The Runes of the Earth

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  “I can’t!” she countered urgently. “I don’t know how.”

  Who else could have produced the black concussion which had cast the kresh into confusion?

  Before Stave could protest, a woman came swiftly toward them over the rock. Like the human fighters—the Ramen?—she seemed to emerge from within the stones. She, too, was slim and lithe, ready for quickness, with long black hair and dark skin, and clad in leggings of leather and a snug leather jerkin. But she wore her hair tied back with a length of rope: her garrote. About her neck hung a small band of yellow flowers.

  “The Ringthane’s power is not needed, sleepless one.” Her voice sounded like nickering. “The ur-viles will not harm you.”

  Stave stared at her for an instant, then bowed as if she had appeared out of legends to greet him. “Manethrall.” He sounded stiff, like a man deliberately withholding wonder. “This cannot be. Ur-viles are evil, and the Ramen do not serve Corruption.”

  The woman did not return his bow. “Nevertheless,” she retorted. “They will harm none of you.”

  “Stave!” Liand shouted frantically. “They come!”

  Below the Stonedownor, the Ramen fought fiercely, fluidly. And they seemed improbably successful. Some of them must have fallen by now, bitten and torn. Yet they continued to disrupt the pack’s course, ten or more of them: rearing up from the struggle, leaping past teeth and claws; wielding their ropes to dislocate limbs, break necks, crush windpipes.

  But they could only hamper the kresh, not halt them. Already wolves had broken from the melee to pelt upward.

  Toward Liand and Somo.

  The first of them sprang for Liand’s chest. At the last instant, he stepped aside. As the wolf passed him, he ripped both of his knives underhand through its belly. It crashed to the stone, screaming at its wounds.

  Before he could recover, another beast charged. Two more went for the mustang’s throat.

  Liand fell, overborne by the wolf’s impact. Together they rolled and thrashed on the stone.

  Bounding downward, the woman whom Stave had called Manethrall flipped the rope from her hair and in the same motion looped it around the neck of Liand’s attacker. Her momentum carried her over the kresh; wrenched the beast aside.

  At the same time, another Raman sped to Somo’s aid. Jumping onto one wolf’s back, the man bunched himself and leaped to plunge down onto the spine of another. Bones broke with a sickening crunch. The man rolled free while the kresh collapsed, groveling helplessly.

  Wheeling, Somo lashed out with its hooves to crush the other wolf’s skull.

  Still the wedge of ur-viles poured downward, barking in cadence like an incantation. Power flared and spat from their glowing blades. In another heartbeat, they would reach the plane of native stone which had snared Anele in his memories.

  Linden stared at them. They will harm none of you. She believed the Manethrall. Yet the force which she felt from the ur-viles was harm incarnate: it had been devised for death.

  Covenant had told her of such creatures—and of butchery in Andelain—

  Grimly she held herself back, though her knuckles were white with fear, and the raw din of fighting kresh filled her head. She could see now that the wedge was not aimed at her.

  The woman who had spoken to her trusted ur-viles.

  And Stave must have trusted the Ramen. Instead of urging Linden to power, he followed the Manethrall into battle; met the brunt of the attack with his imponderable strength and skill.

  Anele’s hands plucked at Linden’s shoulders. When she turned to him, he gripped her weakly, needing her support. “Linden Avery,” he pleaded. “Chosen.” He had ceased weeping: his pain had grown too great for tears. “You must heed me.” His head flinched from side to side, straining his thin neck. “I cannot bear it else.”

  The ur-viles went past her at a run. Shouting in their harsh, incomprehensible tongue, they swept across the open rock and drove their wedge deep into the heart of the pack.

  Crimson blades flashed. The staff of the loremaster lashed black acid to both sides. Ramen vaulted out of the path of the wedge; began to withdraw from the struggle.

  Wherever the fluid force of the ur-viles touched fur, black flames burst. Acid knives parted flesh and bone as easily as rotten fabric. The frantic snarling of the kresh became torn yelps and shrieks.

