The Runes of the Earth

Linden waited with a mounting pressure in her ears and chest, as though she were holding her breath. A figure of both power and pain-

– who did not greet new arrivals among the Ramen, or join them while they ate.

Hidden by shadows, Hami’s eyes might have held eagerness or fear, empathy or suspicion.

“Because you will now be challenged in your turn” the Manethrall continued, I will tell you that it was Esmer who persuaded us to hasten toward the Verge of Wandering. It was he who informed us of the Ringthane’s return in peril. And it was he who summoned the ur-viles so that they might answer your need as we did, for he alone among us speaks their tongue.

“Indeed,” she added, “because of his presence, or his summoning, we have encountered them frequently since we neared the Land.”

Then she concluded, “It is our hope that his lore may enable us to determine our place in matters which surpass us.”

Suddenly Stave thrust himself between Hami’s Cords into the circle around Linden. Resolve poured from his hard form as if he were ready for battle.

As the Haruchai moved, Liand called out sharply: a tight cry, unexpectedly alarmed. In the same moment, Linden felt an acrid presence touch the back of her neck. Instinctively she wheeled toward the Stonedownor.

At the edge of the clearing near him, a wedge of Demondim-spawn appeared among the Cords as if Hami had invoked them.

The black creatures barked to each other softly as they advanced. They did not sound threatening, however, and the Ramen showed only tension, not fear. None of the ur-viles held weapons.

Were they here because Hami had summoned Esmer? Or because Linden herself was in danger?

Frightened and confused, Liand pushed his way through the Ramen to join Stave beside her. Both of them seemed to think that the ur-viles posed some threat.

Linden turned back to the Manethrall. “Hami-?”

Hami held up her hands to forestall questions. “I know not why they have come. We did not expect them. But they have given us no cause for enmity. Since we learned of their presence among these mountains, they have offered us no harm. Rather they have aided us upon occasion, at Esmer’s behest.”

Linden frowned to conceal her thoughts. If Esmer could talk to the ur-viles, he might be able to answer many of her questions.

“Ringthane,” the Manethrall hurried on, “our challenges need not alarm you. They require naught of you, except that you abide them.

Thus!”

Spreading her arms, she stepped back from the campfire; withdrew to the edge of the circle.

Off to her right, the crowd of Cords parted again, and a man came tensely through the firelight into the centre of the clearing.

The first sight of him made Linden’s stomach churn with nausea. She was instantly certain that she was looking at the being who had driven Covenant’s spirit from Anele’s mind; the power who had commanded Anele to keep silent at the crest of the arete.

He resembled the Haruchai.

He could have been young or old: his features seemed to refuse the definition, the constriction, of time. Like Stave’s people, he was flat-faced and brown-skinned, strongly built. Like them, he was not especially tall; no taller than Linden herself. And his cropped hair curled on his head. Seen from a distance, he could have been taken for Stave’s brother, unscarred and untried.

However, he wore a gilded cymar formed of a strange fabric which looked like it had been woven from the froth of waves: a garment entirely unlike the raiment of the Masters-or any raiment that Linden had seen in the Land. And his eyes were the deep and running green of dangerous seas.

Now she knew why his nearness nauseated her. Her health-sense saw him as a queasy squirm of power; a knot of conflicts and capabilities like a clenched nest of worms. Poisonous. Breeding.

And yet-

If he had not been so tense, he would have seemed oddly vulnerable, even frightened. The occasion threatened him in some way. Or he was a danger to himself. In spite of her own discomfort, she felt drawn to him, as if he had appealed to her for pity; inspired her to empathy.

And yet-

Her nerves were sure of him: she perceived clearly that he was the figure of power who had twice intervened to frustrate Anele’s insights, Anele’s madness. He had reft her of Covenant’s voice-

But he was distinctly not the being of fire that had possessed the old man. She could be confident of that as well. Rather he had merely blocked Covenant’s spirit, impelling Anele out onto open ground. There an altogether different being had taken hold of the old man; a power that blazed with malice and hunger, as Esmer did not.

In some sense, Esmer served that other, more vicious foe-and appeared to despise himself for doing so.

“Linden,” Liand panted in astonishment or dismay, “he is not human. Not mortal.”

Linden swallowed a rasp of sand. She wanted to ask Stave what he saw. His senses surpassed hers. And he might have knowledge which she lacked. But her throat was too dry for speech.

Stave confronted the newcomer mutely, without moving. Every line of his form had become an imminent blow.

“Esmer,” Hami announced, apparently intending to introduce him to Linden and her companions. But he stopped her with a gesture so fraught with force that it left a streak of incandescence across Linden’s sight. Then he turned to Liand.

“Liand of Mithil Stonedown.” His words seemed to writhe in Linden’s ears. “You have no part in this. You will withdraw.”

Like Stave, Liand stood motionless. “No.” His voice shook. “I will not.

Esmer shrugged as if with that lift of his shoulders he dismissed Liand’s existence.

“Linden Avery,” he said next, “Chosen and Sun-Sage. You have become the Wildwielder, as the Elohim knew that you must. Because you spurned their guidance long ago, much will now be lost which might have been preserved. You also have no part in this, and will withdraw.”

But she, too, did not comply. She could not. Instead she stood still, rooted in place by surprise and anger. He had silenced Covenant’s voice; had caused Anele terrible distress. And-

And many centuries ago, the Elohim had expressed surprise that she did not already wield Covenant’s ring. Because she did not, they had reduced Covenant’s mind to blankness, striving- among other things-to persuade or compel her to claim his wedding band for herself.

How had Esmer known-?

Observing her refusal, his manner softened momentarily. “If the Ramen heed my word, they will trust their hearts concerning you. And if they do not-” Again he shrugged; but this time the motion suggested diffidence, even timidity. “They will be persuaded otherwise.”

Then, however, all hint of softness vanished from him. Like Liand, she might have ceased to exist. Between one instant and the next, he began to seethe with fury as he shifted his dark emerald gaze to the Master.

“You,” he said; and his voice gathered potency as if he could bring down the night and the stars to hear him. “I know you, to my enduring cost. You are Stave, Bloodguard and Master, Haruchai.” With each word, his voice grew, acquired resonance, until it became the shout of great sackbuts, steerhorns, so loud that it seemed to echo off the mountainsides. “Because of you, I am made to be what I am!

“Defend yourself, heartless one, lest I destroy you!”

At once, he launched himself at Stave like a scend, the surge of a tumbling wave.

“Esmer!” Hami cried instantly. “No! They must not be harmed! I promised them safety!”

Together, she and several other Manethralls rushed to intervene.

Instinctively Linden reached for Covenant’s ring. But she had no power. She was blocked by nausea; trapped within herself by the confusion of her senses.

The ur-viles barked savagely in unison. At the tip of their wedge, an iron rod or Sceptre appeared in the