The Runes of the Earth t3cotc-1

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Moments seemed to stretch out ahead of Linden, longer than the strides of the Ranyhyn. Despite the breeze of their passage, the air between the mountains felt viscid and still; cloying. Yet the great horses were wonderfully swift. If she had not hesitated earlier, she might have caught up with Anele before he reached his goal.

  Then finally the riders thudded to a halt beside Hrama and Mahrtiir’s mount. In a rush, Linden slipped from Hyn’s back; stumbled running toward the rocks.

  There, however, she faltered: she could not find Anele’s path. Every gap and cranny between the boulders looked the same to her, truncated and depthless, leading nowhere. But Stave sprang ahead of her. His sight was keener than hers, and he must have identified the place where Anele had entered the pile.

  Past a leaning slab of granite which appeared to rest squarely against still larger stones, he found a gap like a crevice just wide enough to admit him. Without hesitation, he moved into it.

  “Follow the Bloodguard, Ringthane,” Bhapa offered encouragingly. “The Manethrall has marked the path.”

  Linden saw no indications among the boulders; but she believed the Cord implicitly-and did not doubt Stave’s instincts. Hurrying, she began to make her way between the stones.

  His passage through the caesure had not restored Anele’s mind. If he found the Staff, he might be made whole; or he might lose himself completely.

  Deep behind the slab, another gap appeared, a crooked aisle between monoliths propped against each other. Only shafts and streaks of sunlight penetrated the pile, leaving much of the way shrouded in gloom. Beyond Stave’s dark shoulders, however, Linden saw flickering hints of light, dancing flames. And when she reached the end of the aisle, she found herself in the mouth of a cave like an entombed tunnel. The rockfall had concealed the entrance without burying it.

  Mahrtiir met her there, holding a torch that burned hotly, dried almost to tinder by age. The rough wood must have hurt his scorched palms, but he ignored the pain.

  Linden ran a few steps to catch at Stave’s arm, hold him back. Then she panted to Mahrtiir, “Anele-?”

  “He goes ahead,” answered the Manethrall. “This was once a dwelling, though many years have passed since it served that purpose. When I discovered torchwood, I returned to assist you. He will be not be lost. The signs of his passing”- Mahrtiir indicated the disturbed dirt of the floor- “will guide us.”

  Still gripping Stave’s arm, Linden pushed the Raman ahead of her. As they strode down the throat of the cave, she asked, “How big is this place?”

  “I know not, Ringthane,” Mahrtiir replied. “Mayhap it extends for leagues. But the place of habitation is near.” He hesitated briefly, then added, “If the old man once dwelt here, he abandoned it long ago. However, others have also entered.”

  Linden’s heart thudded. “Others-?”

  “Time and dust have obscured the marks of their feet,” Mahrtiir told her. The light of his torch cast grotesque shadows across his features. “I cannot determine their kind or number. Nor am I able to declare when they entered and departed. I am certain only that they have preceded us by years or decades.”

  Oh, God. Suddenly the darkness ahead of her seemed crowded with catastrophes. Memories of the ordeal of the Fall mocked her as she started forward again.

  Then the gullet of the cave opened into a larger space like a chamber in the rock. By the unsteady torchlight, Linden saw the signs of habitation: they seemed to flicker in and out of existence as the flames gusted and leaned.

  A neat pile that might once have been bedding lay against one wall. Even in the cave’s dry atmosphere, however, much of the fabric of the blankets and the stuffing of the mattress had rotted away. The rest had been gnawed apart by vermin.

  Opposite it stood a trestle table and three-legged stool, both precariously balanced on legs as brittle as twigs. Another, smaller table held clay urns and amphorae for storage, most of which were still intact, although one amphora had slumped to mud, dissolved from within by its contents, and an urn had cracked open, spilling husks of grain like dust across the table.

  Near the bed, Linden saw the remains of a large wicker basket which may once have held clothing, but which now contained only nests for mice. A scattering of faggots obviously intended as torches lay on the floor. From them, Pahni and Bhapa took sticks and lit them at Mahrtiir’s torch, adding their light to his.

