Either the Ramen were dying as a people, or they had left all those who could not fight elsewhere.

  Or both.

  What had happened to them during their centuries of exile from the Land?

  Linden might have questioned Hami then, although the Manethrall had made it plain that she di
d not wish to speak prematurely. But as Linden’s concern grew, she caught her first glimpse of their destination.

  It appeared to be a dwelling of some kind, a tall, open-sided construct planted in the grass. Bare poles at the corners, and at intervals along the sides, supported a latticed ceiling of smaller wooden shafts like latias; and sod had been placed over the lattice to form a roof of deep grass. Within this shelter lay mounds of grass and bracken, and a scattering of bundles like bedrolls; and at its centre a space had been cleared for a ring of hearthstones and a cooking fire.

  Two Cords tended the fire, apparently preparing a meal, while others came forward with their Manethrall to join the Ramen around Linden.

  And beyond this dwelling stood others, she could not see how many, all with open sides and sod roofs. Now she knew why she had not been able to spot any structures from the vantage of the ridge: their design camouflaged them.

  Yet the vale was treeless. The Ramen must have dragged their poles and latias from somewhere beyond the surrounding mountains. Presumably, then, the camp was not a temporary one, but rather a habitation either permanently or regularly occupied.

  Still Linden saw no children; no aged Ramen.

  Moving between the shelters, Hami and the Ramen escorted Linden, Liand, Stave, and Anele into a broad open circle where the grass had been worn to stubble and dirt by the passage of many feet. This clearing might have been visible from the ridge: it was certainly wide enough to stand out from the surrounding grass. The height of the shelters around it must have concealed it.

  At the edge of the circle, Cords led Somo aside, promising to tend the pinto well; and Linden and her companions were invited into the centre of the clearing.

  “This, Ringthane,” Hami announced quietly, “is the Ramen place of gathering. Here we will share food so that you may rest and regain your strength. In this way, we hope to encourage ease between us. Then we will take counsel after the fashion of the Ramen. We will speak of ourselves, and you will tell us your tales, that there may be friendship between us.”