Stephen Donaldson - The One Tree

For a moment longer, she did not move. Pitchwife and the First held themselves still. Then Linden shrugged like a wince, as if her shoulders were sore. “It can't be any worse than what I've already done.” Deliberately, she stepped to the edge of the longtable.

Covenant watched her hungrily as she explored Brinn and Cail with her hands and eyes. As soon as she accepted the risk, apprehension for her rose up in him. Her every movement was distinct and hazardous. He had felt the power of the merewives , knew what it could do. And he remembered how she had looked in the dungeon of the Sandhold, after she had rescued him from the silence of the Elohim . Behind her rigid mouth and tormented past, behind her fear and grimness, she had a capacity for self-expenditure that shamed him.

But as she studied the Haruchai her manner softened. Her expression eased. The surety of the Haruchai seemed to flow into her through her hands. Softly, she said to herself, “At least those merewives know health when they see it.” Then she stepped back.

She did not look at her companions. In a tone of abrupt command, she told Pitchwife to take hold of Brinn's left arm, anchor the Haruchai to the table.

Pitchwife complied, mystification in his eyes. The First said nothing. Galewrath frowned noncommittally. Seadreamer's gaze shifted back and forth between Linden and Brinn as if he were trying to guess her intentions.

She did not hesitate. Grasping Brinn's right limb, she pulled it over the edge of the table, leaned her weight on it to stretch it against its socket. When she was sure of her position, she put her mouth close to his ear. Slowly, explicitly, she articulated, “Now I'm going to break your arm.”

The instant violence of Brinn's reaction took Pitchwife by surprise, broke his hold. He failed to stop the hard arc of Brinn's fist as the Haruchai flipped toward Linden, struck at her face.

His blow caught her on the forehead. She reeled backward, crashed against one of the pillars. Holding her ears as if the lanterns were caterwauling like banshees, she slumped to the floor.

For an instant, Covenant's life stopped. Cursing, the First strode toward Linden. Brinn dropped from the table, landed lightly on his feet. Galewrath planted herself in front of him, cocked her massive fist to keep him away from Linden. Cail sat up as if he meant to go to Brinn's aid. Together, Pitchwife and Seadreamer grappled for his arms.

Linden knotted her knees to her chest, clamped her head in both hands, rolled herself weakly from side to side as if she were beset by all the Dancers at once.

From a great distance, Covenant heard a voice snarling, “Damn you, Brinn! If she's hurt, I'll break your bloody arm myself!” It must have been his voice, but he ignored it. He was swarming toward Linden. Somehow, he shouldered the

First aside. Crouching beside Linden, he pulled her into his lap, wrapped his arms around her. She writhed in his embrace as if she were going mad.

A shout gathered in his mind, pounded toward utterance:

Let her go!

The puissance in him seemed to reach her. She dragged her hands down from her head, flung her face toward him. Her mouth shaped a word that might have been, No!

He held himself still as her eyes struggled into focus on his face. One by one, her muscles unclenched. She looked as pale as fever; her breathing rattled in her throat. But she raised a whisper out of her stunned chest. “I think I'm all right.”

Around Covenant, the lights capered to the tune of the storm's ire. He closed his eyes so that he would not lose control.

When he opened them again, the First and Pitchwife were squatting on either side, watching Linden's fragile recovery. Brinn and Cail stood a short distance away. Behind them loomed Seadreamer as if he were prepared to break both their necks. Galewrath waited to help him. But the Haruchai ignored the Giants. They looked like men who had made up their minds.

“There is no need to damn us,” said Brinn flatly. Neither he nor Cail met Covenant's glower. “We have already gazed upon the visage of our doom. Yet we seek pardon. It was not my intent to do harm.”

He appeared to have no interest in his own apology. "We withdraw our accusation against the Chosen. She has adjudged us rightly. Mayhap she is in sooth the hand of Corruption among us. But there are other Corruptions which we hold in greater abhorrence.

“We speak neither for our people among their mountains nor for those Haruchai who may seek to wage themselves against the depredations of the Clave. But we will no longer serve you.”

At that, a pang of astonishment went through Covenant. No longer serve — ? He hardly understood the words. Distress closed his throat. Linden tensed in his arms. What are you talking about?

What did they do to you?

Then the First was on her feet. With her stern, iron beauty, her arms folded like bonds across her chest, she towered over the Haruchai . “There is delusion upon you.” She spoke like the riposte of a blade. “The song of the merewives has wrought madness into your hearts. You speak of doom, but that which the Dancers offer is only death, nothing more. Are you blind to the peril from which you were retrieved? Almost Galewrath and I failed of your rescue, for we found you at a depth nigh to our limits. There you lay like men bemused by folly. I know not what dream of joy or transport you found in that song-and I care not. Recumbent like the dead, you lay in no other arms than the limbs of coral which had by chance preserved you from a still deeper plunge. Whatever visions filled your unseeing eyes were the fruit of entrancement and brine. That is truth. Is it your intent to return to these merewives in the name of delusion?” Her arms corded with anger. “Stone and Sea, I will not — !”

Brinn interrupted her without looking at her. “That is not our intent. We do not seek death. We will not again answer the song of the Dancers, But we will no longer serve either the ur-Lord or the Chosen.” His tone did not relent. He spoke as if he were determined to show himself no mercy. “We cannot.”

“Can't?” Covenant's expostulation was muffled by alarm,

But Brinn went on as if he were speaking to the First or to no one. “We doubt not what you have said. You are Giants, long-storied among the old tellers of the Haruchai , You have said that the song of the merewives is delusion. We acknowledge that you speak truth. But such delusion-”

Then his voice softened in a way that Covenant had never heard before. “Ur-Lord, will you not rise to confront us? We will not stoop to you. But it is unseemly that we should thus stand above you.”

Covenant looked at Linden. Her features were tense with the effort she made to recollect some semblance of stability; but she nodded, made a groping gesture toward Pitchwife. At once, the Giant lifted her out of Covenant's arms, leaving him free to face the Haruchai .

Stiffly, he climbed to his feet. He felt wooden with emotions he was afraid to admit. Was he going to lose the Haruchai ? The Haruchai , who had been as faithful as Ranyhyn from the beginning?

What did they do to you?

But then Brinn met his gaze for the first time; and the passion in those dispassionate orbs made him tremble. Starfare's Gem heaved among the angry seas as if at any moment the granite might break. He started to spit out every word that came into his head. He did not want to hear what Brinn would say.

“You made a promise.” His chest rose and fell with the rough force of his knowledge that he had no right to accuse the Haruchai of anything. “I didn't want to accept it. I didn't want to be responsible for any more service like the kind Bannor insisted on giving me. But I had no choice.” He had been more than half crippled by loss of blood, might have died of sheer remorse and futility on the upland plateau above Revelstone if Brinn had not aided him. “What in hell are you talking about?”