Stephen Donaldson: The One Tree

For a time, the world of her unconsciousness was blissfully empty. She rode long slow combers of sleep on a journey from nowhere into nowhere and suffered no harm. But gradually the night became the night of the woods behind Haven Farm, and ahead of her burned the fire of invocation to Lord Foul. Joan lay there, possessed by a cruelty so acute that it stunned Linden to the soul. Then Covenant took Joan's place, and Linden broke free, began running down the hillside to save him, forever running down the hillside to save him and never able to reach him, never able to stop the astonishing violence which drove the knife into his chest. It pierced him whitely, like an evil and tremendous fang. When she reached him, blood was gushing from the wound-more blood than she had ever seen in her life. Impossible that one body held so much blood! It welled out of him as if any number of people had been slain with that one blow.

She could not stop it. Her hands were too small to cover the wound. She had left her medical bag in her car. Feverishly, she tore off her shirt to try to staunch the flow, leaving herself naked and defenceless; but the flannel was instantly soaked with blood, useless. Blood slicked her breasts and thighs as she strove to save his life and could not. Despite every exigency of her training and self-mortification, she could not stop that red stream. The firelight mocked her. The wound was growing.

In moments, it became as wide as his chest. Its violence ate at his tissues like venom. Her hands still clutched the futile sop of her shirt, still madly trying to exert pressure to plug the well; but it went on expanding until her arms were lost in him to the elbows. Blood poured over her thighs like the lichor of the world. She was hanging from the edge by her chest, with her arms extended into the red maw as if she were diving to her death. And the wound continued to widen. Soon it was larger than the stone on which Covenant had fallen, larger than the hollow in the woods.

Then with a shock of recognition she saw that the wound was more than a knife-thrust in his chest: it was a stab to the very heart of the Land. The hole had become a pit before her, and its edge was a sodden hillside, and the blood spewing over her was the life of the Earth. The Land was bleeding to death. Before she could even cry out, she was swept away across the murdered body of the ground. She had no way to save herself from drowning.

The turbulence began to buffet her methodically. The hot fluid made her throat raw, burned her voice out of her. She was helpless and lost. Her mere flesh could not endure or oppose such an atrocity. Better if she had never tried to help Covenant, never tried to staunch his wound. This would never have happened if she had accepted her paralysis and simply let him die.

But the shaking of her shoulders and the light slapping across her face insisted that she had no choice. The rhythm became more personal; by degrees, it dragged her from her diamondraught -sopor. When she wrenched her eyes open, the moonlight from the open port limned Cail's visage. He stood on the stepladder so that he could reach her to awaken her. Her throat was sore, and the cabin still echoed her screaming.

“Cail!” she gasped. Oh my God!

“Your sleep was troubled.” His voice was as flat as his mien. “The Giants say their diamondraught does not act thus.”

“No.” She struggled to sit up, fought for self-possession Images of nightmare flared across her mind; but behind them the mood in which she had gone to sleep had taken on a new significance. “Get Covenant.”

“The ur-Lord rests,” he replied inflectionlessly.

Impelled by urgency, Linden flung herself over the edge of the hammock, forced Cail to catch her and lower her to the floor. “Get him.” Before the Haruchai could respond, she rushed to the door.

In the lantern-lit companionway, she almost collided with Seadreamer. The mute Giant was approaching her cabin as if e had heard her cries. For an instant, she was stopped by the similarity between her nightmare and the vision which had reft him of his voice-a vision so powerful that it had compelled his people to launch a Search for the wound which threatened the Earth. But she had no time. The ship was in danger! Sprinting past him, she leaped for the ladder.

When she reached open air, she was in the shadow of the wheeldeck as the moon sank toward setting. Several Giants were silhouetted above her. Heaving herself up the high stairs, she confronted the Storesmaster, a Giant holding Shipsheartthew, and two or three companions. Her chest strained to control her fear as she demanded, “Get the First.”

The Storesmaster, a woman named Heft Galewrath, had a bulky frame tending toward fat which gave her an appearance of stolidity; but she wasted no time on questions or hesitancy. With a nod to one of her companions, she said simply, “Summon the First. And the Master.” The crewmember obeyed at once.

As Linden regained her breath, she became aware that Cail was beside her. She did not ask him if he had called Covenant. The pale scar which marked his left arm from shoulder to elbow had been given him by a Courser-spur aimed at her. It seemed to refute any doubt of him.

Then Covenant came up the stairs, with Brinn at his back. He looked dishevelled and groggy in the moonlight; but his voice was tight as he began, “Linden-?” She gestured him silent, knotted her fists to retain her fragile grip on herself. He turned to Cail; but before Covenant could phrase a question, Honninscrave arrived with his beard thrust forward like a challenge to any danger threatening his vessel. The First was close behind him.

Linden faced them all, forestalled anything they might ask. Her voice shook.

“There's a Raver on this ship.”

Her words stunned the night. Everything was stricken into silence. Then Covenant asked, “Are you sure?” His question appeared to make no sound.

The First overrode him. “What is this 'Raver?' ” The metal of her tone was like an upraised sword.

One of the sails retorted dully in its gear as the wind changed slightly. The deck tilted. The Storesmaster called softly aloft for adjustments to be made in the canvas. Starfare's Gem righted its tack. Linden braced her legs against the

ship's movement and hugged the distress in her stomach, concentrating on Covenant.

“Of course I'm sure.” She could not suppress her trembling. “I can feel it.” The message in her nerves was as vivid as lightning. “At first I didn't know what it was. I've felt like this before. Before we came here.” She was dismayed by the implications of what she was saying-by the similarity between her old black moods and the taste of a Raver. But she compelled herself to go on. “But I was looking for the wrong thing. It's on this ship. Hiding. That's why I didn't understand sooner.” As her throat tightened, her voice rose toward shrillness. “On this ship.”

Covenant came forward, gripped her shoulders as if to prevent her from hysteria. “Where is it?”

Honninscrave cut off Covenant's question. “What is it? I am the Master of Starfare's Gem. I must know the peril.”

Linden ignored Honninscrave. She was focused on Covenant, clinching him for strength. “I can't tell.” And to defend him. Gibbon-Raver had said to her, You are being forged . She, not Covenant. But every attack on her had proved to be a feint. “Somewhere below.”

At once, he swung away from her, started toward the stairs. Over his shoulder, he called, “Come on. Help me find it.”

“ Are you crazy? ” Surprise and distress wrung the cry from her. “Why do you think it's here?”

He stopped, faced her again. But his visage was obscure in the moonlight. She could see only the waves of vehemence radiating from his bones. He had accepted his power and meant to use it.