The One Tree

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Linden bruised Covenant’s arm with her apprehension. The Master could not succeed. He did not have enough time. Under her, the Giantship leaned palpably toward its death. That fall was only heartbeats away.

  But Honninscrave and his Giants struck and struck as if they were repudiating an unbearable doom. Another shriek sprang from the stone—a cry of protest louder than the gale.

  With a hideous screech of rent and splintered granite, the mast started to topple.

  It sounded like the death throes of a mountain as it rove its moorings. Below it, the roof of the housing crumpled. The falling mast crashed through the side of the Giantship. Shatterings staggered the dromond to its keel, sent massive tremors kicking through the vessel from prow to stern. Shared agony yammered in Linden’s bones. She thought that she was screaming, but could not hear herself.

  Then the cacophony of breakage dropped below the level of the wind. The mast struck the sea like a pantomime of ruin, and the splash wet all the decks and the watchers soundlessly, as if they were deaf with sorrow.

  From the shattered depths of the dromond, Honninscrave’s outcry rose over the water that poured thunderously through the breach left by the mast.

  And like his cry Starfare’s Gem lifted.

  The immense weight of the keel pulled against the inrushing sea. Slowly, ponderously, the Giantship began to right itself.

  Even then, it might have died. It had shipped far more water than the pumps could handle; and the gap in its side gaped like an open wound, admitting more water at every moment.

  But Sevinhand and Galewrath were ready. The Anchormaster instantly sent his Giants up the foremast to unfurl the lowest sail. And as the wind clawed at the canvas, tried to tear it away or use it to thrust the vessel down again, Galewrath spun Shipsheartthew, digging the rudder into the furious sea.

  There Starfare’s Gem was saved. That one sail and the rudder were enough: they turned the dromond’s stern to the wind. Running before the blast, the Giantship was able to stand upright, lifting its breached side out of the water.

  For a time, the vessel was barely manageable, too heavily freighted with water. At every moment, its one sail was in danger of being shredded. But Sevinhand protected that sail with all the cunning of his sea-craft, all the valor of his crew. And the Giants at the pumps worked like titans. Their efforts kept the ship afloat until Honninscrave had cleared access to the port pumps. Then their progress improved. As the dromond was lightened, the strain on its canvas eased; and Sevinhand was able to raise another sail. Alive in spite of its wounds, Starfare’s Gem limped before the gale into the clear south.

  THIRTEEN: Bhrathairain Harbor

  The gale diminished slowly. It did not fray out to the level of normal winds for two more days. During that time, Starfare’s Gem had no choice but to run straight before the blast. It could not turn even slightly westward without listing to port; and that would have lowered the breach into the water. The Giants already had more than enough work to do without also being required to pump for their lives. Whenever the seas became heavy enough to slosh into the gap, Honninscrave was forced to shift his course a few points eastward so that Starfare’s Gem leaned to starboard, protecting its injury,

  He did not try to raise more canvas. Those two lone sails in that exigent wind required the constant attention of several Giants. More would have kept too many of the crew from the manifold other tasks which demanded their time.

  The rigging needed a great deal of attention; but that was the least of the dromond’s problems. The havoc of the underdecks presented a much larger difficulty. The felling of the midmast had left chaos in its wake. And the day which Starfare’s Gem had spent on its side had had other consequences as well. The contents of the holds were tumbled and confused or broken. Huge quantities of stores had been ruined by salt water. Also the sea had done severe damage to parts of the ship—the port cabins and supply-lockers, for example—which had not been designed to be submerged or overturned. Though the Giants worked hugely, they were not able to make the galley utile again until late afternoon; and the night was half gone before any of the port cabins had been rendered habitable.

  But hot food gave some ease to Linden’s abraded nerves; and Brinn was at last able to take Covenant down to his own chamber. Finally she allowed herself to think of rest. Since her cabin lay to starboard, it had suffered only slight harm. With Cail’s unasked aid, she soon set the table, chairs, and stepladder to rights. Then she climbed into her hammock and let the frustrated whine of the gale sweep her away from consciousness.

