The Runes of the Earth

height of Linden’s thighs, so thick that she wondered whether she would be able to forge through it.

Reassured by the sight of so much untrammelled vitality, Linden cast her health-sense wider; and when she did so, she spotted aliantha only a few dozen paces away.

With treasure-berries to sustain her, she might be able to walk as far as the Ramen wished, and need no help.

Hami had already sent several of her Cords ahead of the company to announce their coming; and the young Ramen seemed to flow away through the tall grass without disturbing it or forcing passage. They were attuned to it beyond hindrance. The rest of the group had gathered around Linden, apparently waiting for her to recover her strength.

But Stave remained apart, isolated by the strict intentions of the Masters. And Anele had moved out into the grass, presumably to put a little distance between himself and the Haruchai. One of the Cords had led Somo down the arete in Liand’s place so that the Stonedownor could concentrate on Linden.

Weakly she headed through the grass toward the aliantha.

She could not pass as the Ramen did, like a breeze among the blades and tassels. Grass caught at her boots and shins, tearing when she pushed her legs through it. Streaks of green sap stained her pants below the knees. She might have felt mired in the grass, hampered, opposed, if its simple abundance had not soothed her senses.

Like the grass, the aliantha flourished in the valley’s soil. The shrubs spread their twisted branches widely, and they were heavy with fruit. Plucking clusters of viridian berries hungrily, she fed as if she were feasting until their juice had washed the ache of defeat from her throat, and her exhausted muscles began to relax in relief.

When she was done, she felt lightened, fundamentally restored, as though she had partaken of a Eucharist. The gifts of the Land touched her to the marrow of her bones.

Liand and the Ramen had followed Linden to the aliantha. They each ate two or three berries, casting the seeds aside by ancient custom; but their need was not as great as hers, and they did not consume more.

Thoughtfully, as if to herself, the Manethrall observed, “No servant of Fangthane craves or will consume aliantha. The virtue of the berries is too potent.”

As though he had been challenged, Stave stepped forward, claimed one of the berries, and chewed it stolidly.

Around her, Linden felt a subtle shift in the emanations of the Ramen. Perhaps she and her companions had passed a test of some sort.

She wanted to pass another. Atop the ridge, she had asked Liand and the Ramen to be patient while she considered Anele’s outburst. Now she felt that she owed explanation.

It would be easier to talk while she rested.

“Kastenessen,” she said when she felt able to speak at last. “That name I’ve Heard Before. He was one of the Appointed.” Findail had described them, seeking to explain himself to the Search for the One Tree. “An Elohim.”

The memory filled her with foreboding. And her tension was reflected in Liand’s eyes. He moved closer as though he feared to miss a word.

“I don’t know what to tell you about the Elohim. They aren’t mortal. I guess you could call them incarnate Earthpower. They give the impression that they can do anything, and they do what they do for reasons of their own, no matter what anyone else thinks or wants” Findail himself had often behaved like an enemy, encouraging Linden and Covenant to fail. “They live far away, on the other side of the Sunbirth Sea. Most of the time, it seems, they ignore the Land.

“But sometimes they see a danger and decide to do something about it, I don’t know why.”

Liand had heard Anele speak of the One Forest and the Elohim.

“When they do, they pick one of their people, they Appoint him or her, to answer the danger. To be the answer.”

Findail had said that the Appointed passed out of name and choice and time for the sake of the frangible Earth. He had sung:

Let those who sail the Sea bow down:

Let those who walk bow low:

For there is neither peace nor dream

Where the Appointed go.

Manethrall Hami and her Cords regarded Linden gravely, waiting for her to go on. The quality of their attention seemed to hint that they were not ignorant of the Elohim. Liand listened avidly, hungry for understanding. But Stave gazed away as if he disapproved of the Elohim and all their deeds.

For the time being, at least, Anele had disappeared into the grass, perhaps seeking to avoid reminders of coercion.

“Kastenessen was Appointed a long time ago,” Linden explained as the implications of her memories crowded around her. “Dozens of millennia, for all I know,” if the years had any meaning to the Elohim. “Apparently something deadly happened in the north” the farthest north of the world, where winter has its roots of ice and cold. “Some kind of catastrophe. A fire that might have split open the Earth.

“Kastenessen was Appointed to stop it.” Set as a keystone for the threatened foundation of the north.

Thus was the fire capped, and the Earth preserved, and Kastenessen lost.

“But he didn’t go willingly. He’d broken one of the commandments of the Elohim, violated their Wurd or Weird, “by falling in love with a mortal woman. His people chose him, Appointed him, to punish the wrong he did her.”

He had brought harm to a woman who could not have harmed him, and he had called it love.

“He refused to go. He didn’t want to give her up. For her sake, he rejected his people and their Wurd.” Their destiny-or the Earth’s. “When the Elohim demanded submission, he fought back. Finally they had to force him into place. So that the world wouldn’t end in fire.”

Was that what “Durance” meant? Did it refer to the power that had contained Kastenessen? And had he found some way to free himself? If so, a fire would be set loose fatal enough to rive the shell of the world.

During her translation to the Land, Linden had seen fiery beasts suppurate from the ground in order to devour all that lived.

She sighed, then spread her hands. “That’s as much as I know about Kastenessen.”

The Ramen plainly wanted to question her further; but it was Liand who admitted, “I still do not understand. Did this Kastenessen not pass away?” Certainly that was the fate of the Elohim who had become the Colossus of the Fall. “How then does he command Anele not to speak of him?”

Linden shrugged, trying to do so without bitterness. “I don’t think that was Kastenessen. The Elohim wouldn’t command him to be quiet. They would just shut him up.”

Behind the Mithil’s Plunge, no force had demanded silence from the old man. Yet here, so close to the Verge of Wandering

“I can’t explain it,” she added after a moment’s hesitation. “All I know is that we have enemies we haven’t even met yet.”

“Yet your knowledge surpasses ours,” the Manethrall announced quietly. “The Ramen remember much, but we have no tales of these matters.” Once again, her tone Implied that she could have said more. “It becomes ever more imperative that we take counsel together. We must banish misapprehension between us.

“Ringthane”- she faced Linden squarely- “our encampment is but two leagues distant. Are you able now to