One Tree

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Covenant turned from them. It was on his head. Every one of them was here in his name—driven through risk and betrayal to this place by his self-distrust, his sovereign need for any weapon which would not destroy what he loved. Hope and doom. Vehemently he forced himself to the ascent.

  At once, Pitchwife and the First sprang ahead of him. They were Giants, adept at stone, and better equipped than he to find a bearable path. Brinn came to his side; but Covenant refused the Guardian’s tacit offer of aid, and he stayed a few steps away. Cail supported Linden as she scrambled upward. Then came Honninscrave and Seadreamer, moving shoulder-to-shoulder. Vain and Findail brought up the rear like the shadows of each other’s secrets.

  From certain angles, certain positions, the crest looked unattainable. The Isle’s ragged sides offered no paths; and neither Covenant nor Linden was able to scale sheer rock-fronts. Covenant only controlled the dizziness that tugged at his mind by locking his attention to the boulders in front of him. But the First and Pitchwife seemed to understand the way the stones would fit together, know what any given formation implied about the terrain above it. Their climb described a circuit which the company had no serious trouble following around the roughly conical cairn.

  Yet Covenant was soon panting as if the air were too pure for him. His life aboard Starfare’s Gem had not hardened him for such exertions. Each new upward step became more difficult than the last. The sun baked the complex light-and-dark of the rocks until every shadow was as distinct as a knife-edge and every exposed surface shimmered. By degrees, his robe began to weigh on him as if in leaving behind his old clothes he had assumed something heavier than he could carry. Only the numbness of his bare feet spared him from limping as Linden did at the small bruises and nicks of the stones. Perhaps he should have been more careful with himself. But he had no more room in his heart for leprosy or self-protection. He followed the First and Pitchwife as he had followed his summoner into the woods behind Haven Farm, toward Joan and fire.

  The ascent took half the morning. By tortuous increments, the company rose higher and higher above the immaculate expanse of the sea. From the north, Starfare’s Gem was easily visible, A pennon hung from the aftermast, indicating that all was well. Occasional sun-flashes off the ocean caught Covenant’s eyes brilliantly, like reminders of the white flame which had borne him up through the Sandhold to confront Kasreyn. But he had come here to escape the necessity for that power.

  Then the crown of the Isle was in sight. The sun burned in the cloudless sky. Sweat streamed down his face, air rasped hoarsely in his chest, as he trudged up the last slope.

  The One Tree was not there. His trembling muscles had hoped that the eyot’s top would hold a patch of soil in which a tree could grow. But it did not.

  From the rim of the crest, a black gulf sank into the center of the Isle.

  Covenant groaned at it as Linden and Cail came up behind him. A moment later, Honninscrave and Seadreamer arrived. Together, the companions gaped into the lightless depths.

  The gulf was nearly a stone’s throw across; and the walls were sheer, almost smooth. They descended like the sides of a well far beyond the range of Covenant’s sight. The air rising from that hole was as black and cold as an exhalation of night. It carried a tang that stung his nostrils. When he looked to Linden for her reaction, he saw her eyes brimming as if the air were so sharp with power that it hurt her.

  “Down there?” His voice was a croak. He had to take hold of Brinn’s shoulder to defend himself from the sick giddy yawning of the pit.

  “Aye,” muttered Pitchwife warily. “No otherwhere remains. We have encountered this Isle with sufficient intimacy to ascertain that the One Tree does not lie behind us.”

  Quietly Brinn confirmed, “That is the way.” He was unruffled by the climb, unwearied by his night of battle. Beside him, even Cail appeared frangible and limited.

  Covenant bared his teeth. He had to fight for breath against the dark air of the gulf. “How? Do you expect me to jump?”

  “I will guide you.” Brinn pointed to the side of the hole a short distance away. Peering in that direction, Covenant saw a ledge which angled into the pit, spiraling steeply around the walls like a rude stairway. He stared at it, and his guts twisted.

  “But I must say again,” Brinn went on, “that I may no longer serve you. I am ak-Haru Kenaustin Ardenol, the Guardian of the One Tree. I will not interfere.”

