One Tree

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Be true.

  “She wouldn’t look at me. I couldn’t make her look at me. When I tried, she squeezed her eyes shut and went on begging.”

  Please, God, let me die.

  And after a month, the girl had taken that frail life into her own hands. Grief and affront and culpability had covered her more entirely than all Ceer’s blood, stained her more intimately, outraged her more fundamentally. She had needed the power to take some kind of action, create some kind of defense; and because her conscious mind lacked the strength, the dark hunger she had inherited from her father’s death had raised its head in her. You never loved me anyway. Swarming up from the floorboards of the attic, spewing like a hatred of all life from his stretched and gleeful mouth. His mouth, which should have been open in pain or love. Facing her mother, the blackness had leaped up like a visage of nightmare, had appeared full-formed, precise, and unquestionable not in her mind but rather in her hands, so that her body knew what she meant to do while her brain could only watch and wail, not prevent, control, or even choose. She had been weeping violently, but without sound, had not dared to let one sob through her teeth to be heard by the nurses, betray her. She had hardly seen what she was doing as she unhooked the tubes of oxygen from her mother’s nostrils. The darkness in her had begun to gibber. It laughed like lust at the prospect of nourishment. Death was power. Power. The strength to stuff accusations back down the throats of those who accused her. Are you not evil? Shedding the tears which had dogged her all her life and would never stop, never be forgiven, she began thrusting sheets of tissue one by one into her mother’s mouth.

  “At least that made her look at me.” Covenant was a blur across her sight; but she felt him aching at her as if he were being broken by her words. “She tried to stop me. But she didn’t have the strength. She couldn’t lift her own weight enough to stop me.

  “Then it was over. I didn’t have to breathe that stench anymore.” She was no longer trembling. Something inside her had parted. “When I was sure, I went on as if I’d already planned exactly what I was going to do. I took the tissues out of her mouth-flushed them down the toilet. I put the oxygen tubes back in her nose. Then I went and told the nurses I thought my mother had stopped breathing.”

  The deck canted under her feet; she almost fell. But then Starfare’s Gem righted itself, righted her. Her eyes felt as livid as the fire which spilled from her right shoulder, etching the nerves until it vanished into the numbness beyond her elbow. Now Covenant’s emanations were so poignant that she could not be blind to them. He regarded her in stricken recognition, as if he and the Giantship were cripples together. Through her tears, she saw that even his leprosy and venom were precious to her. They were the flaws, the needs, that made him honest and desirable. He wanted to cry out to her—or against her, she did not know which. But she was not finished.

  “I gave her what she wanted. God Himself couldn’t do anything except let her suffer, but I gave her what she wanted.

  “It was evil.”

  He started to protest as if he felt more grief than she had ever allowed herself. She cut him off.

  “That’s why I didn’t want to believe in evil. I didn’t want to have to look at myself that way. And I didn’t want to know your secrets because I didn’t want to tell you mine.

  “But it’s true. I took away her life. I took away the chance that she might find her own answer. The chance that a miracle might happen. I took away her humanity.” She would never be finished with it. There was no expiation in all the world for what she had done. “Because of me, the last thing she felt in her life was terror.”

  “No.” Covenant had been trying to stop her. “Linden. Don’t. Don’t blame yourself like this.” He was gaunt with dismay. Every line of his form was an appeal to her across the stone of the deck. “You were just a kid. You didn’t know what else to do. You’re not the only one. We all have Lord Foul inside us.” He radiated a leper’s yearning for the wounded and the bereft. “And you saved me. You saved us all.”

  She shook her head. “I possessed you. You saved yourself.” He had let the Elohim bereave him of mind and will until all that remained was the abject and unsupportable litany of his illness. He had accepted even that burden in the name of his commitment to the Land, his determination to battle the Despiser. And she had surrendered herself entirely, braved the worst horrors of her past, to bring him back. But she saw no virtue in that. She had done as much as anyone to drive him into his plight. And she had helped create the conditions which had forced her to violate him. “All my life”—her hands flinched—“I’ve had the darkness under control. One way or another. But I had to give that up, so I could get far enough inside you. I didn’t have any left for Ceer.” Severely she concluded, “You should’ve let Brinn punish me.”

