Mordant's Need

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Trying to pull her legs under her, fighting to stand, she suddenly found herself staring down the barrel of the rifle.

  For a period of time as quick and intense as a crisis of the heart, she watched the champion’s metal-clad hand tighten on the firing mechanism.

  Then he jerked up the barrel, and the blast hit the ceiling.

  Broken stone began falling into the chamber.

  The champion unclosed one hand from his rifle, gripped her neck, and forced her down on top of Geraden. ‘Stay there.’ His voice blared like a megaphone, but it was barely audible through the thunder of collasping rock. ‘I don’t shoot women.’

  The next instant, he started firing again.

  In a rush, the entire ceiling came down.

  Book Two

  FOURTEEN

  OUT OF THE RUBBLE

  Castellan Lebbick suspected that he was foundering inside. Of course, life in Orison had been going from bad to worse for some time now; but suddenly the purpose of his life had sprung leaks in all directions.

  Because of the Congery’s gamble, he had several crises to deal with at once. But they were only symptoms; they weren’t fundamental. As he strode to face them, he was smiling like a hawk; and only his wife – and perhaps King Joyse – had ever known him well enough to realize that this smile was a bad sign. To other people, he probably looked like he was in his element, eager for the conflicts or disasters that would provide an outlet and a justification for his rage. Only his wife and his oldest friend could have understood the particular ferocity of his grin.

  Unfortunately, his wife was dead – miserably dead, killed by a long, hacking illness that cut her life out as effectively as a knife in her lungs. Nearly a year had passed, and he still missed her so acutely that it seemed to make his guts tremble.

  And King Joyse had cast him adrift.

  He had refused to hear the Fayle. One way or another, he blocked every vital act, interfered with every hope.

  The Castellan clenched his teeth tighter, stretched his smile thinner, and refused to think about it. King Joyse was his reason for living. The passions that had led to the founding of Mordant, the ideals that had inspired the creation of the Congery – these things were the blood in his veins, the air in his chest. He was the King’s hands. The King had rescued him—

  Now the King had refused to hear the Fayle. He had abandoned it all to die, Mordant and passion and purpose, abandoned it to die miserably, hacking its life out while Castellan Lebbick cradled it in his arms and couldn’t let go.

  No, he was definitely not going to think about that. He had too many other problems in front of him.

  That woman.

  To himself, he chewed out a long, scathing curse. She was in everything somehow. The connections were there, if he could find them: she was doing this to Orison and Mordant somehow.

  And she made the back of his throat ache with a desire he hadn’t felt since the days of his wife’s best beauty.

  He wasn’t going to think about that, either. He was going to do his job, cling to it until he recovered what it meant.

  For a start, he was going to sort out the consequences of the latest catastrophe perpetrated by those pig-brained Imagers.

  His task had the advantage of being both dramatic and subtle. All the crises were linked together in some way.

  First in point of time, if not in degree of urgency, there was the matter of Prince Kragen’s dead bodyguards.

  Clearly, they had been killed for some reason. And they couldn’t have shed all that blood by themselves. Furthermore, it seemed unlikely that they were responsible for tracking their own blood away from the places where they lay dead.

  And that woman had returned to her rooms liberally besmirched with blood.

  There was a band of renegade soldiers – or worse – loose in Orison. They were skilled and numerous enough – or worse – to kill trained bodyguards and carry away their own dead or wounded. They had friends to conceal them. They had something to do with that woman. And their purpose was to instigate a war between Mordant and Alend. Or worse.

  That brought up other matters. What had happened to the man in black who had tried to kill her during the night after her arrival? He had escaped easily enough. Why hadn’t he made another attempt?

  What came next? An attack on the King himself?

  And King Joyse had refused to hear the Fayle. The old lord had tried to warn the King of the Congery’s intentions, and the King had refused to hear him. The Fayle had spoken directly to the Castellan because he had no other recourse.

  Which raised the question of how the Fayle had come to know what those Imagers meant to do. He had flatly declined to answer when Lebbick had demanded an answer.

