The Runes of the Earth

to risk all that for me?”

He did not hesitate. To this extent, at least, he was prepared for her questions.

“Linden Avery,” he replied gravely, “I might answer that I find no satisfaction in the life of my home. I sense the greatness of the Land, but I know nothing of it, and I crave such knowledge.

“Or I might answer that I mistrust the Masters, for it is plain that their knowledge is great, yet they reveal nothing.

“Or I might answer that I have no family or attachments to hold me.” His tone hinted at loneliness. “My father and mother had no other children, and both have fallen to time and mischance in recent years. Nor have I found other loves to fill their place in my heart.”

Again he looked away. When he faced Linden once more, his yearning had found its way to the surface. Stiffly he told her, “I might well answer so, for it is sooth.” Then he appeared to lose resolve. Ducking his head, he murmured awkwardly, “Yet there is another truth, of which I do not presume to speak.”

She nearly turned away from his discomfort. It was too obvious: his open nature held no concealment. And she could so easily have let the matter drop

Yet she did not release him, in spite of his vulnerability. She had her own qualms, her own conscience: she could not set them aside merely to gain aid from a man who could not imagine what his assistance might cost him.

Roughly she knotted her fingers in the rough wool of his leggings. “I’m sorry. That’s still not enough. You have friends and neighbours who feel the same way, you must have, but they aren’t here. I need to hear the rest.

“I can see it in you. I just don’t know what it means.”

Liand appeared to groan inwardly. However, it was not in his nature to refuse her probing, regardless of his own unease. And he had a palpable courage which enabled him to tell the truth.

“In my life,” he said, “I have beheld wonders.” The words seemed to come slowly from deep within him. “Linden Avery, you are one. The storm which provided for your escape is another. The Falls are both wondrous and dire. And the sight from Kevin’s Watch of the shroud which blinds the Land fills my dreams with fear.

“But it is the memory of the strange being whom the Masters named Elohim which impels me to your side. His words are a knell within me, though I was but a child when I heard them.

“All that he said lies beyond my ken. Yet I comprehend clearly that he has prophesied our doom. And I grasp also that he did not speak only of Mithil Stonedown. His words pronounced the destruction of the Land.”

The angle of the sunlight filled Liand’s eyes with shadows as he gazed down at Linden. “I am as I appear to be, merely a young man among my people. But I have seen that the Land is lovely. I wish to defend it. And if I am too small for so great a task, still I will not be content until I have learned the name of our doom”

Now he did not look away. She wished that he would. His undefended innocence wrung her heart, and she did not want to witness his reaction when she answered him.

Quietly, almost whispering, she said, “Liand, listen to me.” Her fingers tugged at his leggings of their own accord, urging him to understand her. “I can’t let you help me unless you hear what I have to say.

“You called me a wonder, but there’s nothing wonderful about me. I love the Land. I love my son.” In spite of her bereavement, she loved Thomas Covenant. “I try to keep my promises. And I’m carrying a power I don’t know how to use. That’s all there is.”

Grimly she spared herself nothing. “But it’s worse than that. In my own life, I’m already dead.

“Do you see this?” Releasing his leg, she used both hands to show him her shirt. “It’s a bullet hole. I was shot through the chest. I’m only alive because this is the Land.”

Because she had healed herself. And because Joan had summoned her.

Liand stared at her, plainly unable to grasp what her assertions entailed.

“On top of that, it looks like the whole Land is against me. The Masters don’t mean me any harm, but they’re deaf to everything I care about.” The weight of her concerns grew as she listed them. “You’ve seen Kevin’s Dirt. You know the caesures, the Falls. There are kresh and Elohim and Sandgorgons and Ravers.” Anele had mentioned skurj, whatever they might be. “There are at least two lunatics with too much power,” Roger and Joan. “And there’s Lord Foul, who has my son.

“Do you want to know the name of your doom? Do you really? It’s the Despiser. He’s trying to destroy the entire Earth.”

The mere act of speaking such words seemed to bring the peril nearer. Yet she could not stop. Liand needed to know what he risked in her company.

“And as if all of that weren’t enough, the Staff of Law has been lost. It’s the only weapon I know of against Kevin’s Dirt and the Falls, and it disappeared after only a couple of generations. I need it back, but I have no earthly idea where look.

Raising her hands, she clenched them into fists between her and the Stonedownor as if to fight off his growing chagrin.

“Do you think the Land is bigger than the Masters have ever told you? Do you think the danger is more terrible than anything you’ve ever imagined? You have no idea. Men with the power of gods could scarcely stand against what Lord Foul is doing, and I can’t begin to compare myself with them.

“I need your help, Liand. That’s painfully obvious. I’ll be glad for your company. But if you’ve got some confused notion that all we have to do is escape the Masters, you should go home now. They are the least of our problems.” Absolutely the least. “If you come with me, I can’t promise you anything except anguish and death.”

There she stopped, shaken by the danger of what she had said. If Liand chose to turn away now-as he should-she would have nothing except Covenant’s ring and her failing health-sense and Anele’s fractured guidance to aid her.

But she had struck a spark of anger in the young man. He glared at her, squaring his shoulders and straightening his back until he appeared to tower over her, bright with sunshine.

“Linden Avery,” he retorted sternly, “have you not said that you sojourned to Mithil Stonedown once before, in years long past? At that time, did it appear to you that the folk of my home were careless of their word, or lightly swayed from the path of their convictions and desires?”

She shook her head helplessly, remembering Sunder with rue and admiration. The Graveler she had known had held fast to all his choices, regardless of their consequences. Without him, she and Covenant would not have survived-

“If they did,” Liand went on, “then we have come far from that time, and do not regret what we have become.” Every upright line of his frame seemed to reproach her. “I am not so flighty of heart that I would recant my wish to aid you merely because the peril is great. I do not merit your doubt. And I will not abandon you.”

Linden bowed her head to hide her sudden tears. His unexpected dignity made him impossible to contradict. And she saw now, without warning, that he was taking the same stand that she had taken ten years ago, when she had involved herself in Covenant’s ordeal with Joan. Covenant had warned her in the simplest and most honest terms, You don’t know what’s going on here. You couldn’t possibly understand it. And you didn’t choose it. But she, too, had refused to be dissuaded.

She had paid a high price for her intransigence. Yet she had learned to regret none of it. Even her time in Revelstone, when samadhi Raver had touched her soul with evil, had proven to be worth the cost.

She had neither the foresight nor the wisdom to assure Liand that he was wrong now.

Blinking her eyes clear, she looked up at him again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I don’t doubt your honesty-or your word. I can see the kind of man you are. I’m just trying to be honest myself.

“I’ve been where you are. I met a man who needed help. I wanted to help him” needed to help him. “And I could never have imagined what I was getting into. If I?d known how bad it was going to be, I don’t think I could have done it.

“But I wouldn’t be who I am now if I hadn’t refused to abandon him.”

As she spoke, the young man’s indignation eased. The way his shoulders relaxed told her that he accepted her apology. “I hear you, Linden Avery,” he replied firmly. “l am content to aid you.”

“Good,” she repeated with more conviction. “In that case, we should go. I’ve already wasted too much