One Tree (28 page)

Pitchwife was saying wryly, “Your pardon, Chosen. I see that I have not given you ease.”

She shook her head. “That’s not it.” The words left her mouth before she realized what she was saying. “What happened to Vain?”

The Demondim-spawn was gone. His place near the railing was empty.

“Naught I know of,” Pitchwife replied, surprised by her reaction. “A short while after the sun’s rising, he strode forward as though his purpose had awakened in him. To the foremast he fared, and it he greeted with such a bow and smile as I mislike to remember. But then he lapsed to his former somnolence. There he stands yet. Had he moved, those who watch him would surely have informed us.”

“It is true,” Cail said flatly. “Ceer guards him.”

Under her breath, Linden muttered, “You’ve got to be kidding,” and climbed to her feet. “This I’ve got to see.” When Pitchwife joined her, she stalked away toward Foodfendhall and the foredeck.

There she saw Vain as he had been described, facing the curved surface of the mast from an arm’s length away. His posture was the same as always: elbows slightly crooked at his sides; knees flexing just enough to maintain his balance against the choppy gait of the
dromond
; back straight. Yet to her gaze he wore a telic air. He confronted the mast as if they were old comrades, frozen on the verge of greeting one another.

To herself, she murmured, “What the hell—?”

“Forsooth,” responded Pitchwife with a light chuckle. “Had this Demondim-spawn not been gifted to the ur-Lord by a Giant, I would fear he means to ravish the maidenhood of our foremast.” At that, laughter spouted from the nearby crewmembers, then spread like a kinship of humor through the rigging as his jest was repeated to those who had not heard it.

But Linden was not listening to him. Her ears had caught another sound—a muffled shout from somewhere belowdecks. As she focused her hearing, she identified Honninscrave’s stertorous tones.

He was calling Seadreamer’s name. Not in anger or pain, but in surprise. And trepidation.

The next moment, Seadreamer erupted from one of the hatchways and charged forward as if he meant to hurl himself at Vain. Honninscrave followed him; but Linden’s attention was locked on the mute Giant. He looked wild and visionary, like a prophet or a madman; and the scar across his visage stood out stark and pale, underlining his eyes with intensity. Cries he could not utter strained the muscles of his neck.

Mistaking the Giant’s intent, Ceer stepped between him and Vain, balanced himself to defend the Demondim-spawn. But an instant later, Seadreamer struck, not at Vain, but at the foremast. With his full weight and momentum, he dove against the mast. The impact sent a palpable quiver through the stone.

The shock knocked him to the deck. At once, he rebounded to his feet, attacked again. Slapping his arms around the mast like a wrestler, he heaved at it as if he wanted to tear it from its moorings. His passion was so vivid that for a moment Linden feared he might succeed.

Honninscrave leaped at Seadreamer’s back, tried to pull him away. But he could not break the hold of Seadreamer’s ferocity. Ceer and Hergrom moved to help the Master.

A worn sad voice stopped them. “Enough.” It seemed to sough from the air. “I have no desire to cause such distress.”

Seadreamer fell back. Vain stiffened.

Out of the stone of the mast, a figure began to flow. Leaving its hiding place, it translated itself into human form.

One of the
Elohim
.

He wore a creamy and graceful robe, but it did not conceal the etched leanness of his limbs, the scar-pallor of his skin. Under the unkempt silver sweep of his hair, his face was cut and marked with
onerous perceptions. Around his yellow eyes, his sockets were as dark as old blood.

Gasping inwardly, Linden recognized Findail the Appointed.

As he took shape, he faced Seadreamer. “Your pardon,” he said in a voice like habitual grief. “Miscomprehending the depth of your Earth-Sight, I sought to conceal myself from you. It was not my purpose to inspire such distrust. Yet my sojourn through the seas to accompany you was slow and sorely painful to one who has been sent from his home in
Elemesnedene
. In seeking concealment, I judged poorly—as the swiftness with which you have descried me witnesses. Please accept that I intended no harm.”

Everyone on the foredeck stared at him; but no one replied. Linden was stricken dumb. Pitchwife she could not see—he was behind her. But Honninscrave’s features reflected what she felt. And Seadreamer sat huddled on the deck with his hands clamped over his face as if he had just beheld the countenance of his death. Only the
Haruchai
betrayed no reaction.

