The One Tree t2cotc-2

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Covenant's Dead.

  With them stood Vain, wearing his black perfection like a cloak to conceal his heart.

  The figures spoke to Covenant through the mute vision. The blessing and curse of their affection bore him to his knees. Then the eyeless man, the Forestal, approached. Carefully, he stretched out his staff to touch Covenant's forehead.

  Instantly, a blaze like a melody of flame sang out over the eftmound; and at once all Elemesnedene fell into darkness. Night arched within the vision-a night made explicit and familiar by stars. Slowly, the mapwork of the stars began to turn.

  “See you, Honninscrave?” cried the First hoarsely.

  “Yes!” he responded. “This path I can follow to the ends of the Earth.”

  For a time, the stars articulated the way to the One Tree. Then, in the place they had defined, the vision dropped toward the sea. Amid the waves, an isle appeared. It was small and barren, standing like a cairn against the battery of the Sea, marking nothing. No sign of any life relieved the desolation of its rocky sides. Yet the intent of the vision was clear: this was the location of the One Tree.

  Over the ocean rose a lorn wail. Covenant cried out as if he had caught a glimpse of his doom.

  The sound tore through Linden. She struggled to her feet, tried to thrust her scant strength forward. Covenant knelt with the power blazing from his forehead as if he were being crucified by nails of brain-fire.

  For a moment, she could not advance against the light: it held her back like a palpable current pouring from him. But then the bells rang out in unison:

  — It is accomplished!

  Some of them were savage with victory. Others expressed a deep rue.

  At the same time, the vision began to fade from its consummation on the sea-bitten isle. The brilliance macerated by degrees, restoring the natural illumination of Elemesnedene, allowing Linden to advance. Step after step, she strove her way to Covenant. Vestiges of vision seemed to burn across her skin, crackle like lightning in her hair; but she fought through them. As the power frayed away to its end, leaving the atmosphere as stunned and still as a wasteland, she dropped to the ground in front of the Unbeliever.

  He knelt in a slack posture, resting back on his heels with his arms unconsciously braced on his knees. He seemed unaware of anything. His gaze stared through her like a blind man's. His mouth hung open as if he had been bereft of every word or wail. His breathing shook slightly, painfully. The muscles of his chest ached in Linden's sight as if they had been torn on the rack of Infelice's opening.

  But when she reached out her hand to him, he croaked like a parched and damaged raven, “Don't touch me.”

  The words were clear. They echoed the old warning of his leprosy for all the Elohim to hear. But in his eyes the light of his mind had gone out.

  PART II. BETRAYAL

  Ten: Escape from Elohim

  THE bells were clear to Linden now; but she no longer cared what they were saying. She was locked to Covenant's vacant eyes, his slack, staring face. If he could see her at all, the sight had no meaning to him. He did not react when she took hold of his head, thrust her horrified gaze at him.

  The Giants were clamouring to know what had happened to him. She ignored them. Desperately marshalling her percipience, she tried to penetrate the flat emptiness of his orbs, reach his mind. But she failed: within his head, her vision vanished into darkness. He was like a snuffed candle, and the only smoke curling up from the extinguished wick was his old clenched stricture:

  “Don't touch me.”

  She began to founder in that dark. Something of him must have remained sentient, otherwise he could not have continued to articulate his self-despite. But that relict of his consciousness was beyond her grasp. The darkness seemed to leech away her own light. She was falling into an emptiness as eternal and hungry as the cold void between the stars.

  Savagely, she tore herself out of him.

  Honninscrave and Seadreamer stood with the First at Covenant's back. Pitchwife knelt beside Linden, his huge hands cupping her shoulders in appeal. “Chosen.” His whisper ached among the trailing wisps of dark. “Linden Avery. Speak to us.”

  She was panting in rough heaves. She could not find enough air. The featureless light of Elemesnedene suffocated her. The Elohim loomed claustrophobically around her, as unscrupulous as ur-viles. “You planned this,” she grated between gasps. “This is what you wanted all along.” She was giddy with extremity. “To destroy him.”

  The First drew a sharp breath. Pitchwife's hands tightened involuntarily. Wincing to his feet as if he needed to meet his surprise upright, he lifted Linden erect. Honninscrave gaped at her. Seadreamer stood with his arms rigid at his sides, restraining himself from vision.

  “Enough,” responded Infelice. Her tone was peremptory ice. “I will submit no longer to the affront of such false judgment. The Elohimfest has ended.” She turned away.

  “Stop!” Without Pitchwife's support, Linden would have fallen like pleading to the bare ground. All her remaining strength went into her voice. “You've got to restore him! Goddamn it, you can't leave him like this!”

  Infelice paused, but did not look back. “We are the Elohim. Our choices lie beyond your questioning. Be content.” Gracefully, she continued down the hillside.

  Seadreamer broke into motion, hurled himself after her. The First and Honninscrave shouted, but could not halt him. Bereft of his wan, brief hope, he had no other outlet for his pain.

  But Infelice heard or sensed his approach. Before he reached her, she snapped, “Hold, Giant!”

  He rebounded as if he had struck an invisible wall at her back. The force of her command sent him sprawling.

  With stately indignation, she faced him. He lay grovelling on his chest; but his lips were violent across his teeth, and his eyes screamed at her.

  “Assail me not with your mistrust,” she articulated slowly, “lest I teach you that your voiceless Earth-Sight is honey and benison beside the ire of Elemesnedene”

  “No.” By degrees, life was returning to Linden's limbs; but still she needed Pitchwife's support. “If you want to threaten somebody, threaten me. I'm the one who accuses you.”

  Infelice looked at her without speaking.

  “You planned all this,” Linden went on. “You demeaned him, dismissed him, insulted him-to make him angry enough so that he would let you into him and dare you to hurt him. And then you wiped out his mind. Now”-she gathered every shred of her vehemence-“restore it!”

  “Sun-Sage,” Infelice said in a tone of glacial scorn, “you mock yourself and are blind to it.” Moving disdainfully, she left the eftmound and passed through the ring of dead trees.

  On all sides, the other Elohim also turned away, dispersing as if Linden and her companions held no more interest for them-With an inchoate cry, Linden swung toward Covenant. For one wild instant, she intended to grab his ring, use it to coerce the Elohim.

  The sight of him stopped her. The First had raised him to his feet. He stared through Linden as though she and everything about her had ceased to exist for him; but his empty refrain sounded like an unintentional appeal.

  “Don't touch me.”

  Oh, Covenant! Of course she could not take his ring. She could not do that to him, if for no other reason than because it was what the Elohim wanted. Or part of what they wanted. She ached in protest, but her resolve had frayed away into uselessness again. A surge of weeping rose up in her; she barely held it back. What have they done to you?

  “Is it sooth?” the First whispered to the ambiguous sky. “Have we gained this knowledge at such a cost to him?”

  Linden nodded dumbly. Her hands made fumbling gestures. She had trained them to be a physician's hands, and now she could hardly contain the yearning to strangle. Covenant had been taken from her as surely as if he had been slain-murdered like Nassic by a blade still hot with cruelty. She felt that if she did not move, act, stand up for herself somehow, she would go mad.

  Aroun
d her, the Giants remained still as if they had been immobilized by her dismay. Or by the loss of Covenant, of his determination. No one else could restore the purpose of the quest.

  That responsibility gave Linden what she needed. Animated by preterite stubbornness, she lurched down the hillside to find if Seadreamer had been harmed.

  He was struggling to his feet. His eyes were wide and stunned, confused by Earth-Sight. He reeled as if he had lost all sense of balance. When Honninscrave hastened to his side, he clung to the Master's shoulder as if it were the only stable point in a breaking world. But Linden's percipience found no evidence of serious physical hurt. Yet the emotional damage was severe. Something in him had been torn from its moorings by the combined force of his examination, the loss of the hope his brother had conceived for him, and Covenant's plight. He was caught in straits for which all relief had been denied; and he bore his Earth-Sight as if he knew that it would kill him.

