The One Tree

The First did not hesitate. Striding from circle to circle, she moved swiftly among the hustin. Ceer joined her. Honninscrave and Seadreamer followed, warding her back. Linden wanted to take a moment to question the Lady; but she had no time. Cail caught her arm, swung her after the Giants.

Behind the company, the Guards turned, reformed their ranks. Moving stiffly over the stone slabs, they followed Vain and Findail toward the Auspice.

When the Giants entered the brighter illumination around the throne, Brinn suddenly appeared out of the shadows. He did not pause to explain how he had come to be there. Flatly, he said, “Hergrom has discovered the ur-Lord. Come.” Turning, he sped back into the darkness behind the gaddhi's seat.

Linden glanced at the hustin. They were moving grimly, resolutely, but made no effort to catch up with the interlopers. Perhaps they had now been commanded to block any retreat.

She could not worry about retreat. Covenant was in the Kemper's hands. She ran after the First and Ceer into the shadow of the Auspice.

Here, too, the wall was deeply carved with tormented shapes like a writhe of ghouls. Even in clear light, the doorway would have been difficult to find, for it was cunningly hidden among the bas-reliefs. But Brinn had learned the way. He went directly to the door.

It swung inward under the pressure of his hand, admitting the company to a narrow stair which gyred upward through the stone. Brinn led, with Honninscrave, Seadreamer, and then Ceer at his back. Linden followed the First. Urgency pulled at her heart, denying the shortness of her breath, the scant strength of her legs. She wanted to cry out Covenant's name.

The stair seemed impossibly long; but at last it reached a door that opened into a large round chamber. The place was furnished and appointed like a seduction room. Braziers shed fight over its intense blue rugs, its lush cushions and couches: the tapestries bedecking the walls depicted a variety of lurid scenes. Almost instantly, the incense in the air began to fill Linden's lungs with giddiness.

Ahead of her, the Giants and Haruchai came to a halt. A husta stood there with its spear levelled at the questers, guarding the ironwork stair which rose from the centre of the chamber.

This husta had no doubt of its duty. One cheek was discoloured with bruises, and Linden saw other signs that the Guard had been in a fight. If Hergrom had indeed found Covenant, he must have passed through this chamber to do so. But the husta was impervious to its pains. It confronted the company fearlessly.

Brinn bounded forward. He feinted at the Guard, then dodged the spear and leaped for the railing of the stair.

The husta tracked him with the point of its spear to strike him in the back. But Seadreamer was already moving. With momentum, weight, and oaken strength, he delivered a blow which stretched the Guard out among the cushions like a sated lover.

As a precaution, Honninscrave jumped after the husta, caught hold of its spear and snapped the shaft.

The rest of the company rushed after Brinn.

The stairs took them even higher into the seclusion of Kemper's Pitch.

Gripping the rail, Linden hauled herself from tread to tread, forced her leaden legs to carry her. The incense and the spiralling affected her like nightmare. She did not know how much farther she could ascend. When she reached the next level, she might be too weak to do anything except struggle for breath.

But her will held, carried her panting and dizzy into the lucubrium of the gaddhi's Kemper.

Her eyes searched the place frenetically. This was clearly Kasreyn's laboratory, where he wrought his arts. But she could not bring anything she saw into focus. Long tables covered with equipment, crowded shelves, strange contrivances seemed to reel around her.

Then her vision cleared. Beyond the spot where the Giants and Brinn had stopped lay a Guard. It was dead, sprawled in a congealing pool of its own rank blood. Hergrom stood over it like a defiance. Deliberately, he nodded toward one side of the lucubrium.

Kasreyn was there.

In his own demesne, surrounded by his possessions and powers, he appeared unnaturally tall. His lean arms were folded like wrath over his chest; but he remained as still as Hergrom, as if he and the Haruchai were poised in an impasse. His golden ocular dangled from its ribbon around his neck. His son slept like a tumour on his back.

He was standing in front of a chair which bristled with bindings and apparatus.

Within the bindings sat Covenant.

He was looking at his companions; but his eyes were empty, as if he had no soul.

With her panting clenched between her teeth, Linden slipped past the Giants, hastened forward. For an instant, she glared at Kasreyn, let him see the rage naked in her face. Then she turned her back on him and approached Covenant.

Her hands shook as she tried to undo the bonds. They were too tight for her. When Brinn joined her, she left that task to him and instead concentrated on examining Covenant.

She found no damage. His flesh was unmarked. Behind the slackness of his mouth and the confusion of his beard, nothing had changed. She probed into his body, inspected his bones and organs with her percipience; but internally also he had suffered no harm.

His ring still hung like a fetter on the last finger of his half-hand.

Relief stunned her. For a moment, she became lightheaded with incomprehension, had to steady herself on Brinn's shoulder as he released the ur-Lord. Had Hergrom stopped Kasreyn in time? Or had the Kemper simply failed? Had the silence of the Elohim surpassed even his arts?

Had it in fact defended Covenant from hurt?

“As you see,” Kasreyn said, “he is uninjured.” A slight tremble of age and ire afflicted his voice. “Despite your thought of me, I have sought only his succour. Had this Haruchai not foiled me with his presence and needless bloodshed, your Thomas Covenant would have been restored to you whole and well. But no trustworthiness can withstand your suspicion. Your doubt fulfils itself, for it prevents me from accomplishing that which would teach you the honesty of my intent.”

Linden spun on him. Her relief recoiled into fury. “You bastard. If you're so goddamn trustworthy, why did you do all this?”

“Chosen.” Indignation shone through the rheum of his eyes. “Do any means exist by which I could have persuaded you to concede Thomas Covenant to me alone?”

With all the strength of his personality, he projected an image of offended virtue. But Linden was not daunted. The discrepancy between his stance and his hunger was palpable to her. She was angry enough to tell him what she saw, expose the range of her sight. But she had no time. Heavy feet rang on the iron stairs. Behind the reek of death in the air, she felt hustin surging upward. As Brinn drew Covenant from the stair, she turned to warn her companions. They did not need the warning. The Giants and Haruchai had already poised themselves in defensive positions around the room.

But the first individual who appeared from the stairwell was not one of the hustin. It was Rant Absolain.

The Lady Alif was at his back. She had taken the time to cover herself with a translucent robe.

Behind them came the Guards.

When she saw the fallen husta, the Lady Alif's face betrayed an instant of consternation. She had not expected this. Reading her, Linden guessed that the Favoured had roused the gaddhi in an effort to further frustrate Kasreyn's plans. But the dead Guard changed everything. Before the Lady mastered her expression, it gave away her realization that she had made a mistake.

With a sting of apprehension, Linden saw what the mistake was.

The gaddhi did not glance at Kasreyn. He did not notice his guests. His attention was locked to the dead Guard. He moved forward a step, two steps, stumbled to his knees in the dark blood. It