The Runes of the Earth

“You can’t possibly know what the result would be if Liand had the training and resources to be a Graveler.” She did not glance at the Stonedownor, although she felt his surprise. “Sunder did. You know that. And you also know that Covenant would not have lived long enough to save your people from the Clave if Sunder hadn’t helped him. So how can you believe that Liand doesn’t have the right to know as much as Sunder did?”

Abruptly she stopped, nearly panting with the force of her assertion.

Handir raised an eyebrow; but he did not pause to consult with the other Masters. “Linden Avery,” he replied flatly, “we act as we do because the alternative is plainly impossible. We cannot intervene in decisions and actions after their effects have become known. The opportunity to prevent them has passed. And we are too few. All the Haruchai who have ever lived would not suffice to ward from evil every person who might seek to make use of Earthpower.

“Yet we have determined that we cannot stand aside. The evil is too great. And Brinn has become the Guardian of the One Tree. Are we less than he? Must we do less than serve as the guardians of the Land? No. You cannot ask it of us. But if we will serve, how otherwise may our task be accomplished? We must prevent the use of Earthpower. No other way is possible for us.”

Linden did not hesitate. She could not. And in her chambers she had prepared herself for this moment. Handir had given her the opening she needed.

Breathing hard, she glared at him. “Then look at it this way,” she continued, carried on a rising wave of anger. “There stand the Humbled.” With the back of her hand, she slapped a gesture toward the Masters holding Anele. “Galt and-”

Momentarily she stumbled. She did not know their names.

“The Humbled,” Handir informed her, “are Galt, Clyme, and Branl.”

“Fine,” she returned. “The Humbled. They’re supposed to be living reminders that you can’t master evils like the Illearth Stone and Ravers and Corruption. Which sounds good, I have to admit. But how did they get the job? How did you choose them?”

Again she did not grant their Voice a chance to interrupt her. “Christ, Handir, they fought for the privilege.” Her words were flames. They leaped and burned as she uttered them. “They think it’s an honour to be maimed like that. They beat the shit out of each other for the status of reminding you that you need humility.”

Responding to her passion, the Staff began to burn in her grasp. Its fire reached higher with every utterance. If she did not restrain it, the rush of power would light the unharmed ceiling of the Close.

She would be able to see what the love of the Giants had crafted there.

For a moment, she let her fire rise. Then, deliberately, she swallowed her ire until the Staff was quenched. The force of her emotions served only to remind her that she was not helpless. It would not increase her credibility.

Quietly now, she said, “I think you’ve missed the point of what happened on the Isle of the One Tree. I don’t know how Cail told the story, but I was there. I saw it.

“Brinn didn’t win that fight. He lost. In fact, he surrendered,” just as Covenant had surrendered to Lord Foul in Kiril Threndor. “He let the Guardian kill him. And he became the new Guardian by taking the old one with him when he died.

“I’m sorry, Handir,” she finished as calmly as she could. “If you and the Humbled and the rest of the Masters are trying to follow Brinn’s example, you’re going about it the wrong way. You haven’t just denied everyone else the right to make their own choices. You’ve missed the point.”

Handir held up his hand. In spite of his apparent relaxation, however, his gesture had the certainty of a blow. With one small motion, he dominated the Close as if the rectitude and indignation of all his people were invested in him. Even the light seemed to concentrate on him, focused by his underlying authority.

The Cords and Liand stared at him in chagrin. Mahrtiir swore under his breath.

“It is enough,” the Voice of the Masters pronounced like a knell. “We have heard you. Now you will desist. Because you are the Chosen, we have suffered the challenge of your words. But you fault us to no purpose.

“Perhaps you have described us justly. Perhaps not. It alters nothing. Your recriminations do not pertain to the hazard of your actions in the Land. The truth remains that you have dared the destruction of all the Earth for the sake of your son. And now you do not assure us that the danger is past. Rather you seek to disguise your actions by diminishing ours.

“Yet this answer I will grant to you.” The muscles at the corners of his jaw knotted and released to the beat of his words. “It is true that we have placed ourselves foremost in the Land’s defence. For this we might claim to merit respect rather than accusation. But if we fall, the Land will remain, and all who wish to strive against Corruption may do so in any fashion which seems good to them.”

“No, Handir,” Linden retorted at once. “Now you’re just being dishonest.” She had come too far to hold back. “You’ve done everything you can to erase that possibility. You’ve kept the people of the Land from knowing anything about Earthpower, or their own history, or the evils they’ll have to face. I tell you, it’s wrong. You’ve made too many decisions for other people, and you never had the right.

“But I’m not done,” she added immediately. “I’ve given you two answers.” Inadequacy. Arrogance. “I’ve pointed out that you aren’t in a position to judge me. If you refuse to listen, that’s your problem, not mine.

“I’ve got one more answer for you.”

Ignorance.

She was desperate now; on the verge of a risk as great in its own way as daring to enter a caesure. Good cannot be accomplished by evil means. But the Masters had denied every other argument. And she had believed almost from the first that she would not be able to rescue her son without Anele’s help.

As if she knew that she would not be refused, she looked at the son of Sunder and Hollian among the Humbled and said softly, “Anele, come here.”

The old man had given no sign that he had heard or understood what was being said around him. He seemed unaware of anything except the fact that the Masters had claimed him. Without Linden’s protection, he had no defence.

Yet when she spoke his name, he jerked up his head, and his moonstone eyes caught a flare of fire from the lamps. Threshing his arms as if to break free of the Humbled, although they made no effort to restrain him, he crossed the tormented stone and flung himself down in front of her. His thin arms embraced her knees and the Staff in supplication.

“Protect,” he panted. “Oh, protect Anele. They are heartless. They will devour his soul. They devour all things, leaving only pain.”

Liand started forward to attend to the old man; but Linden waved him back. She needed Anele where he was. His contact with the Staff might calm him so that he could heed her.

To Handir, she said, “You don’t really care about keeping him prisoner. You just want to control him so he can’t do any harm. You’ve explained that. I think I understand it. But you haven’t thought it through.”

Her heart ached in her chest as she considered what she meant to do. She had found no gap in the Masters’ defences. Her intentions might taint Anele irredeemably in their eyes. They might go to any extreme to keep him. But she had no recourse that she could see-or accept. Apart from Anele, she had no arguments left except power. And she would not fight the Haruchai. The Land needed them. Too many of them had already spent their lives for her sake.

The old man was her last hope. Therefore she chose to place him in danger.

With one hand, she clenched her courage to the smooth shaft of the Staff. The other she lowered so that it rested on Anele’s dismayed head, hoping that the touch of her palm would reassure him.

Doing so, she also reassured herself.

Although the Masters had conceded nothing, she met Handir’s flat gaze and began.

“Stave must have told you that Anele reads stone. He’s like an Unfettered One. He’s taught himself to hear slowly enough to understand what the rocks are saying.

“Sure, that means he can tell people about the Land’s history.” If he stood on the right kind of stone. “You don’t want that. But it also means he can tell us what the Earth is saying about its own pain.

“He’s already identified threats we wouldn’t know about otherwise. Skurj. A broken Durance. Kastenessen.