The One Tree t2cotc-2

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Instead, she forced herself to go back to her cabin. Down into the darkness rather than away from it.

  She found that in her absence the old furniture had been replaced with chairs and a table more to her size; and a stepladder had been provided to give her easier access to the hammock. But this courtesy did not relieve her. Still the oppression seeped into her from the stone of the dromond. Even after she threw open the port, letting in the wind and the sounds of the Sea under the ship's heel, the chamber's ambience remained viscid, comfortless. When she mustered the courage to extinguish her lantern, the dark concentrated inward on her, hinting at malice.

  I'm going crazy. Despite its special texture, the granite around her began to feel like the walls of Revelstone, careless and unyielding. Memories of her parents gnawed at the edges of her brain. Have committed murder. Going crazy. The blood on her hands was as intimate as any Covenant had ever shed.

  She could hear the Giants singing overhead, though the noise of the Sea obscured their words. But she fought her impulse to flee the cabin, run back to the misleading security °f the assemblage. Instead, she followed the faint scent of diamondraught until she found a flask of the potent Giantish liquor on her table. Then she hesitated. Diamondraught was an effective healer and roborant, as she knew from personal experience; but it was also strongly soporific. She hesitated because she was afraid of sleep, afraid that slumber represented another flight from something she needed desperately to confront and master. But she had faced these moods often enough in the past, endured them until she had wanted to wail like a lost child-and what had she ever accomplished by it? Estimating the effect of the diamondraught, she took two small swallows. Then she climbed into the hammock, pulled a blanket over herself to help her nerves feel less exposed, and tried to relax. Before she was able to unknot her muscles, the sea-sway of the dromond lifted her into slumber.

  For a time, the world of her unconsciousness was blissfully empty. She rode long slow combers of sleep on a journey from nowhere into nowhere and suffered no harm. But gradually the night became the night of the woods behind Haven Farm, and ahead of her burned the fire of invocation to Lord Foul. Joan lay there, possessed by a cruelty so acute that it stunned Linden to the soul. Then Covenant took Joan's place, and Linden broke free, began running down the hillside to save him, forever running down the hillside to save him and never able to reach him, never able to stop the astonishing violence which drove the knife into his chest. It pierced him whitely, like an evil and tremendous fang. When she reached him, blood was gushing from the wound-more blood than she had ever seen in her life. Impossible that one body held so much blood! It welled out of him as if any number of people had been slain with that one blow.

  She could not stop it. Her hands were too small to cover the wound. She had left her medical bag in her car. Feverishly, she tore off her shirt to try to staunch the flow, leaving herself naked and defenceless; but the flannel was instantly soaked with blood, useless. Blood slicked her breasts and thighs as she strove to save his life and could not. Despite every exigency of her training and self-mortification, she could not stop that red stream. The firelight mocked her. The wound was growing.

  In moments, it became as wide as his chest. Its violence ate at his tissues like venom. Her hands still clutched the futile sop of her shirt, still madly trying to exert pressure to plug the well; but it went on expanding until her arms were lost in him to the elbows. Blood poured over her thighs like the lichor of the world. She was hanging from the edge by her chest, with her arms extended into the red maw as if she were diving to her death. And the wound continued to widen. Soon it was larger than the stone on which Covenant had fallen, larger than the hollow in the woods.

  Then with a shock of recognition she saw that the wound was more than a knife-thrust in his chest: it was a stab to the very heart of the Land. The hole had become a pit before her, and its edge was a sodden hillside, and the blood spewing over her was the life of the Earth. The Land was bleeding to death. Before she could even cry out, she was swept away across the murdered body of the ground. She had no way to save herself from drowning.

  The turbulence began to buffet her methodically. The hot fluid made her throat raw, burned her voice out of her. She was helpless and lost. Her mere flesh could not endure or oppose such an atrocity. Better if she had never tried to help Covenant, never tried to staunch his wound. This would never have happened if she had accepted her paralysis and simply let him die.

