And yet it had no leaves. Perhaps it had always been leafless. The bare stone was unmarked by any mould or clutter which might have come from the One Tree. Every branch and twig was stark, unwreathed. They would have looked dead if they had not been so vivid with light, The Tree's massive roots had forced their way into the floor with gigantic strength, breaking the surface into jagged hunks which the roots embraced with the intimacy of lovers. The Tree appeared to draw its strength, its leafless endurance, from a subterranean cause that was as passionate as lava and as intractable as gutrock.
For a long moment, Covenant and his companions simply stood and stared. He did not think he could move. He was too close to the goal which he had desired and loathed across the wide seas. In spite of its light-etched actuality, it seemed unreal. If he touched it, it would evaporate into hallucination and madness.
But the sun was still moving. The configuration of the well made its traversal dangerously swift. The One Tree was fully lit now; the company was falling back into shadow. Soon the sun would reach the eastern wall; and then the Tree would begin to go out. Perhaps it would cease to exist when sunfire no longer burned along its limbs. He was suddenly afraid that he did not have much time.
“Now, Giantfriend,” the First whispered. Her tone was thick with awe. “It must be done now. While the light endures.”
“Yes — .” Covenant's voice caught in his throat, came out like a flinch. He was appalled by what he meant to do. Linden was the first woman he had met since the ordeal of his illness began who was able to love him. To lose her now — ! But Brinn had said, Hope and doom. Bear what must be borne. He would die if he did not, would surely destroy what he loved if he did not.
Abruptly, he raised his right arm, pointed at the Tree. The small twin scars on his forearm shone faintly. “There,” Above its gnarled trunk, the Tree was wide-boughed and encompassing. From one of the nearest limbs grew a long straight branch as thick as his wrist. It ended in a fiat stump as if the rest of it had been cut off. “I'll take that one.”
Tension squirmed through him. He opened a shutter in his mind, let out a ray of power. A tiny flame appeared on his ring. It intensified until it was as incisive as a blade. There he held it, intending to use it to sever the branch.
Obscurely through the gloom, he saw Vain grinning.
“Wait.” Linden was not looking at him. She was not looking at anything. Her expression resembled the helpless immobility which had rendered her so vulnerable to Joan and Marid and Gibbon. She appeared small and lost, as if she had no right to be here. Her hands made weak pleading movements. Her head shook in denial. “There's something else.”
“Linden-” Covenant began.
“Be swift, Chosen,” demanded the First. “The time flees.”
Linden stared blindly past the company and the Tree and the light. “Something else here.” She was raw with fear and self-coercion, "They're connected-but they aren't the same. I don't know what it is. It's too much. Nobody can look at it." Paralysis or horror made her soft voice wild.
Covenant tried again urgently. “Linden”
Her gaze left the One Tree, touched him and then cringed as if she could not bear the sight of what he meant to do. Her words seemed to congeal toward silence as she spoke them. “The Tree isn't why nothing lives here. It doesn't make the air smell like the end of the world. It doesn't have that kind of power. There's something else here.” Her vision was focused inward as if like the Elohim she were studying herself for answers. “Resting.”
Covenant faltered. He was torn between too many emotions. His ring burned like venom and potential Desecration. A cry he was unable to utter wrung his heart:
Help me! I don't know what to do!
But he had already made his decision. The only decision of which he was capable. Go forward. Find out what happens. What matters. Who you are. Surely Linden would understand. He could not retreat from the compulsion of his own fear and loss.
When he looked at the First, she made a gesture that urged him toward the Tree.
Jerking himself into motion., he started forward.
At once, Seadreamer left the shadows. Trailed by Honninscrave's soft groan of protest, the mute Giant sprang ahead of Covenant, blocked his way. All the light on his face was gathered around his scar. His head winced refusals from side to side. His fists were poised at his temples as if his brain were about to burst.
“No,” Covenant gritted-a warning of ire and empathy. “Don't do this.”
The First was already at his side. “Are you mad?” she barked at Seadreamer. “The Giantfriend must act now, while the way is open.”
