The One Tree

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Their impulse to explore the city, investigate the handiwork of their long-dead people, was palpable to Linden. And Covenant’s eyes shone in response—a recollection of the caamora by which he had redeemed Coercri from anguish, earning the title the First had given him, Giantfriend. But through the tumult, monolithic jests and laughter to which Pitchwife riposted gleefully, questions that the Haruchai answered with characteristic tersity, salutations which dazzled Linden and made Covenant straighten his back as if he sought to be taller, the First addressed Honninscrave sternly, telling him of her decision to aid Covenant’s quest. And she spoke of urgency, of the growing chancre of the Sunbane and of the difficulty of locating the One Tree, creating a new Staff of Law in time to prevent the Sunbane from tearing the heart out of the Earth. The Master’s excitement sobered rapidly. When she asked about the state of the Giantship’s supplies, he replied that the Anchormaster, his second-in-command, had reprovisioned the dromond while waiting off the littoral of the Great Swamp. Then he began calling his crew back to the ship.

  Several of the Giants protested good-naturedly, asking for the story of The Grieve. But Covenant was nodding to himself as if he were thinking of the way the Clave fed the Banefire and the Sunbane with blood. Honninscrave did not hesitate. “Patience, sluggards!” he responded. “Are you Giants, that a little patience eludes you? Let stories await their turn, to ease the labor of the seas. The First requires haste!”

  His command gave Linden a pang of regret. The ebullience of these Giants was the happiest thing she had seen in a long time. And she thought that perhaps Covenant might want a chance to savor what he had achieved here. But she understood him well enough to know that he would not accept honor for himself without persuasion. Moving closer to him, she thrust her voice through the clamor. “Berek found the One Tree, and he didn’t have any Giants to help him. How far away can it be?”

  He did not look at her. The dromond held his gaze. Under his beard, he chewed a mood which was half excitement, half trepidation.

  “Sunder and Hollian will do everything they can,” she went on. “And those Haruchai you freed aren’t going to sit on their hands. The Clave is already in trouble. We can afford a little time.”

  His eyes did not shift. But she felt his attention turn toward her. “Tell me,” he murmured, barely audible through the interchanges of the Giants. They and the Haruchai had ranged themselves expectantly along the pier. “Do you think I should have tried to destroy the Clave? While I had the chance?”

  The question struck a nerve in her. It resembled too closely another question he would have asked if he had known enough about her. “Some infections have to be cut out,” she replied severely. “If you don’t kill the disease somehow, you lose the patient. Do you think those fingers of yours were cut off out of spite?”

  His brows flinched. He regarded her as if she had startled him out of his personal concerns, made him aware of her in a way which would not allow peace between them. The muscles of his throat were tight as he asked, “Is that what you would have done?”

  She could not keep from wincing. Gibbon had said to her, You have committed murder. Are you not evil? Suddenly she felt sure that Covenant would have agreed with the Raver. Fighting to conceal her self-betrayal, she answered, “Yes. Why else do you have all that power?” She already knew too well how much she wanted power.

  “Not for that.” Around them, the Giants had fallen silent, waiting for his decision. In the unanticipated quiet, his vehemence rang out like a promise over the lapping of the Sea. But he ignored his audience. Facing Linden squarely, he articulated, “I’ve already killed twenty-one of them. I’m going to find some other answer.”

  She thought he would go on. But a moment later he seemed to see and recognize her abashment, though he could not have known its cause. At once, he turned to the First. Softly he said, “I’d feel better if we got started.”

  She nodded, but did not move. Instead she drew her falchion, gripped it in both hands like a salute.

  “Giantfriend.” As she spoke, there was a shout in her words, though her voice was quiet. “To all our people you have given a gift which we will repay. This I say in the name of the Search, and of the Earth-Sight”—she glanced at Seadreamer—“which guides us still, though I have chosen another path to the same goal.” Seadreamer’s face knotted around the white scar running under his eyes across the bridge of his nose; but he permitted himself to show no protest. The First concluded, “Covenant Giantfriend, we are yours while your purpose holds.”

