The One Tree

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  “Behold the Great Desert!” He faced the waste as if it were his to display. “Is it not a sight? Under such a sun the true tint is revealed—a hue stretching as far as the Bhrathair have ever journeyed, though the tale is told that in the far south the desert becomes a wonderland of every color the eye may conceive.” His arm flipped the medallion in arcs about him. “No people but the Bhrathair have ever wrested bare life from such a grand and ungiving land. But we have done more.

  “The Sandhold you have seen. Our wealth exceeds that of monarchs who rule lush demesnes. But now for the first time”—his voice tightened in expectation—“you behold Sandgorgons Doom. Not elsewhere in all the Earth is such theurgy manifested.” In spite of herself, Linden looked where the gaddhi directed her gaze. The hot sand made the bones of her forehead ache as if the danger were just beginning; but that distant violence held her. “And no other people have so triumphed over such fell foes.” Her companions seemed transfixed by the roiling thunder. Even the Haruchai stared at it as if they sought to estimate themselves against it.

  “The Sandgorgons.” Rant Absolain’s excitement mounted. “You do not know them—but I tell you this. Granted time and freedom, one such creature might tear the Sandhold stone from stone. One! They are more fearsome than madness or nightmare. Yet there they are bound. Their lives they spend railing against the gyre of their Doom, while we thrive. Only at rare events does one of them gain release—and then but briefly.” The tension in his voice grew keener, whetted by every word. Linden wanted to turn away from the Doom, drag her companions back from the parapet. But she had no name for what dismayed her.

  “For centuries, the Bhrathair lived only because the Sandgorgons did not slay them all. But now I am the gaddhi of Bhrathairealm and all the Great Desert, and they are mine!”

  He ended his speech with a gesture of florid pride; and suddenly the ebony chain slipped from his fingers.

  Sailing black across the sunlight and the pale sand, the chain and medallion arced over the parapet and fell near the base of the Sandwall. Sand puffed at the impact, settled again. The dark sun of the medallion lay like a stain on the clean earth.

  The gaddhi’s women gasped, surged to the edge to look downward. The Giants peered over the parapet.

  Rant Absolain did not move. He hugged his arms around his chest to contain a secret emotion.

  Reacting like a good courtier, Rire Grist said quickly, “Fear nothing, O gaddhi. It will shortly be restored to you. I will send my aide to retrieve it.”

  The soldier with him started back toward the stairs, clearly intending to reach one of the outer gates and return along the base of the Sandwall to pick up the medallion.

  But the gaddhi did not look at the Caitiffin. “I want it now,” he snapped with petulant authority. “Fetch rope.”

  At once, two Guards left the top of the wall, descended to the banquette, then entered the wall through the nearest opening.

  Tautly Linden searched for some clue to the peril. It thickened in the air at every moment. But the gaddhi’s attitude was not explicit enough to betray his intent. Rire Grist’s careful poise showed that he was playing his part in a charade—but she had already been convinced of that. Of the women, only the two Favored exposed any knowledge of the secret. The Lady Benj’s mien was hard with concealment. And the Lady Alif flicked covert glances of warning toward the company.

  Then the hustin returned, bearing a heavy coil of rope. Without delay, they lashed one end to the parapet and threw the other snaking down the outer face of the Sandwall. It was just long enough to reach the sand.

  For a moment, no one moved. The gaddhi was still. Honninscrave and Seadreamer were balanced beside the First, Vain appeared characteristically immune to the danger crouching on the wall; but Findail’s eyes shifted as if he saw too much. The Haruchai had taken the best defensive positions available among the Guards.

  For no apparent reason, Covenant said, “Don’t touch me.”

  Abruptly Rant Absolain swung toward the company. Heat intensified his gaze.

  “You.” His voice stretched and cracked under the strain. His right arm jerked outward, stabbing his rigid index finger straight at Hergrom. “I require my emblem.”

  The gathering clenched. Some of the women bit their lips. The Lady Alif’s hands opened, closed, opened again. Hergrom’s face betrayed no reaction; but the eyes of all the Haruchai scanned the group, watching everything.

