The Runes of the Earth

for you in exchange.”

His words nearly broke down her defences. An offer like that-She could have taken advantage of him shamelessly.

Betray the Masters for me. Help us escape. Guide us. I’ll tell you stories that will turn your head inside out.

She might be able to find her son.

Surely the Haruchai deserved no restraint from her? God, no. In the name of their own self-esteem, they had deprived the Land of its history and power; its access to glory. They deserved anything that she could do to subvert them.

But she knew better. Stave’s convictions may have offended hers; but that did not detract from his essential worth: his rigorous honesty and candour; his readiness to judge himself more stringently than he judged anyone else.

And-

Unhappily she told herself the truth.

And Liand was no match for them. They were the Haruchai, preternaturally potent, and defiantly uncompromising. If she set him against them, they might kill him. They would certainly damage his spirit. She would have his pain on her conscience, and would gain nothing.

In spite of Jeremiah’s plight, she could not turn her back on her own scruples.

Restraining herself, Linden gazed into the Stonedownor’s face. “Convince me,” she countered quietly. “Tell me what you were about to say. “Yet I have-”

Liand hesitated. Apparently she had asked him to take a significant risk. Her nerves stretched as he debated within himself. In a moment, however, his excitement-or his trusting nature-won out.

He glanced around quickly; leaned forward. Lowering his voice to a whisper, he said, “I have ascended the Watch, though the Masters forbid it. I have seen a vast pall of harm upon the Land, a dire cloud which I cannot now discern. And I have beheld the peaks of the south rise mighty and glorious above that pall, fraught with majesty. I have ached to sojourn among them, to taste their rare substance with my own flesh, though such savours may destroy me.

“Surely at one time the Land itself was home to similar marvels.”

He brought tears to Linden’s eyes: she could not quench the burning he inspired. He had stolen a brief glimpse of something that should have been readily apparent to everyone in the Land at all times. Ignorant of what his people had lost, he did not grieve over it as she did. Nevertheless the loss was real, and abominable.

She wanted to match his honesty with her own, in spite of the danger to him.

“Liand-” Roughly she rubbed back her tears. “I can’t explain things to you right now. Not here,” where any Haruchai might overhear her. “But I’m in trouble, and I need help.

“I knew the Masters a long time ago. They remember me. They were my friends then, but I don’t think I can trust them now. They’ve changed. I want to hear anything you can tell me about them.”

Anele snorted as if in disgust, but did not speak.

Liand’s stare showed his concern. “I do not understand,” he admitted. “Your knowledge of them is surely deeper than mine. They seldom answer our inquiries. Indeed, they seldom speak. I know only what all in Mithil Stonedown know, and that is little. There is a place which they name Revelstone, though what it may be, or where, they do not say. Upon occasion, they sojourn there, and return.” After a pause, he finished, “I have observed no alteration in them.”

She sighed. “All right. I’ll ask it a different way. What do you know about Lord Foul the Despiser?” She searched his face. “The Grey Slayer? The Masters call him Corruption.”

At the back wall, Anele flinched, then covered his head with his arms.

The Stonedownor gave her a perplexed frown. “I fear that I know nothing. I have never heard these names.”

“There,” Linden responded bitterly. “That’s my problem.

“The Land has an ancient enemy. If he isn’t immortal, he might as well be. Over the centuries,” the millennia, “he’s done more harm than I could possibly describe. And you’ve never heard of him.

“The Masters know more about him than I do, and I know him too damn well.” The Despiser had found an echo of himself in her, and had nearly destroyed her with it. “He’s here. He’s still here. But they don’t talk about him.

“Liand,” she told the young man as openly as she could, “that terrifies me.”

Stave had explained his position only too well, yet still she could not comprehend it.

“This Lord Foul,” Liand asked uncertainly, “this Despiser? He remains among us? What has he done?”

Unable to contain her fear and anger, Linden rasped, “He has taken my son.”

Her words seemed to shock the Stonedownor. He straightened his back; clasped his arms over his stomach. Alarm darkened his frank gaze.

Anele whimpered softly to himself as though he feared to be overheard.

“That’s my problem,” she repeated. “Lord Foul has my son, and you’ve never heard of him. The Masters want you ignorant. They think they can defend the Land by themselves, even though they’re no match for him.

“I’ve got to find my son. To do that, I need help. But I didn’t tell Stave about him. I don’t want to turn the Masters against me. If they knew the truth-what I have to do-” She was already sure that she would not be able to search for Jeremiah without Earthpower and the Staff of Law. “I’m afraid they’ll try to stop me.”

More quietly, she concluded, “I need to make some decisions. I can’t just sit here.” And Anele required freedom. “Anything you can tell me might help me make up my mind.”

Plainly out of his depth, Liand unfolded his arms and spread his hands. “Linden Avery, I know not how to reply.” Uncertainty confused his gaze. “To me as to all my people, the Masters have ever been what they are. Upon occasion, as I have said, they are absent from Mithil Stonedown. More commonly they are not. They do not aid us in tilling the soil, or in harvesting crops, or in gathering fruits. They neither tend the weak nor succour the infirm. Yet they countenance all that we do. In no way do they intervene in our pursuits, or alter our lives.”

Linden studied him sharply. “But you said they forbade you to climb Kevin’s Watch “

“Yes,” he admitted. “That they have done.” His expression suggested that until this moment he had not considered the prohibition unusual. It was merely one more item on a long list of things which the Masters did not explain. “I did not dare to defy their command until a sojourn of some days took them from among us.”

As Liand spoke, a cloud seemed to pass over the sun. The light reflecting through the doorway grew dim, bleeding illumination from the room. Shadows obscured his face as he added, “And they discourage wandering. They say that our lives are better lived in proximity to Mithil Stonedown.”

Then his tone quickened. “Yet we have horses because the Masters provide them.” Apparently he considered it important to describe the Haruchai fairly. “Our herd is too scant to be replenished by breeding, and they say that we must have means to bear tidings swiftly at need.”

After a brief pause, he said, “Also they aid us against the kresh. And-”

“Kresh?” interrupted Linden. That name was new to her.

“The yellow wolves,” Liand explained, “more terrible in size than the grey wolves we know, and savage beyond description. Our old songs and tales speak of a time when no such beasts harried the Plains. For three generations, however, or perhaps four, kresh have fallen upon us at intervals, hunting blood in fearsome packs. Lacking the aid of the Masters, we could not withstand them.

“In this our mounts are precious. At any warning-often it is the Masters themselves who warn us-we ride abroad to gather our people so that we may make defence in Mithil Stonedown.”

Linden had expected the light to improve as the cloud drifted past; but it did not. Instead twilight gathered in the room, and a faint chill breathed past the open curtain. The weather was changing. When she glanced away from Liand to check on Anele, she saw that the old man had begun to shiver.

For a moment, she yearned for percipience so keenly that she could not continue. In the Land as she had once known it, the simple touch of the air on her cheek would have told her what the deepening gloom presaged.

But aching for her lost health-sense weakened her as much as the loss itself. With an effort, she set the pang aside.