Stephen Donaldson - The One Tree

He had no way to measure time in that night, could not count the number of rounds he had made. For a mad instant, he looked up at the small oriel of the sky. Then he had to let Cail uphold him while his balance reeled.

The air of the gulf became colder, more crowded with faint susurrations, less endurable. For some reason, he believed that the pit became wider as it sank into the bowels of the Isle. In spite of his numbness, every emanation of the walls was as palpable as a fist-and as secret as an unmarked grave. He was suffocating on power which had no source and no form. He heard Linden behind him. Her respiration shuddered like imminent hysteria. The air made him feel veined with insane fire. It must have been flaying her nerves exquisitely.

Yet he wanted to cry out because he did not feel what she was feeling, had no way to estimate his plight or the consequences of his own acts. His numbness had become too deadly-a peril to the world as well as to his friends and to Linden.

And still he did not stop. It boots nothing to avoid his snares — He went on as if he were trudging down into Vain's black heart.

When the end came, he had no warning of it. Abruptly, the First said, “We are here,” and her voice sent echoes upward like a flurry of frightened birds. The position of Pitchwife's back changed. Covenant's next step struck level stone.

He began to tremble violently with reaction and cold. But he heard Linden half sobbing far back in her throat as she groped toward him. He put his arms around her, strained her to him as if he would never be able to find any other way to say goodbye.

Only the muffled breathing of his companions told him that he and Linden were not alone. Even that quiet sound echoed like the awakening of something fatal.

He looked upward. At first, he saw no sign of the sky. The well was so deep that its opening was indiscernible. But a moment later light lanced into his eyes as the sun broached the Isle's rim. His friends suddenly appeared beside him as if they had come leaping out of the dark, recreated from the raw cold of the gulf.

The First stood with her determination gripped in both hands. Pitchwife was at her side, grimacing. Supported by Honninscrave, Seadreamer clenched his despair between his teeth and glared whitely around him. Vain looked like an avatar of the gulfs dark. Findail's creamy robe seemed as bright as a torch.

Cail stood near Covenant and Linden with sunlight shining in his eyes. But Brinn was nowhere to be seen. The Guardian of the One Tree had left the cavern, carrying his promise not to interfere to its logical extreme. Or perhaps he did not want to watch what was about to happen to the people he had once served.

Reaching the floor of the well, the sunline moved more slowly; but still it spread by noticeable degrees out from the western wall where the quest stood. Covenant's eyes blurred. The light seemed to vacillate between vagueness and acuity, hope and doom. No one spoke. The atmosphere held them silent and motionless.

Without warning, tips of wood burst into view as the sun touched them. Gleaming like traceries of fire above the heads of the onlookers, twigs ran together to form branches. Boughs intersected and grew downward. In a slow rush like the flow of burning blood, all the boughs joined; and the trunk of the One Tree swept toward its roots in the floor of the gulf.

Limned and distinct against a background of shadow, the great Tree stood before the company like the progenitor of all the world's wood.

It appeared to be enormous. The well had indeed widened as it descended, forming a space as large as a cavern to hold the Tree. The darkness which hid the far walls focused all the sunlight onto the centre of the floor, so that the Tree dominated the air with every line and angle of its bright limbs. It was grand and ancient, clad in thick, knaggy bark like a mantle of age, and impossibly powerful.

And yet it had no leaves. Perhaps it had always been leafless. The bare stone was unmarked by any mould or clutter which might have come from the One Tree. Every branch and twig was stark, unwreathed. They would have looked dead if they had not been so vivid with light, The Tree's massive roots had forced their way into the floor with gigantic strength, breaking the surface into jagged hunks which the roots embraced with the intimacy of lovers. The Tree appeared to draw its strength, its leafless endurance, from a subterranean cause that was as passionate as lava and as intractable as gutrock.

For a long moment, Covenant and his companions simply stood and stared. He did not think he could move. He was too close to the goal which he had desired and loathed across the wide seas. In spite of its light-etched actuality, it seemed unreal. If he touched it, it would evaporate into hallucination and madness.

But the sun was still moving. The configuration of the well made its traversal dangerously swift. The One Tree was fully lit now; the company was falling back into shadow. Soon the sun would reach the eastern wall; and then the Tree would begin to go out. Perhaps it would cease to exist when sunfire no longer burned along its limbs. He was suddenly afraid that he did not have much time.

“Now, Giantfriend,” the First whispered. Her tone was thick with awe. “It must be done now. While the light endures.”

“Yes — .” Covenant's voice caught in his throat, came out like a flinch. He was appalled by what he meant to do. Linden was the first woman he had met since the ordeal of his illness began who was able to love him. To lose her now — ! But Brinn had said, Hope and doom. Bear what must be borne . He would die if he did not, would surely destroy what he loved if he did not.

Abruptly, he raised his right arm, pointed at the Tree. The small twin scars on his forearm shone faintly. “There,” Above its gnarled trunk, the Tree was wide-boughed and encompassing. From one of the nearest limbs grew a long straight branch as thick as his wrist. It ended in a fiat stump as if the rest of it had been cut off. “I'll take that one.”

Tension squirmed through him. He opened a shutter in his mind, let out a ray of power. A tiny flame appeared on his ring. It intensified until it was as incisive as a blade. There he held it, intending to use it to sever the branch.

Obscurely through the gloom, he saw Vain grinning.

“Wait.” Linden was not looking at him. She was not looking at anything. Her expression resembled the helpless immobility which had rendered her so vulnerable to Joan and Marid and Gibbon. She appeared small and lost, as if she had no right to be here. Her hands made weak pleading movements. Her head shook in denial. “There's something else.”

“Linden-” Covenant began.

“Be swift, Chosen,” demanded the First. “The time flees.”

Linden stared blindly past the company and the Tree and the light. “Something else here.” She was raw with fear and self-coercion, "They're connected-but they aren't the same. I don't know what it is. It's too much. Nobody can look at it." Paralysis or horror made her soft voice wild.

Covenant tried again urgently. “ Linden ”

Her gaze left the One Tree, touched him and then cringed as if she could not bear the sight of what he meant to do. Her words seemed to congeal toward silence as she spoke them. “The Tree isn't why nothing lives here. It doesn't make the air smell like the end of the world. It doesn't have that kind of power. There's something else here.” Her vision was focused inward as if like the Elohim she were studying herself for answers. “Resting.”

Covenant faltered. He was torn between too many emotions. His ring burned like venom and potential Desecration. A cry he was unable to utter wrung his heart:

Help me! I don't know what to do!