  Linden struggled to speak. The pressure knotted her chest, but she winced out, “Hergrom, you don’t have to do that.”

  The First’s fingers were claws at her sides. “The Haruchai are our comrades. We will not permit it.”

  The gaddhi snapped something in the brackish tongue of the Bhrathair. Instantly the hustin brought their spears to bear. In such close quarters, even the swiftness of the Haruchai could not have protected their comrades from injury or death.

  “It is my right!” Rant Absolain spat up at the First. “I am the gaddhi of Bhrathairealm! The punishment of offense is my duty and my right!”

  “No!” Linden sensed razor-sharp iron less than a foot from the center of her back. But in her fear for Hergrom she ignored it, “It was Kasreyn’s fault. Hergrom was just trying to save Covenant’s life.” She aimed her urgency at the Haruchai. “You don’t have to do this.”

  The dispassion of Hergrom’s visage was complete. His detachment as he measured the Guards defined the company’s peril more eloquently than any outcry. For a moment, he and Brinn shared a look. Then he turned to Linden.

  “Chosen, we desire to meet this punishment, that we may see it ended.” His tone expressed nothing except an entire belief in his own competence—the same self-trust which had led the Bloodguard to defy death and time in the service of the Lords.

  The sight clogged Linden’s throat. Before she could swallow her dismay, her culpability, try to argue with him, Hergrom leaped up onto the parapet. Three strides took him to the rope.

  Without a word to his companions, he gripped the line and dropped over the edge.

  The First’s eyes glazed at the extremity of her restraint. But three spears were leveled at her; and Honninscrave and Seadreamer were similarly caught.

  Brinn nodded fractionally. Too swiftly for the reflexes of the Guards, Ceer slipped through the crowd, sprang to the parapet. In an instant, he had followed Hergrom down the rope.

  Rant Absolain barked a curse and hastened forward to watch the Haruchai descend. For a moment, his fists beat anger against the stone. But then he recollected himself, and his indignation faded.

  The spears did not let Linden or her companions move.

  The gaddhi issued another command. It drew a flare of fury from the Swordmain’s eyes, drove Honninscrave and Seadreamer to the fringes of their self-control.

  In response, a Guard unmoored the rope. It fell heavily onto the shoulders of Hergrom and Ceer.

  Rant Absolain threw a fierce grin at the company, then turned his attention back to the Haruchai on the ground.

  “Now, slayer!” he cried in a shrill shout. “I require you to speak!”

  Linden did not know what he meant. But her nerves yammered at the cruelty he emanated. With a wrench, she ducked under the spear at her back, surged toward the parapet. As her head passed the edge, her vision reeled into focus on Hergrom and Ceer. They stood in the sand with the rope sprawled around them. The gaddhi’s medallion lay between their feet. They were looking upward.

  “Run!” she cried. “The gates! Get to the gates!”

  She heard a muffled blow behind her. A spear-point pricked the back of her neck, pinning her against the stone.

  Covenant was repeating his litany as if he could not get anyone to listen to him.

  “Speak, slayer!” the gaddhi insisted, as avid as lust.

  Hergrom’s impassivity did not flicker. “No.”

  “You refuse? Defy me? Crime upon crime! I am the gaddhi of Bhrathairealm! Refusal is treachery!”

  Hergrom gazed h
is disdain upward and said nothing.

  But the gaddhi was prepared for this also. He barked another brackish command. Several of his women shrieked.

  Forcing her head to the side, Linden saw a Guard dangling a woman over the edge of the parapet by one ankle.

  The Lady Alif, who had tried to help the company earlier.

  She squirmed in the air, battering her fear against the Sandwall. But Rant Absolain took no notice of her. Her robe fell about her head, muffling her face and cries. Her silver anklets glinted incongruously in the white sunshine.

  “If you do not speak the name,” the gaddhi yelled down at Hergrom, “this Lady will fall to her death! And then if you do not speak the name”—he lashed a glance at Linden—“she whom you title the Chosen will be slain! I repay blood with blood!”

