Mordant's Need

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  ‘Not so loud,’ he cautioned. ‘Water carries sound.’

  She wished she could see his face. He sounded tense and far away, caught up in his responsibility for what happened to Orison. Stopping Elega was like stopping Nyle for him: she was his King’s daughter, a childhood friend, and his former betrothed. Precisely because the situation was so painful for him, he couldn’t afford to fail.

  Almost in spite of herself, Terisa understood his allegiance to King Joyse and Mordant.

  ‘She’ll have a light,’ he went on softly. ‘She doesn’t expect to be caught. And she needs to see what she’s doing.’ Like his attention, his voice seemed to be aimed out into the dark. ‘When we see her light we’ll try to sneak up on her.’

  Terisa nodded, but her mind was elsewhere. Her head nestled against his shoulder; his coat warmed her cheek. Was it really better for him to remain loyal to the people and ideas he loved? Was that preferable to facing the truth when those people and ideas failed him? preferable to doing what Nyle and Elega were doing – what Master Eremis had been trying to do all along? How are you planning to live the rest of your life without loyalty or self-respect? Of course it was always better to face the truth. Wasn’t it? Nyle and Elega and Master Eremis had all faced the truth. But she couldn’t shake the odd feeling that what Geraden was trying to do was harder.

  For that reason, it was a good thing he hadn’t been able to return her to her old life. Maybe the sense of unreality that had dogged her for so long was the result of living in the wrong world: maybe she truly had never been a solid being until she came here. Or maybe her evanescence was the result of striving for the wrong things – despite what Reverend Thatcher might have taught her – of not understanding what Geraden understood so well. It was even possible—

  Across the water, she saw a wink of light.

  Geraden stiffened.

  It was no larger or brighter than a candle flame – it flickered like a candle flame. But it flickered because it was moving, passing behind the timbers on the opposite side of the pool. When it stopped, she saw that it was a small lantern.

  The hand that carried it set it down on the flat stone near the lip of the pool. The light shone on a woman’s features. She seemed to be cloaked in midnight: nothing of her was visible except her hands and face.

  Elega.

  She scanned the reservoir for a moment, and Terisa cowered; but the lady’s lamp was too weak to reach so far. Almost at once, Elega withdrew into the darkness.

  Geraden drew a hissing breath. ‘Now.’ He shrugged himself out from the timbers. With his mouth at Terisa’s ear, he whispered, ‘You go that way.’ He gave her a slight nudge in the direction he meant. ‘When you get close enough, distract her. I’ll come up behind her.

  ‘Go.’

  She felt rather than saw him fade into the dark.

  Go. Yes. Good idea. But how? One misstep would take her into the pool. Dragged down by her coat, she would drown. She would never learn whether she was right about Elega.

  Cautiously, she turned and put one hand on the nearest timber.

  The timbers were all the same distance from the edge of the pool. If she felt her way along them, she would be safe. And she had another sign to navigate with: the reflection of the lamp in the water. That gleam was tiny, but it helped her keep her bearings.

  Hoping that the pool’s wet noises would cover the sound of her steps, she concentrated all her attention on the timbers and the reflection and started moving.

  Elega was still nowhere to be seen.

  Geraden had disappeared completely.

  More quickly than she would have believed possible, Terisa reached the corner of the pool. This side; another corner; a straight walk to the lamp. She was cold, but she had no time for that. She wasn’t conscious of shivering.

  Elega returned to the light.

  Instinctively, Terisa froze.

  The lady brought with her a sack about the size of a large purse. She supported it with both hands as though it were heavy. In contrast, however, her walk and posture didn’t betray much strain. Apparently, she feared that the material of the sack might tear, spilling its contents. Her care was obvious as she put the sack down beside the lamp.

  I’m going to be too late. With an effort of will, Terisa forced herself into motion again.

  But she wasn’t too late. Instead of opening the sack, Elega retreated once again into the dark.

