Stephen Donaldson - The One Tree

Then Brinn reached the edge of the cliff. From somewhere within himself, he summoned the desperation to fight back. Several blows jolted the Guardian, though they left no mark. For a moment, the old man was forced back.

But he seemed to become more adept and irresistible as he grew more solid. Almost at once, he brushed aside Brinn's counterattack. Lashing out like lightnings of flesh and bone, he coerced Brinn to the precipice again. A cunning feint toward Brinn's abdomen lowered his arms defensively. At once, the old man followed with a hammerblow to Brinn's forehead.

Brinn swayed on the rim, tottered. Began to fall.

Covenant's shout tore through the mist like despair:

“ Brinn! ”

In the fractional pause as his balance failed, Brinn glanced toward the aghast spectators. Then he shifted his feet in a way that ensured his fall. But as he dropped, his hands reached out. His fingers knotted into the old man's robe.

Surrendering himself to the precipice, he took the Guardian with him.

Linden crouched against the thwarts. She did not hear Seadreamer's inchoate groan, Pitchwife's astonished pain, Cail's shout of praise. Brinn's fall burned across her senses, blinding her to everything else. That plunge repeated in her like the labour of her heart. He had chosen.

Then rock scraped the side of the longboat; its prow thudded into a gap between boulders. Water sloshed along the impact. Linden and Covenant pitched against each other. Grappling together automatically, they stumbled into the bottom of the craft.

When they regained their feet, everything had changed around them. The mist was gone, and with it most of the stars; for the sun had begun to rise, and its nascent light already greyed the heavens. Starfare's Gem could be seen vaguely in the distance, riding at anchor beyond the barrier of the reefs. And above the craft, the Isle of the One Tree towered like a mound of homage to all the Earth's brave dead.

Honninscrave stepped past Linden and Covenant, climbed onto the boulder-strewn shore to secure the longboat in the place where it had wedged itself. Then he stooped and offered to help Linden and Covenant out of the boat. His face was blank with unexpected loss. He might have been a figure in a dream.

Cail approached Linden like triumph, put his hands on her waist and boosted her up to Honninscrave. The Master set her on the rocks behind him. Stiffly, she ascended over several boulders, then stopped and stared about her as if she had lost her sight. Covenant struggled toward her. Dawn set light to the crown of the Isle. The absence of the dromond 's midmast was painfully obvious. Seadreamer fumbled at the rocks as if his exertions or Earth-Sight had made him old. The First, Pitchwife, and Honninscrave climbed behind him like a cortege. Vain and Findail followed the Giants like mourners But it was all superficial. Beneath everything lay the stark instant of Brinn's fall. Haunted by what they had witnessed, the companions did not look at each other as they gathered a short distance above the longboat.

Only Cail showed no distress. Though his expression remained as dispassionate as ever, his eyes gleamed like an inward grin. If she could have found her voice, Linden would have railed at him. But she had no words in her, or no strength to utter them. Brinn had met Covenant's cry with recognition-and had fallen. No words were enough. No strength was enough.

Pitchwife moved to Covenant's side, placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. The First put her arms around Seadreamer as if to lift him up out of himself. Vain stared at nothing with his ambiguous smile. Findail betrayed no reaction. Yet Cail's gaze danced in the rising sunlight, bright with exaltation. After a moment, he said, “Have no fear. He did not fail.”

And Brinn appeared as if he had been invoked by Cail's words. Moving easily over the rocks, he came down toward the company. His strides were light and uninjured; the swing of his arms expressed no pain. Not until he stood directly before her was Linden able to see that he had indeed been severely wounded. But all his hurts were healed. His face and limbs wore an intaglio of pale new scars, but his muscles bunched and slid under his skin as if they were full of joy.

In the place of his lost apparel, he wore the colourless robe of the Guardian.

Linden gaped at him. Covenant's mouth formed his name over and over again, but made no sound. Honninscrave and the First were stunned. A slow grin spread across Pitchwife's face, echoing the gleam in Cail's eyes. Seadreamer stood upright in the dawn and nodded like a recognition of doom. But none of them were able to speak.

Brinn bowed to Covenant. “Ur-Lord,” he said firmly, “the approach to the One Tree lies before you.” He gestured toward the sun-burnished crown of the Isle. His tone carried a barely discernible timbre of triumph. “I have opened it to you.”

Covenant's face twisted as if he did not know whether to laugh or weep.

Linden knew. Her eyes burned like the birth of the morning.

The mute Giant went on nodding as if Brinn's victory had bereft him of every other answer.

Covenant was going to send her back.

COVENANT stared at Brinn and felt ruin crowding around him. The whole island was a ruin, a place of death. Why were there no mouldering corpses, no bleached bones? Not death, then, but eradication. All hope simply swept out of the world. The sunrise lay as rosy as a lie on the hard rocks.

I'm losing my mind.

He did not know what to do. Every path to this Isle was littered with gravestones. The Isle itself loomed above the company like a massif, rugged and arduous. The boulders of the slopes swarmed with implications of vertigo. And yet he had already made his decision, in spite of the fact that he hated it-and feared it was wrong, dreaded to learn that it was wrong, that after all he had endured and still meant to endure the only thing he could really do for the Land was die. That the logic of the old knife-scar over his heart could not be broken.

His voice sounded distant and small to him, insanely detached. He was as mad as the Haruchai . Impossible to talk about such things as if they were not appalling. Why did he not sound appalled? The approach to the One Tree lies before you . So the Tree was here after all, in this place of piled death. Not one bird trammelled the immense sky with its paltry life; not one weed or patch of lichen marked the rocks. It was insane to stand here and talk as if such things could be borne.

He was saying, “You're not Brinn.” Lunatic with distance and detachment. “Are you?” His throat would not accept that other name.

Brinn's expression did not waver. Perhaps there was a smile in his eyes; it was difficult to see in the early light. “I am who I am,” he said evenly. “ Ak-Haru Kenaustin Ardenol . The Guardian of the One Tree. Brinn of the Haruchai . And many other names. Thus am I renewed from age to age, until the end.”

Vain did not move; but Findail bowed as if Brinn had become a figure whom even the Elohim were required to respect.

“No,” Covenant said. He could not help himself. Brinn. “No.” The First, Pitchwife, and Honninscrave were staring at the Haruchai with dumbfounded eyes. Seadreamer went on nodding like a puppet with a broken neck. Somehow, Brinn's victory had sealed Seadreamer's plight. By opening the way to the One Tree? Brinn.

Brinn's gaze was knowing and absolute. “Be not dismayed, ur-Lord.” His tone reconciled passion and self-control. “Though I may no longer sojourn in your service, I am not dead to life and use. Good will come of it, when there is need.”

“Don't tell me that!” The protest broke from Covenant involuntarily. I'm going to die. Or break my heart. “Do you think I can stand to lose you?”