The Runes of the Earth: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Book One (47 page)

“He would name Kastenessen—”

There Anele's resistance crumbled. Whimpering, he leaped to his feet and fled over the rocks as though he were being whipped away from utterance.

Linden hung her head. Oh, Anele. Was there no end to his sufferings? He could not tell her the things she needed to know without being tormented in some way. Only his
inherited Earthpower kept him alive: a cruel gift which enabled or coerced him to survive more anguish than any mortal heart should have been able to bear.

He
commands—

Not Lord Foul: not this time. Some other being or power—

She was being stalked. A potent enemy hunted her steps; someone who wanted her to fail—Someone other than the Despiser.

After a moment, Manethrall Hami told one of her Cords, “Go. See that no harm comes to him.” At once, the Cord hastened away.

Liand cleared his throat. “Linden? Do you comprehend him? What are
skurj
? Who is Kastenessen?”

Cursing mutely, Linden forced herself to stand. Anele had spoken a name that she recognized.

Stave must have recognized it as well—

Instead of answering Liand's questions, she sighed, “Give me time. I need to think.”

Anele had referred to
skurj
several times now, and to a Durance. Under the Mithil's Plunge, he had wailed those names against the water's thunder. They meant nothing to her.

Kastenessen, on the other hand—

“There is darkness nigh,” Stave announced abruptly, “potent and fatal. We have been warned of such perils. Perhaps it lives among the Ramen, concealing itself from their discernment.”

Dumb with bafflement, Linden stared at the Master. Liand's eyebrows rose. Quick indignation flashed from Manethrall Hami to her Cords.

Stave ignored the Ramen. “We cannot oppose a being who remains hidden from our senses,” he told Linden, “and who is yet able to command the old man's madness.” Holding her gaze, he added, “Who but the
Elohim
wield such power?”

Still she stared at him. She understood him too well. The
Elohim
were certainly capable of masking their presence from any form of percipience.

And beyond question the Masters had been forewarned. Years ago, according to Liand, an
Elohim
had visited Mithil Stonedown. That strange, Earthpowerful being had spoken of terrible banes, which he had not explained.

Beware the halfhand.

But Hami was not swayed. She held herself on the balls of her feet, poised for combat. “You conceive that we harbor darkness,” she said through her teeth. “You credit that of us.”

Despite her stiff pride, an undercurrent in her tone hinted to Linden that Stave might be right.

With an effort, Linden shook off her confusion. “We have to know,” she sighed to the Master. “You can see Anele as well as I can.” Better. “Lord Foul isn't the only power
that uses him. There's so much he could tell us. We need to know who commanded him not to talk.”

Whoever it had been, that being lacked the Despiser's ability to take full possession of the old man. An
Elohim
could certainly have done so. But this
he
had not entirely succeeded at coercing Anele. In some sense, he was a weaker foe.

Damn it, Anele was using too many indefinite pronouns. Behind the Plunge, he had cried,
He has broken the Durance.
Was that the same
he
who had just tried to silence the old man? Apparently not.

How many enemies did she have?

She needed to know what the stone had told Anele. Somehow she had to confront his insanity. She had to find the courage somewhere—

Stave paid no heed to the Manethrall's anger. Briefly he appeared to consider Linden's statement. Then he nodded in agreement.

“The answer lies with the Ramen. We must discover it among them.” He paused again before saying, “There is no other way for us. The Masters must know of this new threat.”

The scar on his cheek underlined his hard gaze as he turned away, leaving Linden to Liand and the Ramen.

At the same time, Hami also turned away, concealing her secrets.

Leaning on Liand for support, Linden followed them to begin the long descent from the ridge. Her frustration had become a swollen blackness within her, a thunderhead fraught with lightning. She did not know how to contain the storm.

If she did not discover some clear answer to her questions soon, the cistern of her soul would crack open.

A
t the foot of the arête, with her boots on the marge of the sheltered vale's rich grass, she released Liand in order to raise her eyes from the long path and look around.

The mountains seemed to have grown while she stumbled downward. From the perspective of the ridge, they had not appeared so tall; and the grassland cupped among them might have stretched for leagues. Now, however, they reared ponderously into the heavens, stern visages of granite gazing down with the august hauteur of titans. And the lower terrain of the valley looked smaller, reduced in scale by its place among the high massifs. The far mountainsides seemed almost attainable.

In contrast, the grass was even more lush and prodigal than it had appeared from the ridge. Over the millennia, time and weather had filled the vale with fertility. Grass the color of distilled emeralds grew to the height of Linden's thighs, so thick that she wondered whether she would be able to forge through it.

Reassured by the sight of so much untrammeled vitality, Linden cast her health-sense wider; and when she did so, she spotted
aliantha
only a few dozen paces away.

With treasure-berries to sustain her, she might be able to walk as far as the Ramen wished, and need no help.

Hami had already sent several of her Cords ahead of the company to announce their coming; and the young Ramen seemed to flow away through the tall grass without disturbing it or forcing passage. They were attuned to it beyond hindrance. The rest of the group had gathered around Linden, apparently waiting for her to recover her strength.