Findail appeared to expect no response. He shifted his attention to Vain. His tone tightened. “To you I say, No.” He pointed rigidly at the center of Vain’s chest, and the muscles of his arm stood out like whipcord. “Whatever else you may do, or think to do,
that
I will not suffer. I am Appointed to this task, but in the name of no duty will I bear that doom.”

In answer, Vain grinned like a ghoul.

A grimace deepened the erosion of Findail’s mien. Turning his back on the Demondim-spawn, he moved stiffly forward to stand at the prow of the Giantship, gazing outward like a figurehead.

Linden gaped after him for a moment, looked around at her companions. Honninscrave and Pitchwife were crouched beside Seadreamer; the other Giants appeared too stunned to act. The
Haruchai
watched Findail, but did not move. With a convulsion of will, she wrenched herself into motion. To the nearest crewmember, she rasped, “Call the First.” Then she went after the
Elohim
.

When she reached him, he glanced at her, gave her a perfunctory acknowledgment; but her presence made no impression on the old rue he had chosen to wear. She received the sudden impression that she was the cause of his distress—and that he meant to hide the fact from her at any cost. For no clear reason, she remembered that his people had expected the Sun-Sage and ring-wielder to be the same person. At first, she could not find the words with which to accost him.

But one memory brought back others, and with them came the rage of helplessness and betrayal she felt toward the
Elohim
. Findail had faced back toward the open Sea. She caught hold of his shoulder, demanded his notice. Through her teeth, she grated, “What in hell are you doing here?”

He hardly seemed to hear her. His yellow eyes were vague with loss, as if in leaving
Elemesnedene
he had been torn out of himself by the roots. But he replied, “Sun-Sage, I have been Appointed to this task by my people—to procure if I can the survival of the Earth. In the
clachan
you were given no better answer, and I may not answer more clearly now. Be content with the knowledge that I intend no hurt.”

“No
hurt
!” she spat back at him. “You people have done nothing but hurt. You—” She stopped herself, nearly choking on visions of Covenant and Vain and Seadreamer. “By God, if you don’t come up with a better answer than that, I’ll have you thrown overboard.”

“Sun-Sage.” He spoke gently, but made no effort to placate her. “I regret the necessity of the ring-wielder’s plight. For me it is a
middle way, balancing hazard and safety. I would prefer to be spared entirely. But it boots nothing to rail against me. I have been Appointed to stand among you, and no power accessible to you may drive me forth. Only he whom you name Vain has it within him to expel me. I would give much that he should do so.”

He surpassed her. She believed him instinctively—and did not know what to do about it. “Vain?” she demanded.
Vain
? But she received no reply. Beyond the prow, the rough waves appeared strangely brittle in the odd raw brilliance of the sunlight. Spray smacked up from the sides of the Giantship and was torn apart by the contradictory winds. They winced back and forth across the deck, troubling her hair like gusts of prescience. Yet she made one more attempt to pierce the
Elohim
. Softly, vehemently, she breathed, “For the last time, I’m not the goddamn Sun-Sage! You’ve been wrong about that from the beginning. Everything you’re doing is wrong.”

His yellow gaze did not flinch. “For that reason among many others I am here.”

With an inward snarl, she swung away from him—and nearly collided with the hard, mail-clad form of the First. The Swordmain stood there with iron and apprehension in her eyes. In a voice like a quiet blade, she asked, “Does he speak truly? Do we lack all power against him?”

Linden nodded. But her thoughts were already racing in another direction, already struggling for the self-command she required. She might prove Findail wrong. But she needed to master herself. Searching for a focal point, an anchorage against which to brace her resolve, she lifted her face to the First.

“Tell me about your examination. In
Elemesnedene
. What did they do to you?”

The First was taken aback by the unexpectedness, the apparent irrelevance, of the question. But Linden held up her demand; and after a moment the First drew herself into a formal stance. “Pitchwife has spoken to you,” she said flatly.

“Yes.”

“Then perhaps you will comprehend that which befell me.” With one hand, she gripped the hilt of her falchion. The other she held straight at her side as if to restrain it from impatience or protest.

