The Runes of the Earth

The thought that he might not be able to continue-or that Stave might prevent him from saying more-sent a flush of anger through her. Before she could react, however, the Manethrall interposed herself between Stave and Anele; and Liand stepped closer to offer his aid.

Quietly, harshly, the woman said to Stave, “Then it is you he fears. You who have become Masters.”

Stave nodded, untouched by her accusation.

“Have a care, sleepless one.” The Manethrall lifted her garrote, stiff with the drying blood of wolves. “The Ramen do not forget. We remember that you have ridden Ranyhyn to their deaths.” Bitterness gave her voice a flaying edge. “In those years, we withheld our enmity only because the Bloodguard had sworn fealty to the Lords. But we remember also that you turned from fealty to the service of Fangthane the Render.”

The Manethrall’s assertion startled Linden. She had heard the tale from Stave: the defeat and maiming of Korik, Sill, and Doar had led the Bloodguard to turn their backs on their Vow. But that had been, what, seven thousand years ago? And the Ramen remembered it?

“We suffer your presence,” the Raman woman continued, “because we loathe the kresh, which you oppose, and because you do not bear the scent of evil. Also we seek to comprehend that which impels these ur-viles. But this old man has found a place in our hearts, and we will not withdraw our aid.”

“Your hearts mislead you.” Stave neither raised his voice nor spoke sharply; but his judgment was absolute. “This Anele has claimed kinship with a man and a woman who perished three millennia and more ago. He is mad, and speaks only madness.”

“Be quiet, both of you, please,” Linden pleaded. “I need to hear Anele.”

Stave did not relent. “Chosen, you profess concern for the Land.” He studied Linden past the Manethrall’s shoulder. “If you truly wish to serve it, you must not harken to him.”

“Then tell me something,” she retorted. “You people remember everything. Your ancestors must have known Sunder and Hollian’s son. What was his name?”

Stave’s eyes widened slightly, but he did not hesitate. “The inheritor of the Staff of Law was named Anele.” At once, he added, “It signifies nothing that this old man claims that name for himself.”

“Nothing?” countered Linden. “What else do you call `nothing’? Do you think it’s an accident that he can read stone?”

Before Stave could reply, the Manethrall put in, “If you truly wish to serve the Land, sleepless one, you will have patience. The Ramen do not desire to thwart you. We will do so only if we must.

“Grant us this tale. Grant us two days in which to take counsel, and to seek comprehension. Then if you have persuaded us to trust you, we will accompany you to Mithil Stonedown, to ensure your safe passage. And if you have not persuaded us, we will attempt to persuade you.”

“Finally,” Linden muttered between her teeth. “A suggestion we can use.”

She had no idea what two days among the Ramen might entail-and did not care.

Stave gazed inflexibly at the Manethrall. After a moment, still stiffly, he repeated his earlier bow. “Your distant ancestors held our respect. At the last, their devotion exceeded ours. In their name, and in that of the great Ranyhyn, which we adored, I will abide by your word.”

Thank God-!

Below Linden, the ur-viles had regained bare gutrock. They were so near that even her faint percipience felt the leashed savagery of their lore and their blades. But they could not frighten her now. Everything that remained to her, she focused on Anele.

He had not stirred in her grasp. Gently she shook him, tried to bring up his head. “Anele, Please. I’m ready now. Can you go on?”

No one would ever be able to help him if he could not speak of his distress; complete his tale.

Guided by instinctive empathy, she gently kissed the top of his head.

With an effort, one bone and joint at a time, he roused himself. By small increments, he dragged his eyes up to the level of Covenant’s ring hanging inside her shirt. There he fixed his gaze, staring blindly. When he finally found his voice, he spoke as if he were addressing that small metal band-

– appealing to it as though it represented the life of the Land, and might forgive him.

His own recollections had broken him once before. Now they threatened to tread the shards of his mind underfoot.

“A simple choice I made. Ah, simple. Such simplicity gives birth to woe, and its outcome is lamentation. In my place, a wiser man might have deemed so much harm sufficient. Yet I was not content, for with one choice I made another, again a simple one. I left the Staff of Law in the covert of my cave.

“I wished to preserve it from harm until I had gazed upon this thing of wrong, and determined my best course. So I assured myself. Was I not in my own flesh a being of Earthpower, capable of much? Surely I would be safe enough until I had learned to name the evil.

“Yet the truth-”

There remorse seemed to close his throat, and he could not continue. Linden murmured soothingly to his bowed head; tried to project her support into him so that he would be able to go on. And gradually he felt her encouragement; or his need to finish his story grew stronger. When he had mastered himself, his quavering voice resumed.

“Ah, the truth was that I left behind the Staff because with power comes duty. I feared that if I bore with me the implement of Law, I would be compelled to measure my littleness against the thing of wrong. And I knew that I would fail.

“Thus I went out to my doom, leaving behind the Staff.”

Liand and the Manethrall moved closer to hear him: the plaintive ache of his tale had become almost inaudible. Even the ur-viles drew near. Only Stave listened with his arms folded as though his heart were a fortress.

“Alas, the evil which I there beheld was one you also have witnessed.” Briefly the old man found a bit of strength, and his voice rose. “Among the Masters they are known as Falls. Others name them caesures. They are a spinning of vile power, an illimitable bane, and when I had beheld it I was appalled.” Then his energy faded, and he lapsed to whispering. “No, more than appalled. I was stricken immobile. My littleness unmade me.”

Weak and sorrowing, he gave his pain into Linden’s embrace; let her hold him so that he could reach an end.

“There the caesure took me. Its evil swept over me, and when it had passed my life and all that I had known had been swept away. Only the shape of the Land remained to me. These mountains. The valley of the Mithil. The reach of the South Plains. All else had ceased to exist.

“Oh, Mithil Stonedown endured, but it was no longer my home. Its folk knew nothing of the Land that I had known. All of my loves and lore had been effaced. The very stone on which I stood was not as I remembered it.

“And the Staff of Law-

“Ah, the Staff also had ceased to exist. It had vanished, lost by my folly. This Land knew nothing of it, and Law itself had given way to Falls and Kevin’s Dirt.”

Oh, Anele. Hugging him, Linden found that she could still weep, although he did not. Her tears dropped to his old head and dripped away, unregarded.

“That is the harm from which I flee, though I bear it with me always. I have lost the Staff of Law. It was my given birthright, entrusted to my care, and I failed it. I was too fearful for my task. The blame for the Land’s plight is mine.

“I am marked for damnation, and yet I cannot so much as die. If Sunder my father had known what the outcome of his love would be, he would have buried Hollian my mother beside the Soulsease, and the Land would have been spared the ill which I have wrought.”

When he was done, Linden simply stood and held him for a long time. She did not know how to comfort him. She could only bear witness to his bereavement.

Yet she had heard him: she knew that he needed more. For that reason, she told him softly, “I understand.