One Tree (45 page)

His mien wore an inflectionless contempt as he turned his back on her. Mutely he referred his desires to the leadership of the First.

The Swordmain did not respond. If she were aware of her opportunity, she elected to ignore it. Without a word to the Kemper or her companions, she strode to the stairs.

Linden gave a dumb groan of relief or regret, she did not know which.

A faint frown creased Brinn’s forehead. But he did not hesitate. When Honninscrave had followed the First, Brinn and Hergrom took Covenant downward. At once, Cail and Ceer steered Linden toward the stairs. Seadreamer placed himself like a bulwark behind the
Haruchai
. Leaving Vain and Findail to follow at their own pace, the company descended from Kemper’s Pitch. Clenched in a silence like a fist, they returned to their quarters in the Second Circinate.

Along the way, they encountered no Guards. Even The Majesty was empty of
hustin
.

The First entered the larger chamber across the hall from the bedrooms. While Linden and the others joined the Swordmain, Ceer remained in the passage to ward the door.

Brinn carefully placed Covenant on one of the settees. Then he confronted the First and Linden together. His impassive voice conveyed a timbre of accusation to Linden’s hearing.

“Why did we not slay the Kemper? There lay our path to safety.”

The First regarded him as if she were chewing her tongue for self-command. A hard moment passed between them before she replied, “The
hustin
number four score hundred. The Horse, fifteen score. We cannot win our way with bloodshed.”

Linden felt like a cripple. Once again, she had been too paralyzed to act; contradictions rendered her useless. She could not even spare herself the burden of supporting Brinn.

“They don’t mean anything. I don’t know about the Horse. But the Guards haven’t got any minds of their own. They’re helpless without Kasreyn to tell them what to do.”

Honninscrave looked at her in surprise. “But the
gaddhi
said—”

“He’s mistaken.” The cries she had been stifling tore at the edges of her voice. “Kasreyn keeps him like a pet.”

“Then is it also your word,” asked the First darkly, “that we should have slain this Kemper?”

Linden failed to meet the First’s stare. She wanted to shout, Yes! And,
No
. Did she not have enough blood on her hands?

“We are Giants,” the Swordmain said to Linden’s muteness. “We do not murder.” Then she turned her back on the matter.

But she was a trained fighter. The rictus of her shoulders said as clearly as an expostulation that the effort of restraint in the face of so much peril and mendacity was tearing her apart.

A blur filled Linden’s sight. Every judgment found her wanting. Even Covenant’s emptiness was an accusation for which she had no answer.

What had Kasreyn done to Hergrom?

The light and dark of the world were invisible within the Sandhold. But eventually servants came to the chamber, announcing sunrise with trays of food. Linden’s thoughts were dulled by fatigue and strain; yet she roused herself to inspect the viands. She expected treachery in everything. However, a moment’s examination showed her that the food was clean. Deliberately she and her companions ate their fill, trying to prepare themselves for the unknown.

With worn and red-rimmed eyes, she studied Hergrom. From the brown skin of his face to the vital marrow of his bones, he showed no evidence of harm, no sign that he had ever been touched. But the
unforgiving austerity of his visage prevented her from asking him any questions. The
Haruchai
did not trust her. In refusing to call for Kasreyn’s death, she had rejected what might prove the only chance to save Hergrom.

Some time later, Rire Grist arrived. He was accompanied by another man, a soldier with an atrabilious mien whom the Caitiffin introduced as his aide. He greeted the questers as if he had heard nothing concerning the night’s activities. Then he said easily, “My friends, the
gaddhi
chooses to pleasure himself this morning with a walk upon the Sandwall. He asks for your attendance. The sun shines with wondrous clarity, granting a view of the Great Desert which may interest you. Will you come?”

He appeared calm and confident. But Linden read in the tightness around his eyes that the peril had not been averted.

The bitterness of the First’s thoughts was plain upon her countenance: Have we choice in the matter? But Linden had nothing to say. She had lost the power of decision. Her fears beat about her head like dark wings, making everything impossible. They’re going to kill Hergrom!