For an instant, Seadreamer burst into an incomprehensible pantomime. Then he took hold of himself. His respiration juddered as he forced himself to move slowly, making his meaning clear. With gestures as poignant as anguish, he indicated that Covenant must not touch the Tree. That would be disaster. He, Seadreamer, would attempt to take the branch.
Covenant started to object. The First stayed him. “Giantfriend, it is the Earth-Sight.” Pitchwife had joined the Swordmain. He stood as if he were prepared to wrestle Covenant in the name of Seadreamer's wishes. “In all the long ages of the Giants, no Earth-Sight has ever misled us.”
Out of the dark, Honninscrave cried, “He is my brother!” Suppressed tears occluded his voice. “Will you send him to die?”
The tip of the First's sword wavered. Pitchwife watched her with all his attention, waiting for her decision. Covenant's eyes flared back and forth between Honninscrave and Seadreamer. He could not choose between them.
Then Seadreamer hurled himself toward the One Tree.
"No!" The shout tore itself from Covenant's chest. Not again! Not another sacrifice in my place! He started after the Giant with flame pounding in his veins.
Honninscrave exploded past him. Roaring, the Master charged m pursuit of his brother.
But Seadreamer was moving with a desperate precision, as if this also were something he had foreseen exactly. In three strides, he spun to meet Honninscrave. His feet planted themselves on the stone: his fist lashed out.
The blow caught Honninscrave like the kick of a Courser. He staggered backward against Covenant. Only Cail's swift intervention kept the Master from crushing Covenant to the stone. The Haruchai deflected Honninscrave's bulk to one side, heaved Covenant to the other.
Covenant saw Seadreamer near the Tree. The First's command and Pitchwife's cry followed him together, but did not stop him. Livid in sudden sunlight, he leaped up the broken rocks which the roots embraced. From that position, the branch Covenant had chosen hung within easy reach of his hands.
For an instant, he did not touch it. His gaze reached toward the company as if he were poised on the verge of immolation. Passions he could not articulate dismayed his face along the line of his scar.
Then he took hold of the branch near its base and strove to snap it from its bough.
Twenty Six: Fruition
FOR a frozen splinter of time, Linden saw everything. Seadreamer's hands were closing on the branch. Covenant yearned forward as if he perceived the death in Seadreamer's eyes as clearly as she did. Cail supported the ur-Lord. The First, Pitchwife, and Honninscrave were in motion; but their running appeared slow and useless, clogged by the cold power in the air. The sunlight made them look at once vivid and futile.
She was alone in the western shadows with Vain and Findail. Percipience and reflected light rendered them meticulously to her. The Demondim-spawn's grin was as feral as a beast's. Waves of fear poured from Findail.
Disaster crouched in the cavern. It was about to strike. She felt it-all Lord Foul's manipulations coming to fruition in front of her. The atmosphere was rife with repercussions. But she could not move.
Then Seadreamer's hands closed.
In that instant, a blast like a shout of rage from the very guts of the Earth staggered the company. The Giants and Covenant were swept from their feet. The stone came up and kicked Linden as she sprawle
d forward.
Her breathing stopped. She did not remember hitting her head, but the whole inside of her skull was stunned, as if everything had been knocked flat. She wanted to breathe, but the air felt as violent as lightning. It would burn her lungs to cinders.
She had to breathe, had to know what was going on. Inhaling convulsively, she raised her head.
Vain and Findail had remained erect nearby, reflecting each other like antitheses across the gloom.
The well was full of stars.
A swath of the heavens had been superimposed on the cavern and the One Tree. Behind the sunlight, stars flamed with a cold fury. The spaces between them were as black as the fathomless depths of the sky. They were no larger than Linden's hand, no brighter than motes of dizziness. Yet each was as mighty as a sun. Together they transcended every power which life and Time could contain. They swirled like a galaxy in ferment, stirring the air into a brew of utter destruction.
A score of them swept toward Seadreamer. They seemed to strike and explode without impact; but their force lit a conflagration of agony in his flesh. A scream ripped the throat which had released no word since the birth of his Earth-Sight.
