The Runes of the Earth

“The outcome of their choosing stands before us.”

Perpetually wounded in the name of service.

Like the Waynhim, the Forestal’s song was full of sorrow, carried on an undercurrent of woe. And like the Waynhim, it did not flinch from its own resolve.

Oh, Andelain! Forgive! For I am doomed to fail this war.

I cannot bear to see you die-and live,

Foredoomed to bitterness and all the grey Despiser’s lore.

But while I can I heed the call

Of green and tree; and for their worth

I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth.

Linden’s memories of Andelain and music bore her along until she found what she sought: the precise aura and potency of the Staff of Law.

“And yet,” Mahrtiir put in, “they would refuse the Staff to the Ringthane, she who above all others has the greatest need-”

He stopped, unable to express his bafflement and chagrin.

“Manethrall,” answered Esmer, “they must satisfy their Weird. I have named their reasons. They do not count the cost to themselves.”

They did not; but Linden counted it for them. She had spent her life responding to such needs.

Her nerves recognised the Staff with gladness. The Land had gifted her with health-sense, and she could not mistake the Staff’s particular emanations. It was the incarnation of rightness, the tangible bulwark of the strictures, sequences, necessities-the commandments-which made life and beauty possible. While it remained intact, Lord Foul could never entirely extinguish hope.

And she was its maker. Inspired by her love for Covenant and the Land, for all of her friends, she had expended herself in white fire to create an instrument against the Sunbane. She did not need to be in contact with it in order to wield its benison. She needed only to feel its strength and know that it was hers.

Guided and controlled, Esmer had said. By a condign hand.

Kneeling still, with her eyes closed and her head bowed, Linden Avery the Chosen reached out to claim the only power which had ever truly belonged to her.

Somewhere in the distance, Liand whispered, “Heaven and Earth! Look to her. She is exalted-”

Together, as if they had momentarily set aside their antagonism, Esmer and Stave replied, “She has discovered the Staff.”

“What will she do?” Liand asked in wonder.

Stave did not reply; but Esmer murmured softly, “Behold.”

Filling her hands with the vast possibilities of Law, Linden turned her thoughts to the damaged Waynhim standing unsteadily before her.

Her eyes remained closed. She did not need to gaze upon the creature to know its suffering. Its wounds- the inadvertent and unavoidable corrosion of its substance-were plain to her in every detail. Her own flesh felt them.

The Staff of Law had inflicted these hurts. With the Staff, she could heal them.

Thus she answered the denial of the Waynhim. They were the last remnant of their kind, and deserved no less than to be made whole.

When her task was complete, the sun had fallen farther down the sky, and the slow approach of evening left the ravine deep in shadows. Nevertheless her heart felt like daybreak, bright and full of promise.

Chapter Eight: “Contrive their salvation”

When Linden rose at last to her feet, nearly staggering with weariness, the healed Waynhim and its companion made raw-edged sounds which Esmer translated as welcome. Courteously Stave and Mahrtiir returned grave thanks. Leaving Bhapa and Pahni with the Ranyhyn, and the ur-viles to fend for themselves, Linden and her small company followed the Waynhim into the cave.

She leaned heavily against Liand, needing his support. And Mahrtiir held Anele upright: the old man seemed too lost to fend for himself. Stave walked alone, while Esmer trailed behind as if he had been dispossessed.

Formal as a procession, they proceeded along the dark stone throat until they reached a turning, where the passage opened into a wide chamber lit like a meeting hall. There the rest of the rhysh waited to offer welcome also, bowing after their fashion and chittering among themselves like delighted birds.

Healing the creature that warded the Staff, Linden had apparently healed them all. Even the Waynhim which had first met her in the ravine had lost its grieving air, and none of the others showed any signs of harm.

She had in some sense validated the meaning of their lives.

After the summer heat on the South Plains, the atmosphere of the cave felt blessedly cool, soothing to her raw nerves. The Waynhim guided their guests to ledges like seats in the wall of the cave; and when she sat down the worn stone seemed to embrace her in spite of its unyielding surfaces. This sensation, she knew, was an effect created by the Waynhim. They wished her to understand that she had arrived in a place of peace.

The light in the cave had a warm luminescence tinged with emerald and flickers of rust. It arose from a number of stone pots spaced like braziers around the wide floor; and flames danced and twisted at their rims. Yet Linden could see that the fires were fed, not by oil or wood, but by lore. Instead of smoke, they cast a scent of cloves and coriander into the air.

Liand sat near her, although now she did not need his care. The Waynhim had brought her closer to the Staff of Law: she could feel its nearness effortlessly. Its stern beneficence filled her with an unfamiliar contentment.

Stave remained standing as if to do the Demondim-spawn honour. And Esmer wandered aimlessly around the chamber, looking vaguely rueful, troubled by sorrows which he did not explain. But Mahrtiir also sat on one of the ledges, studying the Waynhim as though he meant to memorise every detail so that he would be able to tell his people a tale worthy of his fierce ambitions.

Seated as well, Anele rested against the stone, mumbling into his thin beard. But some essential change had taken place in him. When Linden looked at him, she saw that his old rue and shame had lost some of their vehemence. He had been ground down by too many years and too much regret; and yet, in spite of his mumbling, he appeared almost sane. His proximity to the Staff seemed to soothe him, easing his long bereavement.

The Waynhim offered an iron cup of vitrim to each of their guests, although Esmer waved his aside with apparent disdain. Then they gathered together in the centre of the chamber, forming themselves into a loose wedge with the Staff’s guardian at its tip. Again the healed creature bowed to Linden, barking words she could not understand. When she also had bowed, it walked slowly out of the chamber into one of several side-tunnels that interrupted the walls of the cave. Hushed and expectant, everyone waited while the creature disappeared on its errand.

Soon it returned, bearing the Staff of Law in its hands.

Linden’s heart lifted again at the sight. The Staff’s unique nature spoke to her senses. It was taller than the Waynhim-nearly as tall as she was herself-and formed of a pale wood which gleamed in the lore-light; wood so pale that it might have been carved from the heart of a tree. Its length was smooth, as if it had been polished lovingly for centuries. But its ends were bound with iron bands, the heels of the original Staff of Law which Berek Halfhand had formed from a limb of the One Tree.

Vain and Findail had given their lives to it, rigid structure and fluid vitality. But their qualities had been transformed by wild magic and the passion of Linden’s torn spirit. And their union had been shaped, guided, by the deep knowledge with which Berek had forged his iron. Thus the lore of the ur-viles and the Earthpower of the Elohim had become the pure instrument of Law.