The One Tree t2cotc-2

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  “Therefore whensoever there is a need upon the Earth which requires us, one is Appointed to be our wisdom. According to the need, his purpose varies. In one age, the Appointed may deny our unity, challenging us to seek more deeply for the truth. In another, he may be named to fulfil that unity.” For an instant, her tone took on a more ominous colour. “In all ages, he pays the price of doubt. Findail will hazard his life against the Earth's doom.”

  Doom? The idea gave Linden a pang. How? Was Findail like Covenant, then-accepting the cost for an entire people? What cost? What had the Elohim seen for which they felt responsible-and yet were unwilling to explain?

  What did they know of the Despiser? Was he Chant's shadow?

  Her gaze continued to follow Findail. But while she grappled with her confusion, a change came over the eftmound. All the Elohim stopped moving, and Daphin gave a smile of anticipation. “Ah, Sun-Sage,” she breathed. “Infelice comes. Now begins the Elohimfest.”

  Infelice? Linden asked mutely. But the bells gave no answer.

  The Elohim had turned toward her left. When she looked in that direction, she saw a figure of light approaching from beyond the elms. It cast the tree limbs into black relief. With the grave and stately stride of a thurifer, the figure entered the ring, passed among the people to the crest of the hill. There she halted and faced the company of the quest.

  She was a tall woman, and her loveliness was as lucent as gemfire. Her hair shone. Her supple form shed gleams like a sea in moonlight. Her raiment was woven of diamonds, adorned with rubies. A penumbra of glory outlined her against the trees and the sky. She was Infelice, and she stood atop the eftmound like the crown of every wonder in Elemesnedene.

  Her sovereign eyes passed over the company, came to Linden, met and held her stare. Under that gaze, Linden's knees grew weak. She felt a yearning to abase herself before this regal figure. Surely humility was the only just response to such a woman. Honninscrave was already on his knees, and the other Giants were following his example.

  But Covenant remained upright, an icon graven of hard bone and intransigence. And none of the Elohim had given Infelice any obeisance except their rapt silence. Only the music of the bells sounded like worship. Linden locked her joints and strove to hold her own against the grandeur of that woman's gaze.

  Then Infelice looked away; and Linden almost sagged in relief. Raising her arms, Infelice addressed her people in a voice like the ringing of light crystal. “I am come. Let us begin.”

  Without warning or preparation, the Elohimfest commenced.

  The sky darkened as if an inexplicable nightfall had come to Elemesnedene, exposing a firmament empty of stars. But the Elohim took light from Infelice. In the new dusk, they were wrapped around the eftmound like a mantle, multi-coloured and alive. And their gleaming aspired to the outreach of Infelice's arms. Viridian and crimson lights, emerald and essential white intensified like a spray of coruscation, mounting toward conflagration. A rainbow of fires rose up the hill. And as they grew stronger, the wind began to blow.

  It tugged at Linden's shirt, ran through her hair like the chill fingers of a ghost. She clutched at Covenant for support; but somehow she lost him. She was alone in the emblazoned gloaming and the wind. It piled against her until she staggered. The darkness increased as the lights grew brighter. She could not locate the Giants, could not touch any of the Elohim. All the material substance of Elemesnedene had become wind, and the wind cycled around the eftmound as if Infelice had invoked it, giving it birth by the simple words of her summoning.

  Linden staggered again, fell; but the ground was blown out from under her. Above her, globes of Elohim-fire had taken to the air. They were gyring upward like the sparks of a blaze in the heart of the Earth, wind-borne into the heavens. The starless sky became a bourne of bedizenings. And Linden went with them, tumbling helplessly along the wind.

  But as she rose, her awkward unfiery flesh began to soar. Below her, the hill lay like a pit of midnight at the bottom of the incandescent gyre. She left it behind, sailed up the bright spin of the sparks. Fires rang on all sides of her like transmuted bells. And still she was larked skyward by the whirlwind.

  Then suddenly the night seemed to become true night, and the wind lifted her toward a heaven bedecked with stars. In the light of the fires, she saw herself and the Elohim spring like a waterspout from the travertine fountain and cycle upward. The maidan spread out below her in the dark, then faded as she went higher. Woodenwold closed around the lea: the mountains encircled Woodenwold. Still she rose in the gyre, rushing impossibly toward the stars.

