The One Tree

recollected himself. “Yet no matter,” he went on with renewed gentleness. “I have other suasions.” As he spoke, he moved past Vain until he was standing near Covenant's feet. Only the Demondim-spawn was able to ignore him. He held the company in a grasp of horror.

He relished their abomination. Slowly, he raised his right arm.

As he did so, Covenant rose from the floor, jerking erect as if he had been pulled upright by the band around his throat.

Kasreyn moved his hand in a circular gesture from the end of his thin wrist. Covenant turned. His eyes saw nothing. Controlled by the golden neckpiece, he was as blank as his aura. His shirt was stained with death. He went on turning until Kasreyn motioned for him to stop.

The sight nearly snapped Linden's resolve. That Covenant should be so malleable in the Kemper's hands! Whatever harms he had committed, he did not deserve this indignity. And he had made restitution! No man could have striven harder to make restitution. In Coercri he had redeemed the Unhomed Dead. He had once defeated Lord Foul. And he had done everything conceivable for Linden herself. There was no justice in his plight. It was evil.

Evil

Tears coursed hotly down her cheeks like the acid of her mortality.

With a flick of his wrist, Kasreyn sent Covenant toward her.

Fighting her manacles, she tried to fend him away. But he forced himself past her hands, thrust forward to plant a cold dead kiss on her groaning mouth. Then he retreated a step. With his half-hand, he struck her a blow that made her whole face burn.

The Kemper recalled him. He obeyed, as lifeless as a marionette. Kasreyn was still gazing at Linden. Malice bared his old teeth. In a voice of hunger, he said, “Do you see that my command upon him is complete?”

She nodded. She could not help herself. Soon Kasreyn would be able to instruct her as easily as he used Covenant.

“Then witness.” The Kemper made complex gestures; and Covenant raised his hands, turned his fingers inward like claws. They dug into the flesh around his eyes.

“If you do not satisfy me”-Kasreyn's voice jumped avidly — “I will command him to blind himself.”

That was enough. She could not bear any more. Long quivers of fury ran through all her muscles. She was ready now.

Before she could acquiesce, a prodigious effort tore a howl from Honninscrave's chest. With impossible strength, he ripped the chain binding his left arm from its bracket; and the chain cracked outward like a flail. Driven by all the force of his immense exertion, it struck Kasreyn in the throat.

The blow pitched the Kemper backward. He fell heavily on the steps, tumbled to the floor. There he lay still. So much iron and strength must have shattered every bone in his neck. Linden's vision leaped toward him, saw that he was dead. The fact stunned her. For an instant, she hardly realised that he was not bleeding.

The First let out a savage cry. “Stone and Sea, Honninscrave! Bravely done!”

But a moment later Kasreyn twitched. His limbs shifted. Slowly, stiffly, he climbed to his hands and knees, then to his feet. An instant ago, he had had no pulse: now his heart beat with renewed vigour. Strength flowed back into him. He turned to face the company. He was grinning like a promise of murder.

Linden gaped at him, horrified. The First swore weakly.

The infant on his back was smiling sweetly in its sleep.

He looked at Honninscrave. The Giant sagged against the wall in near exhaustion. But his intent glare warned plainly that with one hand free he would soon be free altogether.

“My friend,” the Kemper said tightly, “your death will be one to surpass your most heinous fears.”

Honninscrave responded with a gasping snarl. But Kasreyn remained beyond reach of the Master's chain.

Slowly, the Kemper shifted his attention away from Honninscrave. Facing Linden, he repeated, 'If you do not satisfy me.“ Only the tautness of his voice betrayed that anything had happened to him. ”I will command him to blind himself.'

Covenant had not moved. He still stood with his fingers poised to gouge out his eyes.

Linden cast one last long look at his terrible defenselessness. Then she let herself sag. How could she fight a man who was able to rise from the dead? “You'll have to take that band off his neck. It blocks me,”

Cail surged against his chains. “Chosen!” the First cried in protest. Pitchwife gaped dismay at her.

Linden ignored them. She was watching Kasreyn. Grinning fiercely, he approached Covenant. With one hand, he touched the yellow band. It came away in his grasp.

At once, Covenant slumped back into his familiar emptiness. His eyes were void. For no reason, he said, “Don't touch me.”

Before Linden could reach out to him in yearning or rage, try to keep her promises, the floor near Vain's feet began to swirl and melt. With surprising celerity, Findail flowed out of the granite into human form.

Immediately, he confronted Linden. “Are you a fool?” The habitual misery of his features shouted at her. “This is ruin!” She had never heard such anguish from any Elohim. “Do you not comprehend that the Earth is at peril? Therefore did I urge you to your ship while the way was open, that these straits might be evaded. Sun-Sage, hear me!” When she did not respond, his apprehension mounted. “I am the Appointed. The doom of the Earth is upon my head. I beg of you-do not do this thing!”

But she was not listening to him. Kasreyn stood grinning behind Covenant as if he knew he had nothing to fear from Findail. His hands held the golden band, the threat which had compelled her. Yet she ignored the Kemper also. She paid no heed to the consternation of her companions. She had been preparing herself for this since the moment when the First had said, Why do we yet live? She had striven for it with every fiber of her will, fought for this chance to create her own answer. The removal of that neck-band. The opportunity to make good on at least one promise.

All of her was focused on Covenant. While her companions sought to distract her, dissuade her, she opened her senses to him. In a rush like an outpouring of ecstasy or loss, rage or grief, she surrendered herself to his emptiness.

Now she took no account of the passion with which she entered him. And she offered no resistance as she was swept into the long gulf. She saw that her former failures had been caused by her attempts to bend him to her own will, her own use; but now she wanted nothing for herself, withheld nothing. Abandoning herself entirely, she fell like a dying star into the blankness behind which the Elohim had hidden his soul.

Yet she did not forget Kasreyn. He was watching avidly, poised for the reawakening of Covenant's will. At that moment, Covenant would be absolutely vulnerable; for surely he would not regain full possession of his consciousness and his power instantly, and until he did he would have no defence against the Kemper's geas. Linden felt no mercy toward Kasreyn, contained nothing at all which might have resembled mercy toward him. As she fell and fell like death into Covenant's emptiness, she shouted voiceless instructions which echoed through the uninhabitation of his mind.

Now no visions came out of his depths to appal her. She had surrendered so completely that nothing remained to cause her dismay. Instead, she felt the layers of her independent self being stripped away. Severity and training and medical school were gone, leaving her fifteen and loss-ridden, unable at that time to conceive of any answer to her mother's death. Grief and guilt and her mother were gone, so that she seemed to contain nothing except the cold unexpungeable horror and accusation of her father's suicide. Then even suicide was gone, and she stood under a clean sun in fields and flowers, full of a child's capacity for happiness, joy, love. She could have fallen that way forever.

The sunlight spread its wings about her, and the wind ruffled her hair like a hand of affection. She shouted in pleasure. And her shout was answered. A boy came toward her across the fields. He was older than she-he seemed much older, though he was still only a boy, and the Covenant he would become was nothing more than an implication in the lines of his face, the fire of his eyes. He approached her with a shy half-smile. His hands were open and whole and accessible. Caught in a whirl of instinctive exaltation, she ran toward him with her arms wide, yearning for the embrace which would transform her.

But when she touched him, the gap was bridged, and his emptiness flooded into her. At once, she could see everything, hear everything. All her senses functioned normally. Her companions had fallen silent: they were