The One Tree

She continued to hold Linden's gaze straightly; and at last Linden dropped her eyes. She was moved by the First's frank avowal, her stubborn integrity. All the Giants seemed to overtop Linden in more than mere physical stature. Abruptly, her insistence on making decisions in such company appeared insolent to her. Covenant had earned his place among the Giants-and among the Haruchai as well. But she had no right to it. She required the responsibility, the power to choose, for no other reason than to hold back her hunger for other kinds of power. Yet that exigency outweighed her unworth.

Striving to emulate Covenant, she said, “All right. I hear you.” With an effort of will, she raised her head, suppressing her conflicted heart so that she could meet the eyes of the Giants. “I think we're too vulnerable the way we are. We won't do the Land any good if we drown ourselves or starve to death. Let's take our chances with this Harbour.”

For a moment, Honninscrave and the others stared at her as if they had expected a different response. Then, softly, Pitchwife began to chuckle. A twitch of joy started at the corners of his mouth, quickly spread over his face. “Witness me, Giants,” he said. “Have I not avowed that she is well Chosen?”

With a flourish, he caught hold of the First's hand, kissed it hugely. Then he flung himself like glee out of the cabin.

An unfamiliar dampness filled the First's eyes. She placed a brief touch of recognition or thanks on Linden's shoulder. But she spoke to Honninscrave. In a husky tone, she said, “I desire to hear the song which is now in Pitchwife's heart.” Turning brusquely to contain her emotion, she left the chamber.

Galewrath's face showed a blunt glower of satisfaction. She seemed almost glad as she picked up one of the charts and Went to take the dromond's new course to Sevinhand.

Linden was left alone with the Master.

“Linden Avery. Chosen.” He appeared uncertain of how to address her. A smile of relief had momentarily set aside his misgivings. But almost at once his gravity returned. “There is much in the matter of this Search, and of the Earth's peril, which I do not comprehend. The mystery of my brother's vision appalls my heart. The alteration of the Elohim- and Findail's presence among us-” He shrugged, lifting his hands as if they were full of uncomfortable ignorances. 'But Covenant Giantfriend has made plain to all that he bears a great burden of blood for those whose lives are shed in the Land. And in his plight, you have accepted to support his burdens.

“Accepted and more,” he digressed wryly. “You have averred them as your own. In sooth, I had not known you to be formed of such stone.”

But then he returned to his point. “Chosen, I thank you that you are willing for this delay. I thank you in the name of Starfare's Gem, that I love as dearly as life and yearn to see restored to wholeness.” An involuntary tremor knotted his hands as he remembered the blows he had struck against the midmast. “And I thank you also in the name of Cable Seadreamer my brother. I am eased that he will be granted some respite. Though I dread that his wound will never be healed, yet I covet any act or delay which may accord him rest.”

“Honninscrave-” Linden did not know what to say to him. She had not earned his thanks. And she had no answer for the vicarious suffering which linked him to his brother. As she looked at him, she thought that perhaps his misgivings had less to do with the unknown attitude of the Bhrathair than with the possible implications of any delay for the Search-for Seadreamer. He appeared to doubt the dictates of his concern for his ship, as if that instinct had been deprived of its purity by his apprehension for Seadreamer.

His inner disquiet silenced anything she might have said in support of her decision or in recognition of his thanks. Instead, she gave him the little knowledge she possessed.

“He's afraid of the One Tree. He thinks something terrible is going to happen there. I don't know why.”

Honninscrave nodded slowly. He was no longer looking at her. He stared past her as though he were blinded by his lack of prescience. Quietly, he murmured, “He is not mute because he has lost the capacity of voice. He is mute because the Earth-Sight cannot be given words. He is able to convey that there is peril. But for him that peril has no utterable name.”

Linden saw no way to ease him. Gently, she let herself out of the cabin, leaving him his privacy because she had nothing else to offer.

Troubled by uncertain winds, Starfare's Gem required two full days to come within sight of land; and the dromond did not near the mouth of Bhrathairain Harbour until the following morning.

During that time, the quest left behind the last hints of the northern autumn and passed into a hot dry clime unsoftened by any suggestion of approaching winter. The direct sun seemed to parch Linden's skin, leaving her always thirsty; and the normally cool stone of the decks radiated heat through her shoes. The weather-worn sails looked gray and tarnished against the acute sunlight and the brilliant sea. Occasional suspirations of humidity breathed past her cheek; but they came from virga scudding overhead-isolated clouds shedding rain which evaporated before it could reach the sea or the ship-and did not relieve the heat.

Her first view of the coast some leagues east of Bhrathairealm was a vision of rocks and bare dirt. The stony littoral had been bleached and battered by so many arid millennia that the boulders appeared sun-stricken and somnolent, as if they were only prevented from vanishing into haze by the quality of their stupefaction. All life had been squeezed or beaten out of the pale soil long ago. Sunset stained the shore with ochre and pink, transfiguring the desolation, but could not bring back what had been lost.

That night, as the dromond tacked slowly along the coast, the terrain modulated into a region of low cliffs which fronted the sea like a frown of perpetual vexation. When dawn came, Starfare's Gem was moving past buttes the height of its yards. Standing beside Pitchwife at the port rail of the afterdeck, Linden saw a gap in the cliffs ahead like the opening of a narrow canyon or the mouth of a river. But along the edges of the gap stood walls which appeared to be thirty or forty feet high. The walls were formed of the same pale stone which composed the bluffs. At their ends-at the two points of the gap-they arose into watchtowers. These fortifications tapered so that they looked like fangs against the dusty horizon.

“Is that the Harbour?” Linden asked uncertainly. The space between the cliffs appeared too narrow to accommodate any kind of anchorage.

“Bhrathairain Harbour,” replied Pitchwife in a musing tone. “Yes. There begins the Sandwall which seals all the habitation of Bhrathairealm- both Bhrathairain itself and the mighty Sandhold behind it-against the Great Desert. Surely in all this region there is no ship that does not know the Spikes which identify and guard the entrance to Bhrathairain Harbour.”

Drifting forward in the slight breeze, the Giantship moved slowly abreast of the two towers which Pitchwife had named the Spikes. There Honninscrave turned the dromond to pass between them. The passage was barely wide enough to admit Starfare's Gem safely; but, beyond it, Linden saw that the channel opened into a huge cove a league or more broad. Protected from the vagaries of the sea, squadrons of ships could have staged manoeuvres in that body of water. In the distance, she descried sails and masts clustered against the far curve of the Harbour.

Past the berths where those vessels rode, a dense town ascended a slope rising just west of south from the water. It ended at the Sandwall which enclosed the entire town and Harbour. And beyond that wall stood the massive stone pile of the Sandhold.

Erected above Bhrathairain in five stages, it dominated the vista like a brooding titan. Its fifth level was a straight high tower like a stone finger brandished in warning.

As Starfare's Gem passed between the Spikes, Linden was conscious that the Harbour formed a cul-de-sac from which any escape might be extremely difficult. Bhrathairealm was well protected. Studying what she could see of the town and the Sandwall, she realised that if the occupants of the Sandhold chose to lock their gates the Bhrathair would have no egress from their own defences.

The size of the Harbour, the immense clenched shape of the Sandhold, made her tense with wonder and apprehension. Quietly, she murmured to Pitchwife, “Tell me about these people.” After her meeting with the Elohim, she felt she did not know what to expect from any strangers.

He responded as if he had been chewing over that tale himself. 'They are a curious folk-much misused by this ungiving land, and by the chance or fate which pitted them in mortal combat against the most fearsome denizens of the Great Desert. Their history has made them hardy, stubborn, and mettlesome. Mayhap it has also