  “No.” His contradiction was a hot whisper that seemed to jump the gap between them like a burst of power. Her head jerked back. She saw him clearly, facing her as if her honesty meant more to him than any act of bloodshed. From the depths of his own familiarity with self-judgment, he averred, “I don’t care about your mother. I don’t care if you possessed me. You had good reason. And it isn’t the whole story. You saved the quest. You’re the only woman I know who isn’t afraid of me.” His arms made a wincing movement like an embrace maimed from its inception by need and shame. “Don’t you understand that I love you?”

  Love? Her mouth tried to shape the word and could not. With that avowal, he changed everything. In an instant, her world seemed to become different than it was. Stumbling forward, she confronted him. He was pallid with exhaustion, damaged by the pressure of his doom. The old knife-cut marked the center of his stained shirt like the stroke of fatality. But his passion resonated against the added dimension of her hearing; and she was suddenly alive and trembling. He had not intended to refuse her. The efforts he made to withhold himself were not directed at her. It was himself that he struggled to reject. He was rife with venom and leprosy; but she recognized those things, accepted them. Before he could retreat, she caught her left arm around him, raised her right as high as she could to hold him.

  For a moment longer, he strove against himself, stood rigid and unyielding in her clasp. But then he surrendered. His arms closed around her, and his mouth came down on hers as if he were falling.

  TWENTY-TWO: “Also love in the world”

  Late the next morning, after the long night of the full moon, she awakened in her hammock. She felt deeply comfortable, assuaged by sleep. Her right arm was warm and drowsy to the tips of the fingers, like a revenant of her former self, the child unacquainted with death—aneled of numbness as if her blood had become chrism. She was reluctant to open her eyes. Though the cabin beyond her eyelids was refulgent with sunshine, she did not want the day to begin, did not want the night to end.

  Yet the whole length of her body—freshly scrubbed the night before and alert to caresses—remembered the pressure of Covenant’s presence, knew that he was gone. Somehow he had contrived to leave the hammock without rousing her. She started to murmur a sleepy protest. But then the nerves of her cheek felt a faint tingle of wild magic. He was still in the cabin with her. She smiled softly to herself as she raised her head, looked over the edge of the hammock toward him.

  He stood barefoot and vivid in the sunlight on the floor below her. His clothes, and hers, hung on chair backs, where they had been left to dry after being washed by the Haruchai—a task which Brinn and Cail had undertaken the previous afternoon at the behest of their particular sense of duty. But he made no move to get dressed. His hands covered his face like an unconscious mimicry of sorrow. With the small flame of his ring, he was cleaning the beard from his cheeks and neck.

  In silence so that she would not interrupt his concentration, she watched him intently, striving to memorize him before he became aware of her scrutiny, became self-conscious. He was lean to the point of gauntness, all excess burned away by his incessant heat. But the specific efficiency of his form
pleased her. She had not known that she was capable of taking such an unprofessional interest in someone else’s body.

  Then his beard was gone, and he dropped his fire. Turning, he saw that she was studying him. A momentary embarrassment concealed the other things in his eyes. He made a vague gesture like an apology. “I keep thinking I ought to be able to control it, I keep trying to learn.” He grimaced wryly. “Besides which, I don’t like the itch.” Then his mouth became somber. “If it’s small enough—and if I don’t let myself get angry—I can handle it. But as soon as I try to do anything that matters—”

  She went on smiling until he noticed her expression. Then he dismissed the question of power with a shrug. Half smiling himself, he touched his pale clean chin. “Did I get it all? I can’t tell—my hands are too numb.”