  This also was something Linden could not cure. She could only witness it and mutter curses that had no efficacy.

  Most of the bells had receded into the background, but two remained nearby. They were arguing together, satisfaction against rue. Their content was accessible now, but Linden no longer had any wish to make out the words. She had had enough of Chant and Daphin.

  Yet the two came together up the eftmound toward her, and she could not ignore them. They were her last chance. When they faced her, she aimed her bitterness straight into Daphin's immaculate green gaze.

  “You didn't have to do that. You could've told us where the One Tree is. You didn't have to possess him. And then leave him like that”

  Chant's hard eyes held a gleam of insouciance. His inner voice sparkled with relish.

  But Daphin's mind had a sad and liquid tone as she returned Linden's glare. “Sun-Sage, you do not comprehend our Wurd. There is a word in your tongue which bears a somewhat similar meaning. It is 'ethic.' ”

  Jesus God! Linden rasped in sabulous denial. But she kept herself still.

  “In our power,” Daphin went on, "many paths are open to us which no mortal may judge or follow. Some are attractive-others, distasteful. Our present path was chosen because it offers a balance of hope and harm. Had we considered only ourselves, we would have selected a path of greater hope, for its severity would have fallen not upon us but upon you. But we have determined to share with you the cost. We risk our hope. And also that which is more precious to us-life, and the meaning of life. We risk trust.

  “Therefore some among us”-she did not need to refer openly to Chant-“urged another road. For who are you, that we should hazard trust and life upon you? Yet our Wurd remains. Never have we sought the harm of any life. Finding no path of hope which was not also a path of harm, we chose the way of balance and shared cost. Do not presume to judge us, when you conceive so little the import of your own acts. The fault is not ours that Sun-Sage and ring-wielder came among us as separate beings.”

  Oh, hell, Linden muttered. She had no heart left to ask

  Daphin what price the Elohim were paying for Covenant's emptiness. She could think of no commensurate expense. And the timbre of the bells told her that Daphin would give no explicit answer. She did not care to waste any more of her scant strength on arguments or expostulations. She wanted nothing except to turn her back on the Elohim, get Covenant out of this place.

  As if in reply, Chant said, “In good sooth, it is past time. Were the choice in my hands, your expulsion from Elemesnedene would long since have silenced your ignorant tongue.” His tone was nonchalant; but his eyes shone with suppressed glee and cunning. “Does it please your pride to depart now, or do you wish to utter more folly ere you go?”

  Clearly, Daphin chimed:

  — Chant, this does not become you. But he replied:

  — I am permitted. They can not now prevent us.

  Linden's shoulders hunched, unconsciously tensing in an effort to strangle the intrusion in her mind. But at that moment, the First stepped forward. One of her hands rested on the hilt of her broadsword. She had leashed herself throughout the Elohimfest; but she was a trained Swordmain, and her face now wore an iron frown of danger and battle. “Elohim, there remains one question which must be answered.”

  Linden stared dumbly at the First. She felt that nothing remained to the company except questions; but she had no idea which one the First meant.

  The First spoke as if she were testing her blade against an unfamiliar opponent. “Perhaps you will deign to reveal what has become of Vain?”

  Vain?

  For an instant, Linden quailed. Too much had happened. She could not bear to think about another perfidy. But there was no choice. She would crack if she did not keep moving, keep accepting the responsibility as It came.

  She cast a glance around the eftmound; but she already knew that she would see no sign of the Demondim-spawn. In a whirl of recollection, she realised that Vain had never come to the Elohimfest. She had not seen him since the company had separated to be examined. No: she had not seen him since the expulsion of the Haruchai. At the time, his absence had troubled her unconsciously; but she had not been able to put a name to her vague sense of incompleteness.

  Trembling suddenly, she faced Chant. He had said as clearly as music, They can not now prevent us. She had assumed that he referred to Covenant; but now his veiled glee took on other implications.

  “That's what you were doing.” Comprehension burned through her. “That's why you provoked Cail-why you kept trying to pick fights with us. To distract us from Vain.” And Vain had walked into the snare with his habitual undiscriminating blankness.

