The One Tree t2cotc-2

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  They lay as if they were wrapped in the sleep of the damned and did not move.

  From an emotional distance, he heard the First say, “Bring diamond? — aught.”“ Pitchwife went to obey. ”Storesmaster,“ she continued, ”can you waken them?"

  Galewrath approached the longtable. She studied the Haruchai bluntly, raised their eyelids, chaffed their wrists. After a moment spent listening to their respirations, she announced that their lungs were free of water. With the First's permission, she slapped Cail's face gently, then harder and harder until his head lolled soddenly from side to side. But no flicker of consciousness touched his visage. He and Brinn were twinned in sopor.

  She stepped back with a frown knotted between her brows.

  “Merewives,” the First muttered. “How could we have believed that comrades as staunch as these Haruchai would fall prey?”

  Pitchwife returned at a swift, awkward gait, carrying a pouch in one hand. The First took it from him. While Galewrath propped Brinn into a sitting position, the First raised the leather mouth to his lips. The smell of diamondraught filled the air. Brinn swallowed reflexively. But he did not awaken. Cail also swallowed the liquor which was poured into his mouth. Nothing changed.

  Covenant was beating his fists lightly against his thighs, trying to contain his urgency. He did not know what to do. The Giants scowled their ignorance at each other. “Linden,” he said as if they had spoken to him. “We need Linden.”

  As if in answer to his need, a door at the aft end of Saltroamrest opened. The Chosen entered the hall, lurching against the pitch of the dromond's pace. Mistweave came with her, shadowing her in Cail's place. She was drenched and storm-battered- hair bedraggled, robe scattering water about her legs. But she came purposefully forward.

  Covenant did not trust himself to speak. He remained silent and desperate as she approached the longtable.

  After a moment, the First found her voice. “Stone and Sea, Chosen,” she muttered harshly, “you are not come too soon. We know not how to rouse them. Diamondraught they have been given, but it avails nothing. We have no lore for such somnolence.”

  Linden stopped, stared at the First. Roughly, the Swordmain continued, “It is our fear that the hand of the merewives yet holds them-and that their peril is also the peril of Starfare's Gem. Mayhap we will not escape the wrath of the Dancers while they remain thus bound to the Haruchai. How else to regain what they desire, but to break the dromond with their storms?”

  At that, Linden flinched. Her eyes flashed splinters of the unsteady lantern-light. “And you want me to go into them.” Covenant saw a vein in her temple throbbing like a small labour of fear. “Break the hold. Is that it?” Her glare demanded, Again? How much more do you think I can stand?

  Covenant felt her protest acutely. At times in the past, he had experienced the health-sense which dismayed her, though he had never possessed it as keenly as she did. And the Haruchai had inflicted so much distrust upon her. But he was more helpless here than she. Blinded by the truncation of his nerves, he could not use his white fire for anything except destruction. Brinn and Cail lay as if they were less alive than Vain. He held Linden's hot gaze, made a broken gesture toward the Haruchai. Thickly, he replied, “Please.”

  For a moment longer, she did not move. Pitchwife and the First held themselves still. Then Linden shrugged like a wince, as if her shoulders were sore. “It can't be any worse than what I've already done.” Deliberately, she stepped to the edge of the longtable.

  Covenant watched her hungrily as she explored Brinn and Cail with her hands and eyes. As soon as she accepted the risk, apprehension for her rose up in him. Her every movement was distinct and hazardous. He had felt the power of the merewives, knew what it could do. And he remembered how she had looked in the dungeon of the Sandhold, after she had rescued him from the silence of the Elohim. Behind her rigid mouth and tormented past, behind her fear and grimness, she had a capacity for self-expenditure that shamed him.

  But as she studied the Haruchai her manner softened. Her expression eased. The surety of the Haruchai seemed to flow into her through her hands. Softly, she said to herself, “At least those merewives know health when they see it.” Then she stepped back.

  She did not look at her companions. In a tone of abrupt command, she told Pitchwife to take hold of Brinn's left arm, anchor the Haruchai to the table.