  “Terrific,” Covenant snarled. Dismay made him bitter. When he let his anger show, a flicker of fire ran through him like a glimpse of distant lightning. In spite of everything that frightened or grieved or restrained him, his nerves were primed for wild magic. He wanted to demand, Interfere with what? But Brinn was too complete to be questioned.

  For a moment, Covenant searched the area like a cornered animal. His hands fumbled at the sash of his robe. Fighting the uncertainty of his numb fingers, his half-hand, he jerked the sash tight as if it were a lifeline.

  Linden was looking at him now. She could not blink the dampness out of her eyes. Her face was pale with alarm. Her features looked too delicate to suffer the air of that hole much longer.

  With a wrench, he tore himself into motion toward the ledge.

  She caught at his arm as if he had started to fall. “Covenant—” When his glare jumped to her face, she faltered. But she did not let herself duck his gaze. In a difficult voice, as if she were trying to convey something that defied utterance, she said, “You look like you did on Kevin’s Watch. When you had to go down the stairs. You were the only thing I had, and you wouldn’t let me help you.”

  He pulled his arm away. If she tried to make him change his mind now, she would break his heart. “It’s only vertigo,” he said harshly. “I know the answer. I just need a little while to find it again.”

  Her expression pierced him like a cry. For one terrible moment, he feared that she was going to shout at him, No! It’s not vertigo. You’re so afraid of sharing anything, of letting anybody else help you—you think you’re so destructive to everything you love—that you’re going to send me back! He nearly cringed as he waited for the words to come. Echoes of his passion burned across the background of her orbs. But she did not rail against him. Her severity made her appear old and care-carved as she said, “You can’t make the Staff without me.”

  Even that was more than he could stand. She might as well have said, You can’t save the Land without me. The implications nearly tore away what little courage he had left. Was it true? Was he really so far gone in selfishness that he intended to sell the Land so that he could live?

  No. It was not true. He did not want the life he would be forced to live without her. But he had to live anyway, had to, or he would have no chance to fight Lord Foul. One man’s sole human love was not too high a price.

  Yet the mere sight of her was enough to tie his face into a grimace of desire and loss. He had to excoriate himself with curses in order to summon the grace to respond, “I know. I’m counting on you.”

  Then he turned to the rest of the company. “What’re we waiting for? Let’s get it over with.”

  The Giants passed a glance among themselves. Seadreamer’s eyes were as red-rimmed as lacerations; but he nodded to the First’s mute question. Pitchwife did not hesitate. Honninscrave made a gesture that exposed the emptiness of his hands.

  The First’s mouth tightened grimly. Drawing her long-sword, she held it before her like the linchpin of her resolve.

  Linden stared darkly down into the gulf as if it were the empty void into which she had thrown herself in order to rescue Covenant and the quest from Kasreyn.

  Moving as surely as if he had spent all his life here, Brinn approached the ledge. In spite of its crude edges and dangerous slope, the ledge was wide enough for a Giant. The First followed Brinn with Pitchwife immediately behind her.

  Bracing his numb hands against Pitchwife’s crippled back, Covenant went next. A rearward glance which threatened to unseat his balance told him
that Cail was right behind him, poised between Linden and him to protect them both. Vain and Findail came after Linden. Then the pull of the gulf became too strong, plucked too perilously at his mind. Clinging to Pitchwife’s sark with his futile fingers, he strove for the still point of clarity at the heart of his vertigo.

  But when he had gone partway around the first curve, Linden called his name softly, directing his attention backward. Over his shoulder, he saw that Honninscrave and Seadreamer had not begun to descend. They faced each other on the rim in silence like an argument of life and death. Seadreamer was shaking his head now, refusing what he saw in Honninscrave’s visage. After a moment, the Master slumped. Stepping aside, he let Seadreamer precede him down the ledge.

  In that formation, the company slowly spiraled into darkness.