  Linden prayed that Hergrom would refuse. He gazed up at her, at Rant Absolain and the Lady, and his face revealed nothing. But then Ceer nodded to him. He turned away. Placing his back to the Sandwall as if he had known all along what would happen, he faced the Great Desert and Sandgorgons Doom, straightened his shoulders in readiness.

  Linden wanted to rage, No! But suddenly her strength was gone. Hergrom understood his plight. And still chose to accept it. There was nothing she could do.

  Deliberately he stepped on the gaddhi’s emblem, crushing it with his foot. Then across the clenched hush of the crowd and the wide silence of the desert, he articulated one word:

  “Nom.”

  The gaddhi let out a cry of triumph.

  The next moment, the spear was withdrawn from Linden’s neck. All the spears were withdrawn. The husta lifted the Lady Alif back to the safety of the Sandwall, set her on her feet. At once, she fled the gathering. Smiling a secretive victory, the Lady Benj watched her go.

  Turning from the parapet, Linden found that the Guards had stepped back from her companions.

  All of them except Covenant, Vain, and Findail were glaring ire and protest at Kasreyn of the Gyre.

  In her concentration on Hergrom, Linden had not felt or heard the Kemper arrive. But he stood now at the edge of the assembly and addressed the company.

  “I desire you to observe that I have played no part in this chicane. I must serve my gaddhi as he commands.” His rheumy gaze ignored Rant Absolain. “But I do not participate in such acts.”

  Linden nearly hurled herself at him. “What have you done?”

  “I have done nothing,” he replied stiffly. “You are witness.” But then his shoulders sagged as if the infant on his back wearied him. “Yet in my way I have earned your blame. What now transpires would not without me.”

  Stepping to the parapet, he sketched a gesture toward the distant blackness. He sounded old as he said, “The power of any art depends upon its flaw. Perfection cannot endure in an imperfect world. Thus when I bound the Sandgorgons to their Doom, I was compelled to place a flaw within my theurgy.” He regarded the storm as if he found it draining and lovely. He could not conceal that he admired what he had done.

  “The flaw I chose,” he soughed, “is this, that any Sandgorgon will be released if its name is spoken. It will be free while it discovers the one who spoke its name. Then it must slay the speaker and return to its Doom.”

  Slay? Linden could not think. Slay?

  Slowly Kasreyn faced the company again. “Therefore I must share blame. For it was I who wrought Sandgorgons Doom. And it was I who placed the name your companion has spoken in his mind.”

  At that, giddy realizations wheeled through Linden. She saw the Kemper’s mendacity mapped before her in white sunlight. She turned as if she were reeling, lurched back to the parapet. Run! she cried. Hergrom! But her voice made no sound.

  Because she had chosen to let Kasreyn live. It was intolerable. With a gasp, she opened her throat. “The gates!” Her shout was frail and hoarse, parched into effectlessness by the desert. “Run! We’ll help you fight!”

  Hergrom and Ceer did not move.

  “They will not,” the Kemper said, mimicking sadness. “They know their plight. They will not bring a Sandgorgon among you, nor among the innocents of the Sandhold. And,” he went on, trying to disguise his pride, “there is not time. The Sandgorgons answer their release swiftly. Distance has no meaning to such power. Behold!” His voice sharpened. “Though the Doom lies more than a score of leagues hence, already the answer draws nigh.”

  On the other side of the company, the gaddhi began to giggle.

  And out from under the virga came a plume of sand among the dunes, arrowing toward the Sandhold. It varied as the terrain varied, raising a long serpentine cloud; but its direction was unmistakable. It was aimed at the spot where Ceer and Hergrom stood against the Sandwall.

  Even from that distance, Linden felt the radiations of raw and hostile power.

  She pressed her uselessness against the parapet. Her companions stood aching behind her; but she did not turn to look at them, could not. Rant Absolain studied the approaching Sandgorgon and trembled in an ague of eagerness. The sun leaned down on the Sandhold like a reproach.

  Then the beast itself appeared. Bleached to an albino whiteness by ages of sun, it was difficult to see against the pale desert. But it ran forward with staggering speed and became clear.