  Trembling, Linden met Anele’s supplication. The muscles of her legs quivered so that she could scarcely stand. Nevertheless she gazed into his ravaged face.

  “I’m here.” Speaking required so much effort that her words came out in gasps. “I’m listening. Go on.” There was nothing that she could do to aid her defenders. And the old man needed her. “Tell me what you remember.”

  He replied with a fragile nod. For a moment, he mumbled to himself, apparently searching to find his place in the tale. Then he resumed the granitic dirge of his life.

  “After many and many years of service,” he said, half-singing his grief and remorse, “Sunder and Hollian my parents elected at last to rest, and so they placed the Staff of Law in my hand.”

  Below them, the fight intensified as the kresh raved for some point of weakness which would allow them to break open the wedge; but Linden no longer attended to the battle. Events had exceeded her frayed capacity to understand them. Instead she concentrated on Anele. His tale had become the only thing that made sense to her.

  “Yet I could not continue their work.” His distress ached to her senses. “Daunted by astonishment, and inadequate to their example, I needed to discover my own use for my birthright. All other courses led to despair.

  “So it transpired that when my parents had lapsed gently into death, and I had shared in the inexpressible mourning of Mithil Stonedown, and of all the Land, I did not take up the task left to me. Instead I took the Staff of Law and departed from my home so that I might seek out some more personal form of service.”

  At the edges of the wedge, a few ur-viles fell to claws and fangs. Instantly, however, ur-viles within the wedge shifted to replace the fallen. And the loremaster’s distilled puissance dealt out fury as though it could not be quenched. Already more than a score of kresh writhed in flames; and still more caught fire with each acrid splash of power. Stave guarded the bare gutrock, delivering death whenever a wolf dared challenge him. Liand and Somo remained safely behind him, watching the fight. And at the walls of the rift, using the cliffs to guard their backs, the surviving Ramen crippled or slew every beast that came within reach.

  Anele ignored them all. He might have forgotten their existence.

  “High among these crests and vales,” he explained, nodding to the mountains, “I made a place for myself—not so distant from Mithil Stonedown that I could not hasten to the Land’s aid at need, but far enough to attain the silence and loneliness, the freedom from astonishment, which my spirit craved.

  “There I became Unfettered. The Haruchai had spoken of such men and women. From them I had learned the words, though I did not know the song.”

  In a frail voice, he recited:

  “Free

  Unfettered

  Shriven

  Free—

  Dream that what is dreamed will be:

  Hold eyes clasped shut until they see,

  And sing the silent prophecy—

  And be

  Unfettered

  Shriven

  Free.”

  Then he continued his story.

  “Sunder and Hollian my parents had set themselves to heal the life of the Land. For myself I chose another task.”

  Abruptly the character of the battle changed. Too many of the kresh had been slain: too many howled at the fire in their fur, or at the torment of their crippled and dangling limbs. First one at a time, then by twos and threes, then all together, the pack turned to flee.

  “I wished to comprehend the Land’s spirit. I did not purpose healing. In my astonishment, I did not conceive that I might attempt so great a task. But I dreamed that if I could teac
h myself to harken to the essential language of the Land, I might hear of truths or needs which would enable those who came after me to provide deeper balms, more fundamental restorations.

  “And betimes,” the old man admitted, “I imagined that if I could but tune my ears and Earthpower to an adequate acuity, I might learn from the gutrock itself how the Land might be rid of its most ancient and implacable evil.”

  The ur-viles followed, killing every beast within reach of their power. The cries of the kresh filled the rift, a forlorn ululation. But the Ramen did not give chase. Instead they began to move among the fallen, searching for any of their comrades who were dead or injured, and ending the pain of the maimed wolves.

  “For many years—a generation and more among the folk of the Land—I came here, to this place, this rock.” More and more, Anele leaned on Linden’s support. He had no strength left for anything but words. “Here with the Staff of Law and Earthpower, I studied stone in every flake of mica and complication of granite, every cunning mineral vein, every trace of recollected heat. Each ripple of texture and flake of loss I memorized until it became the substance of my heart. And when at last I had brought my mortal flesh into consonance with the Earth’s bones, I found that I could hear the speech of mountains.”

