The Runes of the Earth

Foul doing?

While she had known the Elohim Findail, he had dreaded only two things: his own Appointed doom; and the rousing of the Worm of the World’s End. And during her translation to the Land, she had caught a glimpse of the Worm-Lord Foul had mocked her with a nightmare in which she awakened the Worm with wild magic, causing the destruction of the Earth.

Yet the undefined challenges of the Ramen remained. When the Manethrall said her name again, Linden looked up from her trepidation.

Awkwardly she countered, “What was the second?”

Hami raised her eyebrows. “Ringthane?”

“You said two events brought you here now. You told me about the first one. What was the second?”

A new tension spread through the gathering. The Manethrall’s features closed: her expression became a wall. “That event entails the first challenge. Do you choose to meet it now? Will you not rather tell us the tale of yourself, that our hearts may be eased towards you?

No, Linden insisted in silence-not to Hami, but to herself. No, stop this. Her fears were running away with her: concern and frustration were making her crazy. She had no power to bring about the ruin of the Earth. Everything that the Despiser said or did was designed to mislead her in some way.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, so faintly that she hardly heard her own voice. “Of course I’ll tell you my story. You’ve shown us nothing but kindness. I want your friendship.”

And she was certain that the Land needed the Ramen.

Hami responded with a formal bow. “Then speak, Ringthane.” Her tone hinted at whinnying. “The Ramen hear you.”

Standing or sitting, all of the Cords and Manethralls seemed to lean toward Linden. The mountains themselves brought their darkness nearer, and a chill breeze fell from their sides to fill the vale. In the moonless heavens, the stars glittered coldly, like the eyes of the Elohim; instances of disdain.

Linden made no effort to raise her voice. Hami was enough for her. The rest of the Ramen would hear her as well as they could, and decide among themselves whether she spoke the truth.

“I’m like Thomas Covenant,” she said over the low crackle and hiss of the flames. “We come from a different place. Outside this world.” Her few possessions confirmed this: her clothes, her boots. And white gold did not exist in the Land, or anywhere in the wide Earth. “When he was summoned against the Sunbane, I came with him.

“You were brief. I’ll be the same.”

Firelight filled Hami’s eyes with shadows. The Manethrall seemed to watch Linden through a shroud of remembered wars and butchery, measuring Linden’s words against her own knowledge of evil.

Carefully Linden described her arrival with Covenant on Kevin’s Watch. She named Sunder and Hollian, whom Anele had claimed as his parents. Knowing that the viles were important in some way, she told how Covenant’s Dead in Andelain had given him Vain. The beginning of the Search for the One Tree; her meeting with Giants in Seareach; their encounter with the Elohim, and with Findail the Appointed: these things she explained as concisely as possible. But she did not scant Brinn’s self-sacrifice and triumph at the isle of the One Tree. She would not make it easy for the Ramen to think ill of Stave’s people. After that, however, she leaped ahead to Covenant’s victory over Lord Foul, the making of the new Staff of Law, and her own efforts to heal the Land.

The night around the clearing had grown impenetrable. Only the black bulk of the mountains showed against the stars. And only the campfires softened the stern faces of the Ramen.

“For me,” Linden said to the hushed gathering, “that was only ten years ago.” A quarter of her life. “Time is different where I come from.

“Three days ago, I was summoned again.” Shot through the heart. “I’m not sure, but I think two other people came to the Land at the same time.” Again she made no mention of Jeremiah. She did not want to expose him to the dire pronouncements of the Elohim. “If I’m right, they both serve Lord Foul. And one of them has a white gold ring.

“I don’t understand Kevin’s Dirt or the caesures. I don’t know anything about skurj or the Durance. I’ve encountered merewives, Sandgorgons, and croyel, but I can’t imagine what they have to do with the Land. As far as I’m concerned, none of that matters as much as the other ring.

“If Lord Foul can use wild magic, the Land is already in tremendous danger, and I’m going to need all the help I can get.”

There Linden bowed her head. Praying that she had satisfied the Manethrall, she waited for Hami’s response.

After a moment, Hami murmured, “The Ramen hear you, Ringthane.” Her voice held a tone that may have been awe. “Yet you have not spoken of your companions.”

Watching the ambivalent dance of the flames between her feet and Hami’s, Linden said, “Anele found me on Kevin’s Watch. He was trying to get away from a caesure. When the Watch fell, wild magic saved us. Then the Masters took us prisoner. Once they knew who I was, they would have let me go, but I stayed with Anele. Liand helped us escape,” Liand and a concussive storm which the ur-viles must have sent. “Stave found us a little while before you did.”

That was enough. If the Ramen could not recognise her honesty, no insistence of hers would convince them.

Flickering shadows concealed the Manethrall’s reaction. None of the Ramen spoke or moved. They might have been willing to listen all night. In their long history, no doubt, they had met wonders aplenty, as well as bloodshed and betrayal. Yet they seemed transfixed by Linden’s brief tale. Their distant ancestors had known the Seareach Giants during the ages of Damelon, Loric, and Kevin, and during the centuries of the new Lords, until the slaughter of the Unhomed. Since then, however, the Ramen may not have met anyone who had seen so many of the Earth’s marvels.

“Linden Avery,” the Manethrall began. “Ringthane.” Her tone was a knot of awe and apprehension. “We have heard you. There remains much that we might inquire of you. Yet I do not hesitate to say that we will offer our friendship gladly-yes, both friendship and honour-if they are ours to grant.

“But you have spoken of matters which are too high for us. We are Ramen, and proud-but we are only Ramen, powerless against Fangthane as against Elohim or any other fell being. Our purpose is all that we are, and its ambit is too small to contain such wonders and powers. Hearing your tale, we know that we cannot measure your claim upon us, for good or ill.”

Then Hami waved her hand; and one of the Cords at the edge of the clearing hurried away into the night. Watching the young Raman go, Linden felt a new twist of apprehension.

“Linden Avery,” Hami repeated more loudly, “Ringthane and Chosen, the time has come. You have given your consent to be challenged. This is well, for such testing is necessary to us.

“The time has come to speak of Esmer.”

At once, all of the Ramen rose to their feet. In one sense or another, they had been waiting for this moment. Hami’s Cords hedged Linden within their circle. The younger Ramen seemed to form a wall around the clearing.

Esmer? Linden thought mutely. Who-?

“I have said that two events brought us timely to the Verge of Wandering, and to your aid,” the Manethrall explained with a cadence of nickering in her voice. “This is the second. Three seasons past, we were yet far to the south, and though our way tended northward we did not hasten, for the Elohim had not persuaded us to urgency. But then a new stranger came among us.

“He named himself Esmer, and he approached us courteously from afar, asking that he might be welcomed among us. To our eyes, he appeared to be a man both like and unlike any other, ruled by love and loss, as others are, and yet as puissant as a Lord in his own fashion-a figure of both power and pain. His pain we did not comprehend, however, and his power disturbed us. Therefore we were unsure of him.

“Yet he met our challenge without demur or difficulty, but rather with a seemly reverence. And when it was made plain to us that we must cede our friendship, he became a worthy member of our journey, forewarning us of pitfalls and snares, and relieving our wants, so that our sojourn has been one of safety and ease.” e were