Mordant's Need

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  The Tor’s gaze held: his eyes looked like bits of glass embedded in pastry dough. ‘I hear quite a number of rumors,’ he commented when Geraden was done. ‘Duty outside this door is dull, and many of the guards liven it with conversation. I have heard a rumor that your brother Artagel, who is reputed to be the best swordsman in Mordant, faced the High King’s Monomach and fell.’ His tone didn’t become clear until he asked, ‘Is he seriously injured?’

  Geraden swallowed convulsively. ‘Yes.’

  Unblinking, the Tor studied Geraden for a moment. Then he said, ‘I have lost a son. I will not have it said to the Domne that I sat drunk on my hams while one of his sons was killed by the High King’s Monomach and another sold himself to the Alend Monarch. What do you wish me to do?’

  At once, Geraden replied, ‘Don’t let Castellan Lebbick interfere. Make him leave Nyle alone.’ He was plainly relieved to get away from the subject of Artagel. ‘And tell him to assign Argus and Ribuld to me. Tell him I’m doing you some kind of favor and I need their help.’ He sounded clear, almost authoritative, as if he had been involved in situations like this all his life. ‘The last time they tried to help me, he roasted them for it. They’ll do a better job if they don’t have to dodge him the whole time.’

  He sounded so sure of what he was doing that Terisa wanted to give him a round of applause.

  Nevertheless he was sweating by the time he was done.

  The Tor regarded him gravely for a little while longer. Then he turned his head and let out a cheerful yell that made Terisa jump and brought the guards promptly into the room.

  ‘Yes, my lord Tor?’ one of them inquired. He was on good terms with the self-appointed chancellor. ‘You bellowed?’

  ‘Mongrel!’ snorted the Tor. ‘That was not a bellow. That was a polite request for attention.’ His chuckle sounded like belching. ‘If you ever have the misfortune to hear me bellow, you will not speak of it so calmly.

  ‘But now that you are here—’ He rolled his eyes at the ceiling as though he were contemplating an entire litany of desires. ‘I want cranberry sauce with that duckling which the cook is already so late in providing. I want more wine. I want peace or war with our enemies, whichever will cause them the most consternation.’ He rubbed a fat hand over his jowls. ‘I believe I want a barber. But most of all’ – suddenly, his voice seemed to have a knife hidden in it somewhere – ‘I want the Castellan.’

  Briskly now, he said, ‘Be so kind as to inform him that I require a few moments of his time – almost immediately.’

  ‘As you wish, my lord Tor.’ Grinning, the guards withdrew.

  The Tor looked at Geraden and shrugged. ‘He may not come at once, but I will nag until he does.’

  ‘Thank you, my lord Tor,’ the Apt breathed sincerely. ‘That should make things easier.’

  With a flutter of his free hand, the Tor waved gratitude aside. After a moment’s consideration, he said severely, ‘Young Geraden, your reputation for mishap is entirely misleading. You have shown me that my King has a need for his chancellor which I did not suspect. I believe I will begin to assert myself.’

  Pointing a pudgy finger at the Apt, he added in an ominous rumble, ‘In the meantime, I advise you to stop Nyle before he goes too far. The union of the Cares already grows fragile. An open rupture now between King Joyse and the Care of Domne may bring us all to grief.’

  Quickly, he emptied his flagon. Then he drawled happily, ‘While you are otherwise occupied, I will take it upon myself to teach my lady Elega the fear of discovery.’

  For an odd moment, Terisa felt like laughing. The idea of a confrontation between the huge old lord and the regal princess tweaked her fancy. But her amusement was primarily a reaction to strain: as soon as she glanced at Geraden, it evaporated. His grin was a rather feverish imitation of the smile Artagel wore into combat.

  Fortunately, the Tor also noticed his expression. ‘You may go now, young Geraden,’ he said firmly, ‘unless you have more treachery to reveal? I do not mean to share my duckling with anyone. Send me word as soon as you have news of Artagel.’

  ‘Thank you, my lord.’ At once, Geraden headed for the door.

