The Runes of the Earth

would take counsel together, except by challenge?”

Unexpectedly the Haruchai nodded. He seemed to accept her answer. He may have understood it.

“Linden?” Liand asked, nearly whispering. “Do you know of this? They cannot mean to measure us in combat? I may strike a blow as well as any Stonedownor, but I have no skill to match theirs. In this they have described me truly.”

Linden shook her head, trying to face too many questions at once. But Manethrall Hami did not give her a chance to reply.

“Ringthane,” she pronounced formally, “Linden Avery the Chosen, do you consent to all that I have said?”

Linden felt that she had no choice; that she had done nothing to determine her own course, or to help Jeremiah, since she had appeared on Kevin’s Watch. But the concern of all the Manethralls, and their essential goodwill, were clear to her; plain and palpable. She had no idea why they chose to behave as they did. Nevertheless she had nothing to fear from them, no matter how much they might seem to threaten her.

“Manethrall,” she answered with a formality of her own, “I do. I don’t know what you’re worried about. I hope you’ll explain it. But I respect your caution. I’ll consent to whatever you want.”

Then she added, “You’ve already accepted Anele. And I think Liand will agree with me.” She did not wait for his nod: she trusted him to follow her example. “As for Stave-” She shrugged. “I get the impression that he knows more about what’s going on here than I do. He’ll probably welcome a challenge.”

In fact, however, the Haruchai appeared to have lost interest in the situation. He stood with his arms relaxed at his sides and his gaze fixed on the mountains as if he had decided to await the arrival of someone or something more worthy of his attention.

Then Hami bowed in the Ramen fashion. When Linden did the same, the gathered Manethralls relaxed somewhat.

At a word from Hami, the Manethralls turned toward the crowded ring of Cords; and at once the ring broke apart as the Cords hurried purposefully away. In moments, some of them returned carrying wooden blocks, apparently intended as seats, which they arranged in smaller circles within the clearing. Linden soon realised that they were preparing for a communal meal.

In the frugal lives of the Ramen, the occasion may have been considered a feast.

She did not need a feast: she needed rest. Liand wanted to talk to her, she could see that. No doubt he hoped that she might relieve some of his confusion. And Stave might have been willing to explain his unexpected air of indifference. But she bad had enough of them for the moment.

Ignoring her companions as well as the activity of the Cords, she sat down on one of the wooden blocks, propped her elbows on her knees, and dropped her face into her hands.

She needed to think. God, she needed-

Lord Foul had guided her to hurtloam-and then had sent kresh to hunt her down. He disavowed responsibility for both Kevin’s Dirt and the Falls.

An Elohim had passed through Mithil Stonedown, warning Liand’s people against the halfhand even though Thomas Covenant was long dead, and Jeremiah threatened no one.

Anele spoke repeatedly of skurj and the Durance. Some being who might or might not have been Kastenessen had commanded him not to reveal what he had learned from the stones of the arete. Kastenessen himself should have passed out of name and choice and time tens of thousands of years ago.

The Ramen planned challenges for Linden and her companions. They had apparently lost or abandoned the Ranyhyn somewhere, although they had once been the inseparable servants of the great horses. Occasionally Hami had hinted at other secrets.

Somehow the ur-viles had avoided Lord Foul’s attempts to destroy them. Linden believed that they had enabled her escape from Mithil Stonedown.

The Despiser held Jeremiah. The Staff of Law had been lost.

Anele claimed to be the son of Sunder and Hollian, who had died three and a half millennia ago.

And somewhere Roger Covenant and his mind-crippled mother walked the Land, seeking ruin as avidly as Lord Foul himself.

It was too much; too much. Linden could not absorb it all, or find her way through it. Because she understood nothing, she could do nothing. Covenant was dead: her dreams, illusions. Anele spoke only when his madness permitted it; and then his revelations gave her no guidance. And Stave, she suspected, knew little more than she did. Denying the Land’s past, the Masters also denied themselves.

Liand may have been right about them. Perhaps they feared to grieve.

She did not need a feast, or more stories. She had no use for unspecified challenges. Hell, she hardly needed life. She already had a bullet hole in her shirt.

She needed help.

When at last she lifted her head from her hands, she saw Anele standing on the grass beyond the edge of the clearing. A kind of fever shone from his blind face, and his whole body seemed to concentrate toward her.

He was beckoning as though he had heard her prayers and wished to answer them.

Briefly Linden considered ignoring him. Surely he would only confuse her further? Even from this distance, however, she could see that his madness had entered a new Phase, one unfamiliar to her. He was in the grip of an intention so acute that it made him frantic.

Dusk had entered the vale while she counted her dilemmas. Behind the mountains, the sun declined from the Land, and their shadows filled the air with omens. Cold drifted furtively down from the heights. Soon the Ramen would be ready to share their meal, and the challenges would begin.

Sighing, Linden forced her stiff body upright and walked across the open ground to meet Anele among the grass.

As soon as she drew near, he reached for her with both hands; took hold of her shoulders and pulled her closer as if he meant to fling his arms around her. “Linden,” he breathed in a voice suffused with weeping. “Oh, Linden. I’m so glad to see you.”

A voice she knew.

Tears streamed from his moonstone eyes, shocking her as sharply as the sound of that voice in his mouth. She had seen him weep often; but this was different. Until this moment, she had never seen him shed tears of sympathy.

Sympathy and pleasure.

“I didn’t think I would ever see you again.” He spoke quickly, almost babbling, as if he had too much to say, and too little time. “I wouldn’t have believed it. But it fits. It’s right. You’re the only one who can do this.”

Thomas Covenant’s voice.

She knew it as well as she knew her own, and loved it more. Through his madness, Anele spoke Covenant’s words to her in Covenant’s voice.

Her lungs heaved for air and found none. Covenant, she panted, nearly fainting. Oh, my love. The sound of him struck the whole vale to stillness. In an instant, the Ramen and all their doings had ceased to exist; lapsed to dreaming. Stave and Liand occupied the clearing in some other world, a dimension of reality which no longer impinged on hers. Her beloved did not speak to them.

Anele embraced her, a hard clasp with all the strength of Covenant’s heart. Then he held her at arm’s length so that he could gaze at her blindly. His eyes were awash in yearning.

“Linden,” he said, “listen to me,” still hurrying. “I don’t have time. There’s so little I can tell you.”

Covenant was dead, here and in the world they had once shared. She had spent ten years grieving for him. But this was the Land, and the Laws governing Life and Death had been broken.

She faced him mutely through her own tears, helpless to find words for her sorrow and rue. If she had opened her mouth, she would have sobbed like a child.

“The Law binds me in so many ways.” Anele was Covenant’s surrogate, voice. “If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be worth fighting for.