Yet the company truly had no choice. They could not fight all the
gaddhi
’s Guards and Horse. And if they did not mean to fight, they had no recourse but to continue acting out their role as Rant Absolain’s guests. Linden’s gaze wandered the blind stone of the floor, avoiding the eyes which searched her, until the First said to Rire Grist, “We are ready.” Then in stiff distress she followed her companions out of the room.

The Caitiffin led them down to the Sandhold’s massive gates. In the forecourt of the First Circulate, perhaps as many as forty soldiers were training their mounts, prancing and curveting the destriers around the immense, dim hall. The horses were all dark or black, and their shod hooves struck sparks into the shadows like the crepitation of a still-distant prescience. Rire Grist hailed the leader of the riders in a tone of familiar command. He was sure of himself among them. But he took the company on across the hall without pausing.

When they reached the band of open ground which girdled the donjon, the desert sun hit them a tangible blow of brightness and heat. Linden had to turn away to clear her sight. Blinking, she looked up at the dusty-tinged sky between the ramparts, seeking some relief for her senses from the massy oppression of the Sandhold. But she found no relief. There were no birds. And the banquettes within the upper curve of the wall were marked at specific intervals with
hustin
.

Cail took her arm, drew her after her companions eastward into the shadow of the wall. Her eyes were grateful for the dimness; but it did not ease the way the arid air scraped at her lungs. The sand shifted under her feet at every step, leeching the strength from her legs. When the company passed the eastern gate of the Sandwall, she felt an impossible yearning to turn and run.

Talking politely about the design and construction of the wall, Rire Grist led the company around the First Circinate toward a wide stair built into the side of the Sandwall. He was telling the First and Honninscrave that there were two such stairs, one opposite the other beyond the Sandhold—and that there were also other ways to reach the wall from the donjon, through underground passages. His tone was bland; but his spirit was not.

A shiver like a touch of fever ran through Linden as he started up the stairs. Nevertheless she followed as if she had surrendered her independent volition to the exigency which impelled the First.

The stairs were broad enough for eight or ten people at once. But they were steep, and the effort of climbing them in that heat drew a flush across Linden’s face, stuck her shirt to her back with sweat. By the time she reached the top, she was breathing as if the dry air were full of needles.

Within its parapets, the ridge of the Sandwall was as wide as a road and smooth enough for horses or wains to travel easily. From this vantage, Linden was level with the rim of the First Circinate and could see each immense circle of the Sandhold rising dramatically to culminate in the dire shaft of Kemper’s Pitch.

On the other side of the wall lay the Great Desert.

As Rire Grist had said, the atmosphere was clear and sharp to the horizons. Linden felt that her gaze spanned a score of leagues to the east and south. In the south, a few virga cast purple shadows across the middle distance; but they did not affect the etched acuity of the sunlight.

Under that light, the desert was a wilderness of sand—as white as salt and bleached bones, and drier than all the world’s thirst. It caught the sun, sent it back diffused and multiplied. The sands were like a sea immobilized by the lack of any tide heavy enough to move it. Dunes serried and challenged each other toward the sky as if at one time the ground itself had been lashed to life by the fury of a cataclysm. But that orogeny had been so long ago that only the skeleton of the terrain and the shape of the dunes remembered it. No other life remained to the Great Desert now except the life of wind—intense desiccating blasts out of the deep south which could lift the sand like spume and re-carve the face of the land at whim. And this day there was no wind. The air felt like a reflection of the sand, and everything Linden saw in all directions was dead.

But to the southwest there was wind. As the company walked along the top of the Sandwall, she became aware that in the distance, beyond the virga and the discernible dunes, violence was brewing. No, not brewing: it had already attained full rage. A prodigious storm galed around itself against the horizon as if it had a cyclone for a heart. Its clouds were as black as thunder, and at intervals it sent out lurid glarings like shrieks.

Until the Giants stopped to look at the storm, she did not realize what it was.

Sandgorgons Doom.

Abruptly she was touched by a tremor of augury, as if even at this range the storm had the power to reach out and rend—

The
gaddhi
and his women stood on the southwest curve of the Sandwall, where they had a crystal view of the Doom. Nearly a score of
hustin
guarded the vicinity.

