The Runes of the Earth: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Book One (42 page)

“I do not understand,” Liand put in. “How is it possible?”

“The Demondim were animate dead,” Stave answered, “creatures such as those that came near to causing the fall of Revelstone in the time of High Lord Mhoram. Those creatures, however, were mere lifeless forms serving the power of the Illearth Stone. The Demondim were the lore and bitterness of the Viles made manifest in slain flesh, corpses with the puissance of Lords. The vitriol which the ur-viles wield for destruction pulsed in their hearts. Clad in cerements and rot, the Demondim arose from the graves of the fallen, and their touch was fire.

“They might be halted by blade or flame, but they could not be extinguished. From them, High Lord Kevin learned lessons of despair which doomed his spirit. Given time, an army of such creatures might overrun the Earth.”

Out of the night, Manethrall Hami said, “The Ramen remember. We named them Fangs, the Teeth of the Render, and all their deeds were dire.”

“Indeed,” Stave responded. “The Ramen fought valiantly and often along the Roamsedge to bar the Demondim from the Plains of Ra, and were not defeated.

“Yet the Demondim did not comprise an army. Their numbers were too few. Neither scruple nor opposition restricted them, but they had turned against their makers, and therefore the Viles were gone. Nor did the Demondim turn their lore to the spawning of yet more Demondim. They had learned to abhor themselves, and had no desire to seek their own increase. Rather they studied and labored to re-fashion themselves in living flesh.”

Covenant had told Linden similar things. She had met both ur-viles and Waynhim. However, she had no wish to interrupt what Stave was saying.

“While Corruption wrought covertly to mar the Council of Lords,” he told the dark climb, “the Demondim also labored in secret, wielding their lore over breeding vats and fens in the Lost Deep, the lightless pits and caverns beneath the Wightwarrens of Mount Thunder. There among forgotten banes and ancient cruelties, they strove with lore and power to make of themselves new creatures.

“And from their labors emerged living flesh at last. Some were ur-viles, while others came forth as Waynhim, smaller than ur-viles, more grey than black, and less inclined to bloodshed. Why this should be so, the
Haruchai
do not know. Perhaps among the Demondim lingered the memory that they had once stood apart from the
lust and loathing of the Viles. Perhaps some aspect or faction of the Demondim had not been entirely seduced by Despite. Whatever the cause, the truth remains that both ur-viles and Waynhim were created in the same fashion. Yet the Waynhim sought to heal their abhorrence in service rather than to quench it in slaughter, as the ur-viles did.

“So the downfall of the Demondim came upon them. They were undone by the Ritual of Desecration. Corruption had not forewarned his servants, or they had declined to heed their peril. It may be that they desired their own destruction. Thus the Landwaster's despair achieved this one victory. Though ur-viles and Waynhim endured, the Demondim were swept aside.”

“That also,” announced Manethrall Hami softly, “the Ramen do not forget. We have known both Waynhim and ur-viles. In that time, an extravagant cruelty ruled the ur-viles, and all the Land feared them. They had indeed become mortal, however, and could be slain.” Her voice held relish. “Many were the creatures which perished at the hands of the Ramen.”

Stave nodded. “Yet they had become less than they were, for in the Ritual of Desecration even such beings as ur-viles and Waynhim were diminished. Much of the black lore of the Viles and the Demondim endured to them—and much did not.

“This the new Lords knew because in numbers both Waynhim and ur-viles continued to dwindle. Indeed, both had become the last of their kind. They created no descendants, and when they were slain nothing returned of them.”

Linden squirmed, suddenly uncomfortable in the
Haruchai
's arms. He seemed to imply that the success of the Ramen against the ur-viles would not have been possible if the lore of the Demondim-spawn had retained its original force.

The Manethrall responded sharply, “And do you therefore discount us, Bloodguard? Do you deem that our battles were less fiercely fought, or our blood less freely spilled, because our foes had become less than they were?

“Much has been altered since the Bloodguard were turned to Fangthane's service. You are Masters now, and a threat to harmless old men. Yet I see that the arrogance of your kind persists.”

Linden groaned to herself. She could not imagine what had caused the almost subcutaneous animosity between Stave and the Ramen. They had just met; could not know each other. Any grievance between them was several thousand years old.

However, Stave's reply sounded courteous enough, if not conciliatory. “You mistake me, Manethrall. I speak only of ur-viles and Waynhim, not of Ramen. The courage of the Ramen was beyond question, and their devotion to the Ranyhyn proved greater than the fidelity of the Bloodguard.”

But then his tone grew harder. “Yet we ‘persist' in the Land's service. What has become of the Ramen and their devotion?

“In the time of the Sunbane, they withdrew the Ranyhyn from the Land. That was wisely done, for the Ranyhyn required preservation. Yet many centuries have now passed, and where are the great horses?

“The Ramen remain. That we see. They live secretly among these mountains, for purposes which are likewise secret. But what of the Ranyhyn? Do they also remain, Manethrall? Have they expired in some inhospitable region? Were they led from ruin to ruin by their Ramen? Or have you returned without them, thinking to deny them the birthright of their true home?”

Linden expected an angry rejoinder from the Manethrall; but instead she heard the rush of bare feet, the whisper of skin running over stone. The dark felt suddenly ominous around her, fretted with cold.

In the last glow of the sky, she saw ur-viles crowding between her and the Ramen. They barked to each other harshly, or to her, but she could not understand them.

Oh, shit.

Trying to forestall a conflict, she snapped, “Stave, stop. Put me down. We don't need this. The Ramen are helping us. What more do you want?”

For a moment, the
Haruchai
strode up the rocks in silence. Then he stopped against an abrupt wall of ur-viles. The creatures had barred his way completely.