  She answered with a nod. But his tone made her aware of the complexity in his gaze. He was looking at her with more than just his memories of the past night. He was disturbed about something. She did not want to give up her rare and tender easement; but she did not hesitate. Gently she asked, “What’s the matter?”

  His eyes retreated from her, then returned with a tangible effort. “Too many things.” He faced her as if he did not know how to accept her care. “Wild magic. Questions. The sheer selfishness of taking your love, when—” He swallowed thickly. “When I love you so much, and I’m so dangerous, and maybe I’m not even going to live through it.” His mouth was a grimace of difficult honesty. “Maybe we’re not going to get back in time for you to do anything about that knife in my chest. I want out. I don’t want to be responsible anymore. Too many people have already been killed, and it just gets worse.”

  She heard him, understood him. He was a hungry man who had at last tasted the aliment for which his soul craved. She was no different. But the possibility he dreaded—the knife-wound in his chest—was not real to her. The old scar was barely visible. It had faded into the pallor of his skin. She could not imagine that healing undone, abrogated as if it had never occurred.

  Yet that was only part of what she felt. In her own way, she was content to be where she was—with him on Starfare’s Gem, seeking the One Tree accompanied by Giants and Haruchai, Findail and Vain. She was willing to confront the future Lord Foul prepared for them. As clearly as possible, she gave that to Covenant.

  “I don’t care. You can be as dangerous or selfish as you want.” The danger in him had been attractive to her from the beginning. And his selfishness was indistinguishable from love. “I’m not afraid.”

  At that, his gaze clouded. He blinked at her as if she were brighter than the sunlight. She thought that he would ascend the stepladder, return to her arms; but he did not. His countenance was open and vulnerable, childlike in apprehension. His throat knotted, released, as he repeated, “Findail says I’m going to destroy the Earth.”

  Then she saw that he needed more from her than an avowal. He needed to share his distress. He had been alone too long. He could not open one door to her without opening others as well. In response, she climbed out of her comfort, sat up to face him more squarely. Findail, she thought. Recollections sharpened her mood. The Elohim had tried to prevent her from entering Covenant. He had cried at her, Are you a fool? This is ruin! The doom of the Earth is upon my head. Her voice took on severity as she asked, “What did he mean—‘Did we not preserve your soul’? When he talked to you yesterday?”

  Covenant’s mouth twisted. “That’s one of the things that scares me.” His eyes left her to focus on what had happened to him. “He’s right. In a way. They saved me. When I was alone with Kasreyn—before Hergrom rescued me.” His voice was lined with bitterness. “I was helpless. He should have been able to do anything he wanted. But he couldn’t get past that silence. I heard every word he said, but I wasn’t able to do anything about it, and he wasn’t able to make me try. If I hadn’t been that way, he probably would’ve gotten my ring.

  “But that doesn’t tell me why.” He looked up at her again, his features acute with questions. “Why did they do it to me in the first place? Why is Findail so afraid of me?”

  She watched him closely, trying to gauge the complexity of what he knew and remembered and needed. He had the face of a single-minded man—a mouth as strict as a commandment, eyes capable of fire. Yet within him nothing was simple; everything was a contradiction. Parts of him lay beyond the reach of her senses, perhaps even of her comprehension. She answered him as firmly as she could.

  “You’re afraid of yourself.”

  For a moment, he frowned as if he were on the edge of retorting, You mean if I were arrogant or inexperienced or maybe just stupid enough, there wouldn’t be anything to be afraid of? But then his shoulders sagged. “I know,” he murmured. “The more power I get, the more helpless I feel. It’s never enough. Or it’s the wrong kind. Or it can’t be controlled. It terrifies me.”

  “Covenant.” She did not want to say harsh things to him, ask questions which hurt. But she had never seen him evade anything which might prove harsh or painful; and she wanted to match him, show herself a fit companion for him. “Tell me about the necessity of freedom.”

