One Tree

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  “Rather he inhabited a land to the east, where the Elohim are neither known nor guessed. And there he did that which no Elohim has ever done. He gave himself in love to a mortal woman. He walked among her folk as a man of their own kind. But in her private home he was an Elohim to ravish every conception of which flesh that dies is capable.

  “That was an act which we repudiated, and would repudiate again, though we do not name it evil. In it lay a price for the woman which she could neither comprehend nor refuse. Gifted or in sooth blighted by all Earth and love and possibility in one man-form, her soul was lost to her in the manner of madness or possession rather than of mortal love. Loving her, he wrought her ruin and knew it not. He did not choose to know it.

  “Therefore was he Appointed, to halt the harm. For at that time was a peril upon the Earth to which we could not close our eyes. In the farthest north of the world, where winter has its roots of ice and cold, a fire had been born among the foundations of the firmament. I do not speak of the cause of that fire, but only of its jeopardy to the Earth. Such was its site and virulence that it threatened to rive the shell of the world. And when the Elohim gathered to consider who should be Appointed, Kastenessen was not among us. Yet had he been present to bespeak his own defense, still would he have been Appointed, for he had brought harm to a woman who could not have harmed him, and he had called it love.

  “But such was the strength of the thing which he named love that when the knowledge of his election came to him, he took the woman his lover by the hand and fled, seeking to foil the burden.

  “So it fell to me, and to others with me, to give pursuit. He acted as one who had wandered into madness, for surely it was known to him that in all the Earth there was no hiding-place from us. And were it possible that he might pass beyond our reach, immerse himself in that from which we would be unable to extricate him, he could not have done so with the woman for companion. Her mortal flesh forbade. Yet he would not part from her, and so we came upon him and took him.

  “Her we gave what care we could, though the harm or love within her lay beyond our solace. And him we bore to the fire which burned in the north. To us he remained Elohim, not to be freed from his burden. But to him he was no longer of us, or of the Earth, but only of the woman he had lost. He became a madness among us. He would not accept that he had been Appointed, or that the need of the Earth was not one which might be eschewed. He railed against us, and against the heavens, and against the Würd. To me especially he gave curses, promising a doom which would surpass all his dismay—for I had been nearer to him among the Elohim than any other, and I would not hear him. Because of his despair, we were compelled to bind him to his place, reaving him of name and choice and time to set him as a keystone for the threatened foundation of the north. Thus was the fire capped, and the Earth preserved, and Kastenessen lost.”

  Findail stopped. For a moment, he remained still amid the stillness of the Giants; and all his hearers were voiceless before him, lost like Kastenessen in the story of the Appointed. But then he turned to Linden and Covenant, faced them as if everything he had said was intended to answer their unresolved distrust; and a vibration of earnestness ran through his voice.

  “Had we held any other means to combat the fire, we would not have Appointed Kastenessen as we did. He was not chosen in punishment or malice, but in extremity.” His yellow eyes appeared to collect the lantern-light, shining out of the dark with a preternatural brightness. “The price of sight is risk and dare. I desire to be understood.”

  Then his form frayed, and he flowed out of the gathering, leaving behind him silence like an inchoate and irrefragable loneliness.

  When Linden looked up at the stars, they no longer made sense to her. Findail might as well have said, This is ruin.

  For three more days, the weather held, bearing Starfare’s Gem with brisk accuracy at a slight angle along the wind. But on the fifth day out from Bhrathairealm, the air seemed to thicken suddenly, condensing until the breeze itself became sluggish, vaguely stupefied. The sky broke into squalls as if it were crumbling under its own weight. Abrupt gusts and downpours thrashed the Giantship in all directions. At unpredictable intervals, other sounds were muffled by the staccato battery of canvas, the hot hissing of rain. Warm, capricious, and temperamental, the squalls volleyed back and forth between the horizons. They were no threat to the dromond; but they slowed its progress to little more than a walk, made it stagger as it tacked from side to side. Hampered by the loss of its midmast, Starfare’s Gem limped stubbornly on toward its goal, but was unable to win free of the playground of the storms.