  As they did so, threatening shadows writhed and gibbered across the ceiling.

  Lastly Linden noticed a tidy stone hearth designed as much for warmth as for cooking. At one time, its fires had spread soot up the wall behind it; but now most of the black had flaked away, leaving behind bare packed dirt and stone.

  Nothing else remained to indicate that Anele, son of Sunder and Hollian, and inheritor of the Staff of Law, had ever lived here.

  He was not in the chamber, but Linden knew where he had gone. There was only one other egress, a small opening like a portal in the wall near the hearth. And from it came small sounds which she had heard too often and knew too well: the bereft inarticulate whimpering of the old man’s desolation.

  The opening gave access to another cave, an unassuming space, hardly more than a niche or closet in the heart of the mountain. There Anele sprawled on the floor. Too broken even to weep, he slowly raised and then dropped his head over and over again, beating his forehead bloody against the stone. With each lift of his head, he moaned softly. But when he let it fall, the only sound was the sodden thump of his damp flesh hitting the floor.

  Linden felt no surprise at all to see that the Staff of Law was gone. Yet she believed that it had once been there; and for a moment she felt herself transported out of tangible reality into a demesne of pure and irreducible woe.

  Chapter Seven: Aid and Betrayal

  Linden did not know how to contain her dismay.

  Somewhere hundreds of leagues and thousands of years away from her, her son was being tortured. Mere hours ago, she had subjected all of her companions to the exquisite agonies of a caesure. And the Staff of Law was gone.

  She desired nothing except to save Jeremiah and defend the Land; but she had gained only an empty cave and despair.

  On some level, she had believed, trusted, assumed, that she would find the Staff here. Millennia from now, when Anele searched his abandoned home, the Staff would be gone. Hardly conscious of what she was doing, she had chosen to think that the Staff would be gone because she herself had taken it; that Anele’s searching would fail because her venture into the past had succeeded.

  She had blinded herself to other possibilities-

  In her imagination, she heard Lord Foul laughing like the destruction of stones. When he had led her to hurtloam, he had set her on the path to this place. Without that healing, she would not have been able to elude the Masters long enough to hear Anele’s tale. She would not have known who the old man was, or how he had lost the Staff; would never have imagined violating Time in this way.

  With Covenant’s ring, she was a danger to the Despiser; but he had effectively neutralised her by enabling her to do what she had done.

  Anele still lay on the floor, stigmatising the packed dirt and rock with his spilled blood. Liand stared at him in shock, as though the depth of the old man’s loss exceeded comprehension. Chagrin trapped the Ramen within the light of their torches, so that their features appeared to waver and blur as the flames gusted. And Stave scowled at the absence of the Staff as if his anger at Linden’s folly had overcome his dispassion.

  She did not know how to bear it. It was intolerable. Therefore she refused to accept it.

  Her companions deserved a better outcome.

  “All right;” she said. “This is bad.” Her voice shook like the torchlight; like flames consuming wood which had dried for decades. “But it could be worse. We aren’t beaten yet”

  The Cords gaped at her. Even Mahrtiir, the eager fighter, stared as though she had begun to froth at the mouth. Liand could find no words or air adequate
to his shock.

  Because she trusted the Stonedownor, Linden held up her hand as if to refuse his unspoken appeal. “Don’t say it. Don’t say anything at all.” Then she swept her arm to include all of her companions. “None of you” They could have broken her heart. “Don’t interrupt me. I need to think.”

  But Anele continued pounding his head on the floor. In desperation, Linden snapped, “Anele, God damn it-!” Then she whipped a look toward Liand. “For pity’s sake, stop him. He shouldn’t punish himself like this.”

  The young man heard her: he could still recognise pain and feel compassion. Shaking off his consternation, he hastened to Anele’s side. With Pahni’s help, he turned the old man over. Then he wrapped his strong arms around Anele’s grief, cradling it against his chest.

  At once, Linden turned on Stave.

  “You,” she said like an accusation, although she blamed no one but herself. “The Masters. The Haruchai. You remember everything.” She had reason to wonder what he might have withheld. “So tell me this.