  Covenant remained silent, a man tangled in gratitude and self-doubt. But he bowed his head to the leader of the Search.

  The gesture touched Linden. It became him, as if he had found in himself the grace, or perhaps the sense of worth, to accept help. But at the same time she was relieved to escape the hidden conflicts which had surfaced in his questions. When the First said firmly, “Let us sail,” Linden followed the Giants without hesitation toward Starfare’s Gem.

  The side of the Giantship leaned hugely over her; and when she set her hands and feet to the heavy thews of the rope-ladder which the crew held for her, the ascent seemed to carry her surprisingly high, as if the vessel were even larger than it appeared to be. But Cail climbed protectively behind her, and Giants surged upward on all sides. As she stooped through the railing onto the foredeck, she forgot her discomfiture. The dromond reached out to her like an entrancement. Unaccustomed to such stone, she could not extend her percipience very far around her; but all the granite within her range felt as vital as living wood. She half expected to taste sap flowing beneath the surfaces of the Giantship. And that sensation intensified as her companions boarded the craft. Because of his vertigo and his half-hand, Covenant had difficulty climbing; but Brinn soon helped him past the rail. Following either Covenant or Linden, Vain smoothly ascended the ladder, then stopped like a statue at the edge of the foredeck, smiling his black, ambiguous smile. Ceer and Hergrom appeared to flow up the ropes. And as every set of feet took hold of the stone, Starfare’s Gem radiated more bustling energy to Linden’s nerves. Even through her shoes, the granite felt too buoyant to be overborne by any Sea.

  Sunlight covered the piers, spangled the gently heaving strip of water along the shipside, shone into the face of Coercri as if this day marked the first true dawn since the destruction of the Unhomed. Responding to Honninscrave’s commands, some of the Giants positioned themselves to release the moorings. Others leaped into the rigging, climbing the heavy cables as lightly as children. Still others went below, where Linden could feel them tending the inner life of the ship until they passed beyond her inexperienced perceptions. In moments, the lower sails began to ripple in the breeze; and Starfare’s Gem eased out to Sea.

  TWO: Black Mood

  Linden tried to watch everything as the dromond slipped backward from the levee, then turned toward open water. Shifting from side to side, she saw the Giants unfurling canvas as if the labor were done by incantation rather than effort. Under her feet, the deck began to roll; but the seas were light, and the Giantship’s great weight made it stable. She felt no discomfort. Her gaze repeatedly intersected Covenant’s, and his excitement heightened hers. His expression was free of darkness; even his beard seemed to bristle with possibilities. After a moment, she became aware that he was breathing words along the breeze:

  “Stone and Sea are deep in life,

  two unalterable symbols of the world:

  permanence at rest, and permanence in motion;

  participants in the Power that remains.”

  They resonated in her memory like an act of homage.

  When she changed positions to look back toward Coercri, the breeze caught her hair, fluttering it across her face. She ran her fingers into her wheaten tresses, held them in place; and that simple gesture gave her more pleasure in herself than she had felt for a long time. Salt tanged the air, sharpening the very sunlight so that The Grieve looked like a place of rebirth as it receded. She began to
think that perhaps more things had been reborn there than she would have dared to hope.

  Then Pitchwife began to sing. He stood some distance away, but his voice carried like light across the dromond, rising strongly from his deformed chest over the slapping of the waves and the snap of the canvas. His tune was a plain-song spiced with accents and suggestions of harmony; and the other Giants joined him:

  “Come sea and wave—

  broad footpath of those who roam

  and gateway to the world!

  All ways lead the way to Home.

  “Come wind and speed—

  sky-breath and the life of sail!

  Lines and sheets unfurled,

  our hearts covet every gale.

  “Come travel and quest!