  While the wind lasted, she did little but recuperate. She left her cabin periodically to check on Covenant, or to help Heft Galewrath tend the crew’s injuries. And once she went forward with the idea of confronting Findail: she wanted to demand an explanation for his refusal to aid her or the Giantship. But when she saw him standing alone in the prow as if his people had Appointed him to be a pariah, she found that she lacked the will to contest him for answers. She was weary in every muscle and ligature. Any information she might conceivably wrest from him could wait. Dumbly she returned to her cabin as if it were full of sleep.

  She was sensitive to the restless labor of the crew; but she had neither the strength nor the skill to share their tasks. Still their exertions touched her more and more as she recovered from the strain of the storm. And eventually she felt the end of the gale approaching across the deeps. No longer able to sleep, she began to look for some chore with which she could occupy her mind, restore the meaning of her hands.

  Seeing her tension, Seadreamer mutely took her and Cail below to one of the grainholds which was still clogged with a thick slush of seawater and ruined maize. She spent most of the day working there with him in a companionable silence. He with a shovel, she and Cail with dippers from the galley, they scooped the slush into a large vat which he took away at intervals to empty. The Giantish dipper was as large as a bucket in her hands, and somewhat unwieldy; but she welcomed the job and the effort. Once on Haven Farm she had labored at a similar task to steady the clenched unease of her spirit.

  From time to time, she bent her observation on Seadreamer. He seemed to appreciate her company, as if his Earth-Sight found a kind of companionship in her health-sense. And in other ways he appeared to have reached a point of calm. He conveyed the impression that his distress had been reduced to bearable dimensions, not by any change in his vision, but by the simple fact that Starfare’s Gem was not traveling toward the One Tree. She did not have the heart to trouble him with questions he could not answer without an arduous and chancy effort of communication. But still he looked to her like a man who had seen his doom at the site of the One Tree.

  Clearly something had changed for him in Elemesnedene, either in his examination or in the loss of the brief hope Honninscrave had given him. Perhaps his vision had shifted from the Sunbane to a new or different danger. And perhaps—The thought tightened her stomach. Perhaps he had seen beyond the Sunbane into Lord Foul’s deeper intent. A purpose which would be fulfilled in the quest for the One Tree.

  But she did not know how to tackle such issues. They were too personal. As she worked, a pang of yearning for Covenant went through her. She met it by turning her thoughts once again to the nature of his plight. In memory, she re-explored the unaneled cerements which enclosed his mind, sought the knot which would unbind them. But the only conclusion she reached was that her last attempt to enter him had been wrong in more ways than one—wrong because it had violated him, and wrong because of the rage and hunger which had impelled her. That dilemma surpassed her, for she knew she would not have made the attempt at all if she had not been so angry—and so vulnerable to darkness. In one way, at least, she was like Seadreamer: the voice in her which should have spoken to Covenant was mute.

  Then, late in the afternoon, the last of the gale fell apart and wandered away like an assailant that had lost its wits; and Starfare’s Gem relaxed like a sigh into more gentle seas. Through the stone, Linde
n felt the crew cheering. Seadreamer dropped his shovel to bow his head and stand motionless for a long moment, communing with his kindred in an act of gratitude or contrition. The Giantship had won free of immediate danger.

  A short time later, Cail announced that the Master was calling for the Chosen. Seadreamer indicated with a shrug and a wry grimace that he would finish cleaning the grainhold. Thanking the mute Giant for more things than she could name—above all, for saving Covenant from the eels—Linden followed Cail toward Honninscrave’s cabin.

  When she arrived, she found the First, Pitchwife, and Galewrath already in the Master’s austere quarters. The occasional shouts which echoed from the wheeldeck told her that Sevinhand was tending the ship.

  Honninscrave stood at the end of a long table, facing his comrades. When Linden entered the cabin, he gave her a nod of welcome, then returned his attention to the table. Its top was level with her eyes and covered with rolls of parchment and vellum which made small crinkling noises when he opened or closed them.