  But the shaking of her shoulders and the light slapping across her face insisted that she had no choice. The rhythm became more personal; by degrees, it dragged her from her diamondraught-sopor. When she wrenched her eyes open, the moonlight from the open port limned Cail's visage. He stood on the stepladder so that he could reach her to awaken her. Her throat was sore, and the cabin still echoed her screaming.

  “Cail!” she gasped. Oh my God!

  “Your sleep was troubled.” His voice was as flat as his mien. “The Giants say their diamondraught does not act thus.”

  “No.” She struggled to sit up, fought for self-possession Images of nightmare flared across her mind; but behind them the mood in which she had gone to sleep had taken on a new significance. “Get Covenant.”

  “The ur-Lord rests,” he replied inflectionlessly.

  Impelled by urgency, Linden flung herself over the edge of the hammock, forced Cail to catch her and lower her to the floor. “Get him.” Before the Haruchai could respond, she rushed to the door.

  In the lantern-lit companionway, she almost collided with Seadreamer. The mute Giant was approaching her cabin as if e had heard her cries. For an instant, she was stopped by the similarity between her nightmare and the vision which had reft him of his voice-a vision so powerful that it had compelled his people to launch a Search for the wound which threatened the Earth. But she had no time. The ship was in danger! Sprinting past him, she leaped for the ladder.

  When she reached open air, she was in the shadow of the wheeldeck as the moon sank toward setting. Several Giants were silhouetted above her. Heaving herself up the high stairs, she confronted the Storesmaster, a Giant holding Shipsheartthew, and two or three companions. Her chest strained to control her fear as she demanded, “Get the First.”

  The Storesmaster, a woman named Heft Galewrath, had a bulky frame tending toward fat which gave her an appearance of stolidity; but she wasted no time on questions or hesitancy. With a nod to one of her companions, she said simply, “Summon the First. And the Master.” The crewmember obeyed at once.

  As Linden regained her breath, she became aware that Cail was beside her. She did not ask him if he had called Covenant. The pale scar which marked his left arm from shoulder to elbow had been given him by a Courser-spur aimed at her. It seemed to refute any doubt of him.

  Then Covenant came up the stairs, with Brinn at his back. He looked dishevelled and groggy in the moonlight; but his voice was tight as he began, “Linden-?” She gestured him silent, knotted her fists to retain her fragile grip on herself. He turned to Cail; but before Covenant could phrase a question, Honninscrave arrived with his beard thrust forward like a challenge to any danger threatening his vessel. The First was close behind him.

  Linden faced them all, forestalled anything they might ask. Her voice shook.

  “There's a Raver on this ship.”

  Her words stunned the night. Everything was stricken into silence. Then Covenant asked, “Are you sure?” His question appeared to make no sound.

  The First overrode him. “What is this 'Raver?' ” The metal of her tone was like an upraised sword.

  One of the sails retorted dully in its gear as the wind changed slightly. The deck tilted. The Storesmaster called softly aloft for adjustments to be made in the canvas. Starfare's Gem righted its tack. Linden braced her legs against the

  ship's movement and hugged the distress in her stomach, concentrating on Covenant.

  “Of course I'm sure.” She could not suppress her trem
bling. “I can feel it.” The message in her nerves was as vivid as lightning. “At first I didn't know what it was. I've felt like this before. Before we came here.” She was dismayed by the implications of what she was saying-by the similarity between her old black moods and the taste of a Raver. But she compelled herself to go on. “But I was looking for the wrong thing. It's on this ship. Hiding. That's why I didn't understand sooner.” As her throat tightened, her voice rose toward shrillness. “On this ship.”

  Covenant came forward, gripped her shoulders as if to prevent her from hysteria. “Where is it?”

  Honninscrave cut off Covenant's question. “What is it? I am the Master of Starfare's Gem. I must know the peril.”

  Linden ignored Honninscrave. She was focused on Covenant, clinching him for strength. “I can't tell.” And to defend him. Gibbon-Raver had said to her, You are being forged. She, not Covenant. But every attack on her had proved to be a feint. “Somewhere below.”

  At once, he swung away from her, started toward the stairs. Over his shoulder, he called, “Come on. Help me find it.”