  After a day of that irregular lurch and stumble, Linden thought she was going to be seasick. The waves confused the stability she had learned to expect from the stone under her bare feet. She felt the protracted frustration of the crew vibrating through the moire-granite, felt the dromond’s prow catch the seas every way but squarely. And Covenant fretted at her side; his mood gave a pitch of urgency to the Giantship’s pace. Beneath the surface of their companionship, he was febrile for his goal. She could not stifle her nausea until Pitchwife gave her a gentle mixture of diamondraught and water to quiet her stomach.

  That night she and Covenant put together a pallet on the floor of her cabin so that they would not have to endure the aggravated motion of the hammock. But the next day the squalls became still more sportive. After sunset, when a gap in the clouds enabled him to take his bearings from the stars, Honninscrave announced that the quest had covered little more than a score of leagues since the previous morning. “Such is our haste,” he muttered through his beard, “that the Isle of the One Tree may sink altogether into the sea ere we draw nigh to it.”

  Pitchwife chuckled. “Is it a Giant who speaks thus? Master, I had not known you to be an admirer of haste.”

  Honninscrave did not respond. His eyes held reminders of Seadreamer, and his gaze was fixed on Covenant.

  After a moment, Covenant said, “A few centuries after the Ritual of Desecration, a Cavewight named Drool Rockworm found the Staff of Law. One of the things he used it for was to play with the weather.”

  Linden looked at him sharply. She started to ask, Do you think someone is causing—? But he went on, “I blundered into one of his little storms once. With Atiaran.” The memory roughened his tone. “I broke it. Before I believed there even was such a thing as wild magic.”

  Now everyone in the vicinity was staring at him. Unspoken questions marked the silence. Carefully the First asked, “Giantfriend, do you mean to attempt a breaking of this weather?”

  For a time, he did not reply. Linden saw in the set of his shoulders, the curling of his fingers, that he wanted to take some kind of action. Even when he slept, his bones were rigid with remembered urgency. The answer to his self-distrust lay at the One Tree. But when he spoke, he said, “No.” He tried to smile. The effort made him grimace. “With my luck, I’d knock another hole in the ship.”

  That night, he lay face down on the pallet like an inverted cenotaph of himself, and Linden had to knead his back for a long time before he was able to turn and look at her.

  And still the storms did not lessen. The third day made them more numerous and turbid. Linden spent most of her time on deck, peering through wind and rain for some sign that the weather might change. Covenant’s tension soaked into her through her senses. The One Tree. Hope for him. For the Land. And for her? The question disturbed her. He had said that a Staff of Law could be used to send her back to her own life.

  During a period of clear sky between squalls in the middle of the afternoon, they were standing at the rail halfway up the starboard foredeck, watching clouds as black as disaster drag purple and slashing rain across the water like sea-anchors, when a shout sprang from the foremast. A shout of warning. Honninscrave replied from the wheeldeck. An alarm spread through the stone. Heavy feet pounded the decks. The First and Pitchwife came trotting toward Linden and Covenant.

  “What—?” Covenant began. />
  The Swordmain reached the rail beside Linden, pointed outward. Her gaze was as acute as a hawk’s.

  Pitchwife positioned himself directly behind the Unbeliever.

  Suddenly Seadreamer also appeared. For an instant, Linden leaped to the impossible conclusion that the Isle of the One Tree was near. But Seadreamer’s stare lacked the precise dread which characterized his Earth-Sight. He looked like a man who saw a perilous wonder bearing down on him.

  Her heart pounding, she swung to face the sea.

  The First’s pointing arm focused Linden’s senses. With a shock of percipience, she felt an eldritch power floating toward the Giantship.

  The nerves of her face tasted the weird theurgy before her eyes descried it. But then an intervening squall abruptly frayed and fell apart, dissipated as if its energy had encountered an apt and hungry lightning rod. She saw an area of calm advancing across the face of the sea.

