The One Tree t2cotc-2

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Grimmand Honninscrave grew more eager every day. And the immaculate wind seemed to fan both the First and Pitchwife into a heat of anticipation. At unguarded moments, his misborn grotesquerie and her iron beauty looked oddly similar, as if their progress toward the One Tree were deepening their intimacy. The three of them studied the distance constantly, searching the horizon for validation of the choices which had taken them away from the Land in spite of Seadreamer's plain Earth-Sight.

  Their keenness spread out across the Giantship, affecting all the crew. Even Heft Galewrath's blunt features took on a whetted aspect. And Sevinhand's old sadness passed through periods of sunshine like hope.

  Linden Avery watched them as she watched the ship itself and Covenant, trying to find her place among them. She understood the Giants, knew that much of their eagerness arose on Seadreamer's behalf. His dumb misery was vivid to everyone. His people champed to accomplish their purpose and head back toward the Land, where he might be able to seek relief in the crisis of the Sunbane, the apotheosis of his vision. But she did not share that particular longing. She feared that the Giants did not recognize the true nature of his vision.

  And Covenant's mood only aggravated her apprehension. He seemed avid for the One Tree to the point of fever. Emotionally if not physically, he had drawn away from her. The rejection of the Haruchai had driven him into a state of rigid defensiveness. When he talked, his voice had a ragged edge which he could not blunt; and his eyes sent out reflections of bloodshed. She saw in his face that he was remembering the Clave, people butchered to feed the Banefire, self-distrust; remembering power and venom over which he had no control. At times, his gaze was hollow with recollections of silence. Even his lovemaking became strangely vehement, as if despite their embraces he believed he had already lost her.

  She could not forget that he intended to send her back to her former life. He was fervid for the One Tree for his own reasons, hoping that it would enable him to fight Lord Foul with something other than white fire and destruction. But he also wanted it because of her. To send her back.

  She dreaded that, dreaded the One Tree, Seadreamer's mute and untouchable trepidation ached in her like an open wound. Whenever he came within range of her senses, she felt his ambience bleeding. At times, she could barely rein herself from urging Covenant, the First, anyone who would listen to abandon the quest-forget the One Tree, return to the Land, fight the Sunbane with whatever weapons were available and accept the outcome. She believed that Seadreamer knew exactly what Lord Foul was doing. And she did not want to be sent back.

  Late one night, when Covenant had at last fallen into a sleep free of nightmares, she left his side, went up to the decks. She wore her woollen robe. Though the air had become noticeably cooler during the past few days, she shied away from her old clothes as if they represented exigencies and failures she did not wish to reconsider. On the afterdeck, she found Starfare's Gem riding unerringly before the wind under a moon already in its last quarter. Soon nothing would stand between the dromond and darkness except the ambiguous stars and a few lanterns. But for this night, at least, a crescent of light remained acute in the heavens.

  Sevinhand greeted her quietly from the wheeldeck; but she did not go to him. Beyond the wind, the long stone sea-running of the dromond, the slumber of the Giants who were not on watch, she sensed Seadreamer's presence like a hand of pain cupped against her cheek. Huddling into her robe, she went forward.

  She found the mute Giant sitting with his back to the foremast, facing the prow and Findail's silhouette. The small muscles around his eyes winced and tightened as he stared at Findail-and through Findail toward the One Tree-as if he were begging the Appointed to say the things which he, Seadreamer, could not. But Findail seemed immune to the Giant's appeal. Or perhaps such supplications were a part of the burden which he had been Appointed to bear. He also faced the prospect of the One Tree as if he feared to take his eyes from it.

  In silence, Linden seated herself beside Seadreamer. He sat cross-legged, with his hands in his lap. At intervals, he turned the palms upward as if he were trying to open himself to the night, accept his doom. But repeatedly his fists clenched, shoulders knotted, transforming him to a figure of protest.

  After a moment, she breathed, “Try.” The frail sickle-moon lit none of his visage except the pale scar which underlined his gaze; the rest remained dark. “There's got to be some way.”

