The One Tree, chapter 3: Relapse

[Dragonlily]

That is true. He intended to kill Covenant. But Covenant forgot it, so I forgot it.

[Furls Fire]

Oh yes, Covenant's guilt over everything prevented him from remembering little details like Peitten trying to kill him...

He blamed himself for the way Peitten was in the first place. He blamed himself for everything. He wallowed in his guilt so well that he had it down to an art form...

[duchess of malfi]

I think people are being a little harsh on Linden.

She is making the stand she is because she has first hand experience of the evil of that sort of thing...she was emotionally and mentally raped by one of the Ravers while she was a prisoner at Revelstone...

...and besides, when has Donaldson ever made anything that easy?

[JIkj fjds j]

It's just as well I wasn't the thread starter to this chapter because although I enjoyed the reading I also found it to be of very little substance, uneventful, and anti-climactic.

Too taxing on my limited concentration ... I drifted off ... o'er the hills ... and far, far away.

Artwork contains some adult material.
https://uk.video.search.yahoo.com/video ... afee&tt=b]

[JIkj fjds j]

Summing up chapter three, I suppose what was most interesting was Linden's attempt to enter Covenant's mind, and what she saw there.

Discarding stealth, she hurled her senses at his head, tried to dive into his brain.

For an instant, she was caught in the throes of wild magic as he thrashed towards an explosion. Images whirled insanely into her: the destruction of the Staff of Law; men and women being bled like cattle to feed the Banefire; Lena and rape; the two-fisted knife-blow with which he had slain a man she did not know; the slashing of his wrists. And power - white fire which crashed through the Clave, turned Santonin and the Stonemight to tinder, went reaving among the Riders to garner a harvest of blood. Power. She could not control him. He shredded her efforts as if she were a Raver.

She cried out to him. But the outrage of his ring blew her away.

I've often wondered what TC and LA would dream of when in the Land. I think the quote illustrates a straight-forward dream within a dream. No more, no less.
I do find dreams fascinating and wanted to make sense of Covenant's delerious images before moving on to the next chapter.

Freud said that all dreams are meaningful: "The Royal Road to the Unconscious".
I'm pretty sure SRD observed the same approach while constructing Covenant's dream. Nothing superfluous here. All images have meaning, (and just like Freud's "free association") I get the impression that Covenant knows exactly the location of the One Tree. If only, that is, swirling through his dreams of venom induced delusion and madness:

Repeatedly Covenant cried out, 'Never! Never give it to him!' hurling his refusal at the blind sky.

Obviously Covenant is ranting about his ring, but ...
If he is repressing/protecting the knowledge given to him by Caer Caveral then he is doing so with all the power he can muster.

There is of course a slight discrepency to this. Having read the book and with the advantage of hind-sight it might be said that it's impossible for Covenant to know the whereabouts of the Tree, it being a future event in the story. Very Donaldson, I might argue - contradictory and steeped in paradox!
And likewise, I was sorely tempted to jump ahead to chapter fourteen - The Sandhold. But (with a little help from Freud) on matters of dreams, I realized that much would be missed skimming over the following chapters out of sequence.

[JIkj fjds j]

So, imagine if you will that Caer Caveral (and the rest of Covenant's friends whom he last saw in Andelain) are reaching out to him in his dreams using their weird eldrich magic.
As with fantasy stories I likewise fantisize that Covenant's friends might also be reaching out to me the reader as well.
What might they be trying to communicate?

Unfortunately for me, just like the dilemma Covenant faced in the First Chronicles, I too have difficulties believing these things to be real.
Still ... here's a big whopping pointer that gives me some hope and added focus:

The moire pattern, which was how the granite of Starfare's Gem was described in Chapter One, (which I suspect also has something to do with the pattern on the Main Mast in Foodfendhall) now takes on new meaning within the context and structure of the story:

From Chapter One -

... [The Giantship] ... coasted into its berth with deft accurracy. The skill of its crew and the cunning of its construction defied the massive tan-and-moire granite of which it was made.

Moire

1. (Textiles) having a watered or wavelike pattern
2. (General Physics) a pattern seen when two geometrical patterns, such as grids, are visually superimposed.

therefore,

1. Follow Linden as the lead component of the story and believe what you wanna believe.
2. Follow Covenant as the lead component of the story and see just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

If Covenant were to have any doubts about the Land being real then at least this time around his friends are with him. Though they may be far away ...

Spoiler

like small but fixed images on an island in a vast sea, or an oasis in a great desert, or a hill dazzled in sunshine surrounded by trees.

[Cord Hurn]

Like others on this thread, I was surprised upon my first re-read of this chapter to realize that Covenant still has guilt feelings over slaying Pietten.

But TC always blames himself for a lot in the 2C, so it's in character.

[wayfriend]

Covenant is certainly haunted by that memory. It may not necessarily be guilt-driven, although it's likely that Covenant does feel guilty about it. Pietten was warped as a child by Foul in order to ensnare Covenant - that alone is enough to make Covenant feel guilty about him.

But I disagree with Vizidor that these images in Covenant's brain are "dreams". I think that they are in fact memories. Memories which haunt him in his fever.

They are memories of Power.

The venom that rages through his system is urging him to power, and urging the reckless abandonment of the scruples which guide it's uses. But, for Covenant, power and guilt are inextricable. These visions are what power means to Covenant. These visions are why he abhors power. They stand in the forefront of his thoughts because he is fighting the venom. He's flaying himself with reasons to fight the moral poison. And he's obsessing on the consequences of losing to it.

So, yes: guilt. The guilt of power. For Covenant, stabbing Pietten with that stone knife was wielding power, no different than incinerating Riders with a blaze of magic.

[JIkj fjds j]

I don't see that guilt has anything to do with what's happening onboard the dromond. I know Covenant expressed guilt at the soothtell when he understood the consequenses of the destruction of the Staff of Law, but I think the images swirling through Covenant's delerium are not the same as the visions of the soothtell. They aren't meant to be something definitive.
The best analogy I have is like trying to listen to an LP record on a turntable without a spindle. The arm wavering to and fro on the track makes even me feel seasick thinking of it.

Pietten may only be there in Covenant's delerium because of it rhyming with bitten. I'm sure Covenant would have felt more for Lena and the emaciated Ranyhyn than for someone evil trying to take his life.
Furthermore, the two-fisted knife-blow has necessary similarities to Lord Mhoram's victory over Satanfist Sheol samadhi. Who also happens to be Gibbon Raver.

I'm inclined to think it has more to do with Mhoram and what he said to Covenant in Andelain, that:

the thing you seek is not what it appears to be.

If this means the One Tree isn't actually a tree - root, trunk, and branch - then it might just as well be Starfare's Gem. And what we're getting in this chapter is merely a glimpse of it.