The Runes of the Earth

maybe I can make it take me where I want to go.”

Linden seemed to feel the high mountainheads leaning toward her. A moment of shock held the ring. Then several of her companions protested at once.

“You will break the Law of Time! You have said so.”

“Caesures threaten Time. Wild magic itself threatens it.”

“It is impossible. You will fail, and be lost.”

“Anele is mad! He cannot guide you to the Staff!”

But Mahrtiir’s voice rode over the others, ringing with eagerness. “Are you adept at Time? Are such journeys common in your world? How will you find the time you seek?”

Linden closed her eyes; waited for her silence to create a space in which she could reply. She feared that Stave or Liand would cross the circle to shake her; defy her with their bare hands. But their objections, their dismay, seemed to blow past her on the dawn breeze and lose strength.

Then she heard a soft melody as Dohn began to sing:

“Grass-grown hooves, and forehead stars;

hocks and withers earth-wood bloom:

regal Ranyhyn, gallop, run-

we serve the Tail of the Sky,

Mane of the World.”

He may have been granting her permission. Or hope.

As if she had regained her heart, Linden opened her eyes. Because her companions were too many to face or answer all at once, she focused on the Manethralls; on Hami, who seemed to be her friend.

“Anele can guide me to the cave where he left the Staff,” she said with as much conviction as she could summon. “If he gets the chance. He’s already been back there any number of times. All I have to do is take him to the right year.” Any year after the loss that had broken him. “He’ll find his way.

“And I don’t think I’ll hurt the Law of Time. For one thing, it’s not all that fragile. If it were, a hundred years of caesures would have shattered it already,” in spite of Covenant’s poignant surrender. “And for another

“The Staff hasn’t been used since Anele lost it. It hasn’t changed anything. It hasn’t done anything. That’s what being lost means.” Surely the Haruchai, if no one else, would have become aware of it otherwise? “Taking it out of the past and bringing it here won’t disrupt what’s already happened.”

And she had one reason to believe that her extravagant proposal might succeed. The Staff was no longer where Anele had left it. Obsessed by grief and recrimination, he had confirmed that fact over and over again.

Which apparently implied-

– that she had been able, or would be able, to retrieve it.

Leaving the Law of Time intact in the process.

No one contradicted her. She could not read Stave’s heart through his impassivity; but the others around her were too shaken to protest further. They must have believed her; believed that she would do what she had said.

Their silence frightened her more than almost any opposition. She needed to confront and overcome their fears in order to manage her own.

Grimly she forced herself to continue.

“Of course, I’ll need to locate a caesure.” She did not trust herself to create one: not without experiencing one first, reading it with her health-sense; learning to understand it. “But that’s not the real problem.”

Holding Hami’s troubled gaze, Linden said, “The real problem is that I’m not “adept at Time.” I can’t find my way through the confusion in a caesure. I need to reach the Staff at some point after Anele lost it,” or else she would indeed alter the past, “and I don’t know how to do that.”

She was certain that the Manethrall understood her.

“I asked Esmer. He said, `Look to the Ranyhyn. ” Clenching her courage in both hands, one on Covenant’s ring, the other wrapped around itself, she finished, “I assume that means they can help me.”

Hami turned her face away as if she were flinching.

For a moment, none of the Manethralls met the demand in Linden’s eyes. Instead they looked to each other. Linden had never felt in them the kind of mental communion which distinguished the Haruchai. Nevertheless they appeared to acknowledge each other’s apprehensions mutely; to ask each other Linden’s implicit question.

Then Dohn said softly, “The Ranyhyn will choose. They must. It is not our place. This matter is beyond us “

Mahrtiir nodded reluctantly, as if he were being asked to set aside a secret desire.

Hami’s reluctance was of another kind as she faced Linden again. So hesitantly that Linden could barely hear her, the Manethrall replied, “It may be that the Ranyhyn are able to aid you-and will elect to do so. We know nothing of caesures or Falls. We are bound by Time. Yet the great horses are capable of much. That is certain.

“And it is certain also”- she faltered, then went on more strongly- “that they will answer when they are summoned. Once they have consented to be ridden, they will answer when they are summoned, though hundreds of leagues may intervene.”

Linden stared at her. “What do you mean?”

Hami tightened her grip on herself. “Ringthane, hear me. At this moment, there are no Ranyhyn within this vale. We are Ramen and cannot be mistaken in this. Neither Hyn nor Hynyn roams the Verge of Wandering. Yet if you were to summon her, Hyn would approach within moments.” She held up her hand to prevent questions that Linden did not know how to ask. “If you stood in Mithil Stonedown and summoned her, she would appear at once. If you stood above ancient Revelstone itself and could not be approached except through the Westron Mountains, yet would she shortly answer your summons.

“Understand, Ringthane, that I do not speak of distance. The Ranyhyn do not transcend the difficulties of their journeys. Rather their power to answer is a power over days and seasons.”

Linden’s eyes widened in wonder and apprehension. Alarm or hope swelled in her throat.

“The Ranyhyn do not spurn distance,” Hami breathed as though the knowledge dismayed her. “They spurn time. They do not merely respond when they are summoned. Rather they hear that they will be summoned, and they respond. If the distance is great, and the obstacles also, the Ranyhyn will depart moons or seasons before they are summoned, that they may arrive when they are needed.”

On some level beyond language or explication, they had mastered time.

“Oh, God,” Linden murmured, hardly aware that she spoke aloud. “It’s possible. If they help me. I might be able to do it.”

Abruptly, Stave said, “Chosen.” The pain of his hip was palpable as he forced himself to his feet. Stiff with hurt, he moved to stand over Linden. For this one moment, at least, his characteristic dispassion had deserted him. Instead his flat features were knotted with pleading and repudiation.

“Chosen,” he said again.

She stared up at him as though she could not imagine what he would say, although she already knew every word by heart.

“You will not do this.” Complex passions yearned in his voice. “It is abominable. Its hazards surpass endurance. The smallest error will damn the Land utterly.” With a visible effort, he swallowed some of his intensity. “Must I remind you that the Staff supports and sustains Law by its very existence? It need not be wielded in order to affect all that is, all that transpires. If its influence upon the Land’s past is removed, will not Corruption respond with delight?”

Linden bowed her head. She could not face the heat of his denial. “Stave,” she breathed, speaking as much