The Runes of the Earth

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  More for her own sake than for his—as far as she knew, the Haruchai had no sense of humor—she tried to lighten the silence; distract herself from her fears. “Well,” she said, “here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”

  He did not so much as glance at her.

  Linden shrugged to herself. More seriously, she asked, “Do you have any idea where they might be taking us? Can you think of anything that might explain what they’re doing?”

  She hardly expected him to respond. The scale of their disagreements and conflicts might make simple conversation impossible.

  Having stated his position and made his decisions, however, Stave now seemed content to comport himself as though nothing had changed. “I have no clear answer,” he replied calmly. “Yet there is a tale which was told by Bannor of the Bloodguard during the time of the Unbeliever. It suggests an answer.”

  “Please,” Linden put in promptly. “Tell me.”

  “This tale,” he said, “concerns the quest of High Lord Elena and ur-Lord Covenant for the Seventh Ward of Kevin’s Lore. Though they knew it not, they sought the Blood of the Earth and the Power of Command.

  “You have heard that when ur-Lord Covenant first summoned the Ranyhyn, a great many of them answered, each rearing in obeisance and fear, each offering to be ridden. Yet he refused them, for which the Ramen honor him above all Lords and Bloodguard. Rather than ride any Ranyhyn, he asked of them a boon.

  “In Mithil Stonedown he had done cruel harm to a woman of the Land—to Lena daughter of Atiaran, she who later gave birth to High Lord Elena. Hoping, perhaps, to ease that wrong, he asked of the Ranyhyn that one of them would visit Lena each year, for she adored them.

  “This service the Ranyhyn fulfilled without fail, until the Unbeliever himself released them from it.”

  Gradually Linden’s anxiety receded as she began to feel more secure on Hyn’s back. When they had left behind the shelters of the Ramen, the Ranyhyn increased their gait to an easy, rolling canter which carried them swiftly through the deep grass. At that speed, she might have felt more alarm rather than less. But the mare was able to compensate for her uncertain balance. In spite of her initial trepidation, she found herself relaxing to the sound of Stave’s voice.

  She knew what he meant by “cruel harm.” Covenant had told her of his crime against Lena. However, the rest of Stave’s tale was unfamiliar to her.

  “In later years,” he was saying, “during High Lord Elena’s girlhood, Lena occasionally allowed her daughter to ride in her place. The High Lord spoke of that time in Bannor’s presence while she and ur-Lord Covenant floated upon the flame-burnished waters of Earthroot.

  “She told of a ride which expressed the will of her mount, the Ranyhyn Myrha, rather than any wish of hers.”

  Ahead of Hyn and Hynyn, the mountainsides crowded close together, leaving only a narrow gap between sharp cliffs. As the great horses stretched their canter to a run, the cut ravine seemed to sweep palpably nearer. Grass, a few shrubs, and the occasional aliantha blurred past Linden on both sides. To her surprise, she began to enjoy Hyn’s swiftness. The adoration and service of the Ramen were not difficult to understand. Like so much of the Land outside Lord Foul’s influence, the Ranyhyn were tangibly precious.

  But she could not be sure that she would prove equal to what they wished of her.

  “What happened?” she asked her companion.

  “In the High Lord’s tale,” Stave answered, “Myrha bore her to an eldritch tarn enclosed within the Southron Range, where Ranyhyn had gathered by the hundreds. Around the vale of the tarn, the Ranyhyn galloped as though in ecstasy, only pausing at intervals to drink of the tarn’s dark waters.

  “When the High Lord also drank, she found herself united in spirit with the great horses, sharing their thoughts and purposes. Thus she learned that she had been brought to partake of the horserite of Kelenbhrabanal, Father of Horses, Stallion of the First Herd. This rite the Ranyhyn held in secret, generation after generation, so that Kelenbhrabanal’s doom would never be forgotten.

  “I know not what Hynyn and Hyn desire of us,” he added. “It may be that they wish us also to partake of the horserite. Or they may have some purpose which lies outside the ken of the Haruchai.”

