One Tree (23 page)

“Con
tent
?” Linden began. “Are you out of—?”

Covenant’s grip stopped her. His fingers gouged her shoulder, demanding restraint. Before she could fight free of him, shout his folly into his face, he said to Infelice, “No. All this is secondary. It’s not why we’re here.” He sounded like he had found another way to sacrifice himself.

“Continue, ring-wielder,” said Infelice evenly. The light in her hair and apparel seemed ready for anything he might say.

“It’s true that Earthpower is not the answer to Despite.” He spoke as incisively as ice. “But the Sunbane is another matter. That’s a question of Earthpower. If it isn’t stopped, it’s going to eat the heart out of the Earth.”

He paused. Calmly Infelice waited for him.

And Linden also waiting. Her distrust of the
Elohim
converged with an innominate dread. She was intuitively afraid of Covenant’s intent.

“I want to make a new Staff of Law.” His voice was fraught with risks. “A way to fight back. That’s why we’re here. We need to find the One Tree.” Slowly he unclenched Linden’s shoulder, released her and stepped aside as if to detach his peril from her. “I want you to tell us where it is.”

At once, the bells rang insistently. One of them struck out:

—Infelice, do not. Our hope will be lost.

The crystal answer came clearly from her:

—It is understood and agreed. I will not.

But her eyes gave no hint of her other conversations. They met Covenant squarely, almost with relish. “Ring-wielder,” she said carefully, “you have no need of that knowledge. It has already been placed in your mind.”

With matching care, matching readiness, he replied, “That’s true. Caer-Caveral gave it to me. He said, ‘The knowledge is within you,
though you cannot see it. But when the time has come, you will find the means to unlock my gift.’ But I don’t know how to get at it.”

The chiming grew hushed, like bated breath. But Linden had caught the import of the bells. This was the moment for which they had been waiting.

In a rush of comprehension, she tried to fling herself at Covenant. Words too swift for utterance cried through her: They already know where the Tree is, this is what they want, don’t you understand,
Foul got here ahead of us
! But her movements were too slow, clogged by mortality. Her heart seemed frozen between beats; no breath expanded her lungs. She had barely turned toward him when he spoke as if he knew he was committing himself to disaster.

“I want you to unlock the knowledge for me. I want you to open my mind.”

At the top of the eftmound, Infelice smiled.

The next moment, Linden reached Covenant so hard that he staggered several steps down the slope. Catching hold of his shirt, she jerked at him with all her strength. “Don’t do it!”

He fought to regain his balance. His eyes burned like precursors of wild magic. “What’s the matter with you?” he barked. “We have to know where it is.”

“Not that way!” She did not have enough strength, could not find enough force for her voice or her muscles. She wanted to coerce him physically; but even her passion was not enough. “You don’t have to do that! They can just
tell
you! They already know where it is.”

Roughly he took hold of her wrists, wrenched himself out of her grip. The rising of venom and power in him made his grasp irrefusable. He held her wrists together near the cut in his shirt, and she could not break free. “I believe you.” His glare was extreme. “These people probably know everything. But they aren’t going to tell us. What do you want me to do? Beg until they change their minds?”

“Covenant.” She raged and pleaded simultaneously. “I can hear what they’re saying to each other.” The words tumbled out of her. “They’ve got some secret purpose. Foul got here ahead of us. Don’t let them possess you!”

That pierced him. He did not release her wrists; but his grip loosened as he jerked up his head to look at Infelice.

“Is this true?”

Infelice did not appear to be offended. Repeatedly she tolerated Linden. “The Sun-Sage suggests that the Despiser has come upon us and bent us to his own ends. That is untrue. But that we have also our own purpose in this matter—that is true.”

“Then,” he gritted, “tell me where the One Tree is.”

“It is not our custom to grant unnecessary gifts.” Her tone refused all contradiction, all suasion. “For reasons which appear good to us, we have made our choice. We are the
Elohim
, and our choices lie beyond your judgment. You have asked me to unlock the knowledge occulted within you. That gift I am willing to give—that and no other. You may accept or decline, according to the dictates of your doubt.

