The Runes of the Earth: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Book One

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  “The Bloodguard burned to challenge the Despiser themselves, to exceed his might with their own valor. They believed that they were indomitable. Corruption had not yet taught them otherwise.

  “But the High Lord forbade them. He could not bear to chance that they might fail and fall. Concealing the darkness in his heart, he ordered the Bloodguard from the Land. And because they honored him—because they trusted him—they obeyed his will, dispersing themselves among the mountains.”

  A note of sadness entered the faint music of Stave’s tone. “They did not grasp that darkness had mastered the High Lord’s heart. In despair he had conceived a stratagem of desperation. By his command, both the Bloodguard and the Unhomed were barred from the Upper Land. Likewise he sent the folk of the Land from their homes, and instructed the Ramen to guide the Ranyhyn away. Then he met with Corruption in Kiril Threndor, and there challenged the Despiser to the Ritual of Desecration.”

  Bits of lamplight reflected from Stave’s gaze as if his eyes were full of embers and kindling, primed for fire.

  “It is said that Corruption acceded gleefully. Desecration is his demesne, and he knew as High Lord Kevin did not that from such an expression of pain no life or being or power could emerge unscathed.”

  Linden lowered her head to her knees to rest her throbbing neck. She remembered Kevin’s tormented shade as keenly as the cut of a blade.

  Anele lay hugging himself with his knees against his chest. He had turned to face the wall, away from Linden and Stave. He may have fallen asleep.

  “Together,” Stave continued, “Corruption and the Landwaster wrought devastation. In that Ritual, the old Lords and many of their most precious works were swept from the Land. Much of beauty was crippled, and much destroyed utterly. When those who had been dispersed returned to the Land, they found a wilderland where they had left vitality and health. A thousand years passed before the many healings of the new Lords bore fruit, and the beauty which belonged to the Land could grow anew.”

  There the Haruchai paused briefly.

  Linden did not raise her head. She did not want to see sparks gather into conflagration in his eyes.

  When Stave resumed, however, his voice had regained its familiar dispassion.

  “From Kevin Landwaster, the Bloodguard learned the peril of trust. Linden Avery, you have felt the doubt of the Haruchai. You know that these words are truth.”

  She did indeed. The persistent suspicions of Brinn, Cail, and their companions had caused her more pain than she could recall without trembling. But she said nothing that might deflect Stave’s narrative.

  “The Bloodguard served the new Council as they had served the old. Once again, they honored the Giants and the Ranyhyn. Where they could, they gave battle to Corruption’s minions. But they had learned to doubt, and now they did not relax their vigilance, or grant unquestioning compliance to any act or choice of the Lords.”

  Once more the cadences of distant singing claimed Stave’s tone. “Yet their strength was proven weakness. In the battles of the new Lords against Corruption’s armies, the Unhomed, whom the Bloodguard loved, were utterly destroyed. Confronting a Raver in the flesh of a Giant—a Raver that held a fragment of the Illearth Stone and was thereby made extravagant in power and malice—the Giants could not rouse themselves to oppose their own doom. Therefore they were slaughtered.

  “There the Bloodguard glimpsed the onset of a new Desecration. For that reason, they determined to take the Despiser’s defeat into their own hands. When the Illearth Stone had been wrested from the Raver’s hand, three of the Bloodguard, Korik, Sill, and Doar, claimed that fragment of great evil. Seeking to prevent a greater ruin, they fulfilled the desire of all the Bloodguard to challenge Corruption.”

  Now Stave’s tone hinted at bitterness. “They were mastered easily and entirely. Their skill and fidelity had no force against Despite. They were enslaved. They were maimed to resemble the Unbeliever. And they were dispatched to Revelstone to declare the Lords’ last defeat.

  “There the Vow was broken.” Vistas of sorrow filled the background of his voice. “The Bloodguard were Haruchai. They could not suffer it that they had been so turned against themselves. The beauty and grandeur which had inspired the Vow required flawless service, and they had shown themselves flawed. Earthpower had enabled their service, but it had not preserved them from dishonor.