  “What’s been going on here since Anele disappeared with the Staff? I mean in this time. This region, this part of the South Plains. Have there been any battles? Any signs of power? Strange fertility, unnatural wastes? Unexplained enemies? Dangerous occurrences of any kind?”

  Stave tried to respond, but she rushed on. “What about the people who live here? What are their lives like? How have they recovered from the Sunbane? What-?”

  “Chosen,” the Master interrupted sternly. “Your question is plain. Permit me to reply.”

  With an effort, Linden restrained herself. Chewing on her lower lip, she waited for his answer.

  “It is Booth,” he said more quietly, “that we remember much. Yet there are matters which you must understand.

  “First, the Haruchai did not lightly undertake to become the Masters of the Land. Until the Staff of Law was lost, the Land had no need of such care. Even then, centuries passed before the decision was made, for we are not hasty in these things. And as new Masters we did not extend our bourne to encompass all the Upper Land until centuries more had passed.

  “Between the time of your own knowledge and the time in which we now stand, few Haruchai sojourned so far into the South Plains. To Mithil Stonedown my people rode, that they might honour Sunder and Hollian. And later, when the loss of the Staff had become certain, they aided in searching for it. But they conceived that if the Staff had been removed toward Doom’s Retreat, they would have caught some glimpse of its presence or its use. Therefore they believed that its fate lay among the heights of the Southron Range, where no quest would discover it.”

  Stave seemed to consider how much he should reveal. Then he said, “But there is a second reason why the Haruchai made no thorough search in this region. Since the time of the Old Lords, the South Plains to the west of the Mithil River and the south of the Black have been little inhabited. The soil is ill-nourished and knows scant rain. The folk of the Land have found no welcome there.”

  Mahrtiir nodded. Apparently the long tales of the Ramen confirmed the Master’s assertion.

  “In the time of Berek Heartthew,” Stave went on, “before he became the first of the Old Lords, much of his vast war against Corruption and the servants of evil was waged in the South Plains. The violence of that war blighted the earth, leaving too much harm to encourage human life.”

  The Haruchai held Linden’s urgent stare. “Because there are no dwellings in this region, it has no need of Masters. We know the South Plains because our duty to the Land requires it. But we seldom journey here.”

  “So you don’t know,” Linden retorted. “Anything could have happened here-anything at all-and you wouldn’t know about it. The Staff could have been destroyed, or used for centuries, and you wouldn’t have any idea.”

  “No, Chosen.” An undercurrent of reproach disturbed Stave’s flat tone. “Have you quested so long and arduously in the company of Haruchai, and not learned that we are sensitive to power? Such forces as you imagine could not fail to draw our notice. Kevin’s Dirt does not blind us, and the reach of our senses is great.

  “Also I have said that we seldom journey here. I did not say never. Across the centuries, our care has been bounded only by the bounds of the Land. Small theurgies, perhaps, we would not discern. But that is not your fear.

  “Your concern is groundless. Of that I am certain.”

  Linden should have been grateful for his reassurance; but her emotions burned too hotly. Nevertheless she believed him. Their straits could indeed be worse.

  Biting her lip again, she shifted her attention to Mahrtiir.

  “You said others have been here. Human or not.” Friendly or not. “Can you tell me anything else about them?”

  In spite of his fierceness, the Manethrall looked suddenly timid; or the torchlight cast shadows like fears across his visage. He swallowed roughly. “I cannot. As you have seen, this habitation is well protected. Wind and rain do not enter. Yet dust settles ceaselessly here. Too much has been obscured.”

  “But you can still track them?” Linden demanded. “Can’t you?”

  Her tone drew a wince from Bhapa.

  Mahrtiir squared his shoulders. “We cannot, Ringthane. I am a Manethrall of the Ramen. The Cords with me are skilled. In such things we are adept beyond any other people we have known.

  “But we have been preceded by years or decades, as I have said. Many seasons have combined to efface any outward path. And the lowland beyond this cave is both open and fertile, rich with grass. I cannot follow those that preceded us because it cannot be done:”

  His answer rebuffed Linden’s hopes; but now she did not hesitate. She could not. If she faltered for an instant, the enormity of what she had done would overtake her. Then she might collapse like Anele, beating out her despair against the stone.