  His tone conveyed a shrug through the muted thunder of hooves. Whatever the intentions of the Ranyhyn might be, he apparently did not mean to let them interfere with his own commitments.

  Or perhaps he was not so single-minded. His people loved the great horses. And Hyn and Hynyn had imposed their will on him as well as on Linden.

  And he seemed reluctant to tell her the rest—

  “What was it?” she asked. “Kelenbhrabanal’s doom?”

  What had the Ranyhyn wanted from Covenant’s daughter?

  “In a time before Berek Halfhand became the first High Lord,” continued the Master, “the Ranyhyn warred against the wolves of Fangthane the Render, and were slaughtered. Grieving for the decimation of the First Herd, Kelenbhrabanal sought to end the conflict by proposing a bargain. The Father of Horses would surrender his own throat to Fangthane. In exchange, the Render would cease his war upon the Ranyhyn.

  “To this Fangthane agreed eagerly. But he did not honor his given word. When he had slain Kelenbhrabanal, he unleashed his wolves again upon the Plains of Ra. The slaughter of the Ranyhyn resumed. They would have perished from the Land if they had not gained the service of the Ramen to aid them in their long strife.”

  “This knowledge the Ranyhyn shared with High Lord Elena to warn her,” Stave concluded flatly, “but she did not heed them.”

  He seemed to believe that he had answered Linden’s question. But she was not satisfied. “What was the warning?” she insisted. “I don’t see what Kelenbhrabanal has to do with Elena. She wasn’t looking for a way to sacrifice herself.”

  Not according to the little that Linden had heard of those events.

  The Master appeared to sigh. “You know the tale. High Lord Elena sought the Seventh Ward, the Power of Command, so that she might compel Kevin Landwaster from his grave against Corruption. She believed that despair would anneal Kevin’s heart, rendering him from pain to iron, making of him an indomitable tool.

  “In this she was wrong, to the great cost of all the Land.

  “Bannor deemed then, as do the Haruchai now, that the Ranyhyn had perceived a flaw in the High Lord’s comprehension. By means of their horserite, they sought to alter the course of her thoughts. They wished her to grasp that despair is no more potent or salvific beyond death than it is in life.”

  If Bannor and his descendants were right, the Ranyhyn had read Elena’s future in her young eyes. They had seen the time ahead of her: who she would become; what she would do.

  And Elena had not heeded them.

  Yet they had continued to serve her. To the last, they had hoped that she would learn from their rites. Or they had forgiven in advance her human folly—

  Now, like them, Stave was trying to warn Linden.

  It was too bad, she thought to herself, that the Masters also were not listening.

  Beyond the ravine which led them from the Verge of Wandering, Hyn and

  Hynyn bore their riders running across mountainsides washed with sunshine, redolent with wildflowers and springtime. Always in sunlight, they rounded one towering granite buttress after another, plunging down into the gullies and sholas which creased the boundaries between peaks, then clattering with undiminished speed up the far slopes. At times the ground they trod looked rocky enough to imperil mountain goats; yet they galloped on without hesitation. For a while, Linden was sure that they would exhaust themselves. Gradually, however, she became aware that both mounts were in fact holding themselves back: that they had tremendous strength in reserve, and had not yet called forth their true power.

  Their restraint may have been meant as consideration for her.

  Fortunately the indefeasible security of Hyn’s long strides inspired an almost autonomic confid
ence. The mare seemed as reliable as the bones of the Earth. Lulled by trust, Linden eventually found herself drifting. The sun’s warmth seeped into her bones, and the whetted atmosphere of the mountains seemed to clean the fear from her lungs. By degrees, her apprehensions faded, and she fell into a doze.

  Later she was startled awake by a cessation of motion. The Ranyhyn had halted in a low gully nourished by a sparkling rill. As it danced past a small clump of aliantha, the water chuckled to itself as if high among the mountains it had heard an amusing tale. Hyn and Hynyn had paused to let their riders eat and drink.

  Stave had already dismounted. Still half asleep, Linden slipped down from Hyn’s back without remembering to worry about her height from the ground. Unsteadily, she moved to the rill to quench her thirst, then joined her companion beside one of the treasure-berry bushes.