  “Chosen,” he said, “we are gathered to take counsel. We must choose our way from this place. Here is the matter before us.” He unrolled a chart; then, realizing she could not see it, closed it again. “We have been driven nigh twenty score leagues on a path which does not lead to the One Tree. Perhaps we are not greatly farther from our goal than we were ere the storm took us—but assuredly we are no nearer. And our quest is urgent. That was acute to us when first the Search was born in Cable Seadreamer’s Earth-Sight.” A wince passed over his features. “We see it more than plainly in his visage now.

  “Yet,” he went on, setting aside his concern for his brother, “Starfare’s Gem has been grievously harmed. All seas are perilous to us now. And the loss of stores—”

  He looked at Galewrath. Bluntly she said, “If we eat and drink unrestrained, we will come to the end of our meat in five days. The waterchests we will empty in eight. Mayhap the unspoiled grains and dried staples will endure for ten. Only diamondraught do we have in plenty.”

  Honninscrave glanced at Linden. She nodded. Starfare’s Gem was in dire need of supplies.

  “Therefore,” the Master said, “our choice is this. To pursue our Search, trusting our lives to the strictness of our restraint and the mercy of the sea. Or to seek either landfall or port where we may hope for repairs and replenishment.” Reopening his chart, he held it over the edge of the table so that she could see it. “By the chance of the storm, we now approach the littoral of Bhrathairealm, where dwell the Bhrathair in their Sandhold against the Great Desert.” He indicated a spot on the chart; but she ignored it to watch his face, trying to read the decision he wanted from her. With a shrug, he tossed the parchment back onto the table. “In Bhrathairain Harbor,” he concluded, “we may meet our needs, and those of Starfare’s Gem. Winds permitting, we may perhaps gain that Harbor in two days.”

  Linden nodded again. As she looked around at the Giants, she saw that each of them wanted to take the latter course, turn the dromond toward Bhrathairain Harbor. But there were misgivings in their eyes. Perhaps the right of command which she had wrested from them outside Elemesnedene had eroded their confidence in themselves. Or perhaps the quest itself made them distrust their own desires for a safe anchorage. Covenant had certainly spoken often enough about the need for haste.

  Or perhaps, Linden thought with a sudden inward flinch, it’s me they don’t trust.

  At once, she compressed her mouth into its old lines of severity. She was determined not to cede one jot of the responsibility she had taken upon herself. She had come too far for that. Speaking in her flat professional voice, like a physician probing symptoms, she asked Pitchwife, “Is there any reason why you can’t fix the ship at sea?”

  The deformed Giant met her soberly, almost painfully. “Chosen, I am able to work my wiving wherever the seas permit. Grant that waves and winds are kind, and I lack naught else for the immediate need. The wreckage belowdecks will provide ample stone to mend the dromond’s, side—yes, and also to seal the decks themselves. But the walls, and Foodfendhall—” He jerked a shrug. “To mend Starfare’s Gem entirely, I must have access to a quarry. And only the shipwrights of Home can restore the mast which was lost. It may be possible,” he concluded simply, “for the Search to continue in the lack of such luxuries.”

  “Do the Bhrathair have a quarry?”

  At that, humor glinted from Pitchwife’s eyes. “In good sooth. The Bhrathair have little else but stone and sand. Therefore their Harbor has become a place of much trade and shipping, for they must have commerce to meet other needs.”

  Linden turned to Galewrath. “If you make the rations as small as possible, can we get to the One Tree and back to the Land with what we have?”

  The Storesmaster answered stolidly, “No.” She folded her brawny forearms over her chest as if her word were beyond refute.

  But Linden continued, “You got supplies when you were off the coast of the Land. Couldn’t we do the same thing? Without spending all the time to go to this Harbor?”

  Galewrath glanced at the Master, then said in a less assertive tone, “It may be. At times land will lie nigh our course. But much of what is marked on these charts is obscure, explored neither by Giants nor by those who have told tales to Giants.”

  Linden held Galewrath’s doubt in abeyance. “Honninscrave.” She could not shake her impression that the Giants had qualms about Bhrathairealm. “Is there any reason why we shouldn’t go to this Harbor?”