  She was not breathing, could not remember breath. She had been torn out of herself by awe-a piece of darkness flying in the company of dazzles. The horizons of the unlit Earth shrank as she arced forever toward the stars. An umbilicus of conflagration ascended from the absolute centre of the globe like the ongoing gyre of eternity.

  And then there was nothing left of herself to which she could cling. She was an unenlightened mote among perfect jewels, and the jewels were stars, and the abysses around her and within her were fathomless and incomprehensible-a void cold as dying, empty as death. She did not exist amid the magnificence of the heavens. Their lonely and stunning beauty exalted and numbed her soul. She felt ecstasy and destruction as if they were the last thoughts she would ever have; and when she lost her balance, stumbled to fall face down on the earth of the eftmound, she was weeping with a grief that had no name.

  But slowly the hard fact of the ground penetrated her, and her outcry turned to quiet tears of loss and relief and awe.

  Covenant groaned nearby. She saw him through a smear of weakness. He was on his hands and knees, clenched rigid against the heavens. His eyes were haunted by a doom of stars.

  “Bastards,” he panted. “Are you trying to break my heart?”

  Linden tried to reach out to him. But she could not move. The bells were speaking in her mind. As the Elohim slowly returned to human form around the eftmound, restoring light to the sky, their silent language attained a moment of clarity.

  One string of bells said:

  — Does he truly conceive that such is our intent? Another answered:

  — Is it not?

  Then they relapsed into the metal and crystal and wood of their distinctive tones-implying everything, denoting nothing.

  She shook her head, fought to recapture that tongue. But when she had blinked the confusion out of her eyes, she found Findail the Appointed standing in front of her.

  Stiffly, he bent to her, helped her to her feet. His visage was a hatchment of rue and strain. “Sun-Sage.” His voice sounded dull with disuse. “It is our intent to serve the life of the Earth as best we may. That life is also ours.”

  But she was still fumbling inwardly. His words seemed to have no content; and her thoughts frayed away from them, went in another direction. His bruised yellow eyes were the first orbs she had seen in Elemesnedene that appeared honest.

  Her throat was sore with the grief of stars. She could not speak above a raw whisper. “Why do you want to hurt him?”

  His gaze did not waver. But his hands were trembling. He said faintly, so that no one else could hear him, “We desire no hurt to him. We desire only to prevent the hurt which he will otherwise commit.” Then he turned away as if he could not endure the other things he wanted to say.

  The four Giants were climbing to their feet near Linden. They wore stunned expressions, buffeted by vision. Seadreamer helped Covenant erect. The Elohim were gathering again about the slopes. She had understood the bells once more.

  That such is our intent? She needed to talk to Covenant and the Giants, needed their reaction to what she had heard. Is it not? What harm did the Elohim think they could prevent by demeaning or wounding Covenant? And why were they divided about it? What made the difference between Daphin and Chant?

  But Infelice stood waiting atop the eftmound. She wore her gleamings like a cocoon of chiaroscuro from which she might emerge at any mo
ment to astonish the guests of the Elohimfest- a figure not to be denied. Firmly, she caught Linden's gaze and did not release it.

  “Sun-Sage.” Infelice spoke like the light of her raiment. “The Elohimfest has begun. What has transpired is an utterance of our being. You will be wise to hold it in your heart and seek to comprehend it. But it is past, and before us stand the purposes which have brought you among us. Come.” She beckoned gracefully. “Let us speak of these matters.”

  Linden obeyed as if Infelice's gesture had bereft her of volition. But she was immediately relieved to see that her companions did not mean to leave her alone. Covenant placed himself at her side. The Giants shifted forward behind her. Together, they passed among the Elohim and ascended the slope.

  Near the crown of the eftmound, they stopped. Infelice's height, and the extra elevation of her position, placed her eyes on a level with Honninscrave's and Seadreamer's; but she kept her attention chiefly on Linden. Linden felt naked under that eldritch gaze; but she clung to her resolve and remained erect.

