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

his stomach. He walked only if he were raised to his feet and led by the hand. Even animals found no focus in his muddy gaze.
    Presented with Tinkertoys, however, with Legos, Lincoln Logs, or an Erector set, or any other form of nonmechanical object designed to be attached to or inserted into other nonmechanical objects, he became a wizard. The castle in the entryway, and the models of Revelstone and Mount Thunder in the living room, were only today’s examples of his talent. By the hundreds, by the thousands, obsessively, he devised structures of such elegance and imagination that they often made Linden hold her breath in wonder—and of such size that they sometimes filled the available space. Perhaps they would have expanded indefinitely if he had not run out of materials. And yet they always appeared complete when he did run out, as if somehow he had calculated exactly what could be done with the Legos or Tinkertoys at hand.
    Often Linden sat with him while he built his edifices. She had conceived a method of playing with him; of producing a personal reaction from his inattention toward her. She would take a piece—a block or connector—and place it somewhere in his construct. He would not look at her when she did so—but he would pause. If by his inarticulate standards she had placed the piece incorrectly, he would frown. Then he would rectify her mistake. But if by chance she had set the piece where it belonged, he would nod slightly before he continued.
    Such indications assured her that he was aware of her.
    Two years ago, guided by a flash of intuition, Linden had spoken to Sam Diadem about Jeremiah. Sam ran a small assembly-line business that produced wooden playthings for children, primarily rocking horses, marionettes, and various woodenpuzzles in strange shapes which interlocked to form balls, pyramids, and the like. At her urging, Sam had discovered that if he left Jeremiah alone with a supply of ready parts, Jeremiah would quietly and steadily produce finished toys. He would not paint or package them, and never played with them. But they were always perfectly assembled.
    Now Jeremiah “worked” in Sam’s shop two mornings a week. His “pay” Linden spent faithfully on K’NEX, or 3-D jigsaw puzzles of palaces, or more Legos and Tinkertoys.
    Some of the psychologists whom Linden had consulted called Jeremiah’s condition a “dissociative disorder.” Others spoke of “hysterical conversion reactions” and “somatoform disorders.” His symptoms resembled autism—specifically, he appeared to be an autistic savant—yet he could not be autistic. Autism was congenital, and beyond question Jeremiah’s condition had been induced by trauma. His natural mother had described him as “a normal boy” before the bonfire—whatever those words might mean in her deranged lexicon. Certainly none of the known therapies for autism had produced any change in him.
    Memories of that trauma still woke Linden at night, sweating, with cries which she had failed to utter locked in her throat.
    His natural mother was a woman named Marsha Jason. She had had three children, all adopted now by other parents—Hosea, Rebecca, and her youngest, Jeremiah, prophet of woe. She had chosen that name, apparently, because her husband had abandoned her during her last pregnancy.
    For the first few years of Jeremiah’s life, Marsha Jason had subsisted at the mercy of various welfare agencies. In one form or another, she had kept herself and her children alive through the charity of strangers. And then, when her self-pity and ineffectiveness had reached unendurable proportions, she had discovered the Community of Retribution.
    From that point onward, as she proclaimed afterward, she had had no control over anything that happened. She must have been brainwashed or drugged. She was a good mother: without brainwashing or drugs, she would never have sacrificed