  Terisa wanted to thank the Tor more thoroughly, let him know how much he did for Geraden. But she couldn’t do that and still follow the Apt.

  The old lord seemed to understand, however. ‘Take care of him, my lady,’ he muttered, dismissing her. ‘He has need of you.’

  Flashing him her best smile, she left the apartment and pursued Geraden down the stairs.

  He slowed his pace after a flight or two so that she could catch up with him. ‘I’ve been away from Artagel too long,’ he said. ‘Will you excuse me? I would take you with me, but the physician won’t let you in. I practically had to threaten his life to see Artagel myself. You can find your way back to your rooms, can’t you? Will you be all right?’

  ‘Geraden—’ She put her hand on his arm to make him hear her. ‘You did the right thing with the Tor. You gave him what he needed.’ Unaccustomed to saying such things, she sounded terribly stilted to herself – and she hated it. But she didn’t back down. ‘I’m proud of you.’

  That reached him. The muscles around his eyes unclenched, and something that looked like a smile caught at the corners of his mouth. ‘I like him,’ he explained simply.

  ‘I’ll be all right,’ she promised. ‘Go see Artagel. Send me a message right away.’

  He nodded and immediately took off at a run.

  She went back to her rooms alone and spent the rest of the day trying not to think.

  The next morning, Artagel’s physician ventured the opinion that his patient might live.

  At once haggard with exhaustion and giddy with relief, Geraden brought the news to Terisa before going to his own rooms for some rest. ‘Now it’s just a question of infection,’ he reported. ‘If he can get through that, he’s going to make it.’

  As an afterthought, he added, ‘The Tor did it. Argus and Ribuld are working for me now. Castellan Lebbick doesn’t like it, but I guess the Tor told him I had some ideas about how to protect you from Gart. So far, they haven’t been able to locate Nyle.’

  Terisa wanted him to stay with her. She was losing whatever ability she once had to support being alone. When she was by herself, the High King’s Monomach and Castellan Lebbick and Master Eremis seemed to crouch in hiding all around her, waiting for her most vulnerable moment. And she wasn’t much comforted when she succeeded in concentrating on Elega, Nyle, and the Alend Contender, or worrying about Myste and the champion, or trying to analyze the relationships between Master Quillon, Adept Havelock, and King Joyse, or wondering what obscure talent for Imagery either she or Geraden might have. Every question was dangerous.

  But Geraden looked so tired – emotionally drained as well as physically weary – that she took pity on him. As firmly as she could, she sent him on his way, ordering him not to return until he had caught up on his sleep.

  Alone, she turned to meet the day in the same spirit in which she had too often faced her evenings in her old apartment: as if the only thing she could hope to do with her time was cling to a tenuous and necessary sense of her own existence.

  The view from her windows interested her for a while. The early thaw was settling in as if for a long stay. Sunlight poured over the piled bulk of Orison, melting more snow, raising more mud. Crowds milled through the bazaar, as eager as they had been the previous day. Carts and wains lumbered down the road to the gate of the castle, their iron-rimmed wooden wheels cutting the snow and mud together. Again, she wanted to go outside. But she couldn’t – not alone.

  She felt lost in her own company.

  Before long, Mindlin the seamster arrived to return her old clothes and announce that he expected to receive the material he needed for her tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow at the very latest, unless something dramatic happened to the weather. As a friend of the lady Elega, she would command his first and best attention, so he believed he co
uld promise with confidence that her new garments would be ready for their first fitting no later than six days from now.

  Unfortunately, the question of what her new clothes should look like had no power to divert her. She had other things on her mind.

  Where was Master Eremis?

  What was she doing here?

  How could she know anything about herself without a mirror?

  Why was it that the only times she was able to reach out to Geraden were when he was hurt? Why was she still keeping secrets from him as if she didn’t trust him?

  If she kept this up, she might drive herself crazy. These impossible questions only reminded her of what she lacked. They ignored what she had: Geraden’s friendship, and Artagel’s; the Tor’s respect; perhaps even Myste’s gratitude, if Myste were still alive. So she was glad for the distraction when a knock at the door announced that she had a visitor. It could be Master Eremis. And even Castellan Lebbick might be an improvement over her own company.