  “Sun-Sage,” began Infelice, "the Giant Grimmand Honninscrave has surely shared with you his knowledge of Elemesnedene. Thus it is known to you that the bestowal of our gifts is not done freely. We possess much which is greatly perilous, not to be given without care. And knowledge or power which is not truly purchased swiftly tarnishes. If it does not turn against the hand that holds it, it loses all value whatsoever. And lastly we have little cause to relish intrusion from the outskirts of the Earth. Here we have no need of them. Therefore it is our wont to exact a price for that which is besought from us-and to refuse the seeking if the seeker can meet no price which pleases us.

  “But you are the Sun-Sage,” she went on, “and the urgency of your quest is plain. Therefore from you and your companions I will require no feoffment. If your needs lie within our reach, we will meet them without price.”

  Without — ? Linden stared up at Infelice. The belling intensified in her mind, tangling her thoughts. All the Elohim seemed to be concentrating toward her and Infelice.

  “You may speak.” Infelice's tone conveyed only the barest suggestion of impatience.

  Linden groaned to herself. Dear Christ. She turned to her companions, groping for inspiration. She should have known what to say, should have been prepared for this. But she had been braced for threats, not gifts. Infelice's offer and the bells confused everything.

  The eagerness in Honninscrave's face stopped her. All his doubt had vanished. At once, she seized the opportunity. She needed a little time to take hold of herself. Without looking at Infelice, she said as flatly as she could, “I'm a stranger here. Let Honninscrave speak first.”

  Like the passing of a great weight, she felt Infelice's gaze shift to the Master. “Speak, then, Grimmand Honninscrave,” the Elohim said in a timbre of graciousness.

  At his side, the First stiffened as if she were unable to believe that he was truly in no danger. But she could not refuse him her nod of permission. Pitchwife watched the Master with anticipation. Seadreamer's eyes were shrouded, as if some inward vision muffled his perception of his brother.

  Hope echoed like stars from under Honninscrave's massive brows as he stepped forward. “You honour me,” he said, and his voice was husky. “My desire is not for myself. It is for Cable Seadreamer my brother.”

  At that, Seadreamer's attention leaped outward.

  “Surely his plight is plain to you,” Honninscrave went on. “The Earth-Sight torments him, and that anguish has riven him of his voice. Yet it is the Earth-Sight which pilots our Search, to oppose a great evil in the Earth. The gift I ask is the gift of his voice, so that he may better guide us-and so that some easement may be accorded to his pain.”

  Abruptly, he stopped, visibly restraining himself from supplication. His pulse laboured in the clenched muscles of his neck as he forced his Giantish passion to silence while Infelice looked toward Seadreamer.

  Seadreamer replied with an expression of helpless and unexpected yearning. His oaken form was poignant with the acuteness of his desire for words, for some way to relieve the extravagant aggrievement of the Earth-Sight- or of the examination he had been given. He looked like a man who had glimpsed a saving light in the pall of his doom.

  But Infelice took only a moment to consider him. Then she addressed Honninscrave again. She sounded faintly uninterested as she said, “Surely the voice of your brother may be restored. But you know not what you ask. His muteness arises from this Earth-Sight as day arises from the sun. To grant the gift you ask, we must perforce blind the eyes of his vision. That we will not do. We would not slay him at your request. Neither will we do him this wrong.”

  Honninscrave's eyes flinched wide. Protests gathered in him, desire and dismay fighting for utterance. But Infelice said, “I have spoken,” with such finality that he staggered.

  The brief light turned to ashes in Seadreamer's face. He caught at his brother's shoulder for support. But Honninscrave did not respond. He was a Giant: he seemed unable to comprehend how a hope he had been nurturing with such determination could be denied in so few words. He made no effort to conceal the grief which knuckled his features.

  At the sight, Linden trembled in sudden anger. Apparently the graciousness of the Elohim masked an unpity like arrogance. She did not believe Infelice. These people were Earthpower incarnate. How could they be unable-?

  No, They were not unable. They were unwilling.

  Now she did not hesitate to face Infelice. Covenant tried to say something to her. She ignored him. Glaring upward, she spat out the gift she had meant to request.

