The One Tree

But towering seas still heaved at the vessel. Plunging across the trough of a wave, it crashed sideward up the next ragged and vicious slope, then dove again as if it meant to bury its prow in the bottom. Linden clutched the stairs to keep herself from being kicked overboard.

She could not remain there, She feared that Starfare's Gem was in danger for its life-that any increase in the storm might break the ship apart. And the storm was going to increase. She felt its fury concatenating in the distance. The dromond rode the fringes of the blast: its heart was drawing closer. This course would carry the Giantship into the worst of the violence.

She had to warn Honninscrave.

She tried to creep up onto the stairs; but the wind flung her hair against her face like a flail, sucked the air from her lungs, threatened to rend her away. An instant of panic flamed through her.

Cail's arm caught her waist like a band of stone. His mouth came to her ear. “Seek shelter!” The wind ripped the words to pieces, making his shout barely audible.

She shook her head urgently, tried to drive her voice through the blow. “Take me to the wheeldeck!”

He hesitated for a moment while he cast a look about him, estimating the dangers. Then he swung her up the stairs.

She felt like a ragdoll in his grasp. If he had been any ordinary man, they would both have been slashed overboard. But he was an Haruchai. Surging across the weight of the wind, he bore her to the wheeldeck.

Only three Giants were there: Honninscrave, Galewrath, and the First. The Storesmaster stood at the great wheel, embracing it with both arms. Her muscles were knotted under the strain; her feet were widely planted to brace herself. She

looked like a granite monolith, capable of standing there and mastering Shipsheartthew until the sea and time broke Starfare's Gem into rubble.

Anchored by her weight and strength, the First remained still. The Search was out of her hands. Under these conditions, it belonged to the storm-and to Starfare's Gem. And the dromond belonged to Honninscrave.

He stood near Galewrath; but all his attention was focused forward like a beacon, burning for the safety of his ship. The bony mass of his brows seemed to protect his sight. He bore himself as if he could see everything. His trenchant bellow pierced the wind. And the Giants responded like a manifestation of his will. Step by arduous step, they fought sheets and shrouds and canvas, tuned Starfare's Gem to endure the peril.

Linden tried to shout; but the wind struck her in the teeth, stuffed her voice back down her throat. With a fervid gesture, she directed Cail toward the Master.

“Honninscrave!” She had to scream to make herself heard. “Change course! We're running right into the storm!”

The import of her words snatched at his attention. Bending over her, he shouted, “That cannot be! This storm rises from the south! Riding as we do, we shall remain on its verge and be driven only scantly from our path!”

The south? She gaped at him, disbelieving that he could be wrong about such a thing. When she forced her vision in that direction, she saw he was not wrong. Her senses plainly discerned a cusp of violence there, though it was several leagues distant. Honninscrave's present course would carry Starfare's Gem around the fierce core of that storm.

But a look toward the northwest verified what she had seen earlier. A hurricane crouched there, titanic and monstrous. The two storms were crowding together, with Starfare's Gem between them. Every heave and crash of the dromond's keel angled it closer to the savagery of the stronger blast.

With a cry that seemed to tear her throat, she told Honninscrave what she saw.

Her news staggered him. He had never had a chance to see the hurricane. The first storm had taken hold of the Giantship before it entered the range of the second. Disaster loomed along the heading he had chosen. But he recovered swiftly. He was the Master of Starfare's Gem in every nerve and sinew. He sounded ready for any peril or mischance as he shouted, “What is your counsel?”

Gritting herself, she tried to think-gauge the intersecting paths of the storms, estimate the effect they would have on each other. She was not adept at such visualizations. She was trained to map the insidious cunning of diseases, not the candid fury of gales. But she read them as best she could.

“If we keep on this way!” Her chest ached at the strain of yelling. “We might be able to pass the one in the south! Or the worst of it! Before we get too far into the other one!”

Honninscrave nodded his approval. The abutment of his forehead seemed proof against any storm.

“But the other one!” She concluded as if she were screaming. “It's terrible! If you have to choose, go south!”

“I hear you!” His shout was flayed into spray and tatters. He had already turned to hurl his orders across the wind.

His commands sounded as mad as the gale. Linden felt the hurricane ravening closer, always closer. Surely no vessel-especially one as heavy as the dromond- could withstand that kind of fury. The wind was a shriek in the ratlines. She could see the masts swaying. The yards appeared to waver like outstretched arms groping for balance. The deck kicked and lurched. If Galewrath did not weaken, the rudder might snap, leaving Starfare's Gem at the mercy of the hungry seas. While Linden hesitated, the last sail left on the aftermast sprang suddenly into shreds and was gone, torn thread from thread. Its gear lashed the air. Instinctively, she ducked her head, pressed herself against Cail's support.

Yelling like ecstasy, Honninscrave sent Giants to replace the lost canvas.

Linden pulled her face to the side of Cail's head, shouted, “Take me forward! I've got an idea!”

He nodded his understanding and at once began to haul her toward a stairway, choosing the windward side rather than the lee to keep as much of the tilted deck as possible between her and the seething rush of the sea.

As they reached the stairs, she saw several Giants-Pitchwife and others-hastening across the afterdeck, accompanied by Ceer and Hergrom. They were stringing lifelines. When she and Cail gained the foot of the stairs, Pitchwife and Ceer came slogging to join them. Blinking the spray from his eyes, Pitchwife gave her a grin. With a gesture toward the wheeldeck, he shouted like a laugh, “Our Honninscrave is in his element, think you not?” Then he ascended the stairs to join Ws wife and the Master.

Linden's clothes were soaked. Her shirt stuck to her skin. Every gobbet of water the seas hurled at her seemed to slap into her bones. She had already begun to shiver. But the cold felt detached, impersonal, as if she were no longer fully inhabiting her body; and she ignored it.

Then rain gushed out of the clouds. It filled the air as if every wavecap had become foam, boiling up to put teeth into the wind. The ocean appeared to shrink around Starfare's Gem, blinding all the horizons. Linden could barely see as far as Foodfendhall. She spat curses, but the loud rain deafened her to her own voice. With so little visibility, how would Honninscrave know when to turn from the approaching hurricane?

She struggled to the nearest lifeline, locked her fingers around it, then started to pull her way forward.

She had an idea. But it might have been sane or mad. The gale rent away all distinctions.

The afterdeck seemed as long as a battlefield. Spray and rain sent sheets of water pouring against her ankles, nearly sweeping her down the deck. At every plunge of the Giantship, she shivered like an echo of the tremors which ran along the dromond's keel. The lifeline felt raw with cold, abrading her palms. Yet she strove forward. She had failed at everything else. She could not bear to think that this simple task might prove beyond her strength.

Ceer went ahead to open the door of the housing. Riding an eddy of the storm, she pitched over the sill, stumbled to the floor. The two Haruchai slammed the door; and at once the air tensed as if pressure were building toward an explosion in Foodfendhall, aggravated by the yammer and crash outside. For a moment of panic, she thought she heard pieces of the ship breaking away. But as she regained her breath, she realised that she was hearing the protestations of the midmast.

In the lantern-light, the shaft of the mast was plain before her, marked by engravings she had never studied. Perhaps they revealed the story of Starfare's Gem's making, or of its journeys. She did not know. As she worked forward, the groans and creaks rose into a sharp keening. The spars high above her had begun to