  Pitchwife complied, mystification in his eyes. The First said nothing. Galewrath frowned noncommittally. Seadreamer's gaze shifted back and forth between Linden and Brinn as if he were trying to guess her intentions.

  She did not hesitate. Grasping Brinn's right limb, she pulled it over the edge of the table, leaned her weight on it to stretch it against its socket. When she was sure of her position, she put her mouth close to his ear. Slowly, explicitly, she articulated, “Now I'm going to break your arm.”

  The instant violence of Brinn's reaction took Pitchwife by surprise, broke his hold. He failed to stop the hard arc of Brinn's fist as the Haruchai flipped toward Linden, struck at her face.

  His blow caught her on the forehead. She reeled backward, crashed against one of the pillars. Holding her ears as if the lanterns were caterwauling like banshees, she slumped to the floor.

  For an instant, Covenant's life stopped. Cursing, the First strode toward Linden. Brinn dropped from the table, landed lightly on his feet. Galewrath planted herself in front of him, cocked her massive fist to keep him away from Linden. Cail sat up as if he meant to go to Brinn's aid. Together, Pitchwife and Seadreamer grappled for his arms.

  Linden knotted her knees to her chest, clamped her head in both hands, rolled herself weakly from side to side as if she were beset by all the Dancers at once.

  From a great distance, Covenant heard a voice snarling, “Damn you, Brinn! If she's hurt, I'll break your bloody arm myself!” It must have been his voice, but he ignored it. He was swarming toward Linden. Somehow, he shouldered the

  First aside. Crouching beside Linden, he pulled her into his lap, wrapped his arms around her. She writhed in his embrace as if she were going mad.

  A shout gathered in his mind, pounded toward utterance:

  Let her go!

  The puissance in him seemed to reach her. She dragged her hands down from her head, flung her face toward him. Her mouth shaped a word that might have been, No!

  He held himself still as her eyes struggled into focus on his face. One by one, her muscles unclenched. She looked as pale as fever; her breathing rattled in her throat. But she raised a whisper out of her stunned chest. “I think I'm all right.”

  Around Covenant, the lights capered to the tune of the storm's ire. He closed his eyes so that he would not lose control.

  When he opened them again, the First and Pitchwife were squatting on either side, watching Linden's fragile recovery. Brinn and Cail stood a short distance away. Behind them loomed Seadreamer as if he were prepared to break both their necks. Galewrath waited to help him. But the Haruchai ignored the Giants. They looked like men who had made up their minds.

  “There is no need to damn us,” said Brinn flatly. Neither he nor Cail met Covenant's glower. “We have already gazed upon the visage of our doom. Yet we seek pardon. It was not my intent to do harm.”

  He appeared to have no interest in his own apology. "We withdraw our accusation against the Chosen. She has adjudged us rightly. Mayhap she is in sooth the hand of Corruption among us. But there are other Corruptions which we hold in greater abhorrence.

  “We speak neither for our people among their mountains nor for those Haruchai who may seek to wage themselves against the depredations of the Clave. But we will no longer serve you.”

  At that, a pang of astonishment went through Covenant. No longer serve — ? He hardly understood the words. Distress closed his throat. Linden tensed in his arms. What are you talking about?

  What did they do to you?

  Then the First was on her feet. With her stern, iron beauty, her arms folded like bonds
across her chest, she towered over the Haruchai. “There is delusion upon you.” She spoke like the riposte of a blade. “The song of the merewives has wrought madness into your hearts. You speak of doom, but that which the Dancers offer is only death, nothing more. Are you blind to the peril from which you were retrieved? Almost Galewrath and I failed of your rescue, for we found you at a depth nigh to our limits. There you lay like men bemused by folly. I know not what dream of joy or transport you found in that song-and I care not. Recumbent like the dead, you lay in no other arms than the limbs of coral which had by chance preserved you from a still deeper plunge. Whatever visions filled your unseeing eyes were the fruit of entrancement and brine. That is truth. Is it your intent to return to these merewives in the name of delusion?” Her arms corded with anger. “Stone and Sea, I will not — !”

  Brinn interrupted her without looking at her. “That is not our intent. We do not seek death. We will not again answer the song of the Dancers, But we will no longer serve either the ur-Lord or the Chosen.” His tone did not relent. He spoke as if he were determined to show himself no mercy. “We cannot.”

  “Can't?” Covenant's expostulation was muffled by alarm,

  But Brinn went on as if he were speaking to the First or to no one. “We doubt not what you have said. You are Giants, long-storied among the old tellers of the Haruchai, You have said that the song of the merewives is delusion. We acknowledge that you speak truth. But such delusion-”

  Then his voice softened in a way that Covenant had never heard before. “Ur-Lord, will you not rise to confront us? We will not stoop to you. But it is unseemly that we should thus stand above you.”

  Covenant looked at Linden. Her features were tense with the effort she made to recollect some semblance of stability; but she nodded, made a groping gesture toward Pitchwife. At once, the Giant lifted her out of Covenant's arms, leaving him free to face the Haruchai.

  Stiffly, he climbed to his feet. He felt wooden with emotions he was afraid to admit. Was he going to lose the Haruchai? The Haruchai, who had been as faithful as Ranyhyn from the beginning?

  What did they do to you?

  But then Brinn met his gaze for the first time; and the passion in those dispassionate orbs made him tremble. Starfare's Gem heaved among the angry seas as if at any moment the granite might break. He started to spit out every word that came into his head. He did not want to hear what Brinn would say.

  “You made a promise.” His chest rose and fell with the rough force of his knowledge that he had no right to accuse the Haruchai of anything. “I didn't want to accept it. I didn't want to be responsible for any more service like the kind Bannor insisted on giving me. But I had no choice.” He had been more than half crippled by loss of blood, might have died of sheer remorse and futility on the upland plateau above Revelstone if Brinn had not aided him. “What in hell are you talking about?”

  “Ur-Lord.” Brinn did not swerve from the path he had chosen. “Did you not hear the song of the merewives?”

  “What has that got to do with it?” Covenant's belligerence was hollow, but he could not set it aside. It was his only defence. “The only reason they took you is because they didn't want anybody as flawed or at least destructive as I am.”

  Brinn shook his head, “Also,” he went on, “is it not truly said of the Unbeliever that at one time in his distress he vowed the Land to be a dream-a thing of falseness and seduction, not to be permitted?”

  That struck Covenant voiceless. Everything he might have said seemed to curdle in him, sickened by anticipation. He had told Linden on Kevin's Watch, We're sharing a dream — a belief he had once needed and later outgrown. It had become irrelevant. Until this moment, he had considered it to be irrelevant.

  Are you going to blame me for that too?

  Deliberately, the Haruchai continued, "The First has said that the song of the Dancers is delusion. Perhaps in our hearts we knew it for delusion as we harkened to it. But we are Haruchai, and we gave it answer.

  "Mayhap you know too little of us. The lives of our people upon the mountains are strict and costly, for peaks and snows are no gentle bourne. Therefore are we prolific in our seed, that we may endure from generation to generation. The bond joining man to woman is a fire in us, and deep. Did not Bannor speak to you of this? For those who became Bloodguard, the loss of sleep and death was a little thing, lightly borne. But the loss of wives-It was that which caused them to end their Vow when Corruption placed his hand upon them. Any man may fail or die. But how may one of the

  Haruchai who has left his wife in the name of a chosen fidelity endure to know that even his fidelity may be riven from him? Better the Vow had never been uttered, no service given.

  “Ur-Lord.” Brinn did not look away. He hardly blinked. Yet the unwonted implication of softness in his tone was unmistakable. “In the song of the merewives we heard the fire of our yearning for that which we have left behind. Assuredly we were deluded-but the delusion was sweet. Mountains sprang about us. The air became the keen breath which the peaks exhale from their snows. And upon the slopes moved the women who call to us in their longing for fire and seed and offspring.” For a moment, he broke into the tonal tongue of the Haruchai; and that language seemed to transform his visage, giving him an aspect of poetry. “Therefore did we leap to answer, disregarding all service and safety. The limbs of our women are brown from sun and birth. But there is also a whiteness as acute as the ice which bleeds from the rock of mountains, and it burns as the purest snow burns in the most high tor, the most wind-flogged col. For that whiteness, we gave ourselves to the Dancers of the Sea.”