  This side; another corner. How long would Elega be gone? How far did the light reach?

  Where was Geraden?

  The lamp made everything behind it blank, impenetrable.

  She felt that she was breathing louder than the sound of the water; the effort of muffling her respiration made her want to gasp. Now she didn’t need to guide herself by the timbers: the lamp showed her the rim of the pool. But she had to be quiet, quiet. No sound from her boots on the stone; none from her heart; none from the tense fear that constricted her chest.

  How long would Elega be gone?

  Not long enough. While Terisa was still too far away, the lady reentered the reach of her light.

  She was carrying a second sack. It was just like the first one. She cradled it with both hands.

  Terisa wanted to freeze again.

  Instead, she began to run.

  At the noise of Terisa’s boots, Elega whirled. The cowl of a cape flipped back from her head, and her eyes seemed to gather up all the light, flaring like violet gems. Her face was whetted and intense.

  ‘Terisa, stop!’

  Terisa jerked to a halt.

  ‘Come no closer!’ the lady warned. ‘You cannot prevent me from flinging my sack into the water. That is not the best way to distribute the powder – but it will suffice.’ In this light, with such extremity in her eyes, her beauty was astonishing. She looked as certain as a queen. ‘And one sack will suffice, though I have brought two for safety. Do not interfere with me.’

  ‘Elega—’ Terisa had to gasp hard to clear her throat, unlock her chest. ‘Don’t do this. It’s crazy. You’re—’

  ‘Who is with you?’ demanded Elega.

  ‘You’re going to kill thousands of people. Some of them are your friends. A lot of them know and respect you.’

  ‘Terisa! Who is with you? Answer me!’

  ‘You’re going to kill your father.’

  Deliberately, Elega adjusted her grip on her sack and started to swing it toward the water. The sack appeared to be made of some unusually supple leather.

  Geraden hadn’t come. There was nothing beyond the lamp except the dimly silvered night of the reservoir. ‘I’m alone!’ Terisa cried urgently.

  The lady checked her swing.

  ‘There’s nobody with me. I’m alone.’

  Elega’s eyes burned. ‘How can I believe that?’

  Helpless to do anything else, Terisa replied bitterly, ‘No one trusts me. Who would believe me if I told them you were going to do this?’

  ‘Geraden trusts you. Together, you persuaded the Tor to be suspicious of me.’

  ‘I know,’ Terisa shot back in desperation. ‘But you made him back down.’ Where was Geraden? ‘And Geraden can’t believe anything like this about you. You’re the King’s daughter.’

  For a moment, Elega studied Terisa. Slowly, she straightened her back; she faced Terisa regally. She didn’t put down her sack, however.

  ‘If no one else would believe this, why do you? How do you come to be here?’

  Terisa met the lady’s scrutiny as well as she could and struggled to hold down her panic. ‘I guessed. We talked about the water supply. I think I suggested it.’ Her self-control was fraying. In another minute, she would begin to babble. ‘Elega, why? This is your home. You’re the King’s daughter. You’re going to kill—’

  ‘I am going to kill,’ cut in Elega impatiently, ‘a few of Orison’s oldest and most infirm inhabitants. That is regrettable. Perhaps my father will be one of them.’ She grimaced. ‘Even that is regrettable. But no one else
who drinks this tainted water will die. They will simply be too sick to fight.

  ‘Orison will fall with little loss of life.’ Her voice rose. ‘At small cost to the realm, my father will be deposed, and a new power will take his place. Then Mordant will be defended’ – she had to shout in order to hold back an uprush of passion – ‘defended against Cadwal and Imagery, and the dreams with which King Joyse reared his daughters will be restored!’ Her cry was strong – yet it echoed like mourning in the high silence of the reservoir. ‘To accomplish that, I am willing to cause a few deaths.’

  She might have continued: the force of what she felt might have impelled her to say more. But she didn’t get the chance. All the illumination behind her condensed at once, transