Mordant's Need

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  That was evidently the wrong thing to say. At once, Havelock became the furious old man who had thrown his checkers at the ceiling and stormed around the King’s chamber. ‘Bother Joyse and all his scruples!’ the Adept raged, so angry that he was barely able to keep his voice down. His face turned an apoplectic red. And yet he did keep his voice down: he retained that much self-awareness. ‘He plays as badly as his daughters! Women and foolishness.’

  Flailing his arms, he made gestures that practically shouted, Come with me!

  To defend herself, she replied, ‘Geraden warned me that the King has enemies. Are you trying to betray him?’

  At once, Havelock stopped. He stared at her as though he had been stung. For a second, his whole face expressed nothing but astonishment and dismay.

  Then a look of cunning came into his eyes.

  She seemed to feel danger pouncing toward her. But it was imprecise: she didn’t know how to react. So she stood where she was, helpless as a post, while he raised his glass and shone it directly into her face.

  It was as bright as the sun; it made her throw up her hands and reel backward to protect her eyes.

  She stumbled against the bed, nearly lost her balance. But before she could either fall or jump aside, Havelock clamped one bony hand around her wrist and jerked her toward the wardrobe.

  He wasn’t as strong as he seemed. If she could have planted her feet, found some leverage, she would have been able to break his grip. He was too quick for that, however. Keeping her off balance, he impelled her across the floor, into the wardrobe and the opening of the passage.

  SIX

  A FEW LESSONS

  With her free hand, she clutched for something to hold her back. But suns of blindness exploded back and forth across her vision: she couldn’t see anything to grasp. Then she hit the stone of the passage, and cool air breathed up at her out of the unseen depths. Havelock slowed, giving her feet time to fumble for the downward stairs.

  Argus and Ribuld would probably have been willing to rescue her from this madman. Unfortunately, her door was locked, and she didn’t have time to shout for help.

  Her sight cleared quickly, however. Havelock’s glass hadn’t done her any real damage. In a moment, she stopped bumping against the walls, stopped lurching on the stairs. The Adept pulled her after him as firmly as he could, but now she was able to exert some control over her rate of descent.

  His glass revealed all there was to see of where they were and where they were going. The passage was narrow and low: if she had been any taller, she would have been forced to stoop. There were sharp turns and branchings whenever the stair had gone down another ten or fifteen feet. At a guess, the branchings led to other hidden entrances in other suites and chambers. But the main passage continued downward.

  The absence of cobwebs and accumulated dust implied that these stone tunnels were used with some frequency.

  The air became slowly cooler as Adept Havelock dragged her after him.

  Unaccustomed to such exercise, her knees began to tremble. She felt she had been laboring down the stairs for a long time when the Adept arrived at a heavy, ironbound wooden door that blocked his way. It had been left unbolted, but he didn’t open it immediately. Instead, he tugged her close to him. Then he released her wrist.

  Shining on the door and the stone blocks of the wall, his light cast comic shadows across his face. ‘Remember hop-board,’ he whispered intensely. ‘Nothing else signifies.’

  A gesture and a murmur snuffed his glass. In the sudden dark, she heard his surcoat rustle as he returned the small mirror to his pocket. Then he pushed open the door and walked into the lamplight beyond it as if he didn’t care whether she followed him or not.

  From the doorway, she looked out at a large, square room.

  It was furnished – and cluttered – like a study of some sort. A heavy pillar thrust down through the center of the floor, the flagstones of which weren’t softened or warmed by any rugs or coverings. Around the pillar, however, stood a number of tables, some of them tilted like an artist’s worktable, others flat and piled with papers and rolls of parchment. Stools waited at all the tables, although most of them were being used to hold stacks of old books or layer after layer of loose documents. Under the tables, the floor was furred with dust. Opposite Terisa, an entryway without a door led, apparently, to other rooms. Near the entryway was a rumpled bed, with several blankets tossed haphazardly over the stained gray sheets, and no pillow.

  The light came from oil lamps around the walls and the pillar. Their glow showed clearly the two features of the room that most caught Terisa’s attention.

  Off to one side was a small table with two chairs and a checkerboard. All were at least as richly made as the ones King Joyse used. But there weren’t any pieces on the board.

  And the walls were lined with doors like the one through which Havelock had just entered the room. They were all bound with iron and heavily bolted. Orison, she realized, must be honeycombed with secrets.

  Ignoring her completely now, the Adept moved to the checker table, seated himself with his back to her, and hunched over the board as if he were absorbed in a game.

  Terisa cleared her throat to speak, then caught herself. She and Adept Havelock weren’t alone. A man whom she had somehow failed to notice at first turned on his stool, leaning his elbow on the desk beside him and propping his cheek against his fist. ‘Ah, there you are.’ He wore a plain gray robe that looked warm enough to combat the chill in the room (a chill that the Adept didn’t appear to feel, in spite of his inadequate garments), and that increased his ability to blend into the background. But over his shoulders was draped the yellow chasuble of a Master.

  Looking at him sharply, she realized that she had seen him before. He had a rabbity face with bright eyes, a nose that twitched, and protruding teeth. She wasn’t likely to be mistaken about him. He was the one who had agreed with Geraden that her appearance before the Congery proved something.

  ‘Geraden finally condescended to reveal who you are,’ he commented, his sarcasm distinct but not severe. ‘The lady Terisa of Morgan.’ He didn’t seem particularly impressed. On the other hand, his tone was polite: he clearly intended no offense. ‘I am Master Quillon.

  ‘Adept Havelock—’ Master Quillon paused to glance around him. ‘Incidentally,’ he interpolated, ‘these are his rooms, not mine. I believe I would find some way to have them cleaned. Even if I had to do it myself.’ Then he returned to what he meant to say. ‘Be that as it may, however, he has asked me to tell you a bit about Mordant’s history – the background, so to speak, of our present problems.’

  When he said that, Terisa’s head filled up with air and started to float. Sudden hope and relief danced together in her chest. At last, somebody was going to tell her what was going on.

  A moment later, however, her expectations fell out of the top of her head into the pit of her stomach with a leaden thud. Havelock had asked Master Quillon to talk to her? Abruptly, she demanded, ‘How?’

  The Master looked at her inquiringly. ‘How?’

  ‘How did he ask you that? How do you know what he wants?’

  Master Quillon twitched his nose and shrugged, his cheek still resting on his fist. ‘He has his lucid moments. And you must remember that he has been like this for years. We have had time to become accustomed to him. Occasionally he is capable of making himself understood.’

  Well, she thought, that seemed true enough, as far as it went – if dragging people down stairs by main force counted as ‘making himself understood.’ But as an explanation it didn’t suffice. ‘Then why?’ she asked. ‘Assuming that you’re right – that you haven’t missed what he really wants – why do it? Both Master Barsonage’ – she stumbled fractionally over the name – ‘and the King told Geraden – no, they ordered him not to answer any of my questions.’ What she was saying felt increasingly audacious to her, increasingly dangerous. When had she started talking to people like this? But her momentum kep
t her going. ‘Why disobey both of them? Whose side are you on?’

  In response, he blinked at her as though the logic of his position were self-evident. Nevertheless he was slow in replying. ‘It is not as simple as you make it appear. In spite of his’ – the Master glanced at Havelock – ‘um, his affliction, Adept Havelock is still the nominal head of the Congery. And there are those among the Imagers who consider his past services to us – and indeed to all Mordant – so great that he continues to deserve gratitude and respect, even compliance. Would you flaunt your father’s wishes if he began acting somewhat strangely in his old age?’

  Fortunately for Terisa, that was intended as a rhetorical question. Without waiting for an answer, Master Quillon went on, ‘In addition, there are times when you must define your loyalties. Master Barsonage is an honorable man who tries to be impartial, but in his heart he stubbornly fears the consequences of any decision or action. As for King Joyse—’ He sighed. ‘Years have passed since he showed any significant grasp on what happens around him, and his judgment is suspect.’