They were directly under the purview of Kemper’s Pitch.

Rant Absolain hailed the questers as they approached. A secret excitement sharpened his welcome. He spoke the common tongue with a heartiness that rang false. On behalf of the company, Rire Grist gave appropriate replies. Before he could make obeisance, the
gaddhi
summoned him closer, drawing the company among the Guards. Quickly Linden scanned the gathering and discovered that Kasreyn was not present.

Free of his Kemper, Rant Absolain was determined to play the part of a warm host. “Welcome, welcome,” he said fulsomely. He wore a long ecru robe designed to make him appear stately. His Favored stood near him, attired like the priestesses of a love-god. Other young women were there also; but they had not been granted the honor of sharing the
gaddhi
’s style of dress. They were decked out in raiment exquisitely inappropriate to the sun and the heat. But the
gaddhi
paid no attention to their obvious beauty; he concentrated in his guests. In one hand, he held an ebony chain from which dangled a large medallion shaped to represent a black sun. He used it to emphasize the munificence of his gestures as he performed.

“Behold the Great Desert!” He faced the waste as if it were his to display. “Is it not a sight? Under such a sun the true tint is revealed—a hue stretching as far as the
Bhrathair
have ever journeyed, though the tale is told that in the far south the desert becomes a wonderland of every color the eye may conceive.” His arm flipped the medallion in arcs about him. “No people but the
Bhrathair
have ever wrested bare life from such a grand and ungiving land. But we have done more.

“The Sandhold you have seen. Our wealth exceeds that of monarchs who rule lush demesnes. But now for the first time”—his voice tightened in expectation—“you behold Sandgorgons Doom. Not elsewhere in all the Earth is such theurgy manifested.” In spite of herself, Linden looked where the
gaddhi
directed her gaze. The hot sand made the bones of her forehead ache as if the danger were just beginning; but that distant violence held her. “And no other people have so triumphed over such fell foes.” Her companions seemed transfixed by the roiling thunder. Even the
Haruchai
stared at it as if they sought to estimate themselves against it.

“The Sandgorgons.” Rant Absolain’s excitement mounted. “You do not know them—but I tell you this. Granted time and freedom, one such creature might tear the Sandhold stone from stone. One! They are more fearsome than madness or nightmare. Yet there they are bound. Their lives they spend railing against the gyre of their Doom, while we thrive. Only at rare events does one of them gain release—and then but briefly.” The tension in his voice grew keener, whetted by every word. Linden wanted to turn away from the Doom, drag her companions back from the parapet. But she had no name for what dismayed her.

“For centuries, the
Bhrathair
lived only because the Sandgorgons did not slay them all. But now I am the
gaddhi
of
Bhrathairealm
and all the Great Desert, and they are mine!”

He ended his speech with a gesture of florid pride; and suddenly the ebony chain slipped from his fingers.

Sailing black across the sunlight and the pale sand, the chain and medallion arced over the parapet and fell near the base of the Sandwall. Sand puffed at the impact, settled again. The dark sun of the medallion lay like a stain on the clean earth.

The
gaddhi
’s women gasped, surged to the edge to look downward. The Giants peered over the parapet.

Rant Absolain did not move. He hugged his arms around his chest to contain a secret emotion.

Reacting like a good courtier, Rire Grist said quickly, “Fear nothing, O
gaddhi
. It will shortly be restored to you. I will send my aide to retrieve it.”

The soldier with him started back toward the stairs, clearly intending to reach one of the outer gates and return along the base of the Sandwall to pick up the medallion.

But the
gaddhi
did not look at the Caitiffin. “I want it now,” he snapped with petulant authority. “Fetch rope.”

At once, two Guards left the top of the wall, descended to the banquette, then entered the wall through the nearest opening.

Tautly Linden searched for some clue to the peril. It thickened in the air at every moment. But the
gaddhi
’s attitude was not explicit
enough to betray his intent. Rire Grist’s careful poise showed that he was playing his part in a charade—but she had already been convinced of that. Of the women, only the two Favored exposed any knowledge of the secret. The Lady Benj’s mien was hard with concealment. And the Lady Alif flicked covert glances of warning toward the company.