The Runes of the Earth: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Book One (25 page)

“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 this.

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.

 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.

For no particular reason, she chose the bed on the left. Stumbling to it, she sat on its edge and unlaced her boots, pulled off her socks. Then she stretched out between two of the blankets and fell instantly asleep.

P
ain disturbed her at intervals, but it could not rouse her. Exhaustion held her hurts at bay. Jeremiah appeared to her in spikes like coronary crises. She saw the supplication in his muddy gaze. Tousled by neglect and rough treatment, his hair hung in poignant clumps. Horses reared, unregarded, across the blue flannel of his pajamas.

She wept for him without waking.

Covenant spoke to her distantly, too far away to be heard. Honninscrave screamed as he contained
samadhi
Sheol so that Nom the Sandgorgon could rend Lord Foul's servant. Covenant insisted, but his desire to console or guide her could not cross the boundaries between them. Warped ur-viles fell in butchered clusters, crushed by the unexpected vehemence of Vain's midnight hands.

In life, Covenant had drawn her into the light when her darkness had threatened to overwhelm her. He had done so repeatedly. He had taught her that her fears and failures, her inadequacies, were what made her human and precious; worthy of love. But he could not reach her now.

Because the ur-viles had turned against the Despiser, he had destroyed them all.

To free Covenant from the fatal stasis imposed by the
Elohim,
Linden had possessed him with her health-sense. There she had found herself in a field of flowers under a healing sun, full of light and capable of joy. Covenant had appeared as a youth, as dear to her as Jeremiah. He had opened his hands to her open heart, and had been made whole.

Linden, he called to her faintly, find me.

If her son could have spoken, he might have begged her for the same thing. In dreams she cried out his name, and still slept.

F
ollowed by an echo of her lost loves, she drifted finally out of slumber. Tears cooled her cheeks when she opened her eyes.

A weight of lassitude clung to her limbs, holding her down. Yet she was awake. Dimly lit by small motes and streaks of sunshine from the blocked window, the stone walls of her gaol rose around her.

When she glanced at the other bed, she saw that it lay vacant, untouched. Anele had slept in the outer room.

Or the
Haruchai
had taken him during the night; delivered him to Revelstone—

He is the hope of the Land.

Her only companion.

Stupefied with rest and dreams, Linden rolled her stiff body out of bed.

Her joints protested sharply as she forced herself to her feet. Standing motionless, she rested for a moment or two; tried to summon her resources. Then she shambled forward like a poorly articulated manikin.

Beyond the curtain, gloom filled the outer chamber. The lamp had burned out. The only illumination angled in strips past the edges of the leather that hung in the gaol's entrance.

She could hear no sound from the village around this small dwelling: no calls or conversation, no passing feet, no children at play. Mithil Stonedown seemed entirely still; lifeless as a graveyard. Only Anele's hoarse breathing humanized the silence.

He lay where Linden had left him, curled tightly against the wall as if for comfort. In sleep and gloom, he looked inexpressibly forlorn. Nevertheless she felt a muffled relief to find that he had not been taken from her.

While she slept, fresh bowls of food and water had been placed on the floor. But they were half empty: Anele must have eaten again during the night.

For herself, she was not conscious of hunger or thirst. Somnolence and dreams filled her head, crowding out other sensations. But she knew that she needed food; and so she crossed the floor to sit beside the bowls. In Jeremiah's name, she spooned cold stew into her mouth and drank cool water until she had emptied both bowls.

Covenant had told her to find him.
Trust yourself. Do something they don't expect.

Her dreams were going to drive her crazy.

In an effort to undo their effects, she struggled to her feet and went into the lavatory. There she splashed herself with cold water and rubbed her skin with sand until
her bare feet began to cramp against the unwarmed floor. Then she returned to the bedchamber to don her socks and boots.

Simple things: trivial actions. Meaningless in themselves. Nevertheless they helped her shrug aside her sense of helplessness.

She had made promises to Anele. She did not regret that. Because of them, however, she was trapped here as much as he. But she was a physician, trained to patience and imprecise solutions; the circadian rhythms of devotion. If she were a woman who gave way to frustration—or to despair—she would have lost courage and will long ago.

Thomas Covenant had taught her that even the most damaged and frail spirits could not be defeated if they did not elect to abandon themselves.

When she had secured her resolve, she left the bedchamber again, intending to open the outer curtain, locate the nearest
Haruchai,
and insist on talking to Stave once more. She wanted to hear everything that he might be able to tell her about how the Staff of Law had been lost.

She needed to understand what had become of the Land.

In the larger room, however, she found Anele awake, sitting with his back to the wall.

Clearly sleep and food had done him good. His skin tone and color had improved, and some of the wreckage was gone from his features. He did not rise to greet her; but his small movements as he turned his head and shifted his shoulders seemed more elastic now, less fragile.

“Anele,” she inquired quietly, “how are you? Why didn't you use the bed? You would have slept better.”

He dropped his chin to his chest, avoiding her gaze. His fingertips moved aimlessly over the stone on either side of him. “Anele does not sleep in beds. Dreams are snares. He will be lost in them. They cannot find him here.”

Without her health-sense, Linden felt profoundly truncated, almost crippled. But she needed to understand him. As gently as she could, she pursued him.

“Here?” she prompted, her voice soft. “On the floor?”

“On stone,” he acknowledged. “You do not protect Anele. He has no friend but stone.”

In another phase of his madness, he had claimed that the rocks around him spoke.

“Anele—” Muttering to herself at the pain in her muscles, Linden squatted to sit beside him. Deliberately she set her shoulder against his, hoping to reassure him. “I said I would protect you. I meant it. I just haven't figured out how yet.”

Then she asked, “What does stone do for you? Why do you need it?”

How could walls and floors guard him from dreaming?

The old man struggled for an answer. “Anele tries—He strives—So hard. It pains him. Yet he tries and tries.”

She waited.

After a long moment, he finished, “Always. Trapped and lost. Anele tries. He must remember.”

Remember what? she wanted to ask. What kind of knowledge did his fractured mind conceal from him? Why had he chosen madness?

But if he could have answered that question, he would not have been in such straits. Seeking a way to slip past his barricades, she asked instead, “Do you remember me?”

He flashed her a blind glance, then turned his head away. “Anele found you. High up. The Watch. It pursued him. He fled. You were there.”

So much he retained, if no more.

“Do you remember what happened to us?” Linden kept her tone calm, almost incurious. She wanted him to believe that he was safe with her. “Do you remember what happened to the Watch?”

In spite of her caution, however, she had disturbed him. He seemed to shrink into himself. “It came. Anele fell. Fire and darkness. White. Terrible.”

Perhaps she had not phrased her question simply enough. Gently, softly, she tried again.

“Anele, are you still alive?”

If he could have caused the wall to swallow him, he might have done so. “It came,” he repeated. “
They
came. Worse than death.”

Linden sighed to herself. Her brief percipience on Kevin's Watch had given her the impression that he was fundamentally responsible for his own condition. He had chosen insanity as a form of self-defense. Having chosen it, however, he could not simply set it aside. He would have to find his own way through it, for good or ill.

The same necessity ruled her, as it ruled Jeremiah.

Hoping to comfort him, she reached out to squeeze the old man's shoulder. “Don't worry about it.” Covenant had said the same to her. “It's easier to remember when you don't try too hard.