The Ranyhyn played a significant role in the First Chronicles, and in turn were a significant part of its beauty. They, more than any other single element, helped us fall in love with the Land. However, they were very limited as characters. At most times they were mere devices, super horses who enabled our heroes to be where they needed to be, and from time to time got them away from where they didn't want to be. As simple and as convenient as starting a car, you could just whistle and they would appear. On those occassions where they acted on their own, they acted mysteriously, inscrutible forces of nature, too lofty and too alien for humans' comprehension.
That changes now. In Runes, they shake off their mantle of passivity.
This chapter begins with Linden's admission, Lord Foul has my son, still hanging in the air.
To this, she adds, I'm not going to let anything stop me.
The Ramen protest. But Stave, unexpectedly, does not. He does not support Linden, but he will not contest her either.
During the previous two chapters, Stave and Linden have been having a low-key battle of wits. Stave explained why he believes that the Ramen misjudge.
So when Linden throws that argument back at him"The Ramen cannot know how the Bloodguard loved the Giants. They cannot grasp how the hearts of the Bloodguard were rent by what had transpired. Therefore they presume to scorn our fall from faith."
Her argument about judgement scores a hit on the Haruchai. And he is moved."You weren't there when Covenant sacrificed himself. You weren't there when I took his ring and turned Vain and Findail into the Staff of Law, or when I erased the Sunbane, or when-" For an instant, she choked on the memory of Covenant's farewell. Then she shouted, "And you sure as hell weren't there when Covenant and I were summoned in the first place!" When Jeremiah had burned away half of his right hand in the Despiser's bonfire. "You think you have the right to pass judgment, but you don't know what's at stake for me."
And so it is that Linden convinces Stave to withold his judgement. Perhaps it represents Linden becoming more compelling. But I feel that this passage says more about Stave than about Linden. Stave is changing. Isolated from the other Masters, witness to Linden's need, he's coming around to a new way of looking at things. His journey may end up transforming all of the Haruchai."In ages past, the Haruchai have doubted you-and have learned that they were mistaken. And we have not been present to share your burdens. Their cost is hidden from us. Therefore I will not strive to prevent you now.
The Ramen assembly ends on that note. Mahrtiir desires to travel with Linden, protect her; she agrees. But then old Dohn drops the bomb. "How will you return?"
There is the risk that makes the other risks look feeble: Linden could need to make her own ceasure!Her pulse labored in her temples as she said, "If I can't use the first one, I'll have to make a new caesure."
During her translation to the Land, she had seen herself rouse the Worm of the World's End with white fire. Perhaps Lord Foul had already accomplished his aim. By kidnapping Jeremiah, he may have ensured the Land's destruction. If she misjudged her power, or herself, or the stability of the Arch, she might bring Time to an end.
But Liand is not daunted. Despite her best efforts, Linden cannot talk Liand into staying behind. "Your intent is not to destroy the Earth, but to redeem it, as you seek also to redeem your son. I will abide the outcome with you." Plain, simple Liand can see into the heart of the matter, and has no fear; how can we not also abide the outcome with her?
Soon enough, despite his wounded hip, Stave is ready to depart. He summons his Ranyhyn.
But lo! The Ranyhyn reveal that they have their own intentions. Hyn, Linden's Ranyhyn, as well as Hynyn answer the call. And when Stave mounts and attempts to ride, Hynyn balks. The Ramen chuckle.
Forgive me for going on a wild tangent at this point, but its the only way I know of to say what I want to say. I want to talk just for a second about the US Marines. Neil Stephenson wrote something in Cryptonomicon about the Marines that I always thought was profound.
Such words must convey how it really feels to ride a Ranyhyn. Sure, it would be exciting. Sure, I would be proud. But part of me would be quivering from the implied responsibility placed upon my shoulders by the Ranyhyn's unhesitating willingness to bear me wherever I wish to go, no matter the danger."Says right here you are gung-ho."
"Sir, yes sir!"
"What the hell does that mean?"
"Sir, it is a Chinese word! There’s a Communist there, name of Mao, and he’s got an army. We tangled with ’em on more’n one occasion, sir. Gung-ho is their battle cry, it means ‘all together’ or something like that, so after we got done kicking the crap out of them, sir, we stole it from them, sir!"
"Are you saying you have gone Asiatic like those other China Marines, Shaftoe?"
"Sir! On the contrary, sir, as I think my record demonstrates, sir!"
"You really think that?" the major says incredulously. "We have an interesting report here on a film interview that you did with some soldier named Lieutenant Reagan."
"Sir! This Marine apologizes for his disgraceful behavior during that interview, sir! This Marine let down himself and his fellow Marines, sir!"
"Aren’t you going to give me an excuse? You were wounded. Shell-shocked. Drugged. Suffering from malaria."
"Sir! There is no excuse, sir!"
The major and the colonel nod approvingly at each other.
