Stephen Donaldson - The One Tree

“You will endure it,” that composed voice replied. “Are you not Thomas Covenant, ur-Lord and Unbeliever? That is the grace which has been given to you, to bear what must be borne.” Then Brinn's visage altered slightly, as if even he were not immune to loss. “Cail will accept my place at your side until the word of the Bloodguard Bannor has been carried to its end. Then he will follow his heart.” Cail's face caught the light ambiguously. “Ur-Lord, do not delay,” Brinn concluded, gesturing toward the sun-limned crest. “The way of hope and doom lies open to you.”

Covenant swore to himself. He did not seem to have the strength to curse aloud. The cold numb mist of the night clung to his bones, defying the sun's warmth. He wanted to storm and rave, expostulate like a madman. It would be condign. He had done such things before-especially to Bannor. But he could not. Brinn's mien held the completeness toward which Bannor had only aspired. Abruptly, Covenant sat down, thudded his back against a boulder and fought to keep his grief apart from the quick tinder of his venom.

A shape squatted in front of him. For an instant, he feared that it was Linden and nearly lost his grip. He would not have been able to sustain an offer of comfort from her. He was going to lose her no matter what he did, If he sent her back or if he failed, either way. But she still stood with her back to the sun and her face covered as if she did not want the morning to see her weep. With an effort, he forced himself to meet Pitchwife's anxious gaze.

The deformed Giant was holding a leather flask of diamondraught . Mutely, he offered it to Covenant.

For a moment like an instance of insanity, Covenant saw Foamfollower there, as vivid as Pitchwife. Foamfollower was commenting wryly, Some old seers say that privation refines the soul — but I say that it is soon enough to refine the soul when the body has no other choice . At that, the knot in Covenant loosened a bit. With a raw sigh, he accepted the flask and drank a few swallows of the analystic liquor.

The way of hope and doom , he thought mordantly. Hellfire.

But the diamondraught was a blessing to his abraded nerves, his taut and weary muscles. The ascent of the Isle promised vertigo; but he had faced vertigo before. To bear what must be borne . Ah, God.

Handing the flask back to Pitchwife, he rose to his feet. Then he approached Linden.

When he touched her shoulders, she flinched as if she feared him-feared the purpose which she could surely perceive in him as clearly as if it were written on his forehead. But she did not pull away. After a moment, he began, “I've got-” He wanted to say, I've got to do it. Don't you understand? But he knew she did not understand. And he had no one to blame but himself. He had never found the courage to explain to her why he had to send her back, why his life depended on her return to their former world. Instead, he said, “I've got to go up there.”

At once, she turned as if she meant to attack him with protests, imprecations, pleas. But her eyes were distracted and elsewhere, like Elena's. Words came out of her as if she were forcing herself to have pity on him.

“It's not as bad as it looks. It isn't really dead.” Her hands indicated the Isle with a jerk. “Not like all that ruin around Stonemight Woodhelven. It's powerful-too powerful for anything mortal to live here. But not dead. It's more like sleep. Not exactly. Something this”-she groped momentarily- “this eternal doesn't sleep. Resting, maybe. Resting deeply. Whatever it is, it isn't likely to notice us.”

Covenant's throat closed. She was trying to comfort him after all-offering him her percipience because she had nothing else to give. Or maybe she still wanted to go back, wanted her old life more than him.

He had to swallow a great weight of grief before he could face the company again and say, “Let's go.”

They looked at him with plain apprehension and hope. Seadreamer's face was knotted around his stark scar. The First contained herself with sternness; but Pitch wife made no effort to conceal his mixed rue and excitement. Honninscrave's great muscles bunched and released as if he were prepared to fight anything which threatened his brother. They were all poised on the culmination of their quest, the satisfaction or denial of the needs which had brought them so far across the seas of the world.

All except Vain. If the Demondim-spawn wore the heels of the Staff of Law for any conceivable reason, he did not betray it. His black visage remained as impenetrable as the minds of the ur-viles that had made him.

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 centre 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.