  She saw at once that riding had exacerbated his wounds, his internal injuries as much as his damaged hip. His lips were pallid, his skin had taken on an ashen hue, and his pains were as sharp as compound fractures.

  Nonetheless he remained undaunted. He had not yet come to the end of himself. And the sapid fruit restored him as it did her. With her health-sense, she could watch the progress of renewed vitality through his body. Soon she believed that he would be able to endure more riding.

  Now she noticed that the sun had reached the afternoon sky. The passing of time caused her a pang. She must have dozed longer than she realized. “Did Bannor happen to say,” she asked Stave, “how far away this tarn is?”

  The Haruchai regarded her steadily. “It is not certain that the tarn of the horserite is our destination.”

  Linden nodded. “I understand. It’s just a guess. But I need something to hope for.”

  “As you say.” He gazed up at the highest peaks. “High Lord Elena spoke of riding at a gallop for a day and a night from Mithil Stonedown. Doubtless a portion of the distance was behind us in the Verge of Wandering. More than that—”

  With a shrug, he turned to limp toward Hynyn.

  Both Ranyhyn had cropped a little grass and drunk from the rill. Now the stallion moved unbidden to stand beside a boulder jutting from the side of the gully. Apparently Hynyn understood that his rider might no longer be able to mount without aid. Once Stave had pulled himself onto the boulder, he could reach Hynyn’s back easily.

  Touched by the discernment of the Ranyhyn, Linden followed his example. When she had resumed her seat, Hyn and Hynyn trotted out of the gully to continue their journey.

  Thereafter the terrain became more demanding, the ground more broken and rocky, the mountainsides steeper. Bare stone loomed against the sky, grey with age and cold, mottled with lichen. Weather-stunted trees clung arduously to splits in the cliffs, and stubborn stretches of grass gave way to slopes of gravel like the detritus of glaciers. At the same time, the temperature declined as though the Ranyhyn ran toward realms of ice. Hyn and Hynyn had borne their riders far from any soil which could have sustained the rampant grass of the Verge of Wandering. Whenever the twisted thrusting of the granite blocked the sun, Linden found herself regretting that she had not thought to bring one of Liand’s warm cloaks; that Liand himself was not with her.

  Of necessity the Ranyhyn slowed their pace, although they still traveled swiftly.

  No clouds were visible within the constricted horizons, but Linden could smell a storm on the raw breeze. Somewhere beyond the dominion of these rough peaks, rain and wind and trouble were brewing. Instinctively, she feared that some bitter force gathered to repel the Ranyhyn from their purpose.

  Stave betrayed no concern; but that did not comfort her.

  Through Anele, Lord Foul had assured her that he had done no harm to the Land. I have merely whispered a word of counsel here and there, and awaited events. She suspected that he held her in too much contempt to lie. Yet he seemed to have vast powers in his service. And she did not believe for a moment that Hyn had borne her beyond his reach—

  If you fear what has been “done,” think on the Elohim and be dismayed.

  Esmer could testify to the cruelty of such legacies.

  Slowly Linden’s discomfort became a remorseless ache which seemed to span her consciousness from rim to rim. She no longer noticed the evolving vistas, or watched the sun’s progress down the narrow sky. At intervals, an unwonted jolt roused her enough to see that her surroundings had grown as sheer as spires, as sharp as knives. Raw granite edges softened only by ice and distance cut away the daylight in swaths, making way for darkness. Then the aching in her legs and back swelled again, and her ability to regard how her world shrank slipped away.

  Soon it became too small to contain her son; or Liand and Anele and the Ramen; or her memories of the man she had loved.

  Time passed; and the air turned distinctly colder as the Ranyhyn dropped down the far side of a raw pass into an enclosed depth like a pit of gloom, a clenched instance of winter. Descending from remnants of sunlight into shadow, they seemed to leave behind every vestige of spring and warmth and familiarity. Under their hooves, the ground became bitter and broken, old stone warped to shards and twisted out of cognizance by eons of unrelieved ice.