  Covenant could no longer meet Brinn's gaze. Banner had hinted at these things-things which made the Haruchai explicable. Their rigid and judgmental stance against the world came from this, that every breath they took was an inhalation of desire and loss.

  He looked to his companions for help; but none of them had any to offer. Linden's eyes were misted with pain or recognition. Empathy twisted Pitchwife's mien. And the First, who understood extravagance, stood beside Brinn and Cail as if she approved.

  Inflexibly, Brinn went on, “Thus we demonstrated ourselves false. Our given fidelity we betrayed at the behest of a delusion. Our promise to you we were unable to keep. We are unworthy. Therefore we will no longer serve you. Our folly must end now, ere greater promises than ours become false in consequence.”

  “Brinn,” Covenant protested as if he were choking. “Cail.” His distress demanded utterance. “You don't need to do that. Nobody blames you.” His voice was harsh, as if he meant to be brutal. Linden reached a hand weakly toward him like a plea for pity. Her eyes streamed with comprehension of the plight of the Haruchai. But he ignored her. The hard clench of his passion prevented him from speaking in any other way.

  “Banner did the same thing. Just what you're doing. We were standing on Landsdrop-with Foamfollower. He refused to come with us, when I needed- ” He swallowed convulsively. “I asked him what he was ashamed of. He said, 'I am not shamed. But I am saddened that so many centuries were required to teach us the limits of our worth. We went too far, in pride and folly. Mortal men should not give up wives and sleep and death for any service-lest the face of failure become too abhorrent to be endured.' The same thing you're saying now. But don't you understand? It's not that simple. Anybody can fail. But the Bloodguard didn't just fail. They lost faith. Or why do you think Bannor had to meet me in Andelain? If you're right, why didn't he let you just go on paying the price of your unworth?”

  Covenant wanted to beat his frustration at Brinn. Grimly, he restrained himself, strove instead to make his words felt through the Haruchai's intransigence.

  “I'll tell you why. Maybe no Vow or promise is the answer to Despite-but neither is abdication. He didn't give me any promises, any gifts. He just said, 'Redeem my people. Their plight is an abomination. And they will serve you well.' ”

  Then he stopped. He could not go on; he understood too well the extremity of
the man he faced. For a moment, Saltroamrest was silent except for the labour of the dromond's pumps, the creaking of the masts, the muffled fury of the seas and wind. The lanterns continued to sway vulnerably. Seadreamer's eyes burned at the Haruchai as if he sensed a strange hope in their intractible self-judgment.

  At last, Brinn spoke. He sounded almost gentle. “Ur-Lord, have we not served you well?”

  Covenant's features contorted in bereavement. But he made a fierce effort, forced himself to reply, “You know you have.”

  Brinn did not flinch or hesitate. “Then let it end.”

  Covenant turned to Linden. His hands groped for contact with her. But his fingers were numb. He found no other answer in her.

  Later that night, in the privacy of her cabin, while the storm thrashed and clawed at the Giantship, he rubbed the sore muscles of her neck and back. His fingers worked at her as if they were desperate with loss. Gradually, the diamondraught she had consumed to speed her recovery put her to sleep; but he did not stop massaging her until his hands were too tired to continue. He did not know what else to do with his despair. The defection of the Haruchai seemed to presage the collapse of all his hopes.

  Later still, Starfare's Gem lifted its sails into the gray dawn and ran beyond the grief of the merewives. The rain ended like tears which had fallen too long; the wind frayed away toward other parts of the sea. Honninscrave needed only a slight adjustment of course to head the dromond directly for its goal.

  But the Haruchai did not relent.

  Twenty Four: The Isle

  THE sky remained beclouded and blustery for two days, echoing the gray moil of the sea like indignation, as if Starfare's Gem were an intrusion which vexed the region. But then the wind rose in dismissal, and the dromond was swept into a period of clear days and crystal nights. Under the sun, the sea joined the heavens without seam or taint; and at night the specific glitter of the stars marked out the path of the quest for any experienced gaze to read.