  Bearing three dead comrades, and five sorely wounded, the Ramen ascended the rubble, led by the Manethrall.

  He has no friend but stone.

  “Have I spoken of years and generations? Sunder and Hollian my parents far surpassed the span of ordinary men and women. By the measure of other folk, I was an old man when I inherited the Staff of Law—and more than old before I discovered true hearing—for I had inherited also the longevity of Earthpower and Law.”

  When the Ramen reached the gutrock, Stave joined them. And Liand did the same, drawing Somo behind him. Blood streaked his left arm, but Linden could not gauge the extent of his injury.

  “Much I learned here,” Anele breathed hoarsely, “more than I am able to contain. I heard hints of the Durance, and of the skurj. In such matters the Elohim played a part entwined with Earthpower and the Worm of the World’s End. Yet always I remained myself, incapable of the burden of astonishment. With the Staff and my own nature, I had opened a storeroom crowded immeasurably with memories and lore. Yet I was who I was, and could not attain the stature of such knowledge.”

  On the open stone, the Ramen set down their hurt and fallen comrades. The dead they placed respectfully aside, then turned to tend the wounded. Some of the hurts looked grievous, but none of the Ramen cried out or made any sound.

  “A better man might have felt the geas of the Earth’s need and found an answer. I did not. I could not imagine that the peril pertained to me, for the Staff exceeded me always. Therefore I only listened, and heard, and did naught.”

  The Manethrall did not stay with her people, but instead approached Linden and Anele, with Stave beside her. The other Ramen gestured for Liand to join them, but he ignored them to accompany the Manethrall and Stave.

  “Thus my doom came upon me at last, and I fell from the Land’s service through no cause but my own littleness and folly.”

  As soon as the Master reached her, he said impassively, “Linden Avery, we must not tarry here. If these ur-viles will permit us, we must return to Mithil Stonedown while daylight holds. You have seen that I do not suffice to ward you. We require the greater safety of habitation and other Haruchai.”

  But the Manethrall woman forestalled him with a severe movement of her hand. “Depart if you will, Bloodguard,” she told him sternly. “We will permit the old man to speak. Long have we wished to hear his tale.”

  Obliquely Linden heard in the woman’s voice that she did not trust Stave. For some reason, she considered ur-viles less threatening than Masters.

  Anele had not paused. He seemed to hear no voice except the lament of the stone’s memories.

  “In one clean dawn, pristine and cherishable, while I rested from hearing in the kindly cave which had become my home, I felt the thing of wrong—the thing which destroyed me—and was fearful of it, for I had never known its like.”

  At last, the ur-viles ceased harrying the kresh. Still in formation, they turned to climb back up the jumbled slope.

  “In some fashion it resembled the Sunbane’s touch upon the Land. And in some fashion it echoed the seeping vileness which mars the waters flowing from Mount Thunder’s depths into the embrace of the Great Swamp. Yet it was neither of those. Rather it was fresh—new-born to harm, and virulent beyond my comprehension. This stone could not have described such abomination to me. It would have rent itself asunder in the telling.”

  The wedge ascended steadily; but the Manethrall gave it no heed, although Stave regarded it askance.

  “For a time,” Anele moaned, “my fear held me, and I faltered. Yet gradually I remembered courage, and determined that I would go forth to gaze upon this thing of evil.

  “A simple choice, I assured myself, to go forth and gaze only. I would decide upon a better response when I had perceived its nature. Or perhaps when I had learned to understand it—”

  Abruptly Stave insisted on the Raman woman’s attention. “Do not miscompre-hend, Manethrall.” He may have wished to interrupt Anele’s tale. “Your presence among these mountains is a great boon to the Land, unexpected among the perils of these times. If you will consent to accompany us, or to return to your ancient homes upon the Plains of Ra, all the Haruchai will rejoice in your presence.”

  He did not sound joyful, however. Instead his tone conveyed an adamantine resolve as he added, “I intend no disrespect when I say that we must depart now.