  Protected only by Hyn’s generous heat, Linden returned shivering to herself.

  Somewhere above the enveloping gloom, daylight still held the peaks, but its touch was lost in shadow, leaving only a premature dusk. In the heavens, early stars glittered coldly against the velvet dark, while ahead of the Ranyhyn midnight crouched like a waiting beast.

  Until now, Hyn and Hynyn had shown themselves able and willing to care for the most basic needs of their riders; but Linden could not imagine how they might preserve her against such cold. Conditioned by Covenant’s distrust of his ability to control that wild magic, she had never considered calling on his ring for something as simple and necessary as warmth. If the Ranyhyn did not surprise her with some new providence, she would have no choice but to risk dangers which had dismayed him.

  But then the horses sank below some unseen boundary layer like a thermocline, and the cold began to dissipate. After its first change, the air remained unpleasantly chill, reminiscent of freezing and loneliness. At least temporarily, however, it had lost its harsh edge. Soon tufts of hardy grey grass emerged among the rough stones. In the deepening shadow, the slope relaxed as grasses spread out over the ground.

  Before long, Linden found herself in what appeared to be a cliff-walled glen. With only the distant disinterest of stars for illumination, she could not see its far side except as a deeper ebony amid the gloaming; but the glen seemed to be more than broad enough to hold the horserite that Stave had described. And its grassy floor was relatively flat and smooth: it might have been beaten down by uncounted generations of hooves.

  Ahead of her at the center of the glen lay an area of complete blackness like a disk of obsidian, a rough circle impenetrable to light. It held no sheen of starlight, no reflection of any kind: she would have assumed that it was stone if Stave had not spoken of a “tarn”—and if eldritch waters had not called out to her senses, warning her of power which had welled up from the depths of the Earth.

  Hyn and Hynyn had reached their secret destination.

  They trotted toward the tarn eagerly, ears pricked forward, breath snorting in their nostrils. Linden expected them to approach the waters immediately and drink; but after a few paces, Hyn abruptly shrugged her to the ground. Unprepared, she landed awkwardly and nearly fell.

  Stave joined her a heartbeat later, catching himself on one leg to protect his hip.

  While her knees trembled, Linden watched as the mare and the stallion together hastened to the tarn and plunged their muzzles into the unrelieved dark.

  She had time to think, Hundreds of Ranyhyn? Where were the others? Elena had been a child, probably overwhelmed; but she could not have been so dramatically wrong about her own experience. Surely two Ranyhyn did not comprise a horserite? They were not enough—

  Then Hynyn and Hyn exploded away from t
he waters and began to thunder around the dell as if they had plunged into frenzy.

  Linden had never witnessed such galloping. She could only make out vague shapes in the caliginous air: running, the Ranyhyn appeared as little more than smears along the shrouded base of the cliffs. Yet they were loud and vivid to the enhanced dimension of her senses, fraught with Earthpower, and bright as bonfires. Drinking from the tarn seemed to have ignited their inherent vitality. They radiated an intense heat. She felt their sweat as though it were the spume of hysteria. If Stave had not described Elena’s visit here, Linden would have guessed that Hyn and Hynyn had gone mad.

  But they were only two—

  Why were they alone? Where were the rest of the Ranyhyn?

  Still shaken by cold, she breathed, “Stave.” She needed some explanation from him. But she could find no language for what she lacked except his name. The furious race of the Ranyhyn tugged at her awareness, her ability to think, sucking her mind away with centrifugal insistence.

  As if in response to her unformed question, the Master turned his back on the tarn and began to hobble toward the nearest cliff-wall.

  “Wait,” she panted. She had been too long on horseback, come too far from any reality that made sense to her: she had forgotten how to claim his attention. Nevertheless she ached for his companionship. She did not know how to face even this small fragment of a horserite by herself.

  “Please, Stave!” she called because he had not stopped; did not appear to have heard her past the laboring hooves of the Ranyhyn. “I need to understand.”

  He paused, balancing on one foot. “Then drink of the tarn.” His tone had the certainty of a knell. “Thus will you comprehend what the Ranyhyn wish you to grasp.”