  Discovery of the Earth:

  mysteries unknurled:

  roaming without stint or dearth:

  “Risk and journey save

  the heart of life from loss and need.

  We are the ocean’s guest,

  and we love the vasty world!”

  The Giants were joyful singers, and their voices formed a counterpoint to the rocking of the masts, a song punctuated by a rising staccato as the breeze knocked the canvas. Starfare’s Gem appeared to ride music as well as wind.

  And as the wind stiffened, Coercri slid toward the horizon with surprising celerity while the sun rose into midday. Honninscrave and his crew exchanged comments and jests as if they were all negligent; but his eyes under the bulwark of his brows missed nothing. At his orders, the rest of the sails had been raised; and Starfare’s Gem strode into the Sunbirth Sea with a fleetness that fulfilled the prophecy of its moire-marked sides. Linden could feel vibrancy running like a thrill through the stone. In the hands of Giants, even granite became a thing of swiftness and graceful poise.

  Before long, her sensations became so sapid that she could no longer remain still. Instinctively she moved away to begin exploring the ship.

  At once, Cail was at her shoulder. As she crossed the foredeck, he surprised her by asking if she wanted to see her quarters.

  She stopped to stare at him. The impassive wall of his mien gave no hint of how he had come by enough knowledge of the dromond to make such an offer. His short tunic left his brown limbs always free and ready; but his question made him appear not only prepared but also prescient. However, he answered her mute inquiry by explaining that Ceer and Hergrom had already spoken to the Storesmaster and had obtained from her at least a skeletal understanding of the ship.

  For a moment, Linden paused to consider the continuing providence of the Haruchai. But then she realized that Cail had offered her exactly what she did want—a place of her own; privacy in which to accustom herself to the sensations of the Giantship; a chance to clarify the new things that were happening to her. And perhaps the hospitality of the Giants would extend as far as bathwater? Hot bathwater? Images of luxuriance filled her head. How long had it been since she had last taken a hot bath? Since she had felt genuinely clean? She nodded to Cail and followed him toward the stern of the dromond.

  Amidships stood a flat-roofed structure that separated the fore- and afterdecks, completely spanning the vessel from side to side. When Cail led her into the housing through a sea door with a storm-sill as high as her knees, she found herself in a long eating-hall with a galley on one side and a warren of storage-lockers on the other. The structure had no windows, but lanterns made it bright and cheery. Their light gleamed on the stone of the midmast as it passed straight through the hall like a rooftree. The shaft was carved like a hatchment with patterns at which she was tempted to look more closely. But Cail moved through the hall as if he already knew all its secrets; and she went with him out to the afterdeck.

  Together they crossed to the Giantship’s stern. She acknowledged Honninscrave’s salute from the wheeldeck, then followed Cail through another sea door to starboard below the Master’s position. That entrance gave access to a smooth stone ladder leading downward. The ladder had been formed for Giants, but she was able to use it. And she only had to descend one level. There, in a passageway lit by more lanterns, she found a series of doors—rooms, Cail explained, which had been set aside for her, Vain, Ceer, and himself.

  Covenant, Brinn, and Hergrom were to be similarly housed on the port side of the vessel.

  When she entered her cabin, she discovered that it was a chamber which would have been small for a Giant but seemed almost wastefully large for her. A long hammock hung near one wall; two massive chairs and a table occupied most of the floor. These furnishings outsized her: the chair-seats reached to her waist; and she would have to stand on the table to gain the hammock. But for the present those difficulties did not bother her. The chamber was bright with sunshine reflecting through an open port, and it offered privacy. She was glad to have it.

  But moments after Cail left in search of the food and bathwater she requested of him, a tension which had been nagging at her underneath her excitement demanded her notice. The withdrawal of Cail’s hard Haruchai presence pulled aside a veil within her. A hand of darkness hidden somewhere inside the depths of the dromond reached out one dire finger toward her heart. At its touch, all her relief and anticipation and newness eroded and fell down like a sea-doused castle of sand. An old and half-forgotten black mood began to seep back into her.