  With a violence that made her flinch, his hands leaped upward. Their heels thudded bitterly against his forehead. But an instant later he snatched air in through his teeth, and his hands began sketching shapes across the night.

  At first, she was unable to follow his gestures: the outline he attempted to form eluded her. But he tried again, strove to grasp an image out of the blank air. This time, she understood him.

  “The One Tree.”

  He nodded rigidly. His arms made an arc around him.

  “The ship,” she whispered. “Starfare's Gem.”

  Again, he nodded. He repeated the movement of his arms, then pointed forward past the prow. His hands redelineated the tree-shape.

  “The ship going to the One Tree.”

  Seadreamer shook his head.

  “When the ship gets to the One Tree,”

  This time, his nod was stiff with grief. With one finger, he tapped his chest, pointing at his heart. Then his hands came together, twisted each other-a wrench as violent as a rupture. Trails of silver gleamed across his scar.

  When Linden could no longer bear the sight, she looked away-and found Findail there, come to witness the Giant's pantomime. The moon lay beyond his right shoulder; all his face and form were dark.

  “Help him,” she demanded softly. Help me. “Can't you see what he's going through?”

  For a long moment, the Elohim did not move or reply. Then he stepped close to the Giant, reached out one hand to Seadreamer's forehead. His fingertips pressed gentleness onto the fate written there. Almost at once, Seadreamer slumped. Muscle by muscle, the pressure ran out of him as if it were being absorbed by Findail's touch. His chin sagged to his breast. He was asleep.

  In silence, Findail turned back to the station he had chosen in the dromond's prow.

  Carefully, so that she would not disturb the Giant's rest, Linden rose to her feet, returned like mute rue to lie at Covenant's side and stare at the ceiling of her cabin until she slept.

  The next morning, she brought up the question of Seadreamer in front of the First, Pitchwife, Honninscrave, and Covenant. But the Master had no new insight to give her. And Pitchwife reiterated his hope that Seadreamer would gain some relief when their quest for the One Tree had been accomplished.

  Linden knew better. Severely, she described her encounter with the mute Giant the previous night.

  Pitchwife made no effort to conceal his dismay. Cocking her fists on her hips, the First gazed away past the prow and muttered long Giantish curses under her breath. Honninscrave's features knotted like the stiff tangle of his beard.

  Covenant stood among them as if he were alone; but he spoke for them all. His gaze wandered the stone, avoiding Linden as he rasped, “Do you think we should turn back?”

  She wanted to answer, Yes! But she could not. He had invested all his hope in the One Tree.

  For a time, Honninscrave's commands to the crew were tinged with uncertainty, as if within him a voice of denial cried out that the dromond should be turned at once, sent with all possible speed away from its fatal destination. But he kept his fear to himself. The Giantship's path across the seas did not waver.

  That clear wind blew for five days. It became gradually but steadily cooler as the vessel angled into the north; but it remained dry, firm, and insistent. And for three of those days, the quest arrowed swiftly along the waves without incident, meeting no danger, sighting no landfall.

  But on the fourth day, a cry of astonishment and alarm rang down from the lookout. The stone under Linden's feet began to vibrate as if the sea were full
of tremors. Honninscrave shortened sail, readied his ship for emergency. In another league, Starfare's Gem found itself gliding through a region crowded with Nicor.

  Their immense shapes each broke water in several places; together, they marked the sea like a multitude. Their underwater talk thrummed against Linden's senses. Remembering the one Nicor she had seen previously, she feared for the safety of the dromond. But these creatures appeared oblivious to Starfare's Gem. Their voices conveyed no timbre of peril to her percipience. They moved without haste or hunger, lolling vaguely as if they were immersed in lethargy, boredom, or contentment. Occasionally, one of them lifted a massive snout, then subsided with a distant soughing of water like a sigh of indifference. Honninscrave was able to steer his vessel among them without attracting their attention.

  “Stone and Sea!” Pitchwife breathed softly to Linden, “I had not thought that all the seas of the Earth together contained so many such creatures. The stories of them are so scanty that one Nicor alone might account for them all. What manner of ocean is it that we have entered with such blithe ignorance?”