  Then she thought again, No. That's not right. Vain had approached the clachan with an air of excitement, as if the prospect of it pleased him. And the Elohim had ignored him from the beginning, concealing their intent against him.

  “What in hell do you want with him?”

  Chant's pleasure was plain. "He was a peril to us. His dark makers spawned him for our harm. He was an offense to our Wurd, directed with great skill and malice to coerce us from our path. This we will never endure, just as we have not endured your anile desires. We have imprisoned him.

  “We wrought covertly,” he went on like laughter, “to avoid the mad ire of your ring-wielder. But now that peril has been foiled. Your Vain we have imprisoned, and no foolish beseechment or petty mortal indignation will effect his release.” His eyes shone. “Thus the umbrage you have sought to cast upon us is recompensed. Consider the justice of your loss and be still.”

  Linden could not bear it. Masking her face with severity so that she would not betray herself, she sprang at him.

  He stopped her with a negligent gesture, sent her reeling backward. She collided with Covenant; and he sprawled to the hard ground, making no effort to soften the impact. His face pressed the dirt.

  The Giants had not moved. They had been frozen by Chant's gesture. The First fought to draw her falchion. Seadreamer and Honninscrave tried to attack. But they were held motionless.

  Linden scrambled to Covenant's side, heaved him upright. “Please.” She pleaded with him uselessly, as if Chant's power had riven her of her wits. “I'm sorry. Wake up. They've got Vain.”

  But he might as well have been deaf and senseless. He made no effort to clean away the dirt clinging to his slack lips.

  Emptily, he responded to impulses utterly divorced from her and the Giants and the Elohim:

  “Don't touch me.”

  Cradling him, she turned to appeal one last time to Daphin's compassion. Tears streaked her face.

  But Chant forestalled her. “It is enough,” he said sternly. “Now begone.”

  At that moment, he took on the stature of his people. His stance was grave and immitigable. She receded from him; but as the distance between them increased, he grew in her sight, confusing her senses so that she seemed to fall backward into the heavens. For an instant, he shone like the sun, burning away her protests. Then he was the sun, and she caugh
t a glimpse of blue sky before the waters of the fountain covered her like weeping.

  She nearly lost her balance on the steep facets of the travertine. Covenant's weight dragged her toward a fall. But at once Cail and Brinn came leaping through the spray to her aid. The water in their hair sparkled under the midday sun as if they-or she-were still in the process of transformation between Elemesnedene and the outer maidan.

  The suddenness of the change dizzied her. She could not find her balance behind the sunlight as the Haruchai helped her and Covenant down the slope, through the gathering waters to dry ground. They did not speak, expressed no surprise; but their mute tension shouted at her from the contact of their hard hands. She had sent them away.

  The sun seemed preternaturally bright. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the featureless lumination of Elemesnedene. Fiercely, she scrubbed at her face, trying to clear away the water and the glare as if she wanted to eradicate every suggestion of tears or weeping from her visage.

  But Brinn caught hold of her wrists. He stood before her like an accusation. Ceer and Hergrom braced Covenant between them.

  The four Giants had emerged from the trough around the fountain. They stood half-dazed in the tall yellow grass of the maidan as if they had just wandered out of a dream which should not have been a nightmare. The First clutched her broadsword in both fists, but it was of no use to her. Pitchwife s deformity appeared to have been accentuated. Seadreamer and Honninscrave moved woodenly together, linked by their pain.

  But Brinn did not permit Linden to turn away. Inflectionlessly, he demanded, “What harm has been wrought upon the ur-Lord?”

  She had no answer to the accusation in his stare. She felt that her sanity had become uncertain. To herself, she sounded like a madwoman as she responded irrelevantly, “How long were we in there?”

  Brinn rejected the importance of her question with a slight shake of his head. “Moments only. We had hardly ceased our attempts to re-enter the clachan when you returned.” His fingers manacled her. “What harm has been wrought upon the ur-Lord?”