  “Are you crazy?” Surprise and distress wrung the cry from her. “Why do you think it's here?”

  He stopped, faced her again. But his visage was obscure in the moonlight. She could see only the waves of vehemence radiating from his bones. He had accepted his power and meant to use it.

  “Linden Avery,” said the First grimly. “We know nothing of this Raver. You must tell us what it is.”

  Linden's voice reached out to Covenant in supplication, asking him not to expose himself to this danger. “Didn't you tell them about The Grieve? About the Giant-Raver who killed all those-?” Her throat knotted, silencing her involuntarily.

  “No.” Covenant returned to stand near her, and a gentler emanation came from him in answer to her fear. “Pitchwife told that story. In Coercri I talked about the Giant-Raver. But I never described what it was.”

  He turned to the First and Honninscrave. "I told you about Lord Foul. The Despiser. But I didn't know I needed to tell you about the Ravers. They're his three highest servants. They don't have bodies of their own, so they work by taking over other beings. Possessing them." The blood in his tone smelled of Joan-and of other people Linden did not know.

  “The old Lords used to say that no Giant or Haruchai could be mastered by a Raver. But turiya Herem had a fragment of the Illearth Stone. That gave it the power to possess a Giant. It was the one we saw in Coercri. Butchering the Unhomed.”

  “Very well.” The First nodded. “So much at least is known to us, then. But why has this evil come among us? Does it seek to prevent our quest? How can it hold that hope, when so many of us are Giants and Haruchai? Her voice sharpened. ”Does it mean to possess you? Or the Chosen?" Before Linden could utter her fears, Covenant grated, “Something like that.” Then he faced her once more. “You're right. I won't go looking for it. But it's got to be found. We've got to get rid of it somehow.” The force of his will was focused on her. “You're the only one who can find it. Where is it?”

  Her reply was muffled by her efforts to stop trembling. “Somewhere below,” she repeated.

  The First looked at Honninscrave. He protested carefully, “Chosen, the under-decks are manifold and cunning. Much time will be required for a true search. And we have not your eyes. If this Raver holds no flesh, how will we discover it?”

  Linden wanted to cry out. Gibbon had touched her. She carried his evil engraved in every part of her body, would never be clean of it again. How could she bear a repetition of that touch?

  But Honninscrave's question was just; and an answering anger enabled her to meet him. The ship was threatened: Covenant was threatened. And here at least she had a chance to show that she could be a danger to Lord Foul and his machinations, not only to her friends. Her failures with Joan, with Marid, with Gibbon had taught her to doubt herself. But she had not come this far, only to repeat the surrender of her parents. Tightly, she replied, “I won't go down there. But I'll try to locate where it is.”

  Covenant released his pent breath as if her decision were a victory.

  The First and Honninscrave did not hesitate. Leaving the wheeldeck to the Storesmaster, they went down the stairs; and he sent a Giant hastening ahead of him to rouse the rest of the crew. Linden and Covenant followed more slowly. Brinn and Cail, Ceer and Hergrom formed a protective cordon around them as they moved forward to meet the Giants who came springing out of hatchways from their hammocks in Saltroamrest below the foredeck. Shortly, every crewmember who could be spared from the care of the dromond was present and ready.

  Pitchwife and Seadreamer were there as well. But the First's demeanour checked Pitchwife's natural loquacity; and Seadreamer bore himself with an air of resignation.

  In a tone of constricted brevity, forcibly restraining his Giantish outrage at the slayer of the Unhomed, Honninscrave detailed the situation to his crew, described what had to be done. When he finished, the First added sternly, “It appears that this peril is directed toward Covenant Giantfriend and the Chosen. They must be preserved at any hazard. Forget not that he is the redeemer of our lost kindred and holds a power which must not fall to this Raver. And she is a physician of great skill and insight, whose purpose in this quest is yet to be revealed. Preserve them and rid the Search of this ill.”

  She might have said more. She was a Swordmain; her desire to strike blows in the name of the Unhomed was plain in her voice. But Pitchwife interposed lightly, “It is enough. Are we not Giants? We require no urging to defend our comrades.”

