The Runes of the Earth: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Book One (28 page)

“Four score years, perhaps, or five. Falls are more”—he grimaced—“remarkable
than
kresh,
fearsome though the wolves may be. They disturb our lives more profoundly.” Liand thought for a moment, then offered, “If I question my people, I may be able to determine the time of their first appearance among us.”

Eighty or a hundred years. Three or four generations.
Caesures
and
kresh
had begun to afflict the South Plains at about the same time.

“What do the Falls do?” Linden asked intently.

The young man's mouth twisted again. “They are destructive, as I have said.” He did not enjoy the taste of his memories. “Trees and shrubs are often blasted, and crops are ruined as though plows by the score had torn through them. At times we have been brought near to starvation by the loss of our fields, and winter has been cruel to us because we could find little wood to feed our fires.” He sighed. “Beyond question the aid of the Masters has enabled us to endure.”

His voice held a note of fatality as he concluded, “Stone may withstand a Fall, though it does not do so repeatedly. But any beast or bird or human that nears a Fall is swallowed away and does not return.”

Linden stared at him. Swallowed away? Actually devoured? God! No wonder Anele was terrified—

Fearing Liand's answer, she asked, “How often do you see Falls?”

He shrugged uncomfortably. “We cannot foretell them. They are not constant. However, the interval between them is commonly measured in years. Some pass, harmless, across the Plains. Others disappear among the mountains, or emerge from them. It is rare that a Fall enters this valley.”

As he spoke, Linden winced at an abrupt flash of intuition.
Caesures
had begun to afflict the Land, say, ninety years ago. Covenant had told her that roughly a year passed in the Land for every day in her ordinary world. And three months had passed since she had restored a white gold ring—

Was it possible? Behind Liand's shrouded form, and the blank stone walls, and the gloom, Linden seemed to see Roger's mother in her hospital bed raising her fist against herself. Had Lord Foul taken hold of Joan's mind so completely that she had been able to reach across the barrier between realities with wild magic? Had Joan
caused
the Falls by beating out her pain on the bones of her temple?

If so, the danger was about to get a lot worse. She was
here
now; able to strike directly at the Land.

And Linden was inadvertently responsible. Nothing in her experience had prepared her for the possibility that Joan's madness might have power across such distances.

Even the Staff of Law—if Linden could somehow contrive to find it—might prove useless against such wrong.

Her voice shook as she asked, “Do the
kresh
ever attack while you're threatened by a Fall?”

How far did Joan's insanity—and Lord Foul's machinations—extend? Kevin's Dirt effectively masked the
caesures.
Did the Falls similarly disguise the peril of the wolves?

“I have beheld one such attack,” Liand admitted, “no more. Yet when they neared the Fall, the
kresh
attempted flight. Those that failed were consumed.”

His answer gave her a small relief. It suggested that Joan—or the Despiser—was somehow constrained; limited. Or that separate intentions were at work; hungers driven by differing impulses.

Nevertheless she did not understand it. It did not sound like Lord Foul. Surely his appetite for ruin would be better fed by a coordinated assault? The Masters alone could not repeatedly withstand such an attack.

Stave's people had spent centuries ensuring that the Land had no other defenders.

Linden needed more information. She lacked some crucial fact or insight which would have allowed her to grasp the Despiser's purpose.

“So
kresh
and Falls are new,” she mused. “Comparatively. Have there been any other changes? Maybe not in your lifetime, but in the past few generations? Do your people talk about anything unusual? Has anything strange happened?”

“Do you mean apart from the fall of the Watch, and your own presence?” Liand's tone suggested a grin, but the accumulating gloom concealed his features. “Do you inquire of stillbirths, or twins, or unwonted blights?” Then he shook his shadowed head. “Surely you do not.

“One event,” he said more seriously, “which we would deem ‘strange' without hesitation has transpired. Indeed, I was present at its occurrence. Though I was little more than a child, I recall it well—as do we all.”

“Tell me,” Linden urged.

He rubbed his arms roughly for a moment, as if the thought of what he would say left him vulnerable to the growing cold. Outside the day had turned crepuscular and somehow ominous: she could hardly make out the wall of the home beyond her gaol. An erratic breeze began to scrub up dust from the packed dirt between the dwellings.

“The occasion itself,” he said quietly, remembering dismay, “was in no way remarkable. Our folk had gathered at day's end in the center of the Stonedown to speak of that which had been accomplished, and to prepare for the morrow's labors. Also such gatherings provide opportunity for songs and tales and ease. Thus do the folk of Mithil Stonedown combine their hearts for the aid and comfort of all.”

Wind plucked at the curtain. An accumulating tension in the air hinted at thunder. For reasons of his own, Anele left the rear wall and crept forward on his hands and knees. He may have wished to hear better.

Liand continued.

“The occasion commenced in the ordinary fashion, occupied with matters which
held little interest for a child of my few years. Labors were discussed, plans made. I attended to them scantly, awaiting tales.

“Yet of a sudden it became apparent that a stranger stood among us. His visage was merely unfamiliar, for we had never seen him before. And his raiment resembled ours. We found it surpassingly strange, however, that none of us had observed his approach. Indeed, the Masters themselves had given no sign that they were aware of him ere he appeared.

“He did not ask for our notice. He merely awaited it. Yet soon every eye and ear was concentrated toward him. Then he began to speak.”

An abrupt gust pulled the curtain from its hook. The leather slapped down, sealing out the last of the light. Startled, Linden clutched at Covenant's ring. Now she could see nothing of Liand except his outlines. Anele was an undefined blur in the center of the chamber, breathing feverishly through his teeth.

