The Runes of the Earth

explanation sounded perfectly reasonable.

Her sense of peril mounted, carried by the hard labour of her heart.

But she did not quail. Medicine had trained her for emergencies. And she was Linden Avery the Chosen, who had stood with Thomas Covenant against the Land’s doom. Men like Sheriff Lytton-and Roger Covenant-could not intimidate her.

As if she were merely making conversation, she asked, “What did you tell him?”

Lytton laughed harshly. “I told him to burn it to the ground, Doctor. That leprosy shit isn’t something he should mess around with. His mother did him a favour when she moved out of that house.”

A flash of anger pushed away Linden’s fear; but she kept her ire to herself. Calm now, settled and cold in her determination, she continued, “Did he happen to say why he wants to live there? Did he explain why he came back?”

“No, he didn’t. And I didn’t ask. If he wants to live in the house where he was born, it’s none of my business. I told him what I think of the idea. We didn’t have anything else to talk about.”

“I see.” For a heartbeat or two, Linden hesitated, unsure of her ground. But then she informed Lytton, “I ask because he came to see me this morning. He told me why he’s here.”

“Do tell,” Barton Lytton drawled.

“He wants custody of his mother,” she said, praying for credibility. “He wants to take care of her.”

“Well, good for him,” retorted Lytton. “He’s a dutiful son, I’ll give him that. Too bad you can’t just release her, wouldn’t you say, Doctor?”

“Not without a court order,” she agreed. “That’s why I called, Sheriff.” Summoning all the force of her conviction, she said plainly, “He made it clear that he doesn’t intend to wait for legal custody. If I don’t release her, he’s going to take her.”

“Take her?” Lytton sounded incredulous.

“Kidnap her, Sheriff. Remove her by force.”

“Don’t make me laugh.” Lytton snorted his scorn. “Take her where? He’s going to live on Haven Farm. He’s probably putting clean sheets on the beds right now.

“Suppose you’re right. Suppose he sneaks her out of your precious “psychiatric hospital” while Bill Cory is taking one of his permanent naps. Half an hour later, you call me. I send out a deputy, who finds Roger Covenant at home on Haven Farm, spooning Cream of Wheat into his mother’s mouth and wiping her chin when she slobbers. That’s not kidnapping, Doctor. That’s an embarrassment.” The sheriff seemed to enjoy his own sarcasm. “For you more than for him, maybe.

“Tell me the truth now. Is that really why you called? You’re afraid Roger Covenant might kidnap his own mother? You’ve been working in that place too long. You’re starting to think like your patients.”

Before Linden could tell him why he was wrong, he hung up.

Chapter Three: In Spite of Her

Damn the man.

For a while, she stormed mutely at the unresisting walls of her office. Lytton was wrong: Roger Covenant was not a “pleasant young man.” He was dangerous. And Joan was not his only potential victim.

But her outrage accomplished nothing, protected no one; and after a few minutes she set it aside. The sheriff could not know what his disdain might cost. He had never been summoned to take his chances against despair in a world which baffled his comprehension. He lacked the experience, the background, to react effectively.

Although she chose to excuse him, however, her anger did not recede. It had settled to a thetic hardness in the centre of her chest. Damn him, she repeated, thinking now of Roger rather than the sheriff. His year with the Community of Retribution must have done him such harm-And of course he had been raised for weakness by his grandparents as well as by his mother.

Why in God’s name did he want Covenant’s ring? If he took Joan somehow, he would also gain possession of her wedding band. It, too, was white gold, no doubt essentially indistinguishable from her ex-husband’s. Surely it was white gold itself that mattered, an alloy apt for wild magic, not any specific piece of the metal?

What difference could it make whose ring Roger wielded when he took Joan’s place?

Thomas Covenant probably would have known the answer. Linden did not.

Was it possible that Lytton was right? Had she misread Roger? By any ordinary measure, this explanation made more sense. Anyone except Linden, anyone at all, would have accepted it without question.

And she had at least one other reason to believe that she was wrong: a reason she had not yet had time to consider.

Leaving her anger in her office, she went to the staff lavatory to splash cold water on her face and think.

With the door locked and her cheeks stinging, Linden Avery contemplated her wet features in the mirror over the sink. She was not a woman who studied her appearance often. When she did so, she was occasionally surprised or bemused by what she saw. This time she was taken aback by the alarm that darkened her gaze. She seemed to have aged in the last few hours.

In some ways, the past decade had marked her noticeably. Oh, her hair retained most of its wheaten lustre, trammelled by grey only at the temples. The structural harmony underlying her features made her look handsome, striking, in spite of the years. She had what men called a good figure, with full breasts, slim hips, and no unnecessary weight-a womanliness which had seemed gratuitous to her until she had met and loved Thomas Covenant. The right light gave the ready dampness in her eyes radiance.

But her once-delicate nose had become prominent, emphasised by curved lines of erosion at the corners of her mouth. That erosion seemed to drag at her features, so that her smiles often looked effortful. And the knot between her brows never lifted: apparently she frowned even in her sleep, troubled by her dreams.

Nevertheless if she had examined her face yesterday she might have concluded that she wore her age lightly. Her days with Thomas Covenant, and her years with Jeremiah, had taught her things that she had never known about love and joy.

Now, however, she saw hints of Joan’s mortality in her troubled scrutiny. Roger’s intrusion had brought back more than her memories of struggle and pain in the Land. He made her think as well of her own parents: of her father, who had killed himself in front of her; and of her mother, whose pleading for release had driven Linden to end the suffering woman’s life. Like Joan, if in her own way, Linden had known too much death, paid too high a price for living.

If she had been asked to explain why she worked for Berenford Memorial Psychiatric Hospital, instead of practicing some other form of medicine, she would have replied that she was here because she understood her patients. Their damaged spirits were eloquent to her.

At the moment, however, she had more immediate concerns. Her dilemma, she thought as she watched water drip from her cheeks and jaw, was that she might be wrong about Roger Covenant. Her time with his father gave her at least one reason to doubt herself.

She had seen no harbinger.

Before her first encounter with Thomas Covenant, she had found herself unexpectedly striving to save the life of an ochre-clad old man with thin hair and fetid breath. When at last he had responded to her frantic CPR, he had pronounced like a prophet, You will not fail, however he may assail you. There is also love in the world. Then he had disappeared into the strange sunlight on the fringes of Haven Farm.

Do not fear, he had commanded her. Be true.

Less than thirty-six hours later, she had fallen to the summons of the Land. At Covenant’s side, she had been assailed and appalled past bearing. But in the end she had not failed.

And ten years earlier, Thomas Covenant had met the same prophet himself. Walking into town in a desperate and doomed attempt to affirm his common humanity, he had been accosted by an old man with compulsory eyes and an ochre robe who had asked him, Why not destroy yourself? When Covenant had responded to the man’s manifest need by offering up his ring, he was refused.