  The First was standing beside him. He looked up at her as he concluded, “Yet this will be a tale to delight any child.”

  She did not meet his gaze; but the smile which softened her eyes was as private as the affection in his tone.

  Honninscrave's care took the Giantship slowly among the Nicor; but by midafternoon the creatures had been left behind, and Starfare's Gem resumed its flying pace. And that night, a mood of over-stretched gaiety came upon the Giants. They roistered and sang under the implacable stars like feverish children, insensate to the quest's purpose or Seadreamer's pain; and Pitchwife led them in one long caper of enforced mirth, as if he were closer to hysteria than any of them. But Linden heard the truth of their emotion. They were affirming themselves against their own apprehensions, venting their suspense in communal frolic. And Pitchwife's wild effort heightened the mood to a catastasis, finally giving rise to a humour that was less desperate and more solacing-warm, purified, and indomitable. If Covenant had sought to join them, Linden would have gone with him.

  But he did not. He stood apart as if the recanting of the Haruchai had shaken him to the core of his strength, rendering him inaccessible to consolation. Or perhaps he held back because he had forgotten how to be alone, how to confront his doom without loathing his loneliness. When he and Linden went below to her cabin, he huddled on the pallet as if he could hardly endure the bare comfort of her flesh. The One Tree was near. With the muffled uproar of the Giants in her ears, she hung on the verge of urging him, Don't do it. Don't send me back. But her inbred fears paralyzed her, and she did not take the risk.

  All night, she felt that she was redreaming familiar nightmares. But when she awakened, they were gone from her memory.

  Covenant stood beside the hammock with his back to her. He held his old clothes as if he meant to don them. She watched him with an ache in her eyes, begging him mutely not to return to what he had been, what they had been toward each other.

  He seemed to feel her gaze on him: he turned to her, met her look. His face wore a grimace of bile. But he did not retreat from what he saw. Though his anticipation of the One Tree felt more like dread than eagerness, he was strong yet, as dangerous as she remembered him. After a moment, he threw his garments deliberately into the corner. Then he knelt to her, took her in his arms.

  When they went out on deck later, he wore the woollen robe he had been given as if his leprosy inured him to the late autumn coolness of the air. His choice relieved her; and yet he appeared curiously ill-prepared in that robe, as if his love for her had robbed him of more defences than she knew how to estimate or compensate for.

  They paced out the day across the decks, waiting. They were all waiting, she and Covenant and the Giants with them. Time and again, she saw crewmembers pause in their tasks to peer past the ship's prow. But throughout the morning they saw nothing except the expanse of the sea, stretching to the edges of the world. After their noon meal, they went on waiting and still saw nothing.

  But in the middle of the afternoon, the call came at last-a shout of annunciation which nevertheless struck Linden's tension like a wail. Giants sprang for the rigging to see what the lookout had seen. Seadreamer appeared from belowdecks, climbed grimly upward. Covenant pressed his chest against the foredeck rail for a moment, as if in that way he might force himself to see farther. Then he muttered to Linden, “Come on,” and set off toward the vantage of the wheeldeck. Like him, she could hardly keep from running.

  The First and Pitchwife were there with Honninscrave and a Giant tending Shipsheartthew. Sevinhand and Galewrath arrived shortly. Together, the companions stared ahead for some glimpse of the Isle of the One Tree.

  For a league or more, the horizon remained immaculate and unexplained. Then Honninscrave's arm leaped to point almost directly over the prow. Linden was not as far-eyed as the Giants; but after another league she also spotted the Isle. Tiny in the distance, it stood like a point of fatality at the juncture of sea and sky-the pivot around which the Earth turned. As the wind carried Starfare's Gem swiftly forward, the Isle grew as if it would fulfil all the quest's expectations.

  She looked at Covenant; but he did not meet her gaze. His attention was fixed ahead: his stance was as keen as if he were on the verge of fire. Though he did not speak, the strict, gaunt lines of his visage said as clearly as words that his life or death would be decided here.

