The Runes of the Earth

At the edge of the piled monoliths, Mahrtiir dismounted, leaving the horses behind in order to accompany Anele.

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