The Runes of the Earth

“And he opposes me. Here, like this, he’s stronger than I am. Poor Anele can’t hold me. I’m already fading.”

As he said so, she saw that it was true. The old man remained palpable before her. His fingers gripped her shoulders urgently: in some other life, they might have hurt her. But within him another form of lunacy struggled against Covenant’s presence. In spite of Covenant’s desire, and Anele’s rapt submission, a rabid force gathered loathing to expel her love.

He opposes me. The same he who had commanded Anele not to speak earlier? Or some other foe?

Anele’s madness now did not resemble his near-sanity on the ridge.

“You’re in trouble here.” Already her beloved’s voice sounded like tatters, scraps of presence. “Serious trouble.” She was losing him again. “You need the ring. But be careful with it.” His death had nearly undone her. “It feeds the caesures.”

Covenant!

She could not bear to lose him a second time.

“Linden,” he urged at the limit of himself, “find me. I can’t help you unless you find me”

The next instant, Anele shoved her aside with such vehemence that she nearly fell. Before she could grasp at him, cry Covenant’s name, try to pierce Anele’s turmoil with her health-sense, the old man rushed past her onto the bare dirt and stubble of the clearing.

She pursued him at a run. She was too late: she saw that clearly, although his face was turned away. The transformation of his aura could not be mistaken. Nevertheless she raced to catch up with him; hold him.

He opposes me. The being who now possessed Anele had made a mistake. He had manifested himself within her reach.

She had forgotten fear, caution, peril. She intended to know her enemy, this one if no other. If she could, she meant to wrest his presence from Anele’s tortured soul.

Anele halted a few strides into the clearing. She caught up with him almost at once. Without hesitation, she grabbed at his shoulder so that he would turn to face her; so that she could see his possessor in his blinded eyes.

Even through his filthy raiment, that touch scorched her fingers.

Cries of surprise and warning went up from the Cords. Manethralls snatched for their garrotes. Instinctively Linden flinched back. Anele’s old flesh had become fire; reified flame. Without transition, he roared with heat like scoria. His skin should have been charred from his bones by the burning ferocity of the being within him.

Earthpower wrapped the old man like a cocoon, however, and his fiery possessor could not harm him.

Wildly Linden clutched at Covenant’s ring as Anele’s head swung in her direction. But then she froze shocked helpless by his appearance.

Anele took a single, predatory step toward her. His jaws stretched open, impossibly wide: his few teeth strained at the air: his throat glowed like a glimpse into a furnace.

From the pit of his power, he exhaled straight into Linden’s face.

His breath struck her like a blast off a lake of magma; like the fume of a volcano. Instantly her eyebrows and lashes were burned away. The hair around her face crisped and stank, and her sunburn became agony. Around the clearing, the air itself ignited in flames and dazzles.

She had already begun to fall when Stave leaped to the old man’s side and struck him down.

Anele’s heat vanished so suddenly that she feared Stave had broken his neck.

Chapter Twelve: The Verge of Wandering

For a while, Linden went a little insane herself, demented by an excess of confusion and pain. There were no words in all the world to contain her dismay. At a command from Manethrall Hami, several Cords shouldered Stave away from Anele’s outstretched form. The Manethrall examined Anele swiftly, confirmed that he was no longer filled with fire, then assured Linden that he was merely unconscious, not slain. Cords lifted him from the dirt and bore him away. But Linden regarded none of it. She hardly understood it.

From beyond death, Covenant had tried to reach her. His spirit still endured somewhere within the spanning possibilities of the Arch of Time. Under other circumstances, her heart might have been lifted by the knowledge that he sought to communicate with her; that he strove to answer her prayers-

But he had been so viciously thrust aside. Some flagrant power had dismissed him as though he had no significance. He seemed to be at the mercy of some malignant being. Like her son in Lord Foul’s hands-

Her gaze streamed with grief. She could not shut it out. Even when she closed her eyes, her heart blurred and ran. She could not bear it that her lost love had tried to help her, and had been silenced.

Find me.

Liand knelt at her side: he spoke to her softly, trying to ease her in some way. Stave stood nearby, unrepentant. No doubt he believed that he had saved her and the Ramen from a futile grave. Perhaps he had. Linden neither knew nor cared.

It fits. Its right. You’re the only one who can do this.

Covenant’s assurance could not comfort her now: not after what had happened to Anele.

But then one of the Cords handed Liand a small clay bowl. When he began to stroke the poultice of the Ramen lightly onto her scorched features, the whetted aroma of amanibhavam stung her nostrils. In Covenant’s name, she allowed herself one harsh sob as if she were gasping for air; for life. Then she struggled to sit up.

Her beloved had told her in dreams, You need the Staff of Law. That she understood.

She was sick to death of helplessness.

Liand supported her; propped her so that she could lean against him while she gathered herself. “Do not be in haste,” he advised, whispering. “You are burned and utterly weary. I see no deep hurt in you, but I am no healer and may be mistaken.”

Softly he murmured, “Surely now the Ramen will forego their challenges. They must grasp that you can bear no more.”

The Stonedownor had first met Linden less than two days ago. Clearly he did not yet know her very well.

She swallowed to clear her throat; pushed away the poultice in his hand. Once again, she was struck by the blackness of his eyebrows. Frowning, they shrouded his eyes with foreboding; omens of loss.

Through her teeth, she breathed, “Help me up. I can’t do this without you.”

You’re in trouble here.

The young man braced her to her feet easily: he felt as sturdy and reliable as stone. When she tried to stand on her own, she wavered for a moment, undermined by the heat like guilt on her burned face. But Liand upheld her; and she did not hesitate. As soon as she found her balance, she said, “Take me to Anele.”

Manethrall Hami had come toward her as she rose: the woman tried to intervene. But Linden insisted, “Now, Liand. Before it’s too late.”

Before all trace of the being who had possessed Anele vanished.

Before she remembered to be afraid.

At once, Hami stepped back. She gave instructions to one of the nearby Cords, a young woman with flowing hair the same hue as Liand’s eyebrows. The Cord moved like her hair as she led him and Linden out of the clearing.

Linden clung to him. She was not done with him; not at all.

The Cord walked quickly past two or three shelters, then entered one near the edge of the encampment. Following her, Linden and Liand found Anele sprawled on a bed of piled grass and bracken.

Linden saw at once that Hami had described the old man accurately: he was unconscious, stunned, not broken. Yet his breathing had an obstructed sound, fraught with pain. His eyes were closed; mercifully, so that their blindness did not accuse her of failing him. His neck and the side of his head ached in response to Stave’s