Facing them, he dropped Linden's legs to set her on her feet. Liand scrambled to her side as she groped for balance on the uneven surface. She feared that she would see red blades gleaming among the black creatures, but no weapons marked the night.

The ur-viles smelled of decaying leaves and carrion: things which had become rotten.

What in hell was going on?

And what were “Ranyhyn”? Both Hami and Stave had mentioned them earlier, but she did not know what the name implied.

She wished urgently that she could understand the ur-viles.

“Manethrall,” she called out softly, “I'm sorry. He doesn't speak for me. I don't even know what he's talking about. But you don't have to be enemies. The
Haruchai
I've known have always been faithful. No matter what happened, they stood by us.”

“Chosen,” Stave put in impassively. “The Ramen do not hear you.”

What—?

“Indeed,” Liand confirmed acidly. “They have gone ahead. The Master's words have driven them away.”

Linden gaped into the black mass of ur-viles, trying to see past them. “Why?” She was blind in the shrouded rift. “What are they doing?”

She could not believe that the Ramen had forsaken her.

“I do not know,” Stave answered. “Their purposes are hidden.”

“Yet if they do not guide us,” Liand muttered, “we cannot escape this place. We do not know the way.”

Linden turned from the innominate threat of the ur-viles.

“Stave, I don't understand you.” He was no more than a vague shape in the night: indistinct; beyond persuasion. “They saved our lives. You acted like you respect them. You even
compromised
with them, which is more than you've been willing to do for me. And now you want to pick a fight?”

Darkness and cold made the aid of the Ramen essential.

If Stave felt endangered by the ur-viles, his tone did not show it. “Linden Avery, you do not accept us. For that reason, perhaps, you are quick to place faith in these Ramen, though you know nothing of them. Yet I mistrust them. You should understand that I have cause.”

He may have been asking her to take sides.

“What cause?” she countered.

“You have not known the Ranyhyn,” he replied. “And spoken words cannot contain their worth. They are”—he hesitated briefly—“or perhaps were among the most precious of the Land's glories.

“The great horses of Ra were Earthpower made flesh. Their beauty and power played no small part in the wonder which bound our ancestors to the Vow, and the Bloodguard rode them in pride and service. Their absence diminishes us. Without them, the Land is incomplete, and our care can never suffice to make it whole.”

He paused, then continued more severely, “The Ramen were the tenders of the Ranyhyn. Perhaps they continue in that devotion. Yet where are the Ranyhyn? Why have the great horses not returned to the Plains of Ra? And why do the Ramen conceal themselves among these mountains, consorting with ur-viles and succoring madmen, when the Land is their home, and the Ranyhyn are needed?”

Strictly he finished, “I fear Corruption's hand upon them.”

He had called the ur-viles
a great evil.
For that, also, he had cause.

“Are you sure?” Linden demanded. “Do you
see
it?” The
Haruchai
were proof against Kevin's Dirt, and mere night could not blind the other dimensions of health-sense.

“I do not,” he admitted. “Yet we are the Masters of the Land, and must consider such perils.”

“Linden.” Liand's voice shook in the cold. “We cannot remain here. This wind will undo us. And our cloaks and blankets are with Somo, behind us. We must continue to climb, and attempt to discover the way.”

Damn it. He was right. The Ramen had left her and her companions in an untenable position.

For his sake, however, she said, “We'll be all right. They haven't abandoned us. They'll help us when we need it.”

Grimly she determined to try the broken slope with her own hands and feet. She had had enough of Stave. If the ur-viles did not stand in her way—

But they continued to block her path. As she started forward, several of them began to bark more loudly. From the clotted darkness of their formation, one of them confronted her, holding an object in its hands.

“Chosen,” Stave said: a warning.

If she were in danger, surely he would be able to sense it?

The ur-vile extended a blurred shape toward her. It may have been a small cup.

Liand grabbed her arm. “Linden. No. They are ur-viles. Demondim-spawn.”

Until this evening, he had never heard of such creatures. Like Ramen and Ranyhyn, the One Forest and Ravers, they had not existed for him even as legends.

Linden shook off his hand. “They saved us,” she breathed.

She had already accepted aid from Lord Foul himself.

“And they are descendants of evil,” Liand objected. “The Master has said so.”

Haruchai
did not lie.

Yet the ur-viles barked at her insistently. The nearest creature prodded its cup at her hands.

Their rank, decayed odor repulsed her. It seemed to blow against her skin like the steam of a corrosive—

—bringing another scent with it, musty and potent: an aroma compounded of dust and age and vitality.

She knew that smell. For a moment, the memory troubled her; elusive, fraught with bloodshed and loss. Then it returned in a rush of clarity.

The Northron Climbs and bitter cold, accompanied by Cail and Giants. A preternatural winter brought down from the north by
arghuleh.
And a Waynhim
rhyshyshim,
a gathering.

To Linden and her companions, the Waynhim had given succor and safety; warmth and rest and food. And a dark, musty drink which had nourished them like distilled
aliantha.

“Stave,” she murmured in wonder and surprise, “that's
vitrim.
They're offering us
vitrim.
”

“
Vitrim
?” asked Liand. “What is
vitrim
?”

Stave stood beside her opposite the Stonedownor. “Are you certain? The
Haruchai
have not forgotten Cail's tales of the Search for the One Tree. He spoke of
vitrim.
But ur-viles are not Waynhim.”

She could have asked him to take the cup for her; sample its contents. She did not doubt that he would do so, trusting his senses and strength to protect him from any subtle poison. But she was fed up with suspicion, and already had too many enemies.

Abruptly she opened her hands for the proffered cup.

The ur-vile placed cold iron in her palms and stepped back, still barking. Perhaps it meant to encourage her.