The Runes of the Earth

After a time, Anele wore out his inchoate sorrow and lapsed from weeping. A low breeze seemed to blow through Linden, scattering the ashes in her heart until nothing remained to indicate that she had ever known fire. But she could not remain where she was. The stone of the floor and walls offered her no accommodation. Instead its hard surfaces pressed on her bruises when she already felt too much distress.

Eventually she rose to her feet, picked up the lamp, and limped across the room to investigate the other chambers of their gaol.

The curtained doorway near Anele admitted her to Mithil Stonedown’s version of a lavatory. A stone basin and a large ewer full of water sat on a low wooden table. Beside them was a pot of fine sand, presumably for scrubbing away dirt. A clay pipe angled down into the floor answered other needs.

She wanted to wash. A lifetime of ablution might not suffice to make her clean again. However, her hurts were too deep and tender to be rubbed. And she was nearly prostrate on her feet, hardly able to hold up her head.

Unsteadily she left the lavatory.

In the next chamber, she found what she sought: beds; two of them standing against the side walls. They had trestle frames well-padded with bracken and grass covered by blankets woven of rough wool. A window interrupted the far wall above the level of her eyes: it, too, had been wedged full of rocks.

Turning her head, she informed Anele wanly, “Two beds.” When he did not respond, she added, “You probably haven’t slept in a bed for years.”

Still he showed no reaction. He had slumped until his body appeared to meld itself against the stone.

Sighing, she entered the bedchamber and let the curtain drop behind her.

For no particular reason, she chose the bed on the left. Stumbling to it, she sat on its edge and unlaced her boots, pulled off her socks. Then she stretched out between two of the blankets and fell instantly asleep.

Pain disturbed her at intervals, but it could not rouse her. Exhaustion held her hurts at bay. Jeremiah appeared to her in spikes like coronary crises. She saw the supplication in his muddy gaze. Tousled by neglect and rough treatment, his hair hung in poignant clumps. Horses reared, unregarded, across the blue flannel of his pyjamas.

She wept for him without waking.

Covenant spoke to her distantly, too far away to be heard. Honninscrave screamed as he contained samadhi Sheol so that Nom the Sandgorgon could rend Lord Foul’s servant. Covenant insisted, but his desire to console or guide her could not cross the boundaries between them. Warped ur-viles fell in butchered clusters, crushed by the unexpected vehemence of Vain’s midnight hands.

In life, Covenant had drawn her into the light when her darkness had threatened to overwhelm her. He had done so repeatedly. He had taught her that her fears and failures, her inadequacies, were what made her human and precious; worthy of love. But he could not reach her now.

Because the ur-viles had turned against the Despiser, he had destroyed them all.

To free Covenant from the fatal stasis imposed by the Elohim, Linden had possessed him with her health-sense. There she had found herself in a field of flowers under a healing sun, full of light and capable of joy. Covenant had appeared as a youth, as dear to her as Jeremiah. He had opened his hands to her open heart, and had been made whole.

Linden, he called to her faintly, find me.

If her son could have spoken, he might have begged her for the same thing.

In dreams she cried out his name, and still slept.

Followed by an echo of her lost loves, she drifted finally out of slumber. Tears cooled her cheeks when she opened her eyes.

A weight of lassitude clung to her limbs, holding her down. Yet she was awake. Dimly lit by small motes and streaks of sunshine from the blocked window, the stone walls of her gaol rose around her.

When she glanced at the other bed, she saw that it lay vacant, untouched. Anele had slept in the outer room.

Or the Haruchai had taken him during the night; delivered him to Revelstone-

He is the hope of the Land.

Her only companion.

Stupefied with rest and dreams, Linden rolled her stiff body out of bed.

Her joints protested sharply as she forced herself to her feet. Standing motionless, she rested for a moment or two; tried to summon her resources. Then she shambled forward like a poorly articulated manikin.

Beyond the curtain, gloom filled the outer chamber. The lamp had burned out. The only illumination angled in strips past the edges of the leather that hung in the gaol’s entrance.

She could hear no sound from the village around this small dwelling: no calls or conversation, no passing feet, no children at play. Mithil Stonedown seemed entirely still; lifeless as a graveyard. Only Anele’s hoarse breathing humanised the silence.

He lay where Linden had left him, curled tightly against the wall as if for comfort. In sleep and gloom, he looked inexpressibly forlorn. Nevertheless she felt a muffled relief to find that he had not been taken from her.

While she slept, fresh bowls of food and water had been placed on the floor. But they were half empty: Anele must have eaten again during the night.

For herself, she was not conscious of hunger or thirst. Somnolence and dreams filled her head, crowding out other sensations. But she knew that she needed food; and so she crossed the floor to sit beside the bowls. In Jeremiah’s name, she spooned cold stew into her mouth and drank cool water until she had emptied both bowls.

Covenant had told her to find him. Trust yourself Do something they don’t expect.

Her dreams were going to drive her crazy.

In an effort to undo their effects, she struggled to her feet and went into the lavatory. There she splashed herself with cold water and rubbed her skin with sand until her bare feet began to cramp against the unwarmed floor. Then she returned to the bedchamber to don her socks and boots.

Simple things: trivial actions. Meaningless in themselves. Nevertheless they helped her shrug aside her sense of helplessness.

She had made promises to Anele. She did not regret that. Because of them, however, she was trapped here as much as he. But she was a physician, trained to patience and imprecise solutions; the circadian rhythms of devotion. If she were a woman who gave way to frustration-or to despair-she would have lost courage and will long ago.

Thomas Covenant had taught her that even the most damaged and frail spirits could not be defeated if they did not elect to abandon themselves.

When she had secured her resolve, she left the bedchamber again, intending to open the outer curtain, locate the nearest Haruchai, and insist on talking to Stave once more. She wanted to hear everything that he might be able to tell her about how the Staff of Law had been lost.

She needed to understand what had become of the Land.

In the larger room, however, she found Anele awake, sitting with his back to the wall.

Clearly sleep and food had done him good. His skin tone and colour had improved, and some of the wreckage was gone from his features. He did not rise to greet her; but his small movements as he turned his head and shifted his shoulders seemed more elastic now, less fragile.

“Anele,” she inquired quietly, “how are you? Why didn’t you use the bed? You would have slept better.”

He dropped his chin to his chest, avoiding her gaze. His fingertips moved aimlessly over the stone on either side of him. “Anele does not sleep in beds. Dreams are snares. He will be lost in them. They cannot find him here.”