  He stiffened slightly, raised his eyebrows at the unexpected direction of her thoughts. But he did not object. “We’ve talked about this before,” he said slowly. “It’s hard to explain. I guess the question is, are you a person—with volition and maybe some stubbornness and at least the capacity if not the actual determination to do something surprising—or are you a tool? A tool just serves its user. It’s only as good as the skill of its user, and it’s not good for anything else. So if you want to accomplish something special—something more than you can do for yourself—you can’t use a tool. You have to use a person and hope the surprises will work in your favor. You have to use something that’s free to not be what you had in mind.

  “That’s what it comes down to on both sides. The Creator wants to stop Foul. Foul wants to break the Arch of Time. But neither of them can use a tool, because a tool is just an extension of who they are, and if they could get what they wanted that way they wouldn’t need anything else. So they’re both trying to use us. The only difference I can see is that the Creator doesn’t manipulate. He just chooses and then takes his chances. But Foul is something else. How free are we?”

  “No.” Linden did her best to face him without flinching. “Not we.” She did not want to hurt him; but she knew it would be false love if she tried to spare him. “You’re the one with the ring. How free are you? When you took Joan’s place—” Then she stopped. She did not have the heart to finish that sentence.

  He understood. Her unspoken words echoed the pang of his own fear. “I’m not sure.” Once again, his gaze left her, not to avoid her, but to follow the catenulations of his memories.

  But she was not done, and what remained to be said was too difficult to wait. “After the Elohimfest. When I tried to get inside you.” She spoke in pieces, feeling unable to pick up all the fragments at once. With a shudder of recollection, she strove for clarity. “It was the same day Findail showed up. I was waiting—hoping you would recover spontaneously. But then I couldn’t wait any longer. If nothing else, I thought you would be able to get answers out of him.”

  She closed her eyes, shutting out the way he looked at her. “But I only got so far.” Dark and hungry for power, she had tried to take mastery of him. And now the virulence of the result came back to her. She began rocking unconsciously against the faint sway of the hammock, seeking to comfort herself, persuade her memories into language. “Then I was thrown out. Or I threw myself out. To escape what I saw.” Aching, she described her vision of him as a Sunbane-victim, as monstrous and abominable as Marid.

  At once, she sought his face as if it were an image to dispel dismay. He was watching her sharply, ire and dread conflicted in his gaze. With a harshness she did not intend and could not suppress, she rasped, “Can you really tell me you aren’t already sold? You aren’t already a tool of the Despiser?”
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br />   “Maybe I’m not.” The lines of his face became implacable, as if she had driven him beyond reach, compelled him to retreat to the granite foundation of his pain and isolation. His voice sounded as cold as leprosy. “Maybe the Elohim just think I am. Maybe what you saw is just their image of me.” Then his features clenched. He shook his head in self-coercion. “No. That’s just one more cheap answer.” Slowly his grimace softened like a chosen vulnerability, exposing himself to her. “Maybe Findail’s right. I ought to give him my ring. Or give it to you. Before it’s too late. But I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to surrender like that. Not while I still have hopes left.”

  Hopes? she mouthed silently. But he was already replying.

  “You’re one. That old man on Haven Farm chose you. He told you to Be true. You’re still here, and you’re willing, and that’s one. What you just told me is another. If what you saw is the truth—if I really am Foul’s tool or victim—then I can’t stop him. But he won’t be able to use me to get what he wants.”

  Roughly he jerked himself to a stop, paused to give her a chance to consider the implications of what he was saying. That Lord Foul’s purposes did in fact revolve around her. That the onus of the Earth’s survival rested on her in ways which she could not begin to envision. That she was being manipulated To achieve the ruin of the Earth.

  For a moment, the conception froze her, brought back fear to the sunlit cabin. But then Covenant was speaking again, answering her apprehension.

  “And there’s one more. One more hope.” His tone was softer now, almost tender—suffused with sorrow and recognition. “I told you I’ve been to the Land three times before. In a way, it was four, not three. The first three times, I didn’t have any choice. I was summoned whether I wanted to go or not. After the first time, I didn’t want to.