“If you desire another answer, seek it elsewhere. Inquire of the Sun-Sage why she does not enter your mind to gain this knowledge. The way is open to her.”

Linden recoiled. Enter—? Memories of Covenant’s last relapse flared through her. Suppressed dark hunger leaped up in her. Surely to have him from what the
Elohim
intended—! But she had nearly cost him his life. Peril came crowding around her. It flushed like shame across her skin. The contradiction threatened to trap her. This was why she had been chosen, why Gibbon had touched her. Twisting out of Covenant’s slackened grasp, she confronted Infelice and spat out the only answer she had—the only reply which enabled her to hold back the hunger.

“Possession is
evil
.”

Was it true after all that the
Elohim
were evil?

Infelice cocked an eyebrow in disdain, but did not reply.

“Linden.” Covenant’s voice was gripped like a bit between his teeth. His hands reached out to her, turned her to face him again. “I don’t care whether we can trust them or not. We have
got
to know where the One Tree is. If they have something else in mind—” He grimaced
acidly. “They think I don’t count. How much of that do you think I can stand? After what I’ve been through?” His tone said clearly that he could not stand it at all. “I saved the Land once, and I’ll do it again. They are not going to take that away from me.”

As she recognized his emotions, she went numb inside. Too much of his anger was directed at her—at the idea that she was the Sun-Sage, that he was to be blamed for affirming himself. The bells were within her range now, but she hardly listened to them. It was happening again, everything was happening again, there was nothing she could do, it would always happen. She was as useless to him as she had been to either of her parents. And she was going to lose him. She could not even say to him, I don’t have the power. Don’t you understand that the reason I won’t go into you is to protect you? Instead she let the frozen place in her heart speak.

“You’re just doing this because you feel insulted. It’s like your leprosy. You think you can get even by sacrificing yourself. The universal victim.”
You never loved me anyway
. “It’s the only way you know how to live.”

She saw that she had hurt him—and that the pain made no difference. The more she reviled him, the more adamant he became. The hot mute glare with which he answered her rendered him untouchable. In his own terms, he had no choice. How could he rise above his plight, except by meeting it squarely and risking himself against it? When he turned his back on her to accept Infelice’s offer, she did not try to stop him. Her numbness might as well have been grief.

“Covenant Giantfriend,” the First demanded. “Be wary of what you do. I have given the Search into your hands. It must not be lost.”

He ignored her. Facing Infelice, he muttered in a brittle voice, “I’m ready. Let’s get on with it.”

A bell rang across the eftmound—a clamor of appeal or protest. Now Linden was able to identify its source. It came from Findail.

—Infelice, consider! It is
my
life you hazard. If this path fails, I must bear the cost. Is there no other way?

And once again Infelice surprised Linden. “Sun-Sage,” the
Elohim
said as if she were denying herself, “what is your word? In your name, I will refuse him if you wish it.” Covenant hissed like a curse; but Infelice was not done discounting him. She went on inflexibly, “However, the onus will be upon your head. You must make promise that you will take his ring from him ere he brings the Earth to ruin—that you will make ring-wielder and Sun-Sage one in yourself.” Covenant radiated a desperate outrage which Infelice did not deign to notice. “If you will not bind yourself to that promise, I must meet his request.”

Stiffly Findail chimed:

—Infelice, I thank you.

But Linden had no way of knowing what Findail meant. She was reeling inwardly at the import of Infelice’s proposal. This was a more insidious temptation than possession: it offered her power without exposing her to the threat of darkness. To accept responsibility for him? No, more than that: to accept responsibility for the whole quest, for the survival of the Earth and the defeat of Lord Foul. Here was her chance to protect Covenant from himself—to spare him in the same way he had so often striven to spare her.

But then she saw the hidden snare. If she accepted, the quest would have no way to find the One Tree. Unless she did what she had just refused to do—unless she violated him to pry out Caer-Caveral’s secret knowledge. Everything came back to that. The strength of her
buried yearning for that kind of power made her feel sick. But she had already rejected it, had spent her life rejecting it.

