Stephen Donaldson - The Runes of the Earth

Mahrtiir muttered imprecations under his breath. Softly Liand asked Linden, “Why do you suffer this? What manner of men advocate the sacrifice of threatened children?”

Placing her hand on the young man’s arm, she gripped him hard to quiet him. She already knew what Stave would say.

The Master ignored her companions. “For the sake of her son,” he proclaimed, “she entered a Fall of Esmer’s summoning, daring the past to seek for the Staff of Law. There she forged an alliance between the Waynhim and the ur-viles, which have ever opposed each other. And when we were beset by the Demondim, as well as by the power of the Illearth Stone, she herself caused the Fall which has delivered both them and us to Revelstone. Doing so, she has inflicted yet another dire bane upon the Land.

“I am Haruchai and fear nothing. Yet I fear to inquire what else she may attempt in her son’s name.”

Mahrtiir breathed an obscenity, but did not interrupt.

“Now she has entered Revelstone holding both white gold and the Staff of Law.” At last, Stave turned to gaze at Linden. His face held no expression, but shadows which she could not interpret haunted his single eye like ghosts. “I do not doubt that she is a woman of honour, and that all of her purposes are benign. Indeed, she has spoken eloquently of her love for the Land. Nevertheless she is mortal, and her powers surpass the strictures of mortal flesh and desire. If ever she knows a moment of despair-which is surely Corruption’s intent-she will wreak such ruin as the Earth has never known.”

Then he looked away. “Thus she re-enacts the error which destroyed the fidelity of the Bloodguard. As did Korik, Sill, and Doar, she commands powers which exceed her. Yet none will question that those Bloodguard were men of honour.

“The first principle of our Mastery,” he told his people, “is that the uses of such power must ultimately serve Corruption. Is it not therefore certain that Linden Avery the Chosen will in the end become a servant of the Despiser?

“She will perhaps reply that she is warded from doom by the purity of her purpose. Her desire, she may assert, is merely to redeem her son rather than to defeat Corruption. Yet her own deeds gainsay her. Twice she has imposed healing upon me against my desires. Thus she has demonstrated that she cares nothing for the honour of those who do not share her purpose.

“Beyond question she has already begun to tread the path of Corruption’s service.”

There he stopped, leaving Linden daunted in spite of herself. His recitation eroded her detachment; her certainty. In his own way, he had told the truth about her. if she accepted his assumptions, she could not contest his conclusion. It was as ineluctable as loss.

Good cannot be accomplished by evil means.

After Esmer had almost beaten Stave to death, she believed that the Haruchai had given her permission to treat him. But she could not say the same for her actions the previous day. In the forehall, she had reached out with the Staff reflexively; had responded to Stave’s wounds simply because he was hurt.

Again you have shamed me- There she had violated her own convictions as well as his. If power could corrupt, then it had already begun to corrupt her.

Now she clutched Mahrtiir’s forearm as well, holding both men to keep them from speaking-and to assure herself that she was not alone. She could not answer Stave’s charges directly. She had already sacrificed her right to do so. And the Masters would not yield to simple contradiction. She had to go further.

She had to show them that their fundamental assumptions were false. That good could come of deeds and risks and even purposes which appeared evil.

“Are you done?” she asked grimly. “Is it my turn yet?”

She was angry at herself; but she knew that anger would not serve her. She could not undo her mistakes. And her ire was merely a defence against pain and fear. Deliberately she put such things aside. Surgeries were full of bleeding which could not be staunched, wounds which resisted repair, deaths which defied refusal. Anger and grief only prevented the surgeon from accomplishing as much as possible.

When Handir replied with a severe nod, she said more gently, “I’m not going to contradict anything Stave told you. It’s the truth. Instead I’ll give you a better answer. In fact, I’ll give you three.

“But just so you’ll know-” she added to Stave. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask your permission yesterday. You’re right. I should have done that.”

And accepted his answer.

Her accuser faced her regret without a word. He had already gone too far to be turned aside.

Sighing, she released her grasp on her friends, wrapped her hands around the Staff, and rose to her feet. As Stave withdrew from the centre of the floor, she took a few steps over the twisted stone, then stopped to plant the heel of the Staff between her feet and hold up her head.

Briefly she considered revealing the advice that she had received from Covenant in her dreams. No doubt Stave had already told his kinsmen what Anele had said when he had spoken for her dead love. And Covenant’s name might carry weight with the Masters. But she did not know what to make of his messages-if in fact they were messages at all, and not the by-products of her dreaming dreads.

Whatever happened, she needed to withstand the Masters on her own terms.

Still facing Stave as if he were the only one of his people who mattered, she said quietly, “We’re wasting time here. The Demondim will be back,” she was sure of that. “We should be deciding what to do, not blaming each other.

“But you’re the Masters of the Land. You’ve done me the courtesy of explaining what you think I’ve done wrong,” when they could have simply left her to the horde, or taken Covenant’s ring and the Staff from her. “You deserve the same from me.”

Only then did she shift her attention to Handir. Obliquely her words were still addressed to Stave. But she had already contradicted and defied him enough. He might hear her more clearly now if she spoke to the Voice of the Masters.

“Tell me something,” she asked abruptly. “How do they do it?”

Handir lifted an eyebrow. “Chosen?”

“The Demondim. How do they use the Illearth Stone? You can sense them.” And the discernment of the Haruchai exceeded hers. “Explain it to me.

“At first I thought they must have found some lost fragment of the original Stone. But now I don’t think so. They have too much power-and too many of them have it at once. And we all know that the Illearth Stone was destroyed.

“So how do they do it?”

The older Haruchai paused for a moment, apparently considering his response. He may have thought that the capabilities of the Demondim were irrelevant to Stave’s accusations. Still he decided to answer.

“The Demondim wield a Fall. Among them they both command and sustain it, causing it to serve them. This Fall spans time to a distant age when the Illearth Stone remained intact. Similarly it extends deep among the roots of Gravin Threndor, to the place where the Stone lay hidden until Drool Rockworm discovered it. Therefore the might which the Demondim employ is great. It arises unhindered from its source.”

Linden frowned. He might be right-Like the Lost Deep, where the Demondim had bred their descendants, the Illearth Stone had once been buried far beneath Mount Thunder. The Vile-spawn could conceivably have known the Stone’s location centuries or millennia before Drool Rockworm uncovered it.

But she needed confirmation. “Are you sure? If they can do that, why don’t they just shatter Time and be done with it? Instead they’re toying with us. Why do they even bother?”