But Stave remained apart, isolated by the strict intentions of the Masters. And Anele had moved out into the grass, presumably to put a little distance between himself and the
Haruchai.
One of the Cords had led Somo down the arête in Liand's place so that the Stonedownor could concentrate on Linden.

Weakly she headed through the grass toward the
aliantha.

She could not pass as the Ramen did, like a breeze among the blades and tassels. Grass caught at her boots and shins, tearing when she pushed her legs through it. Streaks of green sap stained her pants below the knees. She might have felt mired in the grass, hampered, opposed, if its simple abundance had not soothed her senses.

Like the grass, the
aliantha
flourished in the valley's soil. The shrubs spread their twisted branches widely, and they were heavy with fruit. Plucking clusters of viridian berries hungrily, she fed as if she were feasting until their juice had washed the ache of defeat from her throat, and her exhausted muscles began to relax in relief.

When she was done, she felt lightened, fundamentally restored, as though she had partaken of a Eucharist. The gifts of the Land touched her to the marrow of her bones.

Liand and the Ramen had followed Linden to the
aliantha.
They each ate two or three berries, casting the seeds aside by ancient custom; but their need was not as great as hers, and they did not consume more.

Thoughtfully, as if to herself, the Manethrall observed, “No servant of Fangthane craves or will consume
aliantha.
The virtue of the berries is too potent.”

As though he had been challenged, Stave stepped forward, claimed one of the berries, and chewed it stolidly.

Around her, Linden felt a subtle shift in the emanations of the Ramen. Perhaps she and her companions had passed a test of some sort.

She wanted to pass another. Atop the ridge, she had asked Liand and the Ramen to be patient while she considered Anele's outburst. Now she felt that she owed them an explanation.

It would be easier to talk while she rested.

“Kastenessen,” she said when she felt able to speak at last. “That name I've heard
before. He was one of the Appointed.” Findail had described them, seeking to explain himself to the Search for the One Tree. “An
Elohim.
”

The memory filled her with foreboding. And her tension was reflected in Liand's eyes. He moved closer as though he feared to miss a word.

“I don't know what to tell you about the
Elohim.
They aren't mortal. I guess you could call them incarnate Earthpower. They give the impression that they can do anything, and they do what they do for reasons of their own, no matter what anyone else thinks or wants.” Findail himself had often behaved like an enemy, encouraging Linden and Covenant to fail. “They live far away, on the other side of the Sunbirth Sea. Most of the time, it seems, they ignore the Land.

“But sometimes they see a danger and decide to do something about it, I don't know why.”

Liand had heard Anele speak of the One Forest and the
Elohim.

“When they do, they pick one of their people, they Appoint him or her, to answer the danger. To be the answer.”

Findail had said that the Appointed passed
out of name and choice and time for the sake of the frangible Earth.
He had sung:

Let those who sail the Sea bow down:

Let those who walk bow low:

For there is neither peace nor dream

Where the Appointed go.

Manethrall Hami and her Cords regarded Linden gravely, waiting for her to go on. The quality of their attention seemed to hint that they were not ignorant of the
Elohim.
Liand listened avidly, hungry for understanding. But Stave gazed away as if he disapproved of the
Elohim
and all their deeds.

For the time being, at least, Anele had disappeared into the grass, perhaps seeking to avoid reminders of coercion.

“Kastenessen was Appointed a long time ago,” Linden explained as the implications of her memories crowded around her. “Dozens of millennia, for all I know,” if the years had any meaning to the
Elohim.
“Apparently something deadly happened in the north,”
the farthest north of the world, where winter has its roots of ice and cold.
“Some kind of catastrophe. A fire that might have split open the Earth.

“Kastenessen was Appointed to stop it.”
Set as a keystone for the threatened foundation of the north.

Thus was the fire capped, and the Earth preserved, and Kastenessen lost.

“But he didn't go willingly. He'd broken one of the commandments of the
Elohim,
” violated their Würd or Weird, “by falling in love with a mortal woman. His people chose him, Appointed him, to punish the wrong he did her.”

He had brought harm to a woman who could not have harmed him, and he had called it love.

“He refused to go. He didn't want to give her up. For her sake, he rejected his people and their Würd.” Their destiny—or the Earth's. “When the
Elohim
demanded submission, he fought back. Finally they had to force him into place. So that the world wouldn't end in fire.”

Was that what “Durance” meant? Did it refer to the power that had contained Kastenessen? And had he found some way to free himself? If so, a fire would be set loose fatal enough
to rive the shell of the world.

During her translation to the Land, Linden had seen fiery beasts suppurate from the ground in order to devour all that lived.

She sighed, then spread her hands. “That's as much as I know about Kastenessen.”

The Ramen plainly wanted to question her further; but it was Liand who admitted, “I still do not understand. Did this Kastenessen not pass away?” Certainly that was the fate of the
Elohim
who had become the Colossus of the Fall. “How then does he command Anele not to speak of him?”

Linden shrugged, trying to do so without bitterness. “I don't think that was Kastenessen. The
Elohim
wouldn't command him to be quiet. They would just shut him up.”