Almost whispering, the Stonedownor said, “The stranger spoke of matters which conveyed no meaning to us. Sandgorgons.
Croyel.
A shadow upon the heart of his kind.
Merewives
and other bafflements. To none of them could we make response. We did not comprehend them.

“Then, however”—Liand faltered as though the memory still discomfited him—“he informed us that a bane of great puissance and ferocity in the far north had slipped its bonds, and had found release in Mount Thunder.

“ ‘Mount Thunder'?” we inquired of him courteously. “ ‘We know nothing of that place. Is it near? Does it concern us? We are imperiled betimes by Falls. But packs of
kresh
are the only harm which has visited us from the north.' ”

Linden groaned like the mounting wind. In the gaps between gusts, she heard a faint sizzling noise like rain on hot stone. Liand's people had never even heard of Mount Thunder—The thoroughness with which the
Haruchai
had expunged the Land's past shocked her.

But Liand could not see her reaction; knew nothing of her concerns. He had not stopped.

“At first the stranger answered us with anger. Were we blind? Had we grown foolish across the centuries? Did we disdain the harsh evils of the world?

“There, however, Stave of the Masters intervened. I have not forgotten his words.

“ ‘
Elohim,
' he said, ‘you are not welcome here.' ”

Oh, hell. Linden gaped at the dark. An
Elohim
? What were those arrogant, Earthpowerful beings doing in the Land?

In the distance, thunder opened a cannonade. Crushing volleys echoed from the mountains which sheltered Mithil Stonedown. Anele quailed at the sound as though each barrage were aimed at him.

“ ‘These folk are ignorant,
Haruchai,
' replied the stranger. ‘You have maimed them of knowledge. Their doom is upon your heads.' But he did not tell us what he meant.

“Instead he gave warning. ‘Beware the halfhand,' he pronounced in a voice which shook our hearts. Then he appeared to dissolve into the air as salt does in water, and was gone, leaving only the taste of disturbance on our tongues.”

If she could have cleared her throat, Linden might have protested, Beware the
halfhand
? Distress crowded her chest. That title had been given to Thomas Covenant during his first visit to the Land.

But Jeremiah was also a halfhand, in his own way.

She hardly heard Liand ask, “Do you deem that strange, Linden Avery? Do you know of this ‘halfhand'?”

The
Elohim
had never trusted Covenant. They had feared his white ring; feared its power to compel even them, despite their fluid transcendence. But he was dead—

What did they know of her son?

They were
Elohim.
They knew everything that transpired throughout the Earth. It was their nature to know. Of course they were aware of Jeremiah's plight.

Surely they understood Lord Foul's intentions precisely?

“It troubles us still,” Liand admitted when she did not respond, “though the stranger has not returned. For that reason, my heart speaks to me of matters greater than the Masters permit us to know.”

Beware the halfhand.

Find me,
Covenant had pleaded in her dreams.

She had assumed that her son had been taken as a hostage against her, so that she might be coerced into surrendering Covenant's ring. But the warning of the
Elohim
seemed to imply a larger danger.

Larger than the destruction of the Arch of Time and the extinction of the Earth—?

Seconded by thunder, Liand finished, “And therefore I ascended the Watch, defying the prohibition of the Masters, though to do so may have been foolish and perilous. I wish to know the name of our doom.”

Linden stared at him, seeing nothing. Worse than Lord Foul's complete victory—?

“Protect Anele,” the old man whimpered through the thrashing of the wind. “Power comes. It will shred his heart.”

“Linden Avery.” Liand's voice held a note of supplication. “Speak to me. You grasp much which is denied to us. Do you comprehend this doom? Who is this
Elohim
? What is the ‘halfhand,' that we must be wary of him?”

Magnified by the wind, thunder thudded against the ground so heavily that
the floor under her shook. The air flurrying past the curtain had turned as cold as frost.

She had encountered the
croyel.
They were parasites which gave power in exchange for mastery. She had seen them unify the primitive savagery of the
arghuleh;
exalt Kasreyn of the Gyre's dangerous theurgies.

What might such a creature do to Jeremiah?

The
croyel
posed no threat to the
Elohim.
The danger must be to the Land, and to the Earth. Or to her son—

“What's happening?”

She did not hear herself speak aloud. She only knew that the thunder had grown as violent as the rending of Kevin's Watch.

“Protect,” Anele repeated. His voice quavered in fright.

Abruptly a ragged wail carried along the wind. “We are assailed!”

At once, Liand sprang to his feet.
“Kresh?”
he gasped. “Now?”

In a rush, he flung himself past the curtain; disappeared between the dwellings.

Instinctively Linden surged upright, echoing Liand's question. Wolves? In a storm like this?

No. Not unless the Despiser had compelled them to attack.

Mithil Stonedown would need all of its defenders. Even the
Haruchai
might find themselves overwhelmed.

“Come on,” she told Anele urgently. With her right hand, she gripped Covenant's ring. “They need help, and I can't leave you. You're coming with me.”

Her companion did not react. He could not have heard her. Wind and thunder like detonations smothered her voice.

“Come
on
!” she yelled, beckoning furiously at the thick gloom. Then she slapped the curtain aside and hurried into the storm.

There, however, she staggered to a halt.

She stood in the narrow passage between her gaol and the nearest home. It was deserted: every passage in sight was deserted. The Masters had abandoned their watch on Anele. The force of the wind had swept them away.

Clouds frothed like spume overhead, black and grey tangled together, and racing for the horizons. The dwellings around her appeared in shades of darkness, as comfortless as sepulchers. Dust stung at her eyes and flared away.