The Runes of the Earth

awkward upright, they could use their hands for climbing as readily as their feet. Somehow they had put their weapons away, so that their hands were empty; unencumbered.

Soon it became obvious that only Liand and Somo could not match the pace of the Ramen. Alone, Liand might have kept up well enough; but in the deepening twilight the mustang had to pick its footing carefully. Otherwise it might snap a foreleg among the stones.

At a word from Manethrall Hami, the lone unburdened Cord dropped back to Liand. “Join your companions,” the young woman told him brusquely. “I will guide your mount.”

“No.” Liand may have shaken his head. “I brought Somo to this. The responsibility is mine.”

The Cord might have argued; but Stave put in, “You have wrought sufficient folly for one day, Stonedownor. Do not be foolish in this. The horselore of the Ramen surpasses you. Your mount will fare better in her care than in yours.”

“Linden?” Liand asked out of the darkness. He may have meant, What should I do?

He may have meant, Tell this damn Master to leave me alone.

Sighing to herself, Linden answered, “I think the Ramen know what they’re doing. Somo should be safe with her.”

“Very well,” Liand muttered to the Cord. “I have tended the mounts of Mithil Stonedown since I grew tall enough to curry them. If you do not return Somo to me, you will answer for it.”

The young woman snorted under her breath, but made no other retort.

Liand scrambled up the rocks to Stave’s side. “I know nothing of these Ramen, Master,” he said softly. “You have concealed them from us. If I am foolish, how could it be otherwise? You have kept secret all that might have made us wise.”

Stave ignored the justice of Liand’s accusation.

Overhead the sky had turned purple with evening. Slowly it dimmed toward black. For some time now, the breeze had gathered force as cold poured like a stream into the narrows of the rift. Linden felt chills seep into her skin in spite of Stave’s intransigent warmth. Soon she would start to shiver under the mounting weight of the wind.

A day and a half in the Land, hardly more than that, and she had already become as helpless as an infant. Jeremiah needed her. More than that: he needed her to be a figure of power, the stuff of legends; rapt with wild magic and efficacy. Yet here she lay, cradled weakly in the arms of a man who had turned his back on such things.

Ahead of her, the Ramen and ur-viles moved in their distinct groups, as obscure as clouds against the vague background of the rocks. Yearning to find some use for herself, she asked abruptly, “Stave, will you talk to me?”

He replied without turning his head. “What do you wish me to say?”

“Tell me what you know about ur-viles.” She desired a concession from him; something more personal than the forbearance he had shown the Ramen. “You called them a great evil, but they don’t act like it.”

Out of the gloaming, Stave said, “They are as strange to us as to you. We cannot account for them. We have never understood them.”

Linden persisted. “You still know more about them than I do. Their history. Where they come from. All I’ve ever heard is that they were made, not born. Created by the Demondim-whoever they were. I need more.

“Isn’t there anything else you can tell me?”

For a long moment, Stave appeared to consider the deeper ramifications of her question. Deliberately over the centuries, the Haruchai had suppressed the history of the Land. Now she asked him to speak of it-and in Liand’s presence.

Finally he countered, “Chosen, do you comprehend what you request? This foolish young man has elected to dare his fate with you. If I give you answer, and he seeks later to relate what he has heard, we must prevent him.

“You appear to value kindness. Will you treat him so roughly?”

Before Linden could object, Liand put in stiffly, “Your words sow confusion, Master. You threaten me rather than the Chosen. Therefore the choice is mine to make. To pretend otherwise is not honest. It ill becomes you.”

A subliminal tension seemed to run through Stave’s chest. “Have a care, Stonedownor,” he replied. “You are not equal to such determinations.”

“Because,” Linden protested, “you don’t allow him to be.” Stave’s inflexibility exasperated her. “He’s right. If you think he’s too ignorant to understand the risks, that’s your doing. No one else’s.”

The Haruchai had made themselves responsible for all the Land. Under the circumstances, the unexpected aid of the ur-viles must have undermined Stave’s convictions. And he may have felt disturbed by the way in which the presence of the Demondim-spawn lent credibility to Anele’s impossible tale. Perhaps his need to understand the creatures was as acute as Linden’s.

“Very well,” he said at last. His voice held no hint of concession. “I will answer. This Stonedownor must be wary of us as he sees fit.”

The indistinct group of the Ramen appeared nearer than it had earlier. Stave was gaining on them-or they had slowed their pace to listen.

“You have been told, Linden Avery, that the Haruchai first came to the Land in the time of High Lord Kevin Landwaster.” Having accepted this task, Stave spoke steadily, in spite of his taciturn nature. Nevertheless his tone conveyed an impression of awkwardness, as though he were translating a richer and more numinous tongue into blunt human language. “I say this again to explain that they did not know the High Lord’s father, Loric son of Damelon, who earned the name of Vilesilencer. They heard only tales of those years, and of the black Viles which had haunted the Land. We cannot now declare which of those tales were true.”

Linden settled herself in the Master’s arms. His decision to speak gave her an obscure comfort. It suggested that he could still compromise, in spite of his native severity.

“It was said by some,” he told her as well as Liand and the listening Ramen, “that the Vile, were creatures of miasma, evanescent and dire, arising from ancient banes buried within Mount Thunder as mist arises from tainted waters. Others claimed that they were spectres and ghouls, the tormented spirits of those who had fallen victim to Corruption’s evil. And yet others proclaimed that they were fragments of the One Forest’s lost soul, remnants of spirit rent by the slaughter of the trees, and ravenous for harm.

“On three things, however, the tales agreed. First, the Viles appeared where they willed, elusive as swamp lights, wreaking mortification and horror. Next, their lore, which they had gained from the buried banes of the Earth, was black and ruinous, delving into matters which the old Lords could not penetrate. And last, the evil of the Viles was inspired by their loathing of themselves.

“Doubt-ridden, perhaps, by the cleaner spirits from which they had arisen, or by the havoc which Corruption required of them, they desired above all things to become other than they were. And toward that desire they bent all their terrible lore.

“Therefore they created the Demondim, labouring long in the Lost Deep. And for a time it appeared that they had succeeded in their self-loathing, for the Demondim were unlike their makers. Among the Lords, they were described as “powerful and austere”. It was said of them that they were “once friendly” to the trees.

“Still the Viles were a bane upon the Land. For that reason, High Lord Loric took up the challenge of silencing their evil. And in this he prevailed, though at great cost. Because their lore was a mystery to him, beyond his conception, he enlisted the aid of the Demondim against their makers. There he learned dismay, and could never again be truly whole, for he did not know that Corruption had been at work among the Demondim, sending his Ravers to teach them self-Despite, the same abhorrence of themselves which had long tormented the Viles.

“Because they had been swayed, the Demondim became the foes of the forests. For the same reason, they returned to the breeding dens of the Viles in order to begin the making of the ur-viles. And for that same reason, the aid which the Demondim granted to Loric Vilesilencer was Despite in another form, for it arose from their self- loathing. They turned against their makers because Corruption is cunning, and because they saw no value in their own creation.

“Thus was High Lord Loric’s victory over evil made possible by Corruption. So were planted the seeds of