  As for the Congery’s crazy defiance of King Joyse’s prohibition against forced translations, Castellan Lebbick knew who was responsible – or, more accurately, he knew whom he could blame. He had compelled the Fayle to mention a name or two. But they would have to wait. The results of that translation posed more immediate problems.

  Apparently to defend them against Alend or Cadwal, the Imagers had chosen some alien man of war whom they had discovered in their mirrors – a soldier of commanding power, weaponry, and fierceness. So what did they expect after snatching a fighter like that out of his own life? A docile bow? A humble offer of service? They were lucky he had simply brought down the ceiling of their meeting hall, instead of murdering them individually as they deserved.

  Judging by the way he had blasted an escape up out of the laborium and through the thick northwest wall of Orison to open air, he was certainly powerful enough to have murdered any number of people. In fact, Lebbick had at first feared he would turn and attempt to raze the castle itself. If that had happened, the Castellan would have had no choice but to hale whatever Imagers he could find to the defense. Completely unforewarned, his own forces and siege engines weren’t in position for war.

  Fortunately, the champion kept on going – away from Orison, lumbering madly through the snow like a rogue animal. Something about the way he moved suggested to Castellan Lebbick’s experienced observation that he was hurt.

  That left two exigent dilemmas, neither of which was the gaping breach in the wall. Of course, the breach was an enormous problem, and it was going to become urgent – but not yet. First the champion had to be pursued. That was obvious. His location had to be known, so that some effort could be made to control him, stop him. His present rampage would take him through the most densely populated region of the Demesne straight toward Batten and the heart of the Care of Armigite.

  On the other hand, Master Quillon kept harrying the Castellan’s heels like a ferret, thrusting his dust-caked face forward whenever Lebbick paused and shouting that the woman and Geraden had been buried under the collapse of the ceiling.

  Castellan Lebbick bared his teeth. ‘Do you mean you think they’re still alive?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ returned Quillon. ‘But they won’t be if you don’t get them out!’

  Lebbick debated the question with himself. He didn’t have enough men available to both pursue the champion and dig effectively in the rubble. Some time would be needed to call up reinforcements from the encampments among the hills around Orison.

  One of those encampments, however, lay reasonably close to the path the champion appeared to be taking.

  Without hesitation, the Castellan did his job. He sent one aide to summon all the guards of the castle to the ruined meeting hall. Another ran for the courtyard to get a horse, bearing explicit instructions for several detachments of the King’s forces. Then Lebbick turned back to Master Quillon.

  ‘This will be slow. We can’t shift all that stone in just a few hours.’ Gauging the relative positions of the chamber and the breach, he commented, ‘It’ll have to be shifted uphill. If that woman and Geraden aren’t dead yet, they’ll suffocate soon.’ Almost without malice, he added, ‘Unless you and the rest of the Congery can think of some way to be helpful fo
r a change.’

  Unaware that he was smiling, he strode away.

  Quillon went to find Master Barsonage.

  He located the mediator on the floor outside one of the doors of the chamber. Those doors had saved the Congery. Not knowing what to expect from the champion, the Masters had retreated to the walls, and so they had been able to reach the doors almost instantly. As a result, only two of them were dead: one hit by the champion’s first blast; another fallen under a block of stone. The rest were safe – including Master Gilbur and Master Eremis, although no one knew how they had contrived to get away in time.

  But Master Barsonage didn’t look particularly safe. He was covered with dust, chips of stone, and flakes of ancient mortar – as Quillon was himself – which gave him the appearance of a derelict. The rims of his eyes showed red through the caking dust; his mouth hung open; he sat with his hands dangling between his knees. He might have been in shock from a wound that didn’t show because it was hidden by dirt.

  ‘Barsonage!’ snapped Master Quillon. ‘Get up! We must hurry.’

  For a moment, Master Barsonage didn’t respond. He stared sightlessly past Quillon as though the ruin of the chamber had made him deaf. But when Master Quillon began to fume, the mediator raised his head and blinked.

