The One Tree

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Elohim searched her as Gibbon had once searched her. Are you not evil? No. Not as long as the darkness had no power. “I'm not the Sun-Sage.”

Chant cocked an eyebrow in disbelief.

“If anybody is, it's him.” She pointed at Covenant, trying to turn the eyes of the Elohim away. “He has the ring.”

They did not waver. Daphin's mien remained pellucid; but Chant's smile hinted at fierceness. “We have no taste for untruth”-his tone was satin-“and your words are manifestly untrue. Deny not that you are what you are. It does not please us. Explain, rather, why this man holds possession of your white ring.”

At once, Covenant snapped, “It's not her ring. It's mine. It's always been mine.” Beside the Elohim, he sounded petulant and diminished.

Chant's smile deepened, gripping Linden in its peril. “That also is untrue. You are not the Sun-Sage.”

Covenant tensed for a retort. But Daphin forestalled him. Calmly, she said, “No. The ring is his. Its mark lies deeply within him.”

At that, Chant looked toward his companion; and Linden sagged in relief. The shifting of his gaze gave her a palpable release.

Chant frowned as if Daphin's contradiction broke an unspoken agreement. But she went on addressing Linden. “Yet here is a mystery. All our vision has seen the same truth — that the Sun-Sage and ring-wielder who would come among us in quest are one being. Thereon hinge matters of grave import. And our vision does not lie. Rawedge Rim and Woodenwold do not lie. How may this be explained, Sun-Sage?”

Linden felt Covenant clench as if he were on the verge of fire. “What do you want me to do?” he grated. “Give it up?”

Chant did not deign to glance at him. “Such power ill becomes you. Silence would be more seemly. You stand among those who surpass you. Permit the Sun-Sage to speak.” Notes of anger ran through the music of the bells.

Covenant growled a curse. Sensing his ire, Linden twisted herself out of the grip of the Elohim to face him. His visage Was dark with venom.

Again, his vehemence appeared unnatural-a reaction to the air rather than to his situation or the Elohim. That impression sparked an inchoate urgency in her. Something here outweighed her personal denials. Intuitively, she pitched her voice so that Covenant must hear her.

“I wouldn't be here without him.”

Then she began to tremble at the responsibility she had implicitly accepted.

The next moment, Pitchwife was speaking. “Peace, my friends,” he said. His misshapen face was sharp with uncharacteristic apprehension. “We have journeyed far to gain the boon of these Elohim. Far more than our mere lives hang in jeopardy.” His voice beseeched them softly. “Give no offense.”

Covenant peered at Linden as if he were trying to determine the nature of her support and recognition. Suddenly, she wanted to ask him, Do you hear bells? If he did, he gave no sign. But what he saw in her both tightened and steadied him. Deliberately, he shrugged down his power. Without lifting his scrutiny from Linden, he said to the Elohim, “Forgive me. The reason we're here. It's urgent. I don't carry the strain very well.”

The Elohim ignored him, continued watching Linden. But the timbre of anger drifted away along the music. “Perhaps our vision has been incomplete,” said Daphin. Her voice lilted like birdsong. “Perhaps there is a merging to come. Or a death.”

Merging? Linden thought quickly. Death? She felt the same questions leaping in Covenant. She started to ask, What do you mean?

But Chant had resumed his dangerous smile. Still addressing Linden as though she outranked all her companions, he said abruptly, “It is known that your quest is exigent. We are not a hasty people, but neither do we desire your delay.” Turning, he gestured gracefully along the Callowwail. “Will you accompany us to Elemesnedene?”

Linden needed a moment to muster her response. Too much was happening. She had been following Covenant's lead since she had first met him. She was not prepared to make decisions for him or anyone else.

But she had no choice. At her back crowded the emotions of her companions: Honninscrave's tension, the First's difficult silence, Pitchwife's suspense, Covenant's hot doubt. They all withheld themselves, waited for her. And she had her own reasons for being here. With a grimace, she accepted the role she had been given.

“Thank you,” she said formally. 'That's what we came for.'

Chant bowed as if she had shown graciousness; but she could not shake the impression that he was laughing at her secretly. Then the two Elohim moved away. Walking as buoyantly as if they shared the analystic clarity of the air, they went out into the yellow grass toward the heart of the maidan. Linden followed them with Cail at her side; and her companions joined her.

She wanted to talk to them, ask them for guidance. But she felt too exposed to speak. Treading behind Chant and Daphin at a slight distance, she tried to steady herself on the tough confidence of the Haruchai.

As she walked, she studied the surrounding maidan, hoping to descry something which would enable her to identify an Elohim who was not wearing human form. But she had not perceived any hint of Daphin or Chant before they had accosted the company; and now she was able to discern nothing except the strong autumn grass, the underlying loam, and the Callowwail's purity. Yet her sense of exposure increased. After a while, she discovered that she had been unconsciously clenching her fists.

With an effort, she ungnarled her fingers, looked at them. She could hardly believe that they had ever held a scalpel or hypodermic. When she dropped them, they dangled at her wrists like strangers.

She did not know how to handle the importance the Elohim had ascribed to her. She could not read the faint clear significance of the bells. Following Chant and Daphin, she felt that she was walking into a quagmire.

An odd thought crossed her mind. The Elohim had given no word of recognition to Vain. The Demondim- spawn still trailed the company like a shadow; yet Chant and Daphin had not reacted to him at all. She wondered about that, but found no explanation.

Sooner than she had expected, the fountainhead of the Callowwail became visible-a cloud of mist set in the centre of the maidan like an ornament. As she neared it, it stood out more clearly through its spray.

It arose like a geyser from within a high mound of travertine. Its waters arched in clouds and rainbows to fall around the base of the mound, where they collected to form the

River. The water looked as edifying as crystal, as clinquant as faery promises; but the travertine it had formed and dampened appeared obdurate, uncompromising. The mound seemed to huddle into itself as if it could not be moved by any appeal. The whorled and skirling shapes on its sides-cut and deposited by ages of spray, the old scrollwork of the water-gave it an elusive eloquence, but did not alter its essential posture.

Beckoning for the company to follow, Daphin and Chant stepped lightly through the stream and climbed as easily as air up the side of the wet rock.

There without warning they vanished as if they had melded themselves into travertine.

Linden stopped, stared. Her senses caught no trace of the Elohim. The bells were barely audible.

Behind her, Honninscrave cleared his throat. “Elemesnedene,” he said huskily. “The clachan of the Elohim. I had not thought that I would see such sights again.”

Covenant scowled at the Master. “What do we do now?”

For the first time since Starfare's Gem had dropped anchor outside the Raw, Honninscrave laughed. “As our welcomers have done. Enter.”

Linden started to ask him how., then changed her mind. Now that the silence had been broken, another question was more important to her. “Do any of you hear bells?”

The First looked at her sharply. “Bells?”

Pitchwife's expression mirrored the First's ignorance. Seadreamer shook his head. Brinn gave a slight negative shrug.

Slowly, Honninscrave said, “The Elohim are not a musical folk. I have heard no bells or any song here. And all the tales which the Giants tell of Elemesnedene make no mention of bells.”