  “Then make haste,” she responded. “The scouring of Starfare's Gem is no small matter.”

  Honninscrave promptly organized the Giants into groups of two and sent them below. Then he turned to Linden. “Now, Chosen.” The command came from him firmly, as if he were bred for emergencies. “Guide us.”

  She had been groping for a way to find the Raver, but had conceived no other method than to pace the ship, trying to track down the intruder's presence. As severely as she could, she said, “Forget everything under the wheeldeck. My cabin's down there. If it were that close, I would've known sooner.”

  Through one of the open hatches, the Anchormaster relayed this information to the search parties below.

  As the moon set behind Starfare's Gem, Linden Avery began to walk the afterdeck.

  Working her way between the railings, she moved deliberately forward. At every step, she fought to overcome her distinctive resistance, struggled to open herself to the Raver's ambience. Even through her shoes, her senses were alive to the stone of the dromond. The granite mapped itself under her: she could feel the Giants hunting below her until they descended beyond her range. But the evil remained hidden, vague and fatal.

  Soon the muscles along the backs of her legs began to cramp. Her nerves winced at each step. Gibbon had taught every inch of her body to dread Ravers. But she did not stop.

  Dawn came not long after moonset, though the time felt long to her; and the sun caught her halfway up the afterdeck, nearly level with the midmast. She was shivering with strain and could not be certain that she had not already passed over the Raver's covert. When Ceer offered her a drink of water, she paused to accept it. But then she went on, knurling her concentration in both fists so that she would not falter.

  Covenant had seated himself in a coil of hawser as large as a bed on one side of Foodfendhall. Brinn and Hergrom stood poised near him. He was watching her with a heavy scowl, radiating his frustration and helplessness, his anger at the blindness of his senses.

  In fear that she would weaken, fail again, again, Linden increased her pace.

  Before she reached the housing, a sudden spasm in her legs knocked her to the deck.

  At once, Cail and Ceer caught her arms, lifted her erect.

  “Here,” she panted. A fire of revulsion burned through her knees into her hips. She could not straighten her legs. “Under here. Somewhere.”

  The Anchormaster shouted w
ord down to the search parties.

  Honninscrave studied her with perplexity. “That seems a strange hiding,” he muttered. “From deck to keel below you lie only grain-holds, food-lockers, water-chests. And all are full. Sevinhand”-he referred to the Anchormaster-“found pure water, wild maize, and much good fruit on the verges of the Great Swamp.”

  Linden could not look at him. She was thinking absurdly, The verges of the Great Swamp. Where all the pollution of Sarangrave Flat drained into the Sea.

  Gritting her teeth, she felt the darkness gather under her like a thunderhead. For a time, it lay fragmented in the depths of the ship-pieces of malice. Then it stirred. Thrumming like an assault through the granite, it began to swarm. The sunlight filled her eyes with recollections of bees, forcing her to duck her head, huddle into herself. Somewhere above her head, untended sails flapped limply. Starfare's Gem had become still, braced for the onslaught of the Raver.

  It began to rise.

  Abruptly, shouts of anger and surprise echoed from the under-decks. Fighting for breath, she gasped, “It's coming!”

  The next instant, a dark gray tumult came flooding over the storm-sill out of Foodfendhall.

  Rats.

  Huge rats: rodents with sick yellow fangs and vicious eyes, hundreds of them. The Raver was in them. Their savagery filled the air with teeth.

  They poured straight toward Covenant.

  He staggered upright. At the same time, Brinn and Hergrom threw themselves between him and the attack. Ceer sped to their assistance.

  Leaping like cats, the rodents sprang for the Haruchai. Covenant's defenders seemed to vanish under the gray wave.

  At once, Honninscrave and Seadreamer charged into the assault. Their feet drummed the deck as they kicked and stamped about them. Blood spattered in all directions.

  More Giants surged out of the housing in pursuit, pounded into the fray. Brinn and Ceer appeared amid the slashing moil, followed by Hergrom. With hands and feet, they chopped and kicked, crushing rats faster than Linden's eyes could follow.