  This didn’t satisfy her, but she had pushed her temerity as far as it would go. The old habit of reticence and deference, her emotional protective coloration, reasserted itself and held her back. Master Quillon clearly meant to talk to her, and yet she was irrationally afraid that by speaking she had forfeited what he wanted to tell her, what she needed to know.

  Nevertheless her doubts refused to go away. Cautiously, she took a different approach. Indicating the Adept, she asked, ‘Why do they call him “the King’s dastard”?’

  Quillon sighed again and straightened himself on his stool. ‘My lady’ – he gestured vaguely around him, as if he were suddenly tired of the whole thing – ‘will you sit down?’

  Obediently, she located a free stool and moved it to the desk nearest him. She wasn’t accustomed to the robe she was wearing – it made her feel awkward climbing onto the high perch of the stool. But when she was seated with her back supported by the edge of the desk, she was steady enough.

  Master Quillon began.

  ‘I will assume that you know nothing about us or our troubles.’ He still looked like a rabbit, and his nose seemed to twitch whenever he collected his thoughts; but the way he spoke contained a note of dignity. ‘If that is untrue, please do not be insulted. There is no other way that I can respect whatever secrets you may have.

  ‘It is difficult to know how or where to begin. We have, in a sense, two histories – that of the kingdoms and that of Imagery – which did not become one until relatively recently – in fact, until King Joyse and Adept Havelock forced them together. You can hardly believe it, I am sure, looking at them now, but in their prime they bestrode Mordant and the rest of our world like heroes, shaking it into a new shape simply because they believed that the job needed to be done.

  ‘Both histories, however, are histories of fragmentation.

  ‘In fact, there was no Mordant – and no Congery, for that matter – until King Joyse created them. Oh, there was a region which went by the name “Mordant,” but it was nothing more than a collection of petty princedoms caught between the ancient power of Cadwal to the east and the newer strength of Alend to the north and west. These princedoms were what we now call the Cares – the Care of Armigite, the Care of Perdon, and so on – but they were in reality less substantial than what the Alend Lieges call baronial holdings. They survived only because together they served as a kind of buffer between Alend and Cadwal, which were always at war.

  ‘Alend and Cadwal are actually contiguous along the last eighty miles or so of the Swoll River, but that area is impassable, a swamp to the sea and along the coast—’ He started looking around the room as he spoke, and after a moment his explanation trailed off. ‘Havelock,’ he asked distantly, as though he were talking to himself, or didn’t expect an answer, ‘do you have a map? There must be one in this chaos somewhere. I ought to show her where these things are in relation to each other.’

  Adept Havelock didn’t glance up from his board. Concentrating fiercely, he rearranged the pieces he imagined in front of him, and began to study the new configuration.

  ‘Well, never mind,’ murmured the Master. Returning his attention to Terisa, he resumed. ‘Even without a map, I am sure you will understand the point. Because of the swamp, Cadwal and Alend can only approach each other through Mordant, which is, essentially, a fertile lowland between the Pestil and Vertigon rivers. Alend is too mountainous – Cadwal, too dry. Therefore they have desired Mordant for centuries, both for itself and as a large step toward defeating each other.

  ‘To put the matter simply, the princedoms of Mordant survived by being conquered back and forth, generation after generation – and by always siding with whichever of the two powers happened to be absent at the time. Because Mordant existed in pieces, each piece was easily taken, but hard to hold. Cadwal, for instance, might make itself master of the Care of Perdon, or of Tor. Alend might take Termigan or Domne. At once, the Perdon – the lord of the Care – or the Tor, the Termigan or the Domne, would swear eternal allegiance to his new prince. At the same time, he would begin looking for ways to betray that prince. So Cadwal would sneak into Termigan, or Alend into Tor, and the people of the Care would be liberated, amid great rejoicing. At once, however, a new prince would replace the old. And so the entire process would begin again, varying only in detail when Cadwal or Alend made a convulsive effort to conquer the whole region. And so the Cares endured.

  ‘Of course, all that bloodshed was terrible. Naturally, a certain number of men voluntarily fought and risked their lives. But they were a small minority of the victims. The peasants of Mordant were constantly being hacked down or conscripted, raped or driven from their land – brutalized in any way the whims of the tyrants suggested. The only reason Mordant was not entirely depopulated was that both Cadwal and Alend needed what they could grow in the fields and on the hills of this lowland, so they were forced to import labor – usually slaves, especially from Cadwal – to replace the lost peasants. These laborers invariably found that life as a peasant was better than life as a slave or a coerced servant, and so they learned loyalty to the Care in which they found themselves. In that way, the population of Mordant was renewed.

  ‘But such things are only bloodshed and tyranny. Mordant’s plight was made much worse by Imagery.

  ‘Am I boring you, my lady?’

  Terisa was surprised by the realization that she had yawned. The wine, a long day, and reaction after the shock of Havelock’s appearance and behavior were making her drowsy. Nevertheless she shook her head. ‘I just wonder what all this has to do with me.’

  A bit acerbically, the Master retorted, ‘It “has to do” with you because you are here. It will affect everything that happens to you while you are among us.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Please go on.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Quillon stiffly. His nose twitched for a moment.

  ‘In those days, it seemed that every man of any consequence had in his service, or his employ, an Imager of some kind – or else he served or was employed by an Imager. Cadwal itself was raised to greatness by the first arch-Imager. And as recently as the past century the Alend Monarch used an entire battery of Imagers to bring the Alend Lieges into confederacy.

  ‘Here again the situation was fragmented. The talent which can make an Imager is not common, but neither is it rare. And in times of war, it seems to breed under every hedgerow. As a result, Cadwal has at times mustered armies in which every captain was seconded by an Imager. Alend has been nearly as powerful. And of course every lord in Mordant was defended by an Imager who depended on him for support, patronage, or facilities.

  ‘As I am sure you can imagine, the glass which makes mirrors is not something that can simply be poured out in a patch of sand behind some cottage. To study, develop, and use mirrors requires equipment, tinct, furnaces, and much else as well, and so any Imager not born wealthy has always been forced to ally himself with wealth i
n some way.

  ‘But I digress.

  ‘I wonder, my lady,’ he said slowly, ‘if you possess the knowledge or experience to imagine the havoc dozens of Imagers can wreak, fighting each other and armies as well as innocent men and women who happen to get in the way. Consider it, if you can. Here stands an Imager whose glass shows a sea of lava. At his word, molten stone floods outward, devouring its own carnage as it moves. There stands an Imager whose glass shows a winged leviathan which can consume cattle whole. At his word, the beast is translated here to rage and ravage until he calls it back – or until some other Imager conceives a means to kill it. And they are only two men. Consider fifty of them, or a hundred, great Imagers and small, all dedicating what mirrors they have to battle and bloodshed.

  ‘Perhaps in your world Imagery is used for other purposes. Perhaps it provides food for the hungry, water against drought, energy and power to better the lot of all men. That has not been our history.

  ‘One consequence’ – he sighed – ‘is that the knowledge of Imagery – the understanding of what it is, and why it works, and how it might be used – has advanced little from one generation to the next. Imagers have tended to guard their secrets zealously, as protection for their lives, and so the dissemination of new ideas, insights, or techniques has taken decades. In fact, it would not have occurred at all, if the making of mirrors were not sufficiently arduous to require Apts. But each Imager must have help, and so he must teach some youth with the talent how to give that help. In that way, slow progress has been made.

  ‘It is a barbarous history, my lady.’ This time, his sarcasm was directed elsewhere. ‘We are not traditionally a humane or scrupulous people.

  ‘King Joyse has attempted to change us completely.

  ‘Havelock’ – he turned on his stool to face the Adept – ‘some wine would be a kindness. All this talk is thirsty work.’

  At once, Havelock pushed himself out of his chair and hobbled away to the opposite side of the room, behind the pillar. When he returned, he was carrying a stoneware decanter and a clay goblet. The goblet looked like it hadn’t been cleaned any time during the past decade.