Stephen Donaldson - The One Tree

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, spiralling 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 spiralled 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.