  “In the name of the purity which they had failed to equal, the Haruchai returned to their cold homes, turning their backs in shame on the Council and the Ranyhyn, on Andelain and all the Land. Aided by the last of the Unhomed, ur-Lord Thomas Covenant defeated Corruption, and so the Land was spared another Desecration, but the Haruchai had no hand in that triumph.”

  Still Stave’s inbred dispassion sustained him. “From their shame, they learned that they could not endure it. And from their Vow, they learned that they had been misled by Earthpower. Such puissance both transcended and falsified their mortality. Without Earthpower, they would have remained what they were, Haruchai, inviolate. They would have known themselves unequal to such banes as the Illearth Stone and Ravers.”

  That Linden understood. She, too, was certain of her own inadequacy. And she had learned from Thomas Covenant that such knowledge could be a source of strength.

  “Yet evil continued to flow from the use of Earthpower,” Stave explained. “For thirty centuries and more, the Haruchai remained among their mountains and their women, and at last their memories gave birth to a wish to see what had become of the Land. Again some among them sojourned eastward. Thus they discovered the Clave and the Sunbane.

  “So much of their tale you know. The Haruchai were imprisoned by the Clave. Their fierce blood was shed to feed the Banefire. When they, and you, were freed by the Unbeliever, they again set themselves against Corruption in anger and repudiation.

  “But they did not renew the shame of their past arrogance. Instead they contented themselves in Thomas Covenant’s troubled service, and in yours, and in defense of the folk of the Land. Therefore they were not again turned against themselves.

  “And again the ur-Lord triumphed over his foe. That tale the Haruchai heard from the Giants of the Search. And they heard as well that Linden Avery the Chosen gave form to a new Staff of Law. Thus you triumphed over the Sunbane, so that the Land might once again be allowed to heal.”

  She found herself nodding, although the movement hurt her neck. Hardly aware of what she did, she had raised her head to gaze into Stave’s indecipherable face.

  “Desiring a service in which they might also triumph,” he said, “the Haruchai remained when you had returned to your world. The new Staff was given to the folk of the Land, but it was soon lost, and there were no Lords who might have defended Earthpower from darkness. The Land required our care.”

  Anele whimpered as if in nightmare; but he did not turn from the wall.

  “Do you understand me, Linden Avery? We had learned that the Ritual of Desecration and the Sunbane were expressions of Earthpower. We had learned that Earthpower could not preserve any service from shame, neither ours nor the Lords. We had learned that mortal hearts are weak, and that Corruption is cunning to exploit that weakness. And we had learned to love the Land, as the Lords did before us.

  “In the end, we learned that the Land and all its life would not have suffered such renewed and again renewed cruelty if Earthpower were not”—again he paused to search for a word—“accessible for use. Certainly it is not Corruption. But in the absence of the Staff of Law, only Corruption is served when mortal hearts exercise Earthpower. Even in the presence of the Staff, great evil may be wrought. Therefore we have taken upon ourselves the guardianship of the Land.

  “We do not rule here. We command nothing. We demand nothing. All life is free to live as it wills. But we do not permit any exertion of Earthpower.”

  Linden stared at him, but she could no longer see him. Tears blurred her vision. Only Corruption is served—How was it possible to have learned so much
, and to understand so little?

  Earthpower was life: no mere decision or belief on the part of the Haruchai could gainsay it. Everything that had form and substance here was in some sense an “exertion of Earthpower.” The true peril lay not in its use, but in the hearts of those who did not understand their own vulnerability to despair.

  Against that danger, Linden Avery, like Thomas Covenant before her, was defended by the knowledge of her inadequacy. She could not be misled by despair because she did not expect herself to be greater than she was.

  Kevin’s Dirt held sway, and caesures stalked the Land, because the Staff of Law had been lost—and because the Haruchai did not “permit” any other use of Earthpower to oppose those evils.

  But Stave was not done. “Nor are we content,” he stated more stiffly. “We do more. Though we remember much, we do not share our memories. We seek to end all recollection of Earthpower, so that no new use may arise to thwart us.

  “We command nothing,” he insisted. “We rule nothing. But we discourage tales of the past. We relate none ourselves. We confirm none that others relate. Human memories are brief, and we nurture that brevity.

  “For many centuries now, the folk of the Land have known little which might harm them. You are forgotten, Linden Avery. The ur-Lord himself, whom we greatly honor, is no longer remembered. If it is your wish to oppose us, you will find no aid in all the Land.”

  Now Linden dashed the blur from her sight to gape aghast at the Haruchai, silently begging him to stop. But he did not.

  “In this the Giants have been our gravest hazard. The folk of the Land are as short of life as of memory, but the span of the Giants is measured in centuries. They remember. They return to the Land at intervals, when their wide sojourning tends hither. And they speak of what they remember.

  “They love long tales, which they recount at all opportunities. Therefore we are wary of them. As it lies within our power, we dissuade their travels to the Upper Land. And we do what we may to prevent the folk of the Land from hearing their tales.”

  Linden flinched as if Stave had struck her—and still he was not done. “The Giants have not forgotten you, Linden Avery,” he assured her, “yet you will find no aid among them. Their last sojourn to the Land ended scant decades ago. They will not return in your lifetime, or the next.”

  Good God, she groaned in protest. And you think you’ve given up arrogance? Stave’s people had gone beyond folly. Anele was right about them. They might call Lord Foul their enemy, but they served him and did not know it.

  She should have risen to her feet; faced him with her anger and dismay. But she did not. He had shaken her profoundly. The flame of the lamp guttered in her face, and all of her courage had fallen to ash.

  However, her face must have betrayed her reaction. After a moment, Stave observed, “Still you do not understand.” He addressed her from an unattainable height. “This manner of speech misrepresents us. It misrepresents truth. And I have deflected myself from the pith of that which I must convey.”

  He appeared to reconsider his approach. “All other matters are secondary,” he said then. “Only the question of Earthpower signifies. Grasping that, you will grasp all else.”

  He began again as though he could read the floundering incomprehension written in the play of lamplight on her features, and knew now how to answer it.

  “Consider, Linden Avery. The Elohim are beings of Earthpower, and they serve only their own freedom rather than the needs of the Earth. And the Worm of the World’s End is Earthpower incarnate.

  “The peril is manifest. It cannot be denied.

  “When he had concealed the old Staff of Law so that it would not constrain him, Kevin Landwaster enacted the Ritual of Desecration. That was Earthpower.

  “Though she held the old Staff in her hands, and Thomas Covenant urged restraint, High Lord Elena exercised the essential ichor of the Earth to lift dead Kevin from his grave. Disdaining his agony, she compelled his shade against Corruption. Thus was the Law of Death broken, and the Staff lost, to no avail.

  “That was Earthpower.”

  And still Stave was not done.

  “The ancient Forestals were beings of wonder. Long they labored to preserve the remnants of the One Forest. Yet when they had dwindled to the last, and Caer-Caveral stood alone in Andelain, he surrendered all use and purpose to break the Law of Life so that Hollian eh-Brand might live again. Now no guardian remains to the trees, and their long sentience has faded away.

  “That was Earthpower.

  “The Vow which misled the honor of the Bloodguard was made possible by Earthpower. Like the Sunbane before it, Kevin’s Dirt is an expression of Earthpower. Beasts of Earthpower rage upon Mount Thunder, and the lurker of the Sarangrave grows restive. Of the evils which now threaten the Land, only the Falls appear to spring from another fount. In all other forms, it is by Earthpower that the Land is imperiled, as it has been from the beginning.”

  There the Master finished. “Give answer, Linden Avery. As you have said, Brinn of the Haruchai has become the Guardian of the One Tree. In this he surpasses our knowledge of ourselves. He both exalts and humbles us. We must show that we are worthy of him, in guardianship and devotion.

  “We have determined that we will serve the Land. How then may we countenance any exercise of Earthpower?”

  Still Linden could not muster the strength to stand. She needed help from someone. She had no idea how to free her son. She did not even know where to look for him. Nor could she imagine where the lost Staff might be found. For that search also she would need help. And she was certain now that the Haruchai would not “countenance” such a quest. How could they? The Staff was an instrument of Earthpower.

  She did not answer Stave as he might have desired. Instead she countered his query with one of her own.

  Bowing her head, she asked past the swaying veil of her hair, “If you’re so determined to suppress the past, why are you willing to let me go?” She was a portion of the Land’s history incarnate. “Aren’t you afraid of what I might do?”

  Another man might have sighed. Stave only lifted his shoulders slightly. “You are Linden Avery the Chosen. You have stood at the Unbeliever’s side, and have kept faith. To our knowledge, no harm has arisen from you, or from the wild magic which you now wield. With white gold, ur-Lord Thomas Covenant has twice defeated Corruption. And when we have doubted you, your choices and actions have shown their worth.

  “We will”—once more he searched for the right word—“accept the hazard that you may seek to oppose us.”

  Oh, I’ll oppose you, she wanted to say. I haven’t forgotten a thing. I’ll tell it all, and to hell with you.

  Don’t you understand that Earthpower is life?

  Nevertheless she kept her anger to herself. Her plight was too grave; and she was too weak: she feared to declare herself. And Stave would not be swayed by Jeremiah’s peril.

  Instead of responding to the Master’s assertion, she said obliquely, “That smog—that yellow shroud. Why is it called Kevin’s Dirt?”

  His answer had the finality of a knell. “We name it so because we deem it to be a foretaste of Desecration. Its pall covers the Land in preparation.”

  Have mercy, Linden groaned to herself. A foretaste—Was Lord Foul that sure of himself?

  Hiding behind her hair, she told the Haruchai softly, “If that’s true, I need time to think. I want to be alone for a while.”

  She had come to the end of what she could bear to hear.

  Until she heard the soft rustle of the curtain and knew that Stave was gone, she did not raise her head.

  Incongruously considerate, he had left his lamp behind.

  His people did not allow any use of Earthpower. Deliberately they had caused its very existence—the Land’s true heritage—to be forgotten.

  If Covenant could have heard her—if he had been anything more than a figment of her dreams—she might have groaned aloud, I need you. I don’t think I can do th
is.

  Abruptly her companion rolled away from the wall. His arms trembled as he braced himself into a sitting position. Tears glistened in the grime on his cheeks, formed lamp-lit beads in his tattered beard. His lower lip quivered.

  Miserably he breathed, “Anele is doomed.”

  She could not contradict him. She did not know how.

  5.

  Distraction

  After a time, Anele wore out his inchoate sorrow and lapsed from weeping.

  A low breeze seemed to blow through Linden, scattering the ashes in her heart until nothing remained to indicate that she had ever known fire. But she could not remain where she was. The stone of the floor and walls offered her no accommodation. Instead its hard surfaces pressed on her bruises when she already felt too much distress.

  Eventually she rose to her feet, picked up the lamp, and limped across the room to investigate the other chambers of their gaol.

  The curtained doorway near Anele admitted her to Mithil Stonedown’s version of a lavatory. A stone basin and a large ewer full of water sat on a low wooden table. Beside them was a pot of fine sand, presumably for scrubbing away dirt. A clay pipe angled down into the floor answered other needs.

  She wanted to wash. A lifetime of ablution might not suffice to make her clean again. However, her hurts were too deep and tender to be rubbed. And she was nearly prostrate on her feet, hardly able to hold up her head.

  Unsteadily she left the lavatory.

  In the next chamber, she found what she sought: beds; two of them standing against the side walls. They had trestle frames well-padded with bracken and grass covered by blankets woven of rough wool. A window interrupted the far wall above the level of her eyes: it, too, had been wedged full of rocks.

  Turning her head, she informed Anele wanly, “Two beds.” When he did not respond, she added, “You probably haven’t slept in a bed for years.”

  Still he showed no reaction. He had slumped until his body appeared to mold itself against the stone.

  Sighing, she entered the bedchamber and let the curtain drop behind her.