  It stank of her parents and Gibbon.

  After all, what had truly changed for her? What right or reason did she have to be where she was? She was still the same—a woman driven by the need to flee death rather than to pursue life. She did not know how to change. And the na-Mhoram had explicitly denied her hope. He had said, You are being forged as iron is forged to achieve the ruin of the Earth. Because you are open to that which no other in the Land can discern, you are open to be forged. She would never be free of his eager cruelty, of the gelid ill with which he had desecrated her private flesh—or of the way she had responded. The message of his doom came back to her now, rising as if it grew from the keel of Starfare’s Gem—as if the health of the dromond contained a canker spot which fed on the Giants and their ship.

  That blackness had contorted much of her life. It was her parents, her father and mother. And it was here. It was within her, and yet she inhaled it as if the air were full of it as well. A fate she could neither name nor endure seemed to lurk in ambush for her, so that her cabin felt more like a cell in the hold of Revelstone than a sun-washed chamber in the company of Giants.

  For several long moments, she fought the oppression, struggled to define the strange way it appeared to spring from outside her. But her past was too strong; it blinded her percipience. Long before Cail could return, she fled her cabin, rushed back up to the open air. Clinging to the starboard rail with hands that trembled, she swallowed repeatedly, heavily, at the old dread rising in her throat like a recognition of Gibbon’s touch.

  But gradually the darkness lessened. She could think of no reason why this should be true; but she felt instinctively that she had put some distance between herself and the source of the mood. Seeking to increase that distance, she turned toward the nearest stairway to the wheeldeck.

  Ceer had appeared at her side to ward her while Cail was away. She could hardly refrain from leaning against him, bracing her frailty on his rectitude. But she hated that weakness. Striving to ignore it, deny it, she impelled herself up the stairs alone.

  On the wheeldeck, she found Honninscrave, the First, Covenant, Brinn, and another Giant who held the great wheel which guided the ship. This wheel was formed of stone and stood half again as tall as Linden; but the steerswoman turned its spokes as lightly as if it had been carved of balsa wood. Honninscrave greeted the Chosen, and the First gave her a nod of welcome; yet Linden felt immediately that she had interrupted a discussion. Covenant looked toward her as if he meant to ask her opinion. But then he closed his mouth and gazed at her more intently. Before she could speak, he said, “Linden, what’s the matter?”

  She frowned back at h
im, vexed and shamed by the transparency of her emotions. Clearly she had not changed in any way that mattered. She still could not tell him the truth—not here, under an open sky and the eyes of the Giants. She tried to dismiss his question with a shrug, smooth out the lines of her face. But his attention did not lose its acuity. In a careful voice, she said, “I was thinking about Gibbon.” With her eyes, she asked him to let the matter pass. “I’d rather think about something else.”

  At that, his stare softened. He looked like a man who was willing to do almost anything for her. Clearing his throat, he said, “We were talking about Vain. He hasn’t moved since he came aboard. And he’s in the way. Interferes with some of the rigging. The crew asked him to move—but you know how much good that did.”

  She knew. Time and again, she had seen the Demondim-spawn in his familiar relaxed stance, arms slightly bent, eyes focused on nothing—as motionless as an obelisk.

  “So they tried to shift him. Three of them. He didn’t budge.” Covenant shook his head at the idea that anyone could be heavy or strong enough to defeat three Giants. Then he concluded, “We were trying to decide what to do about it. Honninscrave wants to use a block-and-tackle.”

  Linden gave an inward sigh of relief. The darkness retreated another step, pushed back by this chance to be of use. “It won’t do any good,” she replied. Vain’s purposes were a mystery to her; but she had seen deeply enough into him to know that he could become denser and less tractable than the granite of the ship. “If he doesn’t want to move, he won’t move.”