The One Tree

'Yet had such knowing comprised the limit of our knowledge, you would have been welcomed here merely as other visitors are welcomed, in simple kindness and curiosity. But our knowledge is not so small. We have found within ourselves this shadow upon the heart of the Earth, and it has altered our thoughts. It has taught us to conceive of the Sunbane in new ways-and to reply to the Earth's peril in a manner other than our wont.

“You have doubted us. And your doubt will remain. Perhaps it will grow until it resembles loathing. Yet I say to you, Sun-Sage, that you judge us falsely. That you should presume to judge us at all is incondign and displeasing. We are the heart of the Earth and not to be judged.”

Daphin spoke strongly; but she did not appear vexed. Rather, she asked for understanding in the way a parent might ask a child for good behaviour. Her tone abashed Linden. But she also rebelled. Daphin was asking her to give up her responsibility for discernment and action; and she would not. That responsibility was her reason for being here, and she had earned it.

Then the bells seemed to rise up in her like the disapproval of Elemesnedene. “What are you?” she inquired in a constrained voice. “The heart of the Earth. The centre. The truth. What does all that mean?”

“Sun-Sage,” replied Daphin, “we are the Wurd of the Earth.”

She spoke clearly, but her tone was confusing. Her Wurd sounded like Wyrd or Word.

Wyrd? Linden thought. Destiny — doom? Or Word?

Or both.

Into the silence, Daphin placed her story. It was an account of the creation of the Earth; and Linden soon realised that it was the same tale Pitchwife had told her during the calling of the Nicor. Yet it contained one baffling difference. Daphin did not speak of a Worm. Rather, she used that blurred sound, Wurd, which seemed to signify both Wyrd and Word.

This Wurd had awakened at the dawning of the eon and begun to consume the stars as if it intended to devour the cosmos whole. After a time, it had grown satiated and had curled around itself to rest, thus forming the Earth. And thus the Earth would remain until the Wurd roused to resume its feeding.

It was precisely the same story Pitchwife had told. Had the Giants who had first brought that tale out of Elemesnedene misheard it? Or had the Elohim pronounced it differently to other visitors?

As if in answer, Daphin concluded, “Sun-Sage, we are the Wurd-the direct offspring of the creation of the Earth. From it we arose, and in it we have our being. Thus we are the heart, and the centre, and the truth, and therefore we are what we are. We are all answers, just as we are every question. For that reason, you must not judge the reply which we will give to your need.”

Linden hardly heard the Elohim. Her mind was awhirl with implications. Intuitions rang against the limits of her understanding like the clamour of bells. We are the Wurd. Morninglight swirling with colour like a portrait of the clachan in metaphor. A willow leaved in butterflies. Self-contemplation.

Power.

Eight: The Elohimfest

WHAT the hell?

Linden could not move. The lucidity with which the soundless bells had spoken staggered her. She gaped at Daphin's outstretched hand. It made no impression on her. Feverishly, she grappled for the meaning of the music.

We must hasten-

Had she heard that — or invented it in her confusion?

Hear us too acutely.

Her Land-born percipience had stumbled onto something she had not been intended to receive. The speakers of the bells did not want her to know what they were saying.

She fought to concentrate. But she could not take hold of that language. Though it hushed itself as she groped toward it, it did not fall altogether silent. It continued to run in the background of her awareness like a conversation of fine crystal. And yet it eluded her. The more she struggled to comprehend it, the more it sounded like mere bells and nothing else.

Daphin and Morninglight were gazing at her as if they could read the rush of her thoughts. She needed to be left alone, needed time to think. But the eyes of the Elohim did not waver. Her trepidation tightened, and she recognized another need-to keep both the extent and the limitation of her hearing secret. If she were not intended to discern these bells, then in order to benefit from them she must conceal what she heard.

She had to glean every secret she could. Behind Daphin's apparent candour, the Elohim were keeping their true purposes hidden. And Covenant and the rest of her companions were dependent on her, whether they knew it or not. They did not have her ears.

The music had not been silenced. Therefore she had not entirely given herself away. Yet. Trying to cover her confusion, she blinked at Daphin and asked incredulously, “Is that all? You're done examining me? You don't know anything about me.”

Daphin laughed lightly. “Sun-Sage, this 'examining' is like the 'doing' of which you speak so inflexibly. For us, the word has another meaning. I have considered myself and garnered all the truth of you that I require. Now come.” She repeated the outreach of her hand. “Have I not said that the Elohimfest awaits you? There the coming of Infelice will offer another insight. And also we will perform the asking and answering for which you have quested over such distances. Is it not your desire to attend that congregation?”

“Yes,” replied Linden, suppressing her discomfiture. “That's what I want.” She had forgotten her hopes amid the disquieting implications of the bells. But her friends would have to be warned. She would have to find a way to warn them against the danger they could not hear. Stiffly, she accepted Daphin's hand, let the Elohim lift her to her feet.

With Daphin on one side and Morninglight on the other like guards, she left the hillside.

She had no sense of direction in this place; but she did not question Daphin's lead. Instead, she concentrated on concealing her thoughts behind a mask of severity.

On all sides were the wonders of Elemesnedene. Bedizened trees and flaming shrubs, fountains imbued with the colour of ichor, animals emblazoned like tapestries: everywhere the Elohim enacted astonishment as if it were merely gratuitous — the spilth or detritus of their self-contemplations. But now each of these nonchalant theurgies appeared ominous to Linden, suggestive of peril and surquedry. The bells chimed in her head. Though she fought to hold them, they meant nothing.

For one blade-sharp moment, she felt as she had felt when she had first entered Revelstone: trapped in the coercion of Santonin's power, riven of every reason which had ever given shape or will to her life. Here the compulsion was more subtle; but it was as cloying as attar, and it covered everything with its pall. If the Elohim did not choose to release her, she would never leave Elemesnedene.

Yet surely this was not Revelstone, and the Elohim had nothing in common with Ravers, for Daphin's smile conveyed no hint of underlying mendacity, and her eyes were the colour of new leaves in springtime. And as she passed, the wonderments put aside their self-absorption to join her and the Sun-Sage. Melting, swirling, condensing into human form, they greeted Linden as if she were the heir to some strange majesty, then arrayed themselves behind her and moved in silence and chiming toward the conclave of the Elohimfest. Apparelled in cymars and mantles, in sendaline and jaconet and organdy like the cortege of a celebration, they followed Linden as if to do her honour. Once again, she felt the enchantment of the clachan exercising itself upon her, wooing her from her distrust.

But as the Elohim advanced with her, the land behind them lost all its features,