  “I do not speak for the Chosen. As you have discerned, she is the Ringwielder, and will do as she must. But the old man is in our care, and we do not permit his freedom. He must return at once to Mithil Stonedown.”

  Gasping, Anele stumbled to a halt as if in dread; as if the Master had laid cruel hands on him. His thin form sagged against Linden’s support.

  The thought that he might not be able to continue—or that Stave might prevent him from saying more—sent a flush of anger through her. Before she could react, however, the Manethrall interposed herself between Stave and Anele; and Liand stepped closer to offer his aid.

  Quietly, harshly, the woman said to Stave, “Then it is you he fears. You who have become Masters.”

  Stave nodded, untouched by her accusation.

  “Have a care, sleepless one.” The Manethrall lifted her garrote, stiff with the drying blood of wolves. “The Ramen do not forget. We remember that you have ridden Ranyhyn to their deaths.” Bitterness gave her voice a flaying edge. “In those years, we withheld our enmity only because the Bloodguard had sworn fealty to the Lords. But we remember also that you turned from fealty to the service of Fangthane the Render.”

  The Manethrall’s assertion startled Linden. She had heard the tale from Stave: the defeat and maiming of Korik, Sill, and Doar had led the Bloodguard to turn their backs on their Vow. But that had been, what, seven thousand years ago? And the Ramen remembered it?

  “We suffer your presence,” the Raman woman continued, “because we loathe the kresh, which you oppose, and because you do not bear the scent of evil. Also we seek to comprehend that which impels these ur-viles. But this old man has found a place in our hearts, and we will not withdraw our aid.”

  “Your hearts mislead you.” Stave neither raised his voice nor spoke sharply; but his judgment was absolute. “This Anele has claimed kinship with a man and a woman who perished three millennia and more ago. He is mad, and speaks only madness.”

  “Be quiet, both of you, please,” Linden pleaded. “I need to hear Anele.”

  Stave did not relent. “Chosen, you profess concern for the Land.” He studied Linden past the Manethrall’s shoulder. “If you truly wish to serve it, you must not harken to him.”

  “Then tell me something,” she retorted. “You people remember everything. Your ancestors must have known Sunder and
Hollian’s son. What was his name?”

  Stave’s eyes widened slightly, but he did not hesitate. “The inheritor of the Staff of Law was named Anele.” At once, he added, “It signifies nothing that this old man claims that name for himself.”

  “Nothing?” countered Linden. “What else do you call ‘nothing’? Do you think it’s an accident that he can read stone?”

  Before Stave could reply, the Manethrall put in, “If you truly wish to serve the Land, sleepless one, you will have patience. The Ramen do not desire to thwart you. We will do so only if we must.

  “Grant us this tale. Grant us two days in which to take counsel, and to seek comprehension. Then if you have persuaded us to trust you, we will accompany you to Mithil Stonedown, to ensure your safe passage. And if you have not persuaded us, we will attempt to persuade you.”

  “Finally,” Linden muttered between her teeth. “A suggestion we can use.”

  She had no idea what two days among the Ramen might entail—and did not care.

  Stave gazed inflexibly at the Manethrall. After a moment, still stiffly, he repeated his earlier bow. “Your distant ancestors held our respect. At the last, their devotion exceeded ours. In their name, and in that of the great Ranyhyn, which we adored, I will abide by your word.”

  Thank God—!

  Below Linden, the ur-viles had regained bare gutrock. They were so near that even her faint percipience felt the leashed savagery of their lore and their blades. But they could not frighten her now. Everything that remained to her, she focused on Anele.

  He had not stirred in her grasp. Gently she shook him, tried to bring up his head. “Anele, please. I’m ready now. Can you go on?”

  No one would ever be able to help him if he could not speak of his distress; complete his tale.

  Guided by instinctive empathy, she gently kissed the top of his head.

  With an effort, one bone and joint at a time, he roused himself. By small increments, he dragged his eyes up to the level of Covenant’s ring hanging inside her shirt. There he fixed his gaze, staring blindly. When he finally found his voice, he spoke as if he were addressing that small metal band—