“In my testing,” she said, “one of the
Elohim
came before me in the semblance of a Giant. By some art, he contrived to wear the lineaments and countenance of Pitchwife. But not my husband as I have known him. Rather he was Pitchwife as he might have grown from a perfect birth—flawless of limb, tall and proud of stance, hale in every way which becomes a Giant.” Memory suffused her gaze; but her tone held its cutting edge. “He stood thus before me as Pitchwife should have been born and grown, so that the outward seeming well became the spirit I have learned to love.”

Pitchwife stood near her, listening with a crooked smile. But he did not try to express the things which shone in his orbs.

The First did not waver. “At first I wept. But then I laughed. For all his cunning, that
Elohim
could not equal the joy which enlightens Pitchwife my husband.”

A glint of hard humor touched her tone. “The
Elohim
misliked my laughter. But he could not answer it, and so my examination was brought to a displeasurable ending for him.”

Pitchwife’s whole face chortled, though he made no sound.

A long shiver of recollection ran through Linden. Speaking half to the First, half to the discomfited sea and the acute sky, she said, “The only thing Daphin did to me was answer questions.” Then she
stepped past the Giants, left their incomprehension behind as she made her way toward Foodfendhall and the underdecks. Toward Covenant’s cabin.

The uncertainty of the
dromond
’s footing affected her balance. Starfare’s Gem moved with a tight slewing pace, veering and shaking its head at the unexpected force of the swells. But Linden caught herself against walls when she had to, or against Cail, and kept going. Maybe she had no power to extort the truth from Findail. But Covenant did. If she could somehow pierce the veil which covered his consciousness like a winding-sheet. She was suddenly eager to make the attempt.

She told herself that she was eager for his restitution. She wanted his companionship, his conviction. But she was thin-lipped and stiff with anger, and within her there was darkness stirring.

At the door of Covenant’s cabin, she met Brinn. He had come out to meet her. Stolidly he barred her way. His distrust was tangible in the air of the companionway. Before
Elemesnedene
, he had never questioned her right of access to Covenant; but now he said bluntly, “Chosen, what is your purpose here?”

She bit back a curse. Breathing deeply in an effort to steady herself, she said, “We’ve got an
Elohim
aboard, in case you haven’t heard. It’s Findail. They sent him here for something, and there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it. The only one of us who has that kind of power is Covenant. I’m going to try to reach him.”

Brinn glanced toward Cail as if he were asking Cail to vouch for her. Then he gave her a slight bow of acquiescence and opened the door.

Glaring, she moved into the cabin, then watched him until he closed the door after her, leaving her alone with Covenant.

There for a moment she hesitated, trying to muster her courage. But Covenant’s featureless presence gripped her like a hand on the back of her neck; it compelled her to face him.

He sat in a stone chair beside the small round table as if he had been deliberately positioned there. His legs were straight, formally placed; he did not slouch; his forearms lay on his thighs, with his hands open and the palms laid bare. A tray on the table contained the remains of a meal. Apparently Brinn had been feeding the Unbeliever. But Covenant was unaware of such things. His slack face confronted the empty air as if it were just another avatar of the emptiness within him.

Linden groaned. The first time she had ever seen him, he had thrown open the door of his house like a hurling of vituperation, the fire and fever of his eyes barely restrained; his mouth had been as strict as a commandment. In spite of his exhaustion, he had been living the life he had chosen, and he had appeared to her strangely indomitable and pure.

But now the definition of his features was obscured by the scruffy helplessness of his beard; and the gray which raddled the hair over his forehead gave him an appearance of caducity. The flesh of his face sagged as if he had lost all hope. His eyes were dry—lustreless as death.

He looked like her father had looked when his last blood had fallen to the warped old floorboards of the attic.

But Covenant still had pulse and respiration. Food and fluids sustained his life. When he uttered his refrain, as distinct as an augur, he seemed beneath all his loss to be aware of her—and terrified of what she meant to do to him.

She would have to possess him. Like a Raver. The thought filled her mouth with acid revulsion. But she did not hesitate. She could feel paralysis crouching around her. The fear which had so often bereft her of will was imminent in every wrench of her heart. The fear of what she
would become. Trembling she pulled the other chair close to Covenant’s knees, sat down, placed her hands in his flaccid grasp as if even now he might preserve them from failure. Then she tried to open herself to his dead gaze.