  Two turns within the wall left the sunlight behind. Its reach lengthened as the sun rose toward midday; but the quest’s descent was swifter. Covenant’s eyes refused to adjust; the shadow baffled his vision. He wanted to look upward, see something clearly—and was sure he would fall if he did. The dark accumulated around him and was sucked into the depths, trying to sweep him along. Those depths were giddy and certain, as requisite as vertigo or despair. They gnawed at his heart like the acid of his sins. Somewhere down there was the eye of the spin, the still point of strength between contradictions on which he had once stood to defeat Lord Foul, but he would never reach it. This ledge was the path of all the Despiser’s manipulations. Seadreamer is afraid. I think he knows what Lord Foul is doing. A misstep took him as close as panic to the lip of the fall. He flung himself against Pitchwife’s back, hung there with his heart knocking. Even to his blunt senses, the air reeked of power.

  As if the venom were not enough, here was another force driving him toward destruction. The atmosphere chilled his skin, made his sweat scald down his cheeks and ribs like trails of wild magic.

  Cail reached out to steady him from behind. Pitchwife murmured reassurances over his shoulder. After a while, Covenant was able to move again. They went on downward.

  He needed the thickness of his robe to keep him from shivering. He seemed to be entering a demesne which had never been touched by the sun—a place of such dark and somnolent force that even the direct radiance of the sun would not be able to soften its ancient cold. Perhaps no fire would ever be strong enough to etiolate the midnight gaping beyond his feet. Perhaps none of the questers except Brinn had any right to be here. At every step, he became smaller. The dark isolated him. Beyond Pitchwife and Cail, he only recognized his friends by the sounds of their feet. The faint slap and thrust of their soles rose murmurously in the well, like the soughing of bat wings.

  He had no way to measure time in that night, could not count the number of rounds he had made. For a mad instant, he looked up at the small oriel of the sky. Then he had to let Cail uphold him while his balance reeled.

  The air of the gulf became colder, more crowded with faint susurrations, less endurable. For some reason, he believed that the pit became wider as it sank into the bowels of the Isle. In spite of his numbness, every emanation of the walls was as palpable as a fist—and as secret as an unmarked grave. He was suffocating on power which had no source and no form. He heard Linden behind him. Her respiration shuddered like imminent hysteria. The air made him feel veined with insane fire. It must have been flaying her nerves exquisitely.

  Yet he wanted to cry out because he did not feel what she was feeling, had no way to estimate his plight or the consequences of his own acts. His numbness had become too deadly—a peril to the world as well as to his friends and to Linden.

  And still he did not stop. It boots nothing to avoid his snares— He went on as if he were trudging down into Vain’s black heart.

  When the end came, he had no warning of it. Abruptly the First said, “We are here,” and her voice sent echoes upward like a flurry of frightened birds. The position of Pitchwife’s back changed. Covenant’s next step struck level stone.

  He began to tremble violently with reaction and cold. But he heard Linden half sobbing far back in her throat as she groped toward him. He put his arms around her, strained her to him as if he would never be able to find any other way to say good-bye.

  Only the muffled breathing of his companions told him that he and Linden were not alone. Even that quiet sound echoed like the awakening of something fatal.

  He looked upward. At first, he saw no sign of the sky. The well was so deep that its opening was indiscernible. But a moment later light lanced into his eyes as the sun broached the Isle’s rim. His friends suddenly appeared beside him as if they had come leaping out of the dark, recreated from the raw cold of the gulf.

  The First stood with her determination gripped in both hands. Pitchwife was at her side, grimacing. Supported by Honninscrave, Seadreamer clenched his despair between his teeth and glared whitely around him. Vain looked like an avatar of the gulf’s dark. Findail’s creamy robe seemed as bright as a torch.

  Cail stood near Covenant and Linden with sunlight shining in his eyes. But Brinn was nowhere to be seen. The Guardian of the One Tree had left the cavern, carrying his promise not to interfere to its logical extreme. Or perhaps he did not want to watch what was about to happen to the people he had once served.

  Reaching the floor of the well, the sun-line moved more slowly; but still it spread by noticeable degrees out from the western wall where the quest stood. Covenant’s eyes blurred. The light seemed to vacillate between vagueness and acuity, hope and doom. No one spoke. The atmosphere held them silent and motionless.

