Stephen Donaldson - The One Tree

When it ended, his forearm had been changed. From elbow to wrist, the skin and muscle and bone were gone, transformed into rough-barked wood. Deprived of every nerve or ligature, his hand dangled useless from his iron-bound wrist.

And still the stars swirled, seeking ruin. The power which had been at rest in the roots of the Isle was rousing. All Linden's nerves screamed at the taste of a world-riving puissance.

Desperately, the First shouted, “We will be slain!”

While that cry echoed, Covenant reeled to look at her, at Linden. For an instant, he appeared manic with indecision, as if he believed that the peril came from the One Tree itself, that he would have to destroy the Tree in order to save his friends. Linden tried to shout at him, No! That isn't it! But he would not have been able to hear her.

When he saw her kneeling stricken on the stone, the danger rose up in him. His fire re-erupted.

The sun was already leaving the One Tree. The light seemed to creep toward the east wall, then rush upward as if it were being expelled by violence. But wild magic burned away all the darkness. Covenant blazed as if he were trying to set fire to the very rock of the Isle.

Extreme argent half blinded Linden. Reeling stars filled her eyes like blots of dazzlement. Potent as suns, they should have surpassed every flame that Covenant's flesh could raise. But he was powerful now in a way that transgressed mortal limits. Avid and fiery, he shone as if he were capable of detonating the sheer foundations of the Earth.

The force of his conflagration struck his companions like the hand of a gale, thrust all of them except Vain and Findail helplessly against the walls. Cail was torn from his side. Pitchwife and the First lay atop Honninscrave, determined to protect him at any hazard. Linden was shoved upright to the stone and held there as if she were still gripped by fetters in

Kasreyn's dungeon. Venom as savage as ghouls raged in Covenant. It ignited him, transported him out of all restraint or choice. The stars were swept into him and seemed to vanish as if they were being consumed. Vivid and carious flames came from his scars, the marks of Marid's fangs. They raved through the mounting holocaust like glee.

He was trying to move forward, fighting toward the One Tree. Every vestige of his will and consciousness appeared to be focused on the branch which Seadreamer had touched.

Too deadly -

Alone and indomitable, he stood against the heavens and flailed wild magic at them like ecstasy or madness.

Yet the stars were not defeated. New motes of puissance were born to replace those his fury devoured. If he did not fail soon, he would be driven to the point of cataclysm. Around the roots of the Tree, the stone had begun to ripple and flow. In moments, the lives of his companions would be snuffed out by the unutterable wind of his power. Exalted and damned by fire, he raged against the stars as if his lust for might, mastery, triumph had eaten away every other part of him. He had become nothing except the vessel and personification of his venom.

Too deadly to go on living .

Still Linden could not move. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this. Stars gyred around the Tree, around Covenant. The stone boiled as if it were about to leap upward, take shape in its own defence. Wild magic lacerated her frail flesh, afflicting her with fire as Gibbon-Raver had once filled her with evil. She did not know how to move.

Then hands took hold of her, shook her. They were as compulsory as anguish. She looked away from Covenant and met Findail's frantic yellow eyes.

“You must stop him!” The Elohim 's lips did not move. His voice rang directly into her brain. “He will not hear me!”

She gaped back at the Appointed. There were no words in all the cavern to articulate her panic.

“Do you not comprehend?” he knelled at her. "He has encountered the Worm of the World's End! Its aura defends the One Tree! Already he has brought it nigh rousing!

“Are you blind at last?” His voice rang like a carillon in agony. "Employ your sight! You must see! For this has the Despiser wrought his ill against you! For this ! The Worm defends the One Tree! Have you learned nothing? Here the Despiser cannot fail! If the Worm is roused, the Earth will end, freeing Despite to wreak its vengeance upon the cosmos. And if the ring-wielder attempts to match his might against the Worm, he will destroy the Arch of Time. It cannot contain such a battle! It is founded upon white gold, and white gold will rive it to rubble!

“For this was he afflicted with the Despiser's venom!” Findail's clamour tormented every part of her being. “To enhance his might, enabling him to rend the Arch! This is the helplessness of power! You must stop him! ”

Still Linden did not respond, could not move. But her senses flared as if he had torn aside a veil, and she caught a glimpse of the truth. The boiling of the stone around the Tree was not caused by Covenant's heat. It came from the same source as the stars. A source buried among the deepest bones of the Earth-a source which had been at rest.

This was the crux of her life, this failure to rise above herself. This was why Lord Foul had chosen her. This paralysis was simply flight in another form. Unable to resolve the paradox of her lust for power and her hatred of evil, her desire and loathing for the dark might of Ravers, she was caught, immobilized. Gibbon-Raver had touched her, taught her the truth. Are you not evil? Behind all her strivings and determination lay that denunciation, rejecting life and love. If she remained frozen now, the denial of her humanity would be complete.

And it was Covenant who would pay the price-Covenant who was being duped into destroying what he loved. The unanswerable perfection of Lord Foul's machinations appalled her. In his power, Covenant had become, not the Earth's redeemer, but its doom. He, Thomas Covenant-the man to whom she had surrendered her loneliness. The man who had smiled for Joan.

His peril erased every other consideration.

There was no evil here. She clung to that fact, anchored herself on it. No Ravers. No Despiser. The Worm was inconceivably potent-but it was not evil. Covenant was lunatic with venom and passion-but he was not evil. No ill arose to condition her responses, control what she did. Surely she could afford to unbind her instinct for power? To save Covenant?

With a shout, she thrust away from Findail, began surging through utter and immedicable argent as if it were lava toward the Unbeliever.

At every new lash and eruption of wild magic, every added flurry of stars, she felt that the skin was being flayed from her bones; but she did not stop. The gale howled in her ears. She did not let it impede her. A Giantish voice wailed after her, “Chosen!” and went unheeded. The cavern, had become a chaos of echoes and violence; but she traversed the cacophony as if her will outshone every other sound. The presence of so much power elevated her. Instinctively, she used that force for protection, took hold of it with her percipience so that the stars did not burn her, the gale did not hurl her back.

Power.

Impossibly upright amid conflagrations which threatened to break the Isle, she placed herself between Covenant and the One Tree.

His fire scaled about him in whorls and coruscations. He looked like a white avatar of the father of nightmares. But he saw her. His howl made the roots of the rock shudder as he grabbed at her with wild magic, drew her inside his defences.

She flung her arms around him and forced her face toward his. Mad ecstasy distorted his visage. Kevin must have worn that same look at the Ritual of Desecration. Focusing all the penetration of her senses, she tuned her urgency, her love, her self to a pitch that would touch him.