  It was wider than the length of the dromond, and its periphery was not calm. Around the rim, waterspouts kicked into the air like geysers. They burst straight upward as if no wind could touch them, reached as high as the Giantship’s spars, then fanned into spray and rainbows, tumbled sun-bedizened back into the sea. In turn, irrhythmically, now here, now at the farther edge, the spouts stretched toward the sky like celebrants, defining the zone of calm with their innominate gavotte. But within their circle the sea lay flat, motionless, and reflective—a sopor upon the heart of the deep.

  The waterspouts and the calm, were moving with slow, bright delicacy toward Starfare’s Gem.

  Covenant tried again. “What—?” His tone was clenched and sweating, as if he felt the approaching power as vividly as Linden did.

  Stiffly the First replied, “Merewives.” And Pitchwife added in a soft whisper, “The Dancers of the Sea.”

  Linden started to ask, What are they? But Pitchwife had already begun to answer. Standing at Covenant’s back, he breathed, “They are a widely told tale. I had not thought to be vouchsafed such a sight.”

  The waterspouts were drawing near. Linden tasted their strength like a spray against her cheeks, though the sensation had no flavor except that of the strength itself—and of the faint poignance which seemed to arise like longing from the upward reach of the waters. But Honninscrave and Starfare’s Gem made no attempt to evade the approach. All the Giants were entranced by wonder and trepidation.

  “Some say,” Pitchwife went on, “that they are the female soul of the sea, seeking forever among the oceans for some male heart hardy enough to consummate them. Others say that they are the lost mates of a race which once lived within the deeps, and that their search is for their husbands, who have been slain or mazed or concealed. The truth I know not. But all tales agree that they are perilous. Their song is one which no man may gainsay or deny. Chosen, do you hear their song?” Linden did not speak. He took her response for granted. “I also do not hear it. Perhaps the merewives have no desire for Giants, as they have none for women. Our people have never suffered scathe from these folk.” His voice sharpened involuntarily as the first spouts wet the sides of the Giantship. “Yet for other men—!”

  Linden recoiled instinctively. But the spray was only saltwater. The strength of the merewives did not touch her. She heard no song, although she sensed some kind of passion moving around her, intensifying the air like a distant crepitation. Then the first spouts had passed the dromond, and Starfare’s Gem sat inside the zone of calm, resting motionless within a girdle of rainbows and sun-diamonds and dancing. The sails hung in their lines, deprived of life. Slowly the Giantship began to revolve as if the calm had become the eye of a whirlpool.

  “If they are not answered,” Pitchwife concluded, nearly shouting, “they will pass.”

  Linden heard the strain in his voice, the taut silence beside her. With a jerk, she looked toward Covenant.

  He was bucking and twisting against Pitchwife’s rigid grasp on his shoulders.

  TWENTY-THREE: Withdrawal from Service

  The call of the merewives went through Covenant like an awl, so bright and piercing that he would not have known it for music if his heart had not leaped up in response. He did not feel himself plunging against Pitchwife’s hold, did not know that he was gaping and gasping as if he could no longer breathe air, were desperate to inhale water. The song consumed him. Its pointed loveliness and desire entered him to the marrow. Vistas of grandeur and surcease opened beyond the railing as if the music had words—

  Come to us for heart-heal and soul-assuage,

  for consummation of every flesh

  —as if the sun-glistered and gracile dance of the waterspouts were an utterance in a language he understood. Only Pitchwife’s hands prevented him from diving into the deep sea in reply.

  Linden’s face appeared in front of him, as vivid as panic. She was shouting, but he did not hear her through the song. Only those hands prevented him from sweeping her aside on his way to the sea. His heart had stopped beating—or perhaps no time had passed. Only those hands—!

  In a flash, his fire gathered. Wild magic burned through his bones to blast Pitchwife away from him.

  But power and venom turned the music of the merewives to screaming in his mind. Revulsion flooded through him—the Dancers’ or his, he could not tell the difference. They did not want a man like him—and Pitchwife was his friend, he did not wish to hurt his friend, not again, he had already hurt more friends than he could endure. In spite of Pitchwife’s Giantish capacity to sustain fire, his grip had been broken. Not again!

  Free of the song, Covenant stumbled forward, collided with Linden.

  She grappled for him as if he were still trying to hurl himself into the sea. He wrestled to break loose. The passing of the music left incandescent trails of comprehension through him. The merewives did not want the danger he represented. But they desired men—potent and vital men, men to sustain them. Linden fought to hold him, using the same skills she had once used against Sunder. He tried to shout, Let me go! It isn’t me they want! But his throat was clogged with memories of music. Consummation of every flesh. He twisted one arm free, pointed wildly.

  Too late.

  Brinn and Cail were already sprinting toward the rail.

  Everyone had been watching Covenant. Seadreamer and the First had moved toward him to catch him if Linden failed. And they had all learned to rely on the invulnerability of the Haruchai. None of them could react in time.

  Together Brinn and Cail bounded onto the railing. For a fractional instant, they were poised in the sunlight, crouched to leap forward like headlong joy. Then they dove for the sea as if it had become the essence of all their hearts’ desires.

  For a moment like the pause of an astonished heart, no one moved. The masts stood straight and still, as if they had been nailed to the clenched air. The sails dangled like amazement in their shrouds. Yet the dromond went on turning. As soon as the calm gathered enough momentum, the vessel would be sucked down. The Haruchai had left no splash or ripple behind to mark their existence.

  Covenant’s mouth stretched into a lost shout. He was panting to himself, Brinn, Brinn. He had placed so much faith in the Haruchai, needed them so much. Were their hearts mortal and frangible after all? Bannor had commanded him, Redeem my people. He had failed again.

  With an effort like a convulsion, he flung Linden aside. As she staggered away, he let out a cry of flame.

  His eruption broke the onlookers out of their trance. The First and Honninscrave yelled orders. Giants leaped into action.

  Linden tried to take hold of Covenant again. Her fear for him mottled her face. But his blaze kept her back. He moved toward the railing like a wash of fire.

  Seadreamer and Pitchwife were there ahead of him. They fought like foemen, Seadreamer trying to reach the sea, Pitchwife restraining him. As he struggled, Pitchwife gasped out, “Are you not male? Should they turn their song against you, how will you refuse it?”

  Covenant put out an arm of flame, yanked Sead
reamer back onto the foredeck. Then he was at the rail himself. Fire poured down his arms as if he were summoning a cataclysm against the Dancers.

  People shouted at him—Linden, Findail, the First. He did not know what he would do if the merewives directed their song at him again—and did not care. He was rapt with fury for Brinn and Cail. The Haruchai had served him steadfastly when his need had been so great that he could not even ask for help.

  Abruptly a hand struck his shoulder, turned him to the side. The First confronted him, her arm raised for another blow. “Giantfriend, hear me!” she shouted. “Withhold your might, lest they find means to bend it against you!”

  “They’re my friends!” His voice was a blare of vehemence.

  “And mine!” she responded, matching his ire with iron. “If they may be reached by any rescue, I will do it!”

  He did not want to stop. The venom in his veins was alight with glee. For an instant, he was on the verge of simply brushing her aside, a mere annoyance to his power.

  But then Linden joined the First, imploring him with her eyes, her open hands. Trepidation aggrieved her face, made her suddenly poignant to him. Her hair shone about her shoulders like yearning. He remembered who he was—a leper with good reason to fear wild magic. “They’re my friends,” he repeated hoarsely. But if he heard the song of the Dancers again he would not be able to refuse it. He had no way to rescue Brinn and Cail except with a violence so immense that it might destroy Starfare’s Gem as well.

  He turned from the railing, raised his face to the cerulean stasis of the sky as if he meant to shock it with expostulation. But he did not. Sagging, he let the fire fray away from his bones. His ring seemed to manacle the second finger of his half-hand.

  He heard Findail’s tight sigh of relief. But he ignored the Elohim. He was gazing at Seadreamer. He might have injured the mute Giant.

  But Seadreamer was like his kindred, immune to fire if not to pain. He had mastered himself and met Covenant’s look as if they shared reasons for abashment.