The Runes of the Earth: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Book One (22 page)

“It is fatal,” he answered anxiously. “They seek to poison Anele.”

“No, they don't,” she replied as calmly as she could. “I've already tasted it. It's good.” Unsure how to persuade him, she added, “They put treasure-berries in it.”

Immediately he shuffled to her side. “
Aliantha
sustains Anele,” he muttered as she pressed a spoon into his hands. “Often naught else preserves his life.”

Together they crouched over the bowl.

She stopped before she was satisfied, leaving the rest for her companion. But Anele continued ladling stew into his mouth until he had scraped the bowl empty.

Half to herself, she murmured, “Poor man, how long have you been lost?”

He did not answer. No doubt in his present condition he could not. His manner of speaking told her that his madness had reasserted its hold over him.

“In a minute or two,” she breathed absently, “I'm going to look for a way out of this place—whatever it is. But first I'm going to rest a bit.”

Her torn muscles and bruises demanded that.

Turning away from Anele, she crawled until the tips of her fingers brushed a wall. Like the floor, it was formed of smooth, cool stone. She sat with her back against it and leaned her head on it to reduce the strain on her neck.

Water and food.
Aliantha.
And captors who were prepared to treat her kindly. The
Haruchai
had only struck her because she had opposed his desire to take Anele. Perhaps she did indeed have reason to hope.

If she could convince the Masters that she was the Linden Avery who had accompanied Covenant to the Land so many centuries ago, she might win back their amity. Then she would get answers. Guidance. Aid.

If.

You need the Staff of Law.

Otherwise she would have to find a way to escape. She would have to tackle the whole Land with only Anele's insanity to direct her.

Do something they don't expect.

What in hell was
that
supposed to mean?

She ought to move; start exploring. But she was entirely out of her depth. She hardly knew how to tread water in this situation: she could not imagine how she might extricate herself. And she was so tired—Her last night in her own bed, her last experience of comparative innocence, seemed to have occurred weeks or months ago.

Somewhere in the darkness, her companion sighed. “Anele is weak,” he muttered to himself. “Too old. Too hungry. He should refuse food, water. Better to perish.
They
only prolong Anele's life to hurt him. Hold him for
it.
”

He meant a
caesure.

Quietly Linden asked, “What will it do to you, Anele?” In spite of her fatigue, she could still be moved. “What're you so afraid of?”

His voice shuddered as he replied, “It severs.”

She swore to herself. “So you said. What does it sever?”

“Life.” Anele moaned as though she had dismayed him. “Anele's life. It is the maw of the Seven Hells. Betrayed trust. Failure. Sorrow.”

Linden did not press him. His distress restrained her.

And she remembered the Seven Hells.

During their generations of dominion over the Land, the Clave had preached that the Earth had been created as a prison for a being called a-Jeroth of the Seven Hells, whose domain was pestilence, desert, fertility, war, savagery, rain, and darkness. Thus Sunder had explained the Sunbane to Covenant and Linden. It was the manifestation of a-Jeroth's evil; and it was also retribution against those who had failed to oppose the lord of the Seven Hells.

After so many centuries, Linden was appalled to think that any vestige of those teachings still persisted. Surely she and Covenant and their friends had discredited the Clave utterly when they had driven it out of existence?

The Masters name him their foe, yet they serve him and know it not.

Ah, God. She was out of her depth in all truth: floundering in quicksand.
Caesures
were the gullet of the Seven Hells, swallowing people away from life? The
Haruchai
served Lord Foul?

Catching her lower lip between her teeth, Linden braced her hands on the floor and pushed herself to her feet. Forget whiplash and bruises. Never mind exhaustion or murder. More than sleep or healing, she needed answers. She had to find out what was going on.

The pain in her neck undermined her balance; but she leaned against the wall and
followed it with her hands. If nothing else, she might be able to determine the dimensions of her prison.

She had hardly taken two steps, however, when a flicker of light caught at the corner of her vision.

She flinched, clinging to the wall as if for protection.

She saw nothing. Blackness seemed to swim about her head, tugging her toward a fall.

Staring into the dark, she held on.

There. A small flame reappeared in front of her. She saw it through a thin vertical slit like a cut in the wall of her gaol. An instant later, it shifted out of reach. But she had
seen
it.

The slit had appeared tall enough to be the edge of a door. Or the gap between a doorframe and a hanging curtain—

Before she could move forward to investigate the opening, she saw the flame again. This time it did not disappear. Instead it came toward her.

A heartbeat later, a figure swept aside a heavy leather curtain and stepped through the doorway.

He held what appeared to be a cruse cupped in one hand; and from within it a burning wick flamed upward: an oil lamp. The thin yellow light nevertheless seemed bright to her darkened sight. She could see his garments and features clearly, his short vellum tunic, the jagged scar under his left eye.

He was the
Haruchai
who had struck her down.

“Protect!” gasped her companion. “Protect Anele!” Hissing through his teeth, he scrambled backward to crouch against the far wall of the chamber.

The
Haruchai
gazed at Anele for a moment, then shifted his attention to Linden. “You understand that we will not harm him. We seek only to ward him, and the Land.” He faced her like a man who could not be impugned. However, he may have been able to sense her distrust. Stooping, he set his lamp down at his feet. Then he asked awkwardly, “Are you well?”

Making him wait while she tried to calm herself, Linden glanced around the space.

