The Runes of the Earth: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Book One (59 page)

Involuntarily furious, Linden breathed, “You idiot!” as Stave lowered himself onto one of the blocks. “Next time, I'll have the Ramen tie you down. I didn't go through all that,” wild magic threatening to scale out of control, “just so you could
cripple
yourself.”

But she perceived at once that he had not done so. He was
Haruchai;
impossibly hardy. And hurtloam had already wrought miracles of healing within him. His hip would hurt for weeks; perhaps for months. But his blow had caused no permanent harm.

“Chosen,” he replied through his pain, “did you not say that I must warn my people? Then I must hear you now.”

Linden shrugged against her anger. “You won't like it.”

She would show him, however, that she did not mean to be swayed.

Liand seated himself beside Stave. His concern for the Master had become a look of alarm. Bhapa frowned at Linden with his good eye. Dohn had resumed his vague study of the surrounding mountainsides; but Mahrtiir watched her like a man who had glimpsed the struggle for which his spirit hungered.

Complex uncertainties filled Hami's eyes as she murmured, “It may be that your words will please no one among us. Yet we also must hear them. The Ranyhyn require it of us.”

Linden faced them all as well as she could. Speaking harshly to contain her fear, she said, “Hell, even
I
don't like it, and it's
my
idea.”

Then she dropped her gaze to the ground. She could not bear to watch her companions' reactions.

“Esmer and I talked about
caesures,
Falls,” she began, clumsy again, incapable of grace. “According to him, they're flaws in time. Rips. They tear open the barrier,” the necessary boundary, “between the past and the present. Lord Foul wants to destroy the Arch of Time.
Caesures
are just one of the ways he's trying to accomplish that.”

One small rent at a time, over and over again, until the entire fabric tattered and fell.

“If Esmer is right, Anele really is the son of Sunder and Hollian. Three thousand and some years ago, he left the Staff of Law behind when he went to investigate a
wrongness
that turned out to be a Fall. He had no defense when the Fall snatched him out of his life.

“The ur-viles came here the same way,” Linden continued. “Lord Foul tried to exterminate them, back in the time of the Sunbane, but a few of them escaped into a Fall.” Here she had probably encountered every remaining descendant of the Demondim. “Esmer seems to think they came looking for a future when they would be needed.

“Apparently
caesures
first started to haunt the Land maybe a hundred years ago. They're comparatively recent. That may be why any of us are still alive. But Esmer says there are limits to what Foul can accomplish with them. The Despiser has access to a white gold ring. In theory, he already has all the power he needs. But he can't simply tear down the Arch—or even attack it directly. The ring belongs to a woman who is completely broken. Too broken to be anything more than a tool.”

And Covenant had given his life to secure the Arch. In some sense, his spirit still stood against Lord Foul.

After a pause, she avowed grimly, “I believe him. But we don't have to take his word for it. We already know that Time is essentially intact. We're still here. The Land is still here. Cause and effect still apply. And I doubt that even ur-viles have the power to elude Lord Foul.

“The Falls are a terrible threat, but they aren't enough. Foul needs more.”

So far Linden felt only concentration from her listeners, not denial. They all had reason to take Esmer's words seriously. And no one had suggested a better explanation for Anele's baffled predicament—or for the presence of the ur-viles.

She had harder things yet to say.

Studying the bare dirt, she said, “The way I see it, the
caesures
are relatively small. They may span thousands of years, but they don't cover much ground. And they move slowly. That limits how much harm they can do.

“But I think there's another limitation,” a restriction in addition to Joan's insanity. “Esmer didn't say this,” he had merely asserted that any alteration of the established past would damage the Law of Time, “but I think the Falls only run forward. From the
past to the present. Otherwise Foul could send someone into the past,” God, he could even send Joan, “or he could go himself. He could change what's already happened. That would do more to threaten the Law of Time than the
caesures
themselves.”

Trying to reassure herself, she concluded awkwardly, “In other words, things could be worse.”

The more she said, however, the more her intentions appalled her. Soon her companions would respond with indignation and dismay. They would certainly oppose her.

She was not Thomas Covenant: she lacked the personal extremity for such risks.

“Ringthane,” Hami responded in a neutral tone, “this is important knowledge. It explains much. But it does not reveal how such peril may be countered. Again I must ask.

“What is your intent?”

In fear, Linden might have countered, Why do I have to make these decisions? What would you do if I weren't here? She might have demanded, Ask Esmer, not me. He knows what's going on. I don't.

But she knew better. She was Linden Avery the Chosen, named Ringthane and Wildwielder. Jeremiah was her son. There was no one else to whom she could offer her burdens.

In spite of her trepidation, she raised her eyes to gaze at each of her companions: at the Manethralls, who feared for the Ranyhyn more than for the Land; at Bhapa, who appeared to feel indebted to her, commanded by blood to repay Sahah's life; at Liand, who had already shown that he would support her whatever she did; at Stave, who might believe that she served Corruption.

Then she pronounced distinctly, “We need the Staff of Law. I intend to go get it.”

Liand stared at her, his face wide with confusion. Stave raised his eyebrows as if she had contrived to pierce his impassivity. Frowning, Bhapa looked away. He may have been reluctant to hear what she would say next.

Dohn had covered his eyes with his hands. His posture radiated chagrin. Protests gathered on Hami's visage. But Mahrtiir looked at Linden as if he had heard the call to battle.

She held up her hands to forestall objections which her companions had not uttered. “I know, I know. Anele lost the Staff three and a half thousand years ago. And if I'm right, I can't get there from here.
Caesures
only run forward.”