  Without warning, tips of wood burst into view as the sun touched them. Gleaming like traceries of fire above the heads of the onlookers, twigs ran together to form branches. Boughs intersected and grew downward. In a slow rush like the flow of burning blood, all the boughs joined; and the trunk of the One Tree swept toward its roots in the floor of the gulf.

  Limned and distinct against a background of shadow, the great Tree stood before the company like the progenitor of all the world’s wood.

  It appeared to be enormous. The well had indeed widened as it descended, forming a space as large as a cavern to hold the Tree. The darkness which hid the far walls focused all the sunlight onto the center of the floor, so that the Tree dominated the air with every line and angle of its bright limbs. It was grand and ancient, clad in thick, knaggy bark like a mantle of age, and impossibly powerful.

  And yet it had no leaves. Perhaps it had always been leafless. The bare stone was unmarked by any mold or clutter which might have come from the One Tree. Every branch and twig was stark, unwreathed. They would have looked dead if they had not been so vivid with light, The Tree’s massive roots had forced their way into the floor with gigantic strength, breaking the surface into jagged hunks which the roots embraced with the intimacy of lovers. The Tree appeared to draw its strength, its leafless endurance, from a subterranean cause that was as passionate as lava and as intractable as gutrock.

  For a long moment, Covenant and his companions simply stood and stared. He did not think he could move. He was too close to the goal which he had desired and loathed across the wide seas. In spite of its light-etched actuality, it seemed unreal. If he touched it, it would evaporate into hallucination and madness.

  But the sun was still moving. The configuration of the well made its traversal dangerously swift. The One Tree was fully lit now; the company was falling back into shadow. Soon the sun would reach the eastern wall; and then the Tree would begin to go out. Perhaps it would cease to exist when sunfire no longer burned along its limbs. He was suddenly afraid that he did not have much time.

  “Now, Giantfriend,” the First whispered. Her tone was thick with awe. “It must be done now. While the light endures.”

  “Yes.” Covenant’s voice caught in his throat, came out like a flinch. He was appalled by what he meant to do. Linden was the first woman he had met since the ordeal of his illness began who was able to love him. To lose her now—! B
ut Brinn had said, Hope and doom. Bear what must be borne. He would die if he did not, would surely destroy what he loved if he did not.

  Abruptly he raised his right arm, pointed at the Tree. The small twin scars on his forearm shone faintly. “There,” Above its gnarled trunk, the Tree was wide-boughed and encompassing. From one of the nearest limbs grew a long straight branch as thick as his wrist. It ended in a flat stump as if the rest of it had been cut off. “I’ll take that one.”

  Tension squirmed through him. He opened a shutter in his mind, let out a ray of power. A tiny flame appeared on his ring. It intensified until it was as incisive as a blade. There he held it, intending to use it to sever the branch.

  Obscurely through the gloom, he saw Vain grinning.

  “Wait.” Linden was not looking at him. She was not looking at anything. Her expression resembled the helpless immobility which had rendered her so vulnerable to Joan and Marid and Gibbon. She appeared small and lost, as if she had no right to be here. Her hands made weak pleading movements. Her head shook in denial. “There’s something else.”

  “Linden—” Covenant began.

  “Be swift, Chosen,” demanded the First. “The time flees.”

  Linden stared blindly past the company and the Tree and the light. “Something else here.” She was raw with fear and self-coercion, “They’re connected—but they aren’t the same. I don’t know what it is. It’s too much. Nobody can look at it.” Paralysis or horror made her soft voice wild.

  Covenant tried again urgently. “Linden.”

  Her gaze left the One Tree, touched him and then cringed as if she could not bear the sight of what he meant to do. Her words seemed to congeal toward silence as she spoke them. “The Tree isn’t why nothing lives here. It doesn’t make the air smell like the end of the world. It doesn’t have that kind of power. There’s something else here.” Her vision was focused inward as if like the Elohim she were studying herself for answers. “Resting.”