The Runes of the Earth

work.

That room also Roger had violated. He had swept everything off the top of her bureau and dressing table; emptied her drawers onto the floor; rummaged out the contents of her closet. Cosmetics, earrings, and shampoos complicated the floor of her bathroom.

He wanted something more than Jeremiah from her.

He could no longer surprise her: she had already guessed the truth. He had hoped to find his father’s wedding band.

Now she knew why Roger had taken Jeremiah. It was not simple malice; a desire to hurt her for refusing him-or for opposing the Despiser. Jeremiah had no worth in himself: no power, no ring. And Roger did not need another hostage to protect him from Sheriff Lytton’s outrage. Jeremiah’s only value was to Linden herself.

Roger wanted him as leverage against her. Either here or in the Land, Roger intended to use her son to extort what he needed from her.

Would he have claimed Jeremiah if he had found her ring? Perhaps. It was possible that white gold lost its power if it were stolen, or reft by violence. She did not know or care.

Steadily, without haste, she stripped off her clothes. As she did so, she found a dull pain throbbing in the palm of her right hand; and her touch left slight smears of blood on her skirt and blouse. When she looked at her hand, she saw crusted blood around a crescent cut into her palm, a small rent of vulnerability. She had cut herself when she had punched the dashboard with her keys in her fist.

If she failed I would need to take her place.

From the litter on her floor she selected comfortable jeans, a warm red flannel shirt that Jeremiah had seen her wear many times and might recognise, and a pair of sturdy boots. Soon she was dressed very much as she had been when she had followed Covenant into the night behind Haven Farm in order to rescue Joan.

Her coat she rejected. It could not protect her from the mounting storm. Without it, she went back downstairs to call 911.

Speaking precisely, she told the operator to give Sheriff Lytton a message. Roger has taken my son. He has another hostage, Sandy Eastwall. Look for him on Haven Farm.

Now that she had stopped running, she no longer feared what Lytton might do. He had harmed Joan out of spite, not malice, because Julius Berenford-and Linden herself-had made him feel emasculated after Covenant’s murder. With so many lives at stake, he would act with more restraint. And she needed his help. She was no match for Roger’s gun, or his madness.

There were other people whom she could have called, Sam Diadem and Ernie Dubroff among them. Megan Roman would have begged for a chance to make restitution. But Linden was unwilling to risk any more innocents.

Leaving her house as she had found it, she strode down the steps and across the lawn back to her car.

The wind seemed to grow stronger by the moment. She had to lean against it in order to walk forward. Stark in the cloudless dark, friction lightning streaked among the treetops. She had never seen a storm like this before: it appeared to rip at the laws of nature, altering realities with every strike. When she gained her car, she was vaguely surprised to find that it still ran; that the street itself had not been torn apart. She half expected the trees to crash and fall under the force of the wind and the lightning.

Her car shuddered at every blast, as if at any moment it might shiver itself to scrap; yet it brunted stubbornly ahead. A few blocks took her to the main street through the centre of town. From end to end, the whole town looked deserted. There were no other cars at the intersections, no vehicles moving anywhere. Every inhabitant of the area had gone to ground like a threatened animal. If Sheriff Lytton or his deputies were abroad, Linden saw no sign of them.

Alone, she passed the phone company offices, the town’s only department store, the county courthouse. The sheer intensity of the wind seemed to dim the streetlamps, truncate their illumination; but for a moment lightning etched the courthouse out of the crowded night, casting a bright wail across the old columns which upheld the roof. In the harsh white glare, the giant heads atop the columns gaped like ghouls.

Thomas Covenant had lost his marriage there. He had nearly lost his home.

And Linden had adopted Jeremiah-

How far ahead of her was Roger now? How much harm could he inflict before she caught up with him?

She clung to the steering wheel, forcing the car forward. Sweat stung her gouged palm.

Abruptly every lamp along the street let out an incandescent blare and went dark. Midnight seemed to tumble out of the sky, filling the town as all the lights failed. Lightning must have hit a transformer somewhere; or a tree had fallen across the power lines. The beams of her headlights appeared to sag to the ground directly in front of her, unable to penetrate the sudden blackness. Reacting on instinct, she stamped at the brakes, and her car slewed to a stop.

At once, however, she punched the accelerator again, battling the wind for speed. She knew this road: it had few intersections and hardly curved between town and Haven Farm. And Haven Farm itself was only two miles away. Clearly she did not need to worry about traffic. If the mounting gale did not blow her off the road-and if lightning did not strike her

Roger was already there: her fears discerned him too vividly for her to believe otherwise. She seemed to see him through her windshield, his bland unction whetted to eagerness, his teeth bared. He had reached the farmhouse. He was inside. With one hand, he dragged Jeremiah along: the other brandished his gun. In her imagination, terror flashed from Jeremiah’s eyes, and his slack mouth quivered on the verge of wailing.

She could not see Sara or Sandy; could not guess what Roger would do without electricity. Perhaps his madness had grown so lucid that he did not need light

Gusts kicked the car hard, and its front wheels seemed to lift from the road. Lightning brought the pavement to life, then snatched it away into darkness. Fighting for control, Linden shoved down on the gas and went faster. She was afraid that Lytton might reach Haven Farm ahead of her-and afraid that he would not. Roger’s actions would become more extreme as time passed.

There, on her right: the dirt road that served as Haven Farm’s driveway. A quarter of a mile away beyond open fields, invisible against the wood which clustered around Righters Creek, stood the small farmhouse where Thomas Covenant had lived. Linden knew it well, although she had not been there for years. In memory she had preserved its rooms. Even now, with Jeremiah in danger and her nerves primed for battle, she could see Covenant’s flagrant eyes as he had striven to prevent her from sharing his peril.

And there, not twenty yards from the main road, lay the spot on which she had swallowed nausea and fear in order to save the life of the old man in the ochre robe-

– who had told her to Be true-

– and who should have by God warned her that Jeremiah’s life was at risk.

Wheels skidding in the dirt, she drove toward the house through winds that gathered a tornado’s force.

Then the scant reach of her headlights found one wall of the farmhouse. It had once been white, but over the years neglect had peeled the paint away to grey wood, and a few of the boards had sprung from their frame. No light showed in the windows: apparently the power failure covered this whole section of the county. Otherwise, she felt sure, Roger would have left every lamp lit here as he had in her home, welcoming her to his handiwork.

In a spray of dirt that disappeared instantly along the wind, Linden stopped.

Beside the house stood a dark sedan: Roger’s car. He had closed the doors, but left the trunk open. Its interior light gave off a faint glow that seemed to efface the rest of the vehicle, so that only the trunk retained any reality in this world.

Only the trunk and whatever Roger had transported in it-

For a moment, she thought that he must have carried Jeremiah there; and she nearly burst raging from her car. But, no, Roger would not have done that, for the simple reason that there was no need. Like Joan, Jeremiah would have caused him no trouble, put up no resistance. Regardless of what happened, her son would have remained rocking wherever he was put, passive and doomed.

Roger must have used the trunk to contain Sara or Sandy. Or both-