  “In that case,” she muttered, hardly aware that she spoke aloud, “we’ll have to trust the ur-viles.”

  Creatures make Anele remember!

  Outside the encampment of the Ramen, the ur-viles had drawn the old man’s blood in order to reach his memories. But they had previously done something similar to him. They may have done it several times. Surely they had learned enough of his past to know where and how-and when-he had lost the Staff? They must have sought it themselves, for their own reasons. Why else had they continued to probe his madness? Why else had they aided Linden-?

  They had not followed Anele to his cave now because they had known that the Staff was gone. Instead they meant to search for it in some other way.

  They had served Linden valiantly, but she did not know why. Perhaps they desired the Staff for themselves. She-and Covenant’s ring-might be nothing more than a means to an end. They could not have reached this time, their own past, without her.

  She might already be too late.

  Immediately she began to run, rushing ahead of the torchlight into the dark.

  An instant of surprise held her companions. Then Liand called urgently after her, “Linden! Wait!”

  She did not slacken her pace. She trusted him. He would bring Anele as swiftly as he could. If he needed help, the Ramen would not forsake him.

  Harried by images of disaster, she crossed Anele’s abandoned home and raced into the throat of the cave.

  Stave seemed to overtake her easily, in spite of his damaged hip. Mahrtiir followed close behind them, lighting their way with his unsteady torch.

  The ur-viles were too far away-

  Ahead of her, precise streaks of sunshine fell among the piled boulders. She no longer needed torchlight. The Manethrall discarded his brand as he ran.

  The aisle beyond the mouth of the cave was too narrow to allow either Stave or Mahrtiir past her; but as soon as the passage widened, the Master vaulted over the rocks to block her path. She collided headlong with his hard form.

  “Chosen,” he insisted severely, “this is madness. The Staff is lost. Haste and wildness will not recover it.”

  Lin
den thrust against him, trying uselessly to force him aside. “Damn it,” she protested, “why do you think the ur-viles stopped? You saw them. They smelled something.

  “We have to catch up with them before they find the Staff.”

  She should have stayed with them. But how could she have known that Anele’s desperation would mislead her?

  Stave’s visage showed no reaction; but he turned to run ahead of her, leading her between the tall stones. With Mahrtiir behind them, they burst free of the rocks and dashed for their waiting Ranyhyn.

  When they reached the ravine above the hollow where they had left the ur-viles, Linden began to believe that she was not too late. She could feel power throbbing in the air: the walls of the ravine channelled emanations of darkness and force upward. Then she knew that the creatures were at work nearby. They had not yet moved away.

  To her senses, their theurgy felt like questing.

  Still responding to her urgency, the Ranyhyn galloped through the ravine and down the hillside. As they neared the knotted wedge of the Demondim-spawn, however, they slowed to a canter, then a walk. With Hynyn and Mahrtiir’s mount beside her, Hyn came to a halt half a dozen strides from the spot where the ur-viles laboured. There Linden stared, transfixed, at what the creatures were doing. She had never seen power used in this fashion before.

  Its obsidian force stung her health-sense so that her vision blurred and her nose ran. A flush like remorse spread across her skin, and her mouth was filled with the taste of copper and yearning.

  A low rise swelled in the bottom of the hollow. At the crown of the rise, the ur-viles had gouged or dug a narrow ditch like a gutter in a circle eight or ten paces wide. Now the loremaster, with the other creatures packed tightly behind it, held its iron jerrid or sceptre with the point planted in the ditch; and as the ur-viles chanted together, black power as fluid as oil and as rank as offal streamed from the iron into the gutter.

  The liquid seemed to suck away the day’s brightness. Within the ditch, the circle was crowded with shadows that writhed and wailed, although they made no sound. Linden rubbed the damp from her eyes, trying to see more clearly. The loremaster’s iron bled force slowly, yet the ditch was already full. The ur-viles must have begun their invocation soon after she and her companions had departed for Anele’s cave.