The Runes of the Earth

“Do you claim the right to challenge us?” he replied flatly. He may have been full of ire and repudiation, but he did not show it. His hard form revealed only that he could not be swayed. “I also claim that right. My questions also require answers.”

His tone was calm. Nonetheless it drew tension from the Ramen like the touch of a flail.

“Manethrall,” he continued, “you speak harshly of the Masters, but you say little of the Ranyhyn. Did you not guide them into exile? And are they not the meaning lives? Why then are they absent from this place?

What has become of them? How are you able to avow that you have kept faith with the past, if you have not been true to the great horses of Ra?”

No. Linden reached her feet without realising that she had moved. She was fed up with people who never forgave, the Ramen as much as the Haruchai. They shared a combustible pride, as sensitive as tinder, primed for conflagration. If she did not intervene, they might strike blows which they would never be able to take back.

And she was suddenly furious. Lord Foul held Jeremiah. Like the Land, he would never be saved by people who gave ancient grievances precedence over their immediate peril and responsibility.

“Sleepless one,” Hami countered, “I am done speaking.” She held her garrote taut between her fists: it seemed to have appeared there without transition. “It is you who will answer here.”

“No. Wait a minute.” Fighting to quiet her heart, Linden confronted Stave across the circles. “Don’t say a word. Please. Whether your people are right or wrong-it doesn’t matter. It makes no difference. Not here. The Ramen don’t know why you became Masters. They can’t evaluate your reasons. And you’re only here because of me.” Because she had fled from Mithil Stonedown. “If they have questions, I’ll answer them.”

Facing her without expression, Stave opened and closed his fingers deliberately, cocked one eyebrow-and said nothing. Instead he shrugged as though he recognised that she had told him the simple truth.

Gratitude for his restraint helped Linden manage her anger as she turned to Manethrall Hami. “If you want to challenge someone,” she told Hami, “challenge me. My companions are under my protection. All of them.”

Leaving her place in the circle, she approached the campfire until she stood near enough to see every spark and shadow in the Manethrall’s face; near enough to let Hami gauge her honesty as accurately as the woman’s senses allowed.

“When Covenant came back to the Land to fight the Sunbane, I was with him. We would have failed if the Haruchai hadn’t helped us. I owe them a debt I’ll never be able to repay.

I know you have grievances. Old ones. I understand that. And I understand your distrust. I’ll answer your questions, anything you want to ask me. But tell me one thing first. Please.”

Hami frowned sternly across the flames. She seemed reluctant to set aside her belligerence toward Stave. Yet her desire to trust Linden was plain: Linden could see it in her. “After a moment, she conceded stiffly, “If I may.”

If Linden’s question did not exceed the limits of what the Ramen were willing to reveal.

Still wrestling with her own outrage, and trembling with effort, Linden said harshly, “Lord Foul has come back, that’s obvious. You’ve seen Kevin’s Dirt. You’ve seen caesures. It’s your return I don’t understand.

“You say you scout the Land “once in each generation”. But how did you happen to pick this year? This season?” Had the Ramen been told that she would appear? Had the ur-viles forewarned them? “A generation is a long time. You could have come last year-or next year.” If they had, she and her companions would probably have died. “But you didn’t. Instead you’re here now.

“How did that happen?”

Linden closed her eyes briefly, praying for an explanation that she would be able to accept. She needed to gain as much comprehension as she could before the Ramen put her to the test. Then she looked at Hami again.

There is darkness nigh. Perhaps it lives among the Ramen, concealing itself from their discernment.

Hami appeared to consider the question. Linden half expected her to consult with her fellow Manethralls, but she did not. Apparently she could be sure that her people would support her, whatever decision she made.

Finally she nodded. “In sooth, Ringthane,” she replied, “we have not come by happenstance. We are a decade and more ahead of our appointed time. However, two events persuaded us from our wonted round. The first I may relate.”

The Manethrall paused as if to compose herself, then began.

“Perhaps half a generation ago, in an unpeopled woodland many leagues to the south and west, a strange being came among us. His power must have been great, for we descried nothing of his approach or presence until he stood before us.” This point seemed important to Hami: her pride insisted on it. “Skills and senses which would have acknowledged an unfamiliar butterfly within a league of our camp caught no sign of the stranger until he deigned to make himself known to us.

“He offered us no harm, and therefore we acted similarly, though we misliked him at once, for his mien was haughty, and he appeared to hold us in scant regard.” Hami’s voice was tight with disapproval. “His raiment was of sandaline, without shade or tint, and his eyes held the coldness of gemstones. When we had granted him welcome, he said that he intended to forewarn us.”

A chill ran down Linden’s spine. She knew what was coming.

“He named himself one of the Elohim, dispatched by his people in their distant land to speak of perils which stalked the Land from the ends of the Earth.”

Behind her in the clearing, Linden heard Liand catch his breath; whisper her name. Silence held the rest of the gathering, however, and Hami did not heed the Stonedownor.

“He said nothing of Fangthane, nor did he speak any of the other names by which the Render is known. Rather he cited croyel, merewives, Sandgorgons, skurj and other creatures or beings of which we have no knowledge. When we pressed him to account for them, he refused disdainfully. His purpose, he averred, was to prepare the way, not to amend our shortcomings. Instead he instructed us to “Beware the halfhand”. With the coming of the halfhand, the Earth would suffer its most dire peril, and if we cared aught for our home we would return to the Land’s defence.”

The Manethrall snarled at her memories. “Remembering the legends of Berek Halfhand as well as the great victory of Covenant Ringthane, we took offense that the stranger had spoken so. Because he offered no harm, we did not drive him from us. Nevertheless we invited him to depart, for he declined to honour those whose valour and worth exceeded his.

“Mocking us, he went away as he had come, leaving no sign to mark his passage.”

Then Hami sighed. “When he had gone, we turned our way hither. Affronted by his manner, we did not wish to credit his words. Therefore we did not hasten. Yet we altered the sequence of our wandering, for he had sown disquiet among us, and we wished to determine whether he had spoken sooth or no.”

Over the flames, she asked Linden, “Are you answered, Ringthane? Will you now speak of yourself, as I have spoken of the Ramen?”

For a moment, Linden could not meet the Manethrall’s gaze. The fact that an Elohim had approached the Ramen as well as Liand’s people forced her to confront fears which she had tried to stifle.

Thomas Covenant was dead. But Jeremiah also lacked half of one hand. And as far as she knew, the Elohim felt only the most oblique and ambiguous concern for Lord Foul’s machinations. They were Earthpower incarnate, free of Law and perhaps impervious to wild magic. In addition, they considered themselves the Wurd of the Earth, the essence or purpose or fate of life; self-sufficient; beyond threat. No peril could touch them: few impinged on their notice. And fewer still stirred them from their hermetic self- contemplation.

The idea that those detached and apparently heartless beings had dispatched one of their own to forewarn the peoples of the Land made Linden want to rage and weep. Dear God, how bad was it going to get? What was