Free The Runes of the Earth: The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Book One by Stephen R. Donaldson Page A

him, Why not destroy yourself? When Covenant had responded to the man’s manifest need by offering up his ring, he was refused.
    Be true, the old man had instructed him. You need not fail.
    Shortly thereafter, Covenant had been drawn to the Land for the first time. His devotion to Lord Foul’s defeat had finally cost him his life. Nevertheless he, too, had not failed.
    So where, Linden had to ask herself, was the old man now?
    If Roger’s intentions threatened the Land in some way, surely that ragged figure must be somewhere nearby? And if he did not appear to forewarn her, surely Roger could not be as dangerous as she feared?
    Deliberately she chose to believe that. Roger might well attempt to take his mother. But as long as the old man did not accost Linden, the Land was safe—and neither she nor Jeremiah were truly at risk.
    Pulling a couple of paper towels from their dispenser by the sink, she dried her face and hands. Then she returned to her office to call Megan again, as she had promised.
    When she had done that, she warned her staff to call Security as well as her if Roger put in another appearance. But she could think of no other precautions to take.
    If the old man appeared, she would have to choose between the Land and Jeremiah. She could not challenge Lord Foul in the Land’s defense without abandoning her son;and that she would not do. No matter how many people died, or how much beauty was destroyed.

    D riving home after work, she involuntarily scrutinized every face she saw, every figure she passed. Anxiety daubed her peripheral vision with ochre, added years and desuetude to every man whom she failed to recognize. Yet she saw no sign of peril.
    And soon she reached her home: a small two-story wooden-frame house she had bought when she had decided to adopt Jeremiah. Parked in her short driveway, she remained in her car for a few minutes, granting herself that brief opportunity to set aside her concerns in order to concentrate on her son.
    The gratitude that she so often felt when she came home helped settle her attention. She did not have to care for her house herself. A neighbor whose son she had treated after a crumpling car wreck tended the lawn for her. The family of a woman who had been one of her early successes at Berenford Memorial supplied her with maintenance, patching her roof when it leaked, conditioning her heat pump for the changing seasons, repainting her walls every few years. And twice a week an appreciative wife came in to clean, cook, and do laundry: simple thanks for Linden’s attention to her disturbed husband.
    Linden valued the help. It simplified her life enormously. And she was grateful that she lived in a community that honored what she did.
    In addition, her gratitude for Jeremiah was too great to be contained in words. He was the center of her life. He gave her a use for the capacity for love which she had learned from Covenant; from Sunder and Hollian, the First and Pitchwife; and from the Land. His mere presence seemed to validate her. He was like a flower which had bloomed within her, fragile and inestimable. She could not have removed it, or turned away, without tearing herself open. The fact that its petals had been crushed in the Despiser’s fist, and had never regained their natural shape and scent, only caused her to cherish him more. As long as he remained to her, she would never entirely lose heart.
    Thomas Covenant had told her that some decisions could not serve evil, no matter how severely they appeared to harm the Land. When he had been summoned to Revelstone’s last defense, he had refused to comply: not because he had no love for the Land, but rather because a little girl in his present world had been bitten by a rattlesnake and needed his help. That refusal had delayed his arrival in the Land by many days. And during those terrible days many of the Land’s most valiant champions had fallen. Yet the conditions of the delay had