Then she knotted one fist on Covenant's ring under her shirt. “But Lord Foul isn't the only one who has access to wild magic.” And he could not truly control Joan: her madness made her unwieldy. “If I can find a Fall, maybe I can make it take me where I want to go.”

Linden seemed to feel the high mountainheads leaning toward her. A moment of shock held the ring. Then several of her companions protested at once.

“You will break the Law of Time! You have said so.”

“
Caesures
threaten Time. Wild magic itself threatens it.”

“It is impossible. You will fail, and be lost.”

“Anele is mad! He cannot guide you to the Staff!”

But Mahrtiir's voice rode over the others, ringing with eagerness. “Are you adept at Time? Are such journeys common in your world? How will you find the time you seek?”

Linden closed her eyes; waited for her silence to create a space in which she could reply. She feared that Stave or Liand would cross the circle to shake her; defy her with their bare hands. But their objections, their dismay, seemed to blow past her on the dawn breeze and lose strength.

Then she heard a soft melody as Dohn began to sing:

“Grass-grown hooves, and forehead stars;

hocks and withers earth-wood bloom:

egal Ranyhyn, gallop, run—

we serve the Tail of the Sky,

Mane of the World.”

He may have been granting her permission. Or hope.

As if she had regained her heart, Linden opened her eyes. Because her companions were too many to face or answer all at once, she focused on the Manethralls; on Hami, who seemed to be her friend.

“Anele can guide me to the cave where he left the Staff,” she said with as much conviction as she could summon. “If he gets the chance. He's already been back there any number of times. All I have to do is take him to the right year.” Any year after the loss that had broken him. “He'll find his way.

“And I don't think I'll hurt the Law of Time. For one thing, it's not all that fragile. If it were, a hundred years of
caesures
would have shattered it already,” in spite of Covenant's poignant surrender. “And for another—

“The Staff hasn't been used since Anele lost it. It hasn't changed anything. It hasn't done anything. That's what being lost
means.
” Surely the
Haruchai,
if no one else, would have become aware of it otherwise? “Taking it out of the past and bringing it here won't disrupt what's already happened.”

And she had one reason to believe that her extravagant proposal might succeed. The Staff was no longer where Anele had left it. Obsessed by grief and self-recrimination, he had confirmed that fact over and over again.

Which apparently implied—

—that she had been able, or would be able, to retrieve it.

Leaving the Law of Time intact in the process.

No one contradicted her. She could not read Stave's heart through his impassivity; but the others around her were too shaken to protest further. They must have believed her; believed that she would do what she had said.

Their silence frightened her more than almost any opposition. She needed to confront and overcome their fears in order to manage her own.

Grimly she forced herself to continue.

“Of course, I'll need to locate a
caesure.
” She did not trust herself to create one: not without experiencing one first, reading it with her health-sense; learning to understand it. “But that's not the real problem.”

Holding Hami's troubled gaze, Linden said, “The real problem is that I'm
not
‘adept at Time.' I can't find my way through the confusion in a
caesure.
I need to reach the Staff at some point
after
Anele lost it,” or else she would indeed alter the past, “and I don't know how to do that.”

She was certain that the Manethrall understood her.

“I asked Esmer. He said, ‘Look to the Ranyhyn.' ” Clenching her courage in both hands, one on Covenant's ring, the other wrapped around itself, she finished, “I assume that means they can help me.”

Hami turned her face away as if she were flinching.

For a moment, none of the Manethralls met the demand in Linden's eyes. Instead they looked to each other. Linden had never felt in them the kind of mental communion which distinguished the
Haruchai.
Nevertheless they appeared to acknowledge each other's apprehensions mutely; to ask each other Linden's implicit question.

Then Dohn said softly, “The Ranyhyn will choose. They must. It is not our place. This matter is beyond us.”

Mahrtiir nodded reluctantly, as if he were being asked to set aside a secret desire.

Hami's reluctance was of another kind as she faced Linden again. So hesitantly that Linden could barely hear her, the Manethrall replied, “It may be that the Ranyhyn are able to aid you—and will elect to do so. We know nothing of
caesures
or Falls. We are bound by Time. Yet the great horses are capable of much. That is certain.

“And it is certain also”—she faltered, then went on more strongly—“that they will answer when they are summoned. Once they have consented to be ridden, they will answer when they are summoned, though hundreds of leagues may intervene.”

Linden stared at her. “What do you mean?”

Hami tightened her grip on herself. “Ringthane, hear me. At this moment, there are no Ranyhyn within this vale. We are Ramen and cannot be mistaken in this. Neither Hyn nor Hynyn roams the Verge of Wandering. Yet if you were to summon her, Hyn would approach within moments.” She held up her hand to prevent questions that Linden did not know how to ask. “If you stood in Mithil Stonedown and summoned
her, she would appear at once. If you stood above ancient Revelstone itself and could not be approached except through the Westron Mountains, yet would she shortly answer your summons.

“Understand, Ringthane, that I do not speak of distance. The Ranyhyn do not transcend the difficulties of their journeys. Rather their power to answer is a power over days and seasons.”

Linden's eyes widened in wonder and apprehension. Alarm or hope swelled in her throat.

“The Ranyhyn do not spurn distance,” Hami breathed as though the knowledge dismayed her. “They spurn time. They do not merely respond when they are summoned. Rather they hear that they
will be
summoned, and they respond. If the distance is great, and the obstacles also, the Ranyhyn will depart moons or seasons
before
they are summoned, that they may arrive when they are needed.”