  If that's true, then you're probably going to tell me you can't do anything about Covenant's venom."

  At her back, she felt her companions freeze in surprise and apprehension-taken aback by her unexpected demand, disturbed by her frank ire. But she ignored that as well, focused her shivering against Infelice's gaze.

  “I don't ask you to do anything about his leprosy. That has too many implications. But the venom! It's killing him. It's making him dangerous to himself and everyone around him. It's probably the worst thing Foul has ever done to him. Are you going to tell me you can't do anything about that?”

  The bells rang as if they were offended or concerned. One of them said:

  — She transgresses incondignly upon our welcome. Another replied:

  — With good reason. Our welcome has not been kindly. But a third said:

  — Our path is too strait for kindness. He must not be permitted to destroy the Earth.

  Linden did not listen to them. All her wrath was fixed on Infelice, waiting for the tall woman to meet or deny her implicit accusation.

  “Sun-Sage.” Infelice's tone had hardened like a warning. “I see this venom of which you speak. It is plain in him-as is the wrong which you name leprosy. But we have no unction for this hurt. It is power-apt for good or ill-and too deeply entwined in his being for any disentanglement. Would you have us rip out the roots of his life? Power is life, and for him its roots are venom and leprosy. The price of such aid would be the loss of all power forever.”

  Linden confronted Infelice. Rage set all her old abhorrence of futility afire. She could not endure to be rendered so useless. Behind her, Covenant was repeating her name, trying to distract her, warn or restrain her. But she had had enough of subterfuge and defalcation. The ready violence which lurked beneath the surface of Elemesnedene coursed through her.

  “All right!” she flamed, daring Infelice to respond in kind, though she knew the Elohim had the might to snuff her like a candle. “Forget it. You can't do anything about the venom.” A sneer twisted her mouth. “You can't give Seadreamer back his voice. All right. If you say so. Here's something you goddamn well can do.”, “Chosen!” cautioned the First. But Linden did not stop.

  “You can fight the Despiser for us.”

  Her demand stunned the Giants into silence. Covenant swore softly as if he had never conceived of such a request. But her moiling passion w
ould not let her halt.

  Infelice had not moved. She, too, seemed taken aback.

  “You sit here in your clachan,” Linden went on, choosing words like items of accusation, "letting time go by as if no evil or danger in all the world has any claim on your hieratic self-contemplation, when you could be doing something! You're Earthpower! You're all made out of Earthpower. You could stop the Sunbane-restore the Law-defeat Lord Foul-just by making the effort!

  “Look at you!” she insisted. “You stand up there so you can be sure of looking down on us. And maybe you've got the right. Maybe Earthpower incarnate is so powerful we just naturally seem puny and pointless to you. But we're trying!” Honninscrave and Seadreamer had been hurt. Covenant had been denied. The whole quest was being betrayed. She flung out her sentences like jerrids, trying to strike some point of vulnerability or conscience in Infelice. “Foul is trying to destroy the Land. And if he succeeds, he won't stop there. He wants the whole Earth. Right now, his only enemies are puny, pointless mortals like us. In the name of simple shame if nothing else, you should be willing to stop him!”

  As she ran out of words, lurched into silence, voices rose around the eftmound-expostulations of anger, concern, displeasure. Among them, Chant's shout stood out stridently. “Infelice, this is intolerable!”

  “No!” Infelice shot back. Her denial stopped the protests of the Elohim, “She is the Sun-Sage, and I will tolerate her!”

  This unexpected response cut the ground from under Linden. She wavered inwardly; surprise daunted her ire. The constant adumbration of the bells weakened her. She was barely able to hold Infelice's gaze as the tall Elohim spoke.

  “Sun-Sage,” she said with a note like sorrow or regret in her voice, “this thing which you name Earthpower is our Wurd.” Like Daphin, she blurred the sound so that it could have been either Wyrd or Word, "You believe it to be a thing of suzerain might. In sooth, your belief is just. But have you come so far across the Earth without comprehending the helplessness of Power? We are what we are-and what we are not, we can never become. He whom you name the Despiser is a being of another kind entirely. We are effectless against him. That is our Wurd.