This "sir, yes sir" business, which would probably sound like horseshit to any civilian in his right mind, makes sense to Shaftoe and to the officers in a deep and important way. Like a lot of others, Shaftoe had trouble with military etiquette at first. He soaked up quite a bit of it growing up in a military family, but living the life was a different matter. Having now experienced all the phases of military existence except for the terminal ones (violent death, court-martial, retirement), he has come to understand the culture for what it is: a system of etiquette within which it becomes possible for groups of men to live together for years, travel to the ends of the earth, and do all kinds of incredibly weird shit without killing each other or completely losing their minds in the process. The extreme formality with which he addresses these officers carries an important subtext: your problem, sir, is deciding what you want me to do, and my problem, sir, is doing it. My gung-ho posture says that once you give the order I’m not going to bother you with any of the details—and your half of the bargain is you had better stay on your side of the line, sir, and not bother me with any of the chickenshit politics that you have to deal with for a living. The implied responsibility placed upon the officer’s shoulders by the subordinate’s unhesitating willingness to follow orders is a withering burden to any officer with half a brain, and Shaftoe has more than once seen seasoned noncoms reduce green lieutenants to quivering blobs simply by standing before them and agreeing, cheerfully, to carry out their orders.
The Ramen understand this in their bones and blood. "Ringthane, you are reluctant to ride. For that we honor you. It is fitting to be humbled by the Ranyhyn."
Eventually, everyone figures out that the two Ranyhyn are asserting their will, and that they will not do anything else until they have taken Stave and Linden wherever they wish to take them. In this their will must not be thwarted.
And so it is that Linden and Stave find themselves riding deep into the Southron range.
Before long, their conversation turn to the obvious topic: the one other time where the Ranyhyn expressed themselves, revealed their will to the people of the Land. The time when a Ranyhyn carried a young Elena away to the horserite of the Ranyhyn.
And it suggests an answer to the question of their destination. Linden and Stave are being taken to the same tarn where Elena was led, where she drank the cold waters, and where she learned the tale of Kelenbhrabanal's doom.
And they argued about what it really meant.
Did the Ranyhyn read the future? Do their time-loose powers of perception extend to this kind of prognostication? If so, the implications are astounding."What was the warning?" she insisted. "I don't see what Kelenbhrabanal has to do with Elena. She wasn't looking for a way to sacrifice herself."
Not according to the little that Linden had heard of those events.
The Master appeared to sigh. "You know the tale. High Lord Elena sought the Seventh Ward, the Power of Command, so that she might compel Kevin Landwaster from his grave against Corruption. She believed that despair would anneal Kevin's heart, rendering him from pain to iron, making of him an indomitable tool.
"In this she was wrong, to the great cost of all the Land.
"Bannor deemed then, as do the Haruchai now, that the Ranyhyn had perceived a flaw in the High Lord's comprehension. By means of their horserite, they sought to alter the course of her thoughts. They wished her to grasp that despair is no more potent or salvific beyond death than it is in life."
If Bannor and his descendants were right, the Ranyhyn had read Elena's future in her young eyes. They had seen the time ahead of her: who she would become; what she would do.
And Elena had not heeded them.
Think about what it means to be chosen by the Ranyhyn. Is it an honor? Is it an indication of valour? Or is it, as these lines imply, that you are chosen to meet a future need that only the Ranyhyn see? If so, then perhaps the Ranyhyn are not the passive although superb beasts of burden that they seem to be. Perhaps all along they have been shaping events in the Land by choosing whom they would bear.
Perhaps the will of the Ranyhyn has been an invisible hand all along.
When Esmer said to Linden, Look to the Ranyhyn, were the Ranyhyn awaiting for that call? Did they hear the call long before the whistle was loosed?
The two riders travel farther and farther, deeper and deeper, into the moutainous wastes. Finally, they reach their destination, a cliff-walled glen, a grassy floor, a pool of icy water. The two Ranyhyn do not hesitate; they shrug off their riders, drink, and then gallop in pounding ecstacy.
Linden wonders if they should drink. Stave does not want to.
Could there possibly be a more Haruchai answer than that, I wonder?"I am Haruchai," he replied as if that answer sufficed. "We have no need of horserites."
But Linden thinks Stave should partake of the rite. The Masters need all the warnings they can get. When Stave claims that the Haruchai need no lessons in despair, she bites back
All she had to do was trust herself. Is that the real warning? No, it cannot be. Elena was not enough. Only white gold was enough, and even then, only for a while."No," she protested as if she were sure. "No." Her hands insisted at his shoulders. "Bannor heard what High Lord Elena said, but none of you heard the warning."
"Sure," she went on, "Kelenbhrabanal's despair didn't save the Ranyhyn. I get that. But what did?
"It wasn't anything grand. It wasn't Lords or Bloodguard or white rings or Staffs. The Ranyhyn weren't preserved by Vows, or absolute faithfulness, or any other form of Haruchai mastery. That was the real warning."
"Linden Avery?" Stave sounded implacable, ready for scorn.
But she had come too far, and needed him too much, to falter now. "It was something much simpler than that. The plain, selfless devotion of ordinary men and women." The Ramen. "You said it yourself. The Ranyhyn were nearly destroyed until they found the Ramen to care for them.
"They wanted Elena to understand that she would be enough. She didn't need to raise Kevin from death," or give up sleep and passion, "or do anything else transcendent," anything more than human. "All she had to do was trust herself."
They walked to the tarn. They stooped. They drank.
And then they ran like the Ranyhyn.
- - - - - - - - - -
As Linden tries to mount the Ranyhyn, she mutters "All right. I don't understand any of this. Never mind that. Help me up." When I read this, I cannot help but think, what a Covenant thing to say. At one point Linden thinks about Foul's words, "If you fear what has been 'done,' think on the Elohim and be dismayed." Did the other Elohim screw up when they did whatever they did to Kastenessen? Why are there only two Ranyhyn at the horserite? Linden is sure it means something.
Good point. But yeah, I meant when they roamed the Plains of Ra. 
