The Runes of the Earth

Bloodguard and the Unhomed were barred from the Upper Land. Likewise he sent the folk of the Land from their homes, and instructed the Ramen to guide the Ranyhyn away. Then he met with Corruption in Kiril Threndor, and there challenged the Despiser to the Ritual of Desecration.”

Bits of lamplight reflected from Stave’s gaze as if his eyes were full of embers and kindling, primed for fire.

“It is said that Corruption acceded gleefully. Desecration is his demesne, and he knew as High Lord Kevin did not that from such an expression of pain no life or being or power could emerge unscathed.”

Linden lowered her head to her knees to rest her throbbing neck. She remembered Kevin’s tormented shade as keenly as the cut of a blade.

Anele lay hugging himself with his knees against his chest. He had turned to face the wall, away from Linden and Stave. He may have fallen asleep.

“Together,” Stave continued, “Corruption and the Landwaster wrought devastation. In that Ritual, the old Lords and many of their most precious works were swept from the Land. Much of beauty was crippled, and much destroyed utterly. When those who had been dispersed returned to the Land, they found a wilderland where they had left vitality and health. A thousand years passed before the many healings of the new Lords bore fruit, and the beauty which belonged to the Land could grow anew.”

There the Haruchai paused briefly.

Linden did not raise her head. She did not want to see sparks gather into conflagration in his eyes.

When Stave resumed, however, his voice had regained its familiar dispassion.

“From Kevin Landwaster, the Bloodguard learned the peril of trust. Linden Avery, you have felt the doubt of the Haruchai. You know that these words are truth.”

She did indeed. The persistent suspicions of Brinn, Cail, and their companions had caused her more pain than she could recall without trembling. But she said nothing that might deflect Stave’s narrative.

“The Bloodguard served the new Council as they had served the old. Once again, they honoured the Giants and the Ranyhyn. Where they could, they gave battle to Corruption’s minions. But they had learned to doubt, and now they did not relax their vigilance, or grant unquestioning compliance to any act or choice of the Lords.”

Once more the cadences of distant singing claimed Stave’s tone. “Yet their strength was proven weakness. In the battles of the new Lords against Corruption’s armies, the Unhomed, whom the Bloodguard loved, were utterly destroyed. Confronting a Raver in the flesh of a Giant-a Raver that held a fragment of the Illearth Stone and was thereby made extravagant in power and malice-the Giants could not rouse themselves to oppose their own doom. Therefore they were slaughtered.

“There the Bloodguard glimpsed the onset of a new Desecration. For that reason, they determined to take the Despiser’s defeat into their own hands. When the Illearth Stone had been wrested from the Raver’s hand, three of the Bloodguard, Korik, Sill, and Doar, claimed that fragment of great evil. Seeking to prevent a greater ruin, they fulfilled the desire of all the Bloodguard to challenge Corruption.”

Now Stave’s tone hinted at bitterness. “They were mastered easily and entirely. Their skill and fidelity had no force against Despite. They were enslaved. They were maimed to resemble the Unbeliever. And they were dispatched to Revelstone to declare the Lords’ last defeat.

“There the Vow was broken” Vistas of sorrow filled the background of his voice. “The Bloodguard were Haruchai. They could not suffer it that they had been so turned against themselves. The beauty and grandeur which had inspired the Vow required flawless service, and they had shown themselves flawed. Earthpower had enabled their service, but it had not preserved them from dishonour.

“In the name of the purity which they had failed to equal, the Haruchai returned to their cold homes, turning their backs in shame on the Council and the Ranyhyn, on Andelain and all the Land. Aided by the last of the Unhomed, ur-Lord Thomas Covenant defeated Corruption, and so the Land was spared another Desecration, but the Haruchai had no hand in that triumph.”

Still Stave’s inbred dispassion sustained him. “From their shame, they learned that they could not endure it. And from their Vow, they learned that they had been misled by Earthpower. Such puissance both transcended and falsified their mortality. Without Earthpower, they would have remained what they were, Haruchai, inviolate. They would have known themselves unequal to such banes as the Illearth Stone and Ravers.”

That Linden understood. She, too, was certain of her own inadequacy. And she had learned from Thomas Covenant that such knowledge could be a source of strength.

“Yet evil continued to flow from the use of Earthpower,” Stave explained. “For thirty centuries and more, the Haruchai remained among their mountains and their women, and at last their memories gave birth to a wish to see what had become of the Land. Again some among them sojourned eastward. Thus they discovered the Clave and the Sunbane.

“So much of their tale you know. The Haruchai were imprisoned by the Clave. Their fierce blood was shed to feed the Banefire. When they, and you, were freed by the Unbeliever, they again set themselves against Corruption in anger and repudiation.

“But they did not renew the shame of their past arrogance. Instead they contented themselves in Thomas Covenant’s troubled service, and in yours, and in defence of the folk of the Land. Therefore they were not again turned against themselves.

“And again the ur-Lord triumphed over his foe. That tale the Haruchai heard from the Giants of the Search. And they heard as well that Linden Avery the Chosen gave form to a new Staff of Law. Thus you triumphed over the Sunbane, so that the Land might once again be allowed to heal.”

She found herself nodding, although the movement hurt her neck. Hardly aware of what she did, she had raised her head to gaze into Stave’s indecipherable face.

“Desiring a service in which they might also triumph,” he said, “the Haruchai remained when you had returned to your world. The new Staff was given to the folk of the Land, but it was soon lost, and there were no Lords who might have defended Earthpower from darkness. The Land required our care.”

Anele whimpered as if in nightmare; but he did not turn from the wall.

“Do you understand me, Linden Avery? We had learned that the Ritual of Desecration and the Sunbane were expressions of Earthpower. We had learned that Earthpower could not preserve any service from shame, neither ours nor the Lords. We had learned that mortal hearts are weak, and that Corruption is cunning to exploit that weakness. And we had learned to love the Land, as the Lords did before us.

“In the end, we learned that the Land and all its life would not have suffered such renewed and again renewed cruelty if Earthpower were not”- again he paused to search for a word- “accessible for use. Certainly it is not Corruption. But in the absence of the Staff of Law, only Corruption is served when mortal hearts exercise Earthpower. Even in the presence of the Staff, great evil may be wrought. Therefore we have taken upon ourselves the guardianship of the Land.

“We do not rule here. We command nothing. We demand nothing. All life is free to live as it wills. But we do not permit any exertion of Earthpower.”

Linden stared at him, but she could no longer see him. Tears blurred her vision. Only Corruption is served-How was it possible to have learned so much, and to understand so little?

Earthpower was life: no mere decision or belief on the part of the Haruchai could gainsay it. Everything that had form and substance here was in some sense an “exertion of Earthpower.” The true peril lay not in its use, but in the hearts of those who did not understand their own vulnerability to despair.

Against that danger, Linden Avery, like Thomas Covenant before her, was defended by the knowledge of her inadequacy. She could not be misled by despair because she did not expect herself to be greater than she was.

Kevin’s Dirt held sway, and caesures stalked the Land, because the Staff of Law had been lost-and because the Haruchai did not “permit” any other use of Earthpower to oppose those evils.

But Stave was not done. “Nor are we content,” he stated more stiffly. “We do more. Though we remember much, we do not share our memories. We seek to end all recollection of Earthpower, so that no new use may arise to thwart us.

“We command nothing,” he insisted. “We rule nothing. But we discourage tales of the past. We relate none