  It was larger than the Haruchai awaiting it, but it hardly had size enough to contain so much might. For an instant, Linden was struck by the strangeness of its gait. Its knees were back-bent like a bird’s, and its feet were wide pads, giving it the ability to traverse sand with immense celerity and force. Then the Sandgorgon was almost upon Hergrom and Ceer; and she perceived other details.

  It had arms, but no hands. Its forearms ended in flat flexible stumps like prehensile battering rams—arms formed to contend with sand, to break stone.

  And it had no face. Its head was featureless except for the faint ridges of its skull beneath its hide and two covered slits like gills on either side.

  It appeared as violent and absolute as a force of nature. Watching it, Linden was no longer conscious of breathing. Her heart might have stopped. Even Covenant with all his wild magic could not have equaled this feral beast.

  Together Hergrom and Ceer stepped out from the Sandwall, then separated so that the Sandgorgon could not attack them both at once.

  The creature shifted its impetus slightly. In a flash of white hide and fury, it charged straight at Hergrom.

  At the last instant, he spun out of its way. Unable to stop, the Sandgorgon crashed headlong into the wall.

  Linden felt the impact as if the entire Sandhold had shifted. Cracks leaped through the stone; chunks recoiled outward and thudded to the ground.

  Simultaneously Ceer and Hergrom sprang for the creature’s back. Striking with all their skill and strength, they hammered at its neck.

  It took the blows as if they were handfuls of sand. Spinning sharply, it slashed at them with its arms.

  Ceer ducked, evaded the strike. But one arm caught Hergrom across the chest, flung him away like a doll.

  None of them made a sound. Only their blows, their movements on the sand, articulated the combat.

  Surging forward, Ceer butted the beast’s chin with such force that the Sandgorgon rebounded a step. Immediately he followed, raining blows. But they had no effect. The beast caught its balance. Its back-bent knees flexed, preparing to spring.

  Ceer met that thrust with a perfectly timed hit at the creature’s throat.

  Again the Sandgorgon staggered. But this time one of its arms came down on the Haruchai’s shoulder. Dumbly Linden’s senses registered the breaking of bones. Ceer nearly fell.

  Too swiftly for any defense, the Sandgorgon raised one footpad and stamped at Ceer’s leg.

  He sprawled helplessly, with splinters protruding from the wreckage of his thigh and knee. Blood spattered the sand around him.

  Seadreamer was at the edge of the parapet, straining to leap downward as if he believed he would survive the fall. Honninscrave and the First fought to restrain hi
m.

  The gaddhi’s giggling bubbled like the glee of a demon.

  Cail’s fingers gripped Linden’s arm as if he were holding her responsible.

  As Ceer fell, Hergrom returned to the combat. Running as hard as he could over the yielding surface, he leaped into the air, launched a flying kick at the Sandgorgon’s head.

  The beast retreated a step to absorb the blow, then turned, tried to sweep Hergrom into its embrace. He dodged. Wheeling behind the Sandgorgon, he sprang onto its back. Instantly he clasped his legs to its torso, locked his arms around its neck and squeezed. Straining every muscle, he clamped his forearm into the beast’s throat, fought to throttle the creature.

  It flailed its arms, unable to reach him.

  Rant Absolain stopped giggling. Disbelief radiated from him like a cry.

  Linden forced herself against the corner of the parapet, clung to that pain. A soundless shout of encouragement stretched her mouth.

  But behind the beast’s ferocity lay a wild cunning. Suddenly it stopped trying to strike at Hergrom. Its knees bent as if it were crouching to the ground.

  Savagely it hurled itself backward at the Sandwall.

  There was nothing Hergrom could do. He was caught between the Sandgorgon and the hard stone. Tremors like hints of earthquake shuddered through the wall.

  The beast stepped out of Hergrom’s grasp, and he slumped to the ground. His chest had been crushed. For a moment, he continued to breathe in a wheeze of blood and pain, torturing his ruptured lungs, his pierced heart. As white and featureless as fate, the Sandgorgon regarded him as if wondering where to place the next blow.