The lamp showed her a square room that she could have crossed in five or six strides. The wall at her back—she stood to the right of the doorway—held a wide window sealed with rocks. Another curtain hung opposite her, filling a second doorframe; and a third marked the wall near Anele. Presumably they both opened on to other rooms.

This place had not been built as a gaol. It may once have been a small dwelling, abandoned now to the Masters' use.

Perhaps they did not routinely take prisoners.

Holding that scant comfort, Linden faced the
Haruchai
again.

“How could I be well?” she countered sourly. “You damn near broke my neck.”

The man returned an impenetrable stare. The unsteady flame of his lamp cast shadows like streaks of repudiation across his countenance. “You will heal.”

Instead of answering, she held his gaze as she had held Sheriff Lytton's, daring him to believe that she could be intimidated.

He was
Haruchai:
his manner did not waver. “Do you desire more water? More food? We will provide for your comfort.”

“Thank you.” His offer softened Linden's attitude. His people had already demonstrated that they meant to treat their prisoners kindly. “We do need more food and water. As for our comfort—” She paused, wondering how much he would be willing to tell her.

If he had not struck her, she might already have blurted out Jeremiah's name.

Her captor waited stolidly. After a moment, she suggested, “You might start by telling me your name.”

“I am Stave,” he replied without hesitation. “With Jass and Bornin, I ward this Stonedown.”

Ward it from what? she wanted to ask. But that could wait until she had convinced him of her identity. And until she had discovered whether or not she could trust him.

If Anele were right about the Masters, they would strive to prevent her from reaching her son.

Rather than dive into those murkier waters, she inquired, “This is Mithil Stonedown?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Good.” That small confirmation of her assumptions made her feel stronger. “I'm glad to find something that hasn't changed.

“Now, about our comfort—”

Stave faced her with no discernible impatience.

Linden took a deep breath. “What Anele needs is to be set free, but I already know you won't take my word for that. At least not yet. So let's start with me.

“I'm Linden Avery. People called me ‘the Chosen.' I came here a long time ago with Thomas Covenant.” Ur-Lord and Unbeliever. “For a while, I was a prisoner of the Clave. So were a lot of the
Haruchai.
Brinn, Cail, and several others joined us on a quest for the One Tree. We wanted to make a new Staff of Law. Eventually we succeeded.”

Several of the
Haruchai
had given their lives to make that possible.

“You said,” she continued, “you would let me prove I'm telling the truth. When are you going to do that?”

Stave continued to study her. “How will you persuade us?”

Linden stifled an impulse to reach for Covenant's ring. Instead she offered, “You said you remember. Ask me questions.”

Behind her as she faced her captor, Anele made frightened noises deep in his throat.

“Very well.” Stave's manner stiffened slightly. He might have been listening to other voices than hers. “Name the
Haruchai
who failed to refuse the Dancers of the Sea.”

His people set inhumane standards for themselves. They had no mercy for those who demonstrated mortal desires and flaws.

“Brinn and Cail.” She had forgotten nothing of her time with Covenant. “Ceer and Hergrom were already dead. Hergrom was killed by a Sandgorgon. Ceer died saving my life.” Grimly she refused to relive the events she described. Her memories would only weaken her here: she needed to keep her concentration fixed on Stave. “Brinn and Cail were the only ones left to hear the
merewives.
”

On his hands and knees, Anele crept forward a little way, leaving the protection of the wall as if he wanted to be near Linden.

The Master studied her with apparent disinterest. “What became of Brinn and Cail?”

She sighed. Such things should have been common knowledge; the stuff of legends. Sunder and Hollian had heard the story. The Giants of the Search had participated in the events. Surely they had told the tale?

What had happened during the millennia of her absence? What had gone wrong?

Stung by loss, she replied stiffly, “Brinn decided to challenge
ak-Haru Kenaustin Ardenol.
Otherwise we wouldn't have been able to approach the One Tree.” She and her companions had been lost in mist until Brinn had released them. “The Guardian was invisible. Brinn didn't stand a chance.” Gaps in the gravid mist had allowed glimpses of his struggle. “But he found a way. When the Guardian drove him off a precipice, he dragged
Kenaustin Ardenol
with him. He bought us access to the One Tree by surrendering his life.

“We thought he was dead.” No living flesh could have survived the punishment Brinn had taken, or the fall from that height. “But his surrender defeated the Guardian. Instead of dying, he took
Kenaustin Ardenol
's place. He became the
ak-Haru.
”

The Guardian of the One Tree.

“As for Cail—”

Linden paused to swallow memories and grief. Stave waited for her like a man who could not be swayed.

Again Anele advanced slightly. Apparently her tales meant something to him.

“Your people judged him pretty harshly,” she told the
Haruchai
when she was ready to continue. “He was faithful to Covenant and the Search,” and finally to Linden herself, “for months, and they practically beat him to death. They considered him a failure.”

And Cail had accepted their denunciation.

“But in spite of that,” she went on, “he helped us against the Clave and the Banefire.” Against Gibbon Raver and the na-Mhoram's
Grim.
“He didn't leave us until Covenant put out the Banefire, and we were all safe.”

All but Grimmand Honninscrave, who had given his life to rend
samadhi
Sheol.

There she stopped. Stave gave no sign that he had understood her answer; that the heritage of his people meant anything to him. Yet he was not done. In the same awkward, ungiving tone, he asked, “When Cail departed from you, where did he go?”

Again Linden restrained an impulse to reach for Covenant's ring. “Your people called him a failure,” she repeated. “Where else could he go? He went to look for the
merewives.
”