She shook her head. Dully she said, “I can’t tell him what to do”—and tried to believe that she was affirming something, asserting herself and him against temptation. But every word she spoke sounded like another denial. The thought of his peril wrung her heart. “Let him make his own decisions.”

Then she had to wrap her arms around her chest to protect herself against the force of Covenant’s relief, Findail’s clanging dismay, the apprehension of her friends—and against Infelice’s eager radiance.

“Come,” the diamond-clad
Elohim
said at once, “Let us begin.”

And her inner voice added:

—Let him be taken by the silence, as we have purposed.

Involuntarily Linden turned, saw Covenant and Infelice focused on each other as if they were transfixed. She wore her gleaming like the outward sign of a cunning victory. And he stood with his shoulders squared and his head raised, braced on the crux of his circinate doom. If he had paused to smile, Linden would have screamed.

With a slow flourish of her raiment like a billowing of jewels, Infelice descended from the hillcrest. Her power became her as if she had been born for it. Flowing like the grateful breeze of evening, she moved to stand before Covenant.

When she placed her hand on his forehead, the silent air of the eftmound was shredded with anguish.

A shriek as shrill as fangs clawed through his chest. He plunged to his knees. Every muscle in his face and neck knotted. His hands leaped at his temples as if his skull were being torn apart. Convulsions made him pummel the sides of his head helplessly.

Almost as one. Linden and the Giants surged toward him.

Before they could reach him, his outcry became a scream of wild magic. White flame blasted in all directions. Infelice recoiled. The rock of the eftmound reeled. Linden and Pitchwife fell. Scores of the
Elohim
took other shapes to protect themselves. The First snatched out her glaive as if her balance depended on it. She was shouting furiously at Infelice; but amid the roar of Covenant’s power her voice made no sound.

Struggling to her hands and knees, Linden saw a sight that seemed to freeze the blood in her veins.

This conflagration was like no other she had ever witnessed. It did not come from his ring, from his half-fist pounding at his temple. It sprang straight from his forehead as if his brain had erupted in argence.

At first, the blaze spewed and flailed on every hand, scourging mad pain across the hill. But then the air became a tumult of bells, ringing in invocation, shaping the purpose of the
Elohim
; and the fire began to change. Slowly it altered to a hot shining, as hard and white as all agony fused together.

Instinctively Linden shielded her eyes. Such brilliance should have blinded her. But it did not. Though it beat against her face as if she were staring into the furnace of the sun, it remained bearable.

And within its clear core, visions were born.

One after another, they emerged through the radiance.

A young girl, a child in a blue dress, perhaps four or five years old, stood with her back pressed against the black trunk of a tree. Though she made no sound, she was wailing in unmasked terror at a timber-rattler near her bare legs.

Then the snake was gone, leaving two fatal red marks on the pale flesh of the child’s shin.

Covenant staggered into the vision. He looked battered and abused from head to foot. Blood ran from an untended cut on his lips, from his forehead. He took the girl into his arms, tried to comfort her. They spoke to each other, but the vision was mute. Fumbling, he produced a penknife, opened it. With the lace of one of his boots, he made a tourniquet. Then he steadied the girl in his embrace, poised his knife over her violated shin.

With the movement of the knife, the vision changed. First one, then the other, blades slashed his wrists, drawing lines of death. Blood ran. He knelt in a pool of passion while Riders swung their
rukhs
and drove him helpless and vermeil into the soothtell.

A chaos of images followed. Linden saw the Land sprawling broken under the Sunbane. From the deluge of the sun of rain, the stricken ground merged into a desert; then the desert was leeched into the red suppuration of the sun of pestilence. At the same time, all these things were happening to Joan’s flesh as she lay possessed and bound on her bed in Covenant’s house. She was wracked through every form of disease until Linden nearly went mad at the sight.

The vision quivered with rage and revulsion, and wild magic appeared. Acute incandescence flamed like one white torch among the blood-lit
rukhs
. It bent itself to his slashed wrists, staunching the flow, sealing the wounds. Then he rose to his feet, borne erect by fury and conflagration, and his power went reaving among the Riders, slaying them like sheaves.