The One Tree

sing.

She nearly fell again when Ceer opened the door, letting the howl strike at her like a condor. But Cail braced her, helped her back out into the blast. At once, the rain crashed down like thunder. She chose a lifeline anchored to the foremast.

With the cable clamped under one arm so that it upheld her, she lowered her head and went on against the wind.

A Giant loomed ahead of her, following the lifeline aft. As they reached each other, she recognized Sevinhand. He paused to let her pass, then shouted like an act of comradeship, “Such a storm! Were I less certain of our charting, I would believe that we had blundered unwitting into the Soulbiter!”

She had no time to reply. Her hands burned with friction and cold. The cable wore at her side like a gall. She had to reach Findail. He alone on Starfare's Gem had the power to avert the disaster of the advancing hurricane.

At the foremast she rested briefly, standing so that the wind pressed her to the stone. In that position, the torment of the mast thrummed acutely into her. The granite's vitality was being stressed mercilessly. For a moment, the sensation filled her with dread. But when she thrust her percipience into the mast, she was reassured. Like Honninscrave, the dromond was equal to this need. Starfare's Gem might tilt and keen, but it was not about to break.

Yet the heart of the hurricane was towering toward her like a mountain come to life, a dire colossus striding to stamp the Giantship down to its doom. Clinching a cable which ran in the direction of the prow, she went on.

As she squinted through sheets of water as binding as cerements, she caught sight of Vain. The Demondim-spawn stood midway between the foremast and the prow, facing forward as if to keep watch on Findail. And he was as rigid as if the heaving surface under him were a stationary platform. Even the wind had no effect upon him. He might have been rooted to the stone.

Findail became visible for a moment, then disappeared as the Giantship crashed into the trough of the seas and slammed its prow against the next wave. A deluge cut Linden's legs from under her. She barely kept her grip on the lifeline. Now she could only advance between waves. When Starfare's Gem lifted its head, she wrestled forward a few steps. When the prow hit the next wave as if the dromond were being snatched into the deeps, she clung where she was and prayed that her grip and the cable would hold.

But she moved by stages and at last reached the railing. From there, she had only a short way to go.

The last part was the hardest. She was already quivering with cold and exhaustion; and the Giantship's giddy motion, throwing her toward and then yanking her away from the sea, left her hoarse with involuntary curses. At every downward crash, the force of the vessel's struggle hit her. The sheer effort of holding her breath for each inundation threatened to finish her. Several times, she was only saved by the support of Cail's shoulder.

Then she gained Findail's side. He glanced at her between plunges; and the sight of him stunned her. He was not wet. The wind did not ruffle his hair; the rain did not touch him. He emerged from every smash into the waves with dry raiment and clear eyes, as if he had tuned his flesh to a pitch beyond the reach of any violence of weather or sea.

But his unscathed aspect confirmed her determination. He was a being of pure Earthpower, capable of sparing himself the merest contact with wind and spray. And what was any storm, if not Earthpower in another form-unbridled and savage, but still acting in accordance with the Law of its nature?

At the impact of the next wave, she ducked her head. The water pounded her, covered her face with her hair. When the dromond lifted again, she loosed one hand from the rail to thrust the sodden strands aside. Then she drove her voice at Findail.

“Do something! Save us!”

His pain-lined expression did not alter. He made no attempt to shout; but his words reached her as clearly as if the storm had been stricken dumb.

“The Elohim do not tamper with the life of the Earth. There is no life without structure. We respect the workings of that structure in every guise.”

Structure, Linden thought. Law. They are who they are. Their might is matched by their limitations. Starfare's Gem dove. She clung to the rail for her life. Chaos was death. Energy could not exist without constriction. If the Lawless power of the Sunbane grew too strong, it might unbind the very foundations of the Earth.

As the deluge swept past her, she tried again.

“Then tell Honninscrave what to do! Guide him!”

The Elohim seemed faintly surprised, “Guide-?” But then he shrugged. “Had he inquired, the question would have searched me. In such a case, where would my ethic lie? But it boots nothing now.” The Giantship plunged again; yet Linden could hear him through the tumult of the water and the shrill wind. “The time for such questions is lost.”

When the prow surfaced, she fought her sight clear and saw what he meant.

From out of the heart of the hurricane came rushing a wall of water as high as the first spars of the Giantship.

It was driven by wind-a wind so savage and tremendous that it dwarfed everything else; a wind which turned every upreaching sea to steam, sheared off the crest of every wave, so that the ocean under it mounted and ran like a flow of dark magma.

Starfare's Gem lay almost directly athwart the wall.

Linden stared at it in a seizure of dread. In the last pause before the onslaught, she heard Honninscrave roaring faintly, “Ward!” Then his shout was effaced by the wild stentorian rage of the wind, howling like the combined anguish and ferocity of all the damned.

As the wall hit, she lunged at Findail, trying to gain his help-or take him with her, she did not know which. The impact of the great wave ended all differences. But her hands seemed to pass through him. She got one last clear look at his face. His eyes were yellow with grief.

Then the starboard side of the Giantship rose like an orogenic upthrust, and she fell toward the sea.

She thought that surely she would strike the port rail. She flailed her arms to catch hold of it. But she was pitched past it into the water.

The sea slammed at her with such force that she did not feel the blow, did not feel the waters close over her.

At the same moment, something hard snagged her wrist, wrenched her back to the surface. She was already ten or fifteen feet from the ship. Its port edge was submerged; the entire foredeck loomed over her. It stood almost vertically in the water, poised to fall on her, crush her between stone and sea.

But it did not fall. Somehow, Starfare's Gem remained balanced on its side, with nearly half of its port decks underwater. And Cail did not let her go.

His right hand held her wrist at the farthest stretch of his arm. His ankles were grasped by Ceer, also fully outstretched.

Vain anchored the Haruchai. He still stood as if he were rooted to the deck, with his body at right angles to the stone, nearly parallel to the sea. But he had moved down the deck, positioned himself almost at the waterline. At the end of his reach, he held Ceer's ankles.

He did not trouble to raise his head to find out if Linden were safe.

Heaving against the rush of water, Ceer hauled Cail closer to the deck; and Cail dragged Linden after him. Together, the Haruchai contracted their chain until Cail could grip Vain's wrist with his free hand. The Demondim-spawn did nothing to ease their task; but when both Cail and Ceer were clinched to him, holding Linden between them, he released Ceer's ankles. Then the Haruchai bore her up Vain's back to the deck.

Braced against his rigid ankles, they gave her a chance to draw breath.

She had swallowed too much water; she was gagging on salt. A spasm of coughing knotted her guts. But when it loosened, she found that she could breathe more easily than before the great wave struck. Lying on its side, Starfare's Gem formed a lee against the wind. The turbulence of the blast's passage pounded the sea beyond the ship, so that the surface frothed and danced frenetically; but the decks themselves lay in a weird calm.