And wild magic appeared as if it had been rent free of all restraint by Seadreamer's cry. Covenant stood with his arms spread like a crucifixion, spewing argent fire. Venom and madness scourged forward as he strove to beat back Seadreamer's death. Foamfollower had already died for him.
His fury deflected or consumed the stars, though any one of them should have been too mighty for any mortal power to touch. But he was already too late. Seadreamer's hands fell from the branch. He sagged against the trunk of the Tree. Panting hugely, he took all his life in his hands and wrenched it into the shape of one last cry:
“Do not!”
The next moment, too much force detonated in his chest. He fell as if he had been shattered, thudded brokenly to the floor.
Honninscrave's wail rose among the stars, but it made no difference. They swirled as if they meant to devour all the company.
Covenant's outpouring faltered. Flame flushed up and down his frame like the beating of his pulse, but did not lash out. Horror stretched his visage, a realization of what he had avoided and permitted. In her heart, Linden ran toward him; but her body stayed kneeling, half catatonic, on the stone. She was unable to find the key that would unlock her contradictions. The First and Pitchwife still clung to Honninscrave's arms, holding him back from Seadreamer. Cail stood beside Covenant as if he meant to protect the Unbeliever from the anger of the stars.
And the stars still whirled, imposing themselves on the stone and the air and the retreating sunlight, shooting from side to side closer toward the heads of the companions. Abruptly, Cail knocked Covenant aside to evade a swift mote. The First and Pitchwife heaved Honninscrave toward the relative safety of the wall, then dove heavily after him.
Destruction which no blood or bone might withstand swarmed through the cavern.
Findail tuned himself to a pitch beyond the stars' reach. But Vain made no effort to elude the danger. His eyes were focused on nothing. He smiled ambiguously as one of the stars struck and burst against his right forearm.
Another concussion shocked the cavern. Ebony fire spat like excruciation from the Demondim-spawn's flesh.
When it ended, his forearm had been changed. From elbow to wrist, the skin and muscle and bone were gone, transformed into rough-barked wood. Deprived of every nerve or ligature, his hand dangled useless from his iron-bound wrist.
And still the stars swirled, seeking ruin. The power which had been at rest in the roots of the Isle was rousing. All Linden's nerves screamed at the taste of a world-riving puissance.
Desperately, the First shouted, “We will be slain!”
While that cry echoed, Covenant reeled to look at her, at Linden. For an instant, he appeared manic with indecision, as if he believed that the peril came from the One Tree itself, that he would have to destroy the Tree in order to save his friends. Linden tried to shout at him, No! That isn't it! But he would not have been able to hear her.
When he saw her kneeling stricken on the stone, the danger rose up in him. His fire re-erupted.
The sun was already leaving the One Tree. The light seemed to creep toward the east wall, then rush upward as if it were being expelled by violence. But wild magic burned away all the darkness. Covenant blazed as if he were trying to set fire to the very rock of the Isle.
Extreme argent half blinded Linden. Reeling stars filled her eyes like blots of dazzlement. Potent as suns, they should have surpassed every flame that Covenant's flesh could raise. But he was powerful now in a way that transgressed mortal limits. Avid and fiery, he shone as if he were capable of detonating the sheer foundations of the Earth.
The force of his conflagration struck his companions like the hand of a gale, thrust all of them except Vain and Findail helplessly against the walls. Cail was torn from his side. Pitchwife and the First lay atop Honninscrave, determined to protect him at any hazard. Linden was shoved upright to the stone and held there as if she were still gripped by fetters in
Kasreyn's dungeon. Venom as savage as ghouls raged in Covenant. It ignited him, transported him out of all restraint or choice. The stars were swept into him and seemed to vanish as if they were being consumed. Vivid and carious flames came from his scars, the marks of Marid's fangs. They raved through the mounting holocaust like glee.
He was trying to move forward, fighting toward the One Tree. Every vestige of his will and consciousness appeared to be focused on the branch which Seadreamer had touched.