  He reacted as if the question made him uncomfortable. “In times long past,” he said without meeting her gaze, “the Bhrathair have been friends to the Giants, welcoming our ships as occasion came. And we have given them no cause to alter toward us.” His face was gray with the memory of the Elohim, whom he had trusted. “But no Giant has sojourned to Bhrathairealm for three of our generations—ten and more of theirs. And the tales which have since come to us suggest that the Bhrathair are not what they were. They were ever a brusque and unhesitating people, for good or ill—made so by the long trial of their war for survival against the Sandgorgons of the Great Desert. The story told of them is that they have become gaudy.”

  Gaudy? Linden wondered. She did not know what Honninscrave meant. But she had caught the salient point: he was unsure of the welcome Starfare’s Gem would receive in Bhrathairain Harbor. Severely she faced the First.

  “If Covenant and I weren’t here—if you were on this quest without us—what would you do?”

  The gaze the First returned held none of Honninscrave’s vague apprehension. It was as straight and grim as a blade.

  “Chosen, I have lost my broadsword. I am a Swordmain, and my glaive was accorded to me as a trust and symbol at the rites of my achievement. Its name is known to none but me, and to those who bestowed it upon me, and that name may never be revealed while I hold faith among the Swordmainnir. I have lost it by my own misjudgment. I am greatly shamed.

  “Yet some weapon I must have. In this lack, I am less than a Swordmain—less than the First of the Search.

  “For all implements of battle, the Bhrathair are of far renown.”

  Her look did not waver. “In my own name I would not delay the Search. My place as the First I would give to another, and myself I would content with such service as lay within my grasp.” Pitchwife had covered his eyes with one hand, hurt by what he was hearing; but he did not interrupt. Now Linden understood the unwonted tenor of his reply to her earlier question: he knew what a decision to bypass Bhrathairain Harbor would mean to his wife. “But the need of Starfare’s Gem is clear,” the First went on. “Given that need, and the proximity of Bhrathairealm, I would not scruple to sail there, for the dromond’s hope as well as for my own. The choice between delay and death is easily made.”

  She continued to hold Linden’s gaze straitly; and at last Linden dropped her eyes. She was moved by the First’s frank avowal, her stubborn integrity. All the Giants seemed to overtop Linden in more than mere physical stature.
Abruptly her insistence on making decisions in such company appeared insolent to her. Covenant had earned his place among the Giants—and among the Haruchai as well. But she had no right to it. She required the responsibility, the power to choose, for no other reason than to hold back her hunger for other kinds of power. Yet that exigency outweighed her unworth.

  Striving to emulate Covenant, she said, “All right. I hear you.” With an effort of will, she raised her head, suppressing her conflicted heart so that she could meet the eyes of the Giants. “I think we’re too vulnerable the way we are. We won’t do the Land any good if we drown ourselves or starve to death. Let’s take our chances with this Harbor.”

  For a moment, Honninscrave and the others stared at her as if they had expected a different response. Then, softly, Pitchwife began to chuckle. A twitch of joy started at the corners of his mouth, quickly spread over his face. “Witness me, Giants,” he said. “Have I not avowed that she is well Chosen?”

  With a flourish, he caught hold of the First’s hand, kissed it hugely. Then he flung himself like glee out of the cabin.

  An unfamiliar dampness filled the First’s eyes. She placed a brief touch of recognition or thanks on Linden’s shoulder. But she spoke to Honninscrave. In a husky tone, she said, “I desire to hear the song which is now in Pitchwife’s heart.” Turning brusquely to contain her emotion, she left the chamber.

  Galewrath’s face showed a blunt glower of satisfaction. She seemed almost glad as she picked up one of the charts and went to take the dromond’s new course to Sevinhand.

  Linden was left alone with the Master.

  “Linden Avery. Chosen.” He appeared uncertain of how to address her. A smile of relief had momentarily set aside his misgivings. But almost at once his gravity returned. “There is much in the matter of this Search, and of the Earth’s peril, which I do not comprehend. The mystery of my brother’s vision appalls my heart. The alteration of the Elohim—and Findail’s presence among us—” He shrugged, lifting his hands as if they were full of uncomfortable ignorances. “But Covenant Giantfriend has made plain to all that he bears a great burden of blood for those whose lives are shed in the Land. And in his plight, you have accepted to support his burdens.