  It was Master Barsonage.

  The mediator of the Congery was such an unexpected arrival that at first she didn’t notice the change in his appearance. But the vague way he failed to meet her gaze as he greeted her made her look past her surprise and see his distress.

  ‘Master Barsonage. Come in.’

  ‘Thank you, my lady.’ With an aimless air, as if he didn’t quite know where he was going, he shuffled into the sitting room.

  He appeared deflated – that was the only description she could think of to fit him. When she had first met him, his girth had appeared almost equal to his height. His eyebrows had sprouted thickly, like bracken. His skin had had the color and texture of cut pine. Now, however, that yellow hue had turned sickly, and his flesh seemed slack across his bald skull. His eyebrows sagged; lines ran down his cheeks. His movements and his bulk resembled each other: they were flaccid, like bladders without enough substance in them.

  ‘This is an honor.’ She spoke without sarcasm because he looked so woebegone – and so unconscious of it. ‘What can I do for you?’

  His eyes persisted in missing hers. ‘I hardly know, my lady.’

  Well, she couldn’t leave him standing in the middle of the peacock rug. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ She gestured toward one of the chairs. ‘Would you like some wine?’

  He accepted the chair. A weak push of his hands rejected the wine. When he spoke, his tone was as aimless as his appearance. ‘You were attacked, my lady.’

  At that, she groaned to herself. She had already had this conversation more than she wanted. But then she reflected that it wasn’t her fault he was unhappy. With more asperity than she intended, she replied, ‘Again. That was actually the third time.’

  He blinked in her general direction. ‘The third?’

  ‘Didn’t Master Eremis tell you about the second? It was right after his meeting with the lords. Prince Kragen and the Perdon almost got killed.’

  ‘No,’ he breathed. His voice also was deflated. ‘Master Eremis made no mention – He has left Orison. To return to Esmerel, he said. Yesterday – when the thaw began. I had to restore his chasuble, of course. There is no evidence against him. He could not bear our debates, he said.’ Unconscious of her reactions, he asked simply, as if they were both children, ‘Why were you attacked, my lady?’

  He made her heart flutter against her ribs. So there was a reason why Master Eremis hadn’t come to see her since Gart’s attack. He had probably left Orison before it happened. On the other hand, he hadn’t said goodbye—

  Painfully confused, she tried to concentrate on the mediator. ‘Everybody wants to know why I was attacked.’ Her mother would have sent her to her room for speaking in that tone. ‘You, Castellan Lebbick, Geraden and Artagel, Prince Kragen’ – with an effort, she prevented herself from mentioning Elega – ‘even King Joyse. Even I want to know why I was attacked. What difference does it make to you, Master Barsonage?’

  Still his gaze wouldn’t shift to hers. All the anger seemed to have gone out of him. In that same simple voice, he answered, ‘I have given my life to it. The Congery is ruined, my lady.’

  ‘Ruined?’ What he said was more unexpected than his appearance. ‘How? What do you mean?’

  ‘We are disbanded.’

  She stared at him. ‘Wait a minute. Say that again. You’ve disbanded the Congery?’

  ‘The name still exists, of course. King Joyse does not will that we should come to an end. Therefore we continue. But it has no meaning now. We are done with it – done with our King’s impossible ideals and his abandonment of us. Each of us will go his own way.

  ‘Unless you will tell me why you were attacked.’

  Her blood felt like cold tallow around her heart, congealed and sickly.

  ‘My lady, we have debated and debated until we have lost our voices – and our hearts. I will not trouble you with the arguments. Without purpose, we are nothing. Either Master Gilbur is a traitor or he is not. In either case, there is nothing we can do. He is beyond our reach. Either the translation of the champion was a mistake or it was not. In either case, there is nothing we can do. We have no glass to return him to his own life. And we cannot reach him for any other translation.

  ‘Either the translation that brought you among us was a mistake or it was not. In either case, there is nothing we can do. Unless we know.’

  ‘Know?’

  His limp hands gestured nowhere. ‘We could serve you, my lady. If you had a reason for being here. The High King’s Monomach risks his life to end yours. Are you not a threat? Are you not an Imager? Then turn to us, my lady. Give us your purpose. Let us serve you.’

  No. That was too much. No. She backed away from it. ‘Aren’t you afraid I might be an enemy?’

  He shrugged his empty shoulders. ‘The High King’s Monomach risks his life to end yours,’ he repeated. ‘You are not a friend of Cadwal. That is more certain than anything else we have. We will trust it – if you will give us purpose.’

  He couldn’t do that. She couldn’t let him make her responsible for the Congery – for all those Masters who despised her, despised Geraden. This was the same man who had forbidden her information when she had first arrived. Bitterly, she retorted, ‘You haven’t got any easy answers, so you’re just going to give up. Have you told Geraden about this yet?’

  Quietly, Master Barsonage admitted, ‘I have not had the courage.’ Then he added, ‘None of the Apts have been informed. They continue to tend the fires and the laborium, so that we will be able to do our work – if we are able to find any purpose for it.’

  For just a moment, she considered telling him what she had never told Geraden, or anyone else: that she had seen the three riders of her dream in the Congery’s augury. But the thought of what he might to with the knowledge stopped her.

  He might put the responsibility for the Congery on her shoulders in earnest, making demands that she wouldn’t know how to either meet or refuse.

  ‘Master Barsonage,’ she said while the pressure increased in her veins, ‘don’t you think you’re asking a little too much? You’ve barely been civil to me since I got here. You certainly haven’t been decent. You’ve ignored my ignorance – and what it cost me. And you’re still ignoring it. You’re ignoring me. I don’t know why Gart wants to kill me. Where I come from, mirrors just reflect. They don’t do anything. I am not an Imager.’

  In spite of her vehemence, he still didn’t meet her eyes. Instead, he took several deep breaths, as though he were pumping himself up, and his hands closed into fists.

  ‘My lady, this is wrong. The Congery is precious, whatever King Joyse now thinks of it. It stands between us and bloody chaos – between Mordant and horror. War is only war. Men are killed. Women are mistreated. Then the struggle shifts elsewhere, and there is peace for a while. But without the Congery to control it Imagery will wreak such evil upon the innocent—

  ‘It will, my lady. It must. Even if every Imager living is a man of good heart, intending what is bene
ficial, his Imagery must come to abomination in the end. Because he will fall to High King Festten, or to the Alend Monarch, or to whoever takes power in Orison – and these rulers will require his Imagery for destruction. They must, because they are at war. Yet it is not they who suffer. Their soldiers pay a price – and the rest is borne by the innocent of the world.

  ‘Because King Joyse has turned his back on us, there is no other hope. Only the Congery can prevent this. If it is safe and strong – if it has a purpose to unite it.

  ‘You are the answer, my lady. You must not leave us to ruin.’

  He moved her. In spite of her anger, her instinctive rejection, he moved her. Perhaps his belief that she could help him was an illusion. Nevertheless the fear that drove him to it was real.

  ‘Master Barsonage,’ she said softly, ‘the honest fact is that I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t understand any of this. But I’m like you. I don’t think Imagery should be used for destruction.

  ‘I’ll tell you the truth about me – as soon as I find out what it is. If it turns out to be an answer, it’ll help both of us.’

  She couldn’t tell whether he grasped what she was saying. In fact, she couldn’t tell whether he so much as heard her. His eyes stayed away from hers, and his face sagged on his skull as if she had refused his appeal completely.

  After a while, he rose from his chair and slumped away.

  She was left with one more terrible thing that she would have to tell Geraden.

  The advantage was that she no longer had to worry about her grasp on substantiality. She was too worried about him to be in any danger of fading.

  Around noon the following day, he came to her rooms to take her to see Artagel.

  She had spent the night groping for courage. But there was no kind way to say what needed to be said, so she simply described her conversation with the mediator. Then she bit her lip and held her breath, waiting to see how he would take the news.