Too deadly -
Alone and indomitable, he stood against the heavens and flailed wild magic at them like ecstasy or madness.
Yet the stars were not defeated. New motes of puissance were born to replace those his fury devoured. If he did not fail soon, he would be driven to the point of cataclysm. Around the roots of the Tree, the stone had begun to ripple and flow. In moments, the lives of his companions would be snuffed out by the unutterable wind of his power. Exalted and damned by fire, he raged against the stars as if his lust for might, mastery, triumph had eaten away every other part of him. He had become nothing except the vessel and personification of his venom.
Too deadly to go on living.
Still Linden could not move. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this. Stars gyred around the Tree, around Covenant. The stone boiled as if it were about to leap upward, take shape in its own defence. Wild magic lacerated her frail flesh, afflicting her with fire as Gibbon-Raver had once filled her with evil. She did not know how to move.
Then hands took hold of her, shook her. They were as compulsory as anguish. She looked away from Covenant and met Findail's frantic yellow eyes.
“You must stop him!” The Elohim's lips did not move. His voice rang directly into her brain. “He will not hear me!”
She gaped back at the Appointed. There were no words in all the cavern to articulate her panic.
“Do you not comprehend?” he knelled at her. "He has encountered the Worm of the World's End! Its aura defends the One Tree! Already he has brought it nigh rousing!
“Are you blind at last?” His voice rang like a carillon in agony. "Employ your sight! You must see! For this has the Despiser wrought his ill against you! For this! The Worm defends the One Tree! Have you learned nothing? Here the Despiser cannot fail! If the Worm is roused, the Earth will end, freeing Despite to wreak its vengeance upon the cosmos. And if the ring-wielder attempts to match his might against the Worm, he will destroy the Arch of Time. It cannot contain such a battle! It is founded upon white gold, and white gold will rive it to rubble!
“For this was he afflicted with the Despiser's venom!” Findail's clamour tormented every part of her being. “To enhance his might, enabling him to rend the Arch! This is the helplessness of power! You must stop him!”
Still Linden did not respond, could not move. But her senses flared as if he had torn aside a veil, and
she caught a glimpse of the truth. The boiling of the stone around the Tree was not caused by Covenant's heat. It came from the same source as the stars. A source buried among the deepest bones of the Earth-a source which had been at rest.
This was the crux of her life, this failure to rise above herself. This was why Lord Foul had chosen her. This paralysis was simply flight in another form. Unable to resolve the paradox of her lust for power and her hatred of evil, her desire and loathing for the dark might of Ravers, she was caught, immobilized. Gibbon-Raver had touched her, taught her the truth. Are you not evil? Behind all her strivings and determination lay that denunciation, rejecting life and love. If she remained frozen now, the denial of her humanity would be complete.
And it was Covenant who would pay the price-Covenant who was being duped into destroying what he loved. The unanswerable perfection of Lord Foul's machinations appalled her. In his power, Covenant had become, not the Earth's redeemer, but its doom. He, Thomas Covenant-the man to whom she had surrendered her loneliness. The man who had smiled for Joan.
His peril erased every other consideration.
There was no evil here. She clung to that fact, anchored herself on it. No Ravers. No Despiser. The Worm was inconceivably potent-but it was not evil. Covenant was lunatic with venom and passion-but he was not evil. No ill arose to condition her responses, control what she did. Surely she could afford to unbind her instinct for power? To save Covenant?
With a shout, she thrust away from Findail, began surging through utter and immedicable argent as if it were lava toward the Unbeliever.
At every new lash and eruption of wild magic, every added flurry of stars, she felt that the skin was being flayed from her bones; but she did not stop. The gale howled in her ears. She did not let it impede her. A Giantish voice wailed after her, “Chosen!” and went unheeded. The cavern, had become a chaos of echoes and violence; but she traversed the cacophony as if her will outshone every other sound. The presence of so much power elevated her. Instinctively, she used that force for protection, took hold of it with her percipience so that the stars did not burn her, the gale did not hurl her back.
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