  By slow degrees, the island revealed itself to the approaching vessel. It stood like a cairn of old rock piled on the surface of the sea. Weather had softened and rimed the gray, jumbled stones, with the result that they seemed almost pure white where the sun touched them, nearly black where they lay in shadow. It was an eyot of day and night-rugged, hoary, and irrefragable. Its crown stood high above the Giantship; but the shape of its upper rims suggested that the island had once been a volcano, or that it was now hollow.

  Later, the dromond drew close enough to discern that the Isle sat within a ragged circle of reefs. These jutted into the air like teeth, with many gaps between them; but none of the openings were large enough to admit Starfare's Gem.

  As the sun declined, Honninscrave set the Giantship on a curving course to pass around the cairn so that he could look for a passage while his companions searched for some sign of the One Tree. Linden's eyes clung to the island: she studied every variation of its light-and-dark from crown to shore with every dimension of her sight. But she found nothing. The Isle was composed of nothing but blind stone, immune to every form of vitality but its own. Even among the rocks where the waves surged and fell, there lived no weeds or other sea-growths.

  The rocks themselves were vivid to her, as massive and consequential as compressed granite-an outcropping of the essential skeleton of the Earth. But perhaps for that very reason they played host to none of the more transient manifestations of life. As she studied them, she realised that they did not even provide a roost for birds. Perhaps the water within the reefs did not hold fish.

  “Where is it?” Covenant muttered, speaking to everyone and no one. “Where is it?”

  After a moment, Pitchwife replied, “Upon the crest. Is that not a natural bourne for the thing we seek?”

  Linden kept her doubts to herself. As the sun began to set, casting orange and gold in an unreadable chiaroscuro across the slopes, Starfare's Gem completed its circuit of the Isle; and she had seen nothing to indicate that the One Tree was here-or that it had ever existed.

  At a nod from the First, Honninscrave ordered the furling of the sails, the anchoring of the dromond beyond the northern reefs. For a few moments, no one on the wheeldeck spoke; the emblazoned visage of the Isle held them. In this light, they could see that they were facing a place of power. The sun withdrew as if it were bidding farewell to the Earth. Behind the murmurous labour of the Giants, the complaining °f lines and pulleys, the wet embrace of the waves upon the reefs, everything was silent. Not one kestrel rai
sed its cry to ameliorate the starkness of the Isle. The eyot stood within its protective teeth as if it had stood that way forever and would never be appeased.

  Then the First said quietly, “Giantfriend, will you not await the new day, ere you attempt this place?”

  A shudder like a sudden chill ran through him. In a rough voice, he replied, “No.”

  The First sighed. But she did not demur. She spoke to Sevinhand; and he went to supervise the launching of a longboat.

  Then she addressed Covenant again. “We have come a great way to this Isle. Because of your might-and of that which you wrought in The Grieve of our lost kindred-we have not questioned you concerning your purpose. But now I ask,” In the west, the sun seemed to be dying behind the long curve of the sea. Covenant's gaze was an echo of fire. “Have you given thought to the how of this Staff of Law you desire to conceive?”

  Linden answered for him, claiming her place in the company because she did not know any other way to dissuade him from his intent for her. “That's why I'm here.”

  He looked at her sharply; but she kept her eyes on the First. “My senses,” she said, awkward with self-consciousness. “The things I see and feel. Health. Rightness. Honesty. What else can it mean? I'm sensitive to Law. I can tell when things fit-and when they don't. I can guide him.”

  Yet as soon as she made her claim, she knew that it was not enough. His emanations were precise. He had been counting on her help. But he did not change his mind. Instead, he regarded her as if she had expressed a desire to leave him. Hope and grief were indistinguishable in him.

  Incognisant of Covenant's self-contradiction, the First accepted Linden's answer. With Pitchwife and Honninscrave, she left the wheeldeck, went to the railing where the longboat was being lowered.

  Galewrath assumed command of Starfare's Gem. When she had satisfied herself that the dromond was being given proper care, she said to Covenant and Linden, “Go well.”

  Covenant made no reply. He stared at the Isle as if he could read his doom in the fading glory of the sun.