Stephen Donaldson - The One Tree

In addition, Pitchwife's willingness to look honestly and openly at his past put the subterfuge of Linden's own history to shame. Like him, she had memories of desperation and folly. But he relived his and came out of them whole, with more grace than she could conceive. Hers still had so much power—

He was waiting for her to speak. But she could not. It was too much. All the things she needed drew her to her feet, sent her moving almost involuntarily toward Covenant's cabin.

She had no clear idea of what she meant to do. But Covenant had saved Joan from Lord Foul. He had saved Linden herself from Marid. From Sivit na-Mhoram-wist. From Gibbon-Raver. From Sunbane-fever and the lurker of the Sarangrave. And yet he seemed helpless to save himself. She needed some explanation from him. An account which might make sense of her distress.

And perhaps a chance to account for herself. Her failures had nearly killed him. She needed him to understand her.

Woodenly, she descended to the first underdeck, moved toward Covenant's cabin. But before she reached it, the door opened, and Brinn came out. He nodded to her flatly. The side of his neck showed the healing vestiges of the burn he had received from Covenant. When he said, “The ur-Lord desires speech with you,” he spoke as if his native rectitude and her twisted uncertainty were entirely alien to each other.

So that he would not see her father, she went straight into the cabin. But there she stopped, abashed by the bared nerves of her need. Covenant lay high in his hammock; his weakness was written in the pallor of his forehead, in his limp recumbency. But she could see at a glance that the tone of his skin had improved. His pulse and respiration were stable. Sunlight from the open port reflected lucidly out of his orbs. He was recuperating well. In a day or two, he would be ready to get out of bed.

The gray in his tousled hair seemed more pronounced, made him appear older. But the wild growth of his beard could not conceal the chiselled lines of his mouth or the tension in his gaunt cheeks.

For a moment, they stared at each other. Then the flush of her dismay impelled her to look away. She wanted to move to the hammock-take his pulse, examine his arm and shin, estimate his temperature-touch him as a physician if she could not reach out to him in any other way. Yet her abashment held her still.

Abruptly, he said, “I've been talking to Brinn.” His voice was husky with frailty; but it conveyed a complex range of anger, desire, and doubt. “The Haruchai aren't very good at telling stories. But I got everything I could out of him.”

At once, she felt herself grow rigid as if to withstand an attack. “Did he tell you that I almost let you die?”

She read his reply in the pinched lines around his eyes. She wanted to stop there, but the pressure rising in her was too strong. What had Brinn taught him to think of her? She did not know how to save herself from what was coming. Severely, she went on, “Did he tell you that I might have been able to help you when you were first bitten? Before the venom really took over? But I didn't?”

He tried to interrupt; she overrode him. “Did he tell you that the only reason I changed my mind was because the First was going to cut off your arm? Did he tell you”-her voice gathered harshness-“that I tried to possess you? And that was what forced you to defend yourself so we couldn't reach you? And that was why they had to call the Nicor !” Unexpected rage rasped in her throat. “If I hadn't done that, Mistweave wouldn't have been hurt at all. Did he tell you that?”

Covenant's face was twisted into a grimace of ire or empathy. When she jerked to a stop, he had to swallow roughly before he could say, “Of course he told me. He didn't approve. The Haruchai don't have much sympathy for ordinary human emotions like fear and doubt. He thinks everything else should be sacrificed for me.” For a moment, his eyes shifted away as if he were in pain. “Banner used to make me want to scream. He was so absolute about everything.” But then he looked back at her. “I'm glad you helped Mistweave. I don't want more people dying for me.”

At that, her anger turned against him. His reply was so close to what she wanted; but his constant assumption of responsibility and blame for everything around him infuriated her. He seemed to deny her the simple right to judge her own acts. The Haruchai at least she could understand.

But she had not come here to shout at him. In a sense, it was his sheer importance to her that made her angry. She wanted to assail him because he meant so much to her. And that frightened her.

But Covenant seemed scarcely aware that she had not left the cabin. His gaze was fixed on the stone above him, and he was wrestling with his own conception of what had happened to him. When he spoke, his voice ached with trouble.

“It's getting worse.”

His arms were hugged over his chest as if to protect the scar of his old knife-wound.

“Foul is doing everything he can to teach me power. That's what this venom is all about. The physical consequences are secondary. The main thing is spiritual. Every time I become delirious, that venom eats away my restraint. The part of me that resists being so dangerous. That's why-why everything. Why that Raver got us into trouble in Mithil Stonedown. Why we've been attacked over and over again. Why Gibbon risked showing me the truth in that soothtell. Part of the truth.”

Abruptly, he shifted in the hammock, raised his right hand. “Look.” When he clenched his fist, white fire burst from his knuckles. He brought it to a brightness that almost dazzled Linden, then let it drop. Panting, he relaxed in the hammock.

“I don't need a reason anymore.” He was trembling. "I can do that more easily than getting out of bed. I'm a timebomb.

He's making me more dangerous than he is. When I explode-“ His visage contorted in dismay. ”I'll probably kill everybody who has any chance of fighting him. I almost did it this time. Next time-or the time after that-"

His exigency was vivid in him; but still he did not look at her. He seemed to fear that if he looked at her the peril would reach out to doom her as well. "It's happening to me. The same thing that ruined Kevin. Broke the Bloodguard Vow. Butchered the Unhomed. I'm becoming what I hate. If I keep going like this, I'll kill you all. But I can't stop it. Don't you understand? I don't have your eyes. I can't see what I need to fight the venom. Something physical-my wrists-or my chest-that's different. My nerves are still alive enough for that. But I don't have the health-sense.

“That's probably the real point of the Sunbane. To cripple the Earthpower so I won't be healed, won't become able to see what you see. Everyone here has already lost it. You have it because you come from outside. You weren't shaped by the Sunbane. And I would have it. If I weren't-”

He snatched back what he had been about to say. But his tension poured from him like anguish, and he could not refrain from turning his distress toward her. His gaze was stark, blood-ridden, haunted; his eyes were wounds of understanding. And the depth of his self-dread caught at her throat, so that she could not have spoken, even if she had known how to comfort him.

“That's why I've got to get to the One Tree. Got to. Before I become too deadly to go on living. A Staff of Law is my only hope.” Fatality stalked through his tone. He had his own nightmares-dreams as heinous and immedicable as hers. “If we don't do it in time, this venom will take over everything, and there won't be any of us left to even care what happens to the Land, much less fight .”

She gaped at him, at the implications of what he was saying. In the past, he had always spoken of needing a Staff for the Land-or for her, to return her to her own life. She had not grasped the true extent of his personal exigency. Behind all his other commitments, he was wrestling for a way to save himself. That was why the movement of the ship when the Giants snared the Nicor had been able to reach him. It had restored his most fundamental hope: the One Tree. Restitution for the harm he had wrought when he had destroyed the old Staff. And escape from the logic of his venom. No wonder he looked so ravaged. She did not know how he endured it.