  ‘Quillon,’ he croaked in recognition, his voice husky with dust and dismay. ‘I knew it was a mistake. From the first. We should never have tampered with someone that powerful. But there was no alternative. Was there? The augury— And everyone was against us. The lords, Cadwal and Alend, King Joyse—’

  He lowered his head again. ‘It was a mistake.’

  ‘Never mind,’ Master Quillon cut in impatiently. ‘We all make mistakes. Come on.’

  Master Barsonage gave Master Quillon a look of blank incomprehension.

  ‘Geraden and the lady Terisa!’ Quillon was practically hopping from foot to foot. ‘They are buried under all that stone!’

  The mediator’s expression didn’t change. ‘So is Gilbur’s glass. It is powder. We have no way to undo what we have done. Geraden’s mirror has shown that it does not translate properly. And any other glass will be a sentence of death, either for our “champion” or for the Image that receives him.’

  ‘Mirrors preserve us! Wake up, Master Barsonage! Forget the champion. We must rescue Geraden and the lady! Castellan Lebbick’s men will make the attempt, but it will be too slow. All that stone must be moved up and out. It will be too slow.’

  Slowly, Master Barsonage began to understand. ‘They cannot be alive,’ he muttered. ‘Under all that? It is impossible.’

  ‘They must be!’ shouted Master Quillon so hard that his voice squeaked. ‘We have no other hope! Come on! ’

  Urgently, he reached down and tried to pull the much larger Imager upright.

  For a moment longer, the mediator seemed unable to achieve enough resolution to get his legs under him. But then he muttered, ‘I suppose we must. Even if it is hopeless. After this disaster, how else can we show our good will?’

  Puffing dust, he heaved himself to his feet.

  As quickly as possible, Quillon took Master Barsonage toward the warren of converted cells where the mirrors of the Congery were displayed and protected. After a certain amount of dithering, the mediator chose the glass Master Quillon had had in mind all along – the tall mirror reflecting a fathomless seascape, nothing but water in all directions. Strong under his girth, Master Barsonage picked up the glass without assistance and carried it back to the meeting hall.

  He was starting to move faster. His carriage became steadier. When he and Master Quillon encountered other Imagers – retreating from the debacle, milling around in the halls – he issued commands with increasing authority, summoning the rest of the Congery to his support.

  The two Masters soon reached the chamber.

  The nearest door stood open, letting winter blow dust and cold and snow into the corridor.

  Inside, the pile of rubble was substantial: it reached halfway to where the ceiling had once been. To the stone of that ceiling had been added a wide portion of the level above it, as well as all the damage the champion had left behind him on his way up to and through the outer wall. Much of the mound was composed of cut granite – ponderous foundation slabs, huge monoliths from the interior of the walls and pillars, smaller pieces which the builders of Orison had used like bricks – but the champion’s rifle had reduced enormous quantities of rock to powder and pebbles.

  Now Master Quillon understood the Castellan’s point better. The only way the guards could clear the space was by somehow transporting the rubble up and out of the hole. Even with the help of every appropriate mirror in Orison, the job might take all day.

  The whole place was in gloom, blocked from light by Orison’s bulk and the thickening snowfall. Nevertheless he could see the cloud-clogged morning sky, the pall of dust in the air, the guards and other servants of the castle who had already arrived and begun fighting the pile with shovels, picks, and crowbars.

  He could see Artagel on top of the mound, wrestling like a madman to shift blocks and shards nearly as large as himself. His curses sounded like cries.

  At once, Master Quillon clambered up the side of the pile toward Geraden’s brother. Encumbered by the mirror, the mediator followed more slowly.

  When he reached Artagel, Quillon caught at his arm. Artagel brushed the Master aside without a glance. The fixed wildness in his eyes made him look dangerous.

  ‘Make room, Artagel!’ barked Master Quillon. ‘We can do this better. It will be of no help to Geraden if you rupture yourself. We can reach him, but we need cooperation, not stupid single-mindedness.’

  ‘He is my brother,’ Artagel panted between exertions.

  The Master spat an obscenity that sounded silly, coming from him. ‘I do not care if he is your mother, your father, and the bastard offspring of every act of fornication in all the history of Mordant. Help us or get away.’

  Artagel’s fists clenched murderously; he forced them to relax. ‘Show me, Imager,’ he breathed through his teeth. ‘Show me you can do better.’

  By this time, Master Barsonage had gained the top of the mound. Master Quillon rasped at Artagel, ‘Then make room,’ as the mediator positioned his mirror beside the block Artagel had been trying to move.

  Quillon helped hold the glass. While the mediator murmured the invocations that had gone into the shaping of this mirror, the two Imagers lowered the glass toward the block—

  —and the block was translated away into the rolling sea.

  Artagel gaped for a second. Then he started to grin.

  More Imagers and many more guards were arriving. Several of the Masters had mirrors with them, Eremis among them. Master Quillon noticed Gilbur’s absence; but he had no time to worry about that. While he and Master Barsonage shifted their glass, he shouted instructions to the guards. Rapidly, they organized themselves into teams around each mirror. Someone threw a shovel up to Artagel. At a nod from Master Barsonage, he began heaving rubble at the mirror, working to clear an approach to the next large piece of granite.

  Powder and pebbles and hunks of rock large enough to shatter any glass passed into the Image and were swallowed by the sea. If Master Quillon had cared to do so, he could have watched the splash as each shovelful of rubble hit the water.

  Glancing around the pile, he recognized the other mirrors as they were put to work. Only two of them were as large as the one he and Master Barsonage held, but they had all been intelligently chosen: none were flat; none showed scenes where the sudden appearance of huge heaps of rock would do any damage. The only possible exception was the glass Master Eremis employed with the flustered assistance of a young Apt. It reflected a gigantic and ravenous sluglike beast, with fangs that looked poisonous and malign eyes. The guards around Eremis shoveled rubble straight into the creature’s face.

  The creature appeared to be roaring in fury.

  ‘Quillon!’ Master Barsonage demanded. ‘Pay a
ttention!’

  Hurriedly, Master Quillon helped the mediator adjust his mirror to translate another large chunk of stone.

  ‘Is there a chance?’ Artagel asked. ‘Can they really be alive down there?’

  ‘They must be,’ Quillon averred again. That conviction was becoming harder and harder to sustain, however.

  Terisa knew she was alive.

  The scant air she was able to draw into her lungs was thick with dust: they were full of it, and whenever that dry suffocation forced her to cough, the pressure against the edges and corners of rock gouging her chest threatened to crack her ribs. Every breath raised grit into her face, scouring her eyeballs, blinding her to the darkness. And she could feel the weight of the rubble pressing down on her, slowly compressing her until her weak flesh and bones would burst and break. In addition, the rocks were hot, charred by the champion’s rifle. The air was so warm it ached.

  She knew she was alive. But she had no idea why.

  The champion had pressed her face-down on top of Geraden: she had been in no position to observe the way his metal-clad form and his destructive fire shielded her from the worst of the stone-fall. Blocks of stone came down on him and bounced aside, forming a pocket around her; slabs of rock were cut into pieces and powder which made a cushion over her body and Geraden’s. In consequence, when he turned away to burn a path for himself out of Orison, the rubble that fell immediately onto her and Geraden came, not from the ceiling and the upper level, but from the sides of the protective pocket. And smaller pieces wedged the fall securely enough to hold it in place as more and more debris from the champion’s rampage was added to the pile.

  She was still breathing. Against all likelihood, there was still air trapped in the stone heap.

  It wasn’t going to last.

  With a palpable shift, a hard ridge clamping the middle of her back pressed down another fraction of an inch. She struggled frantically, but couldn’t move anything more than her fingers. The heat and the dust made her want to gag on each shallow breath she sucked through the rocks. Pain like the caress of flame increased in her lungs, her eyes, her outstretched limbs. To die like this, slowly, feeling it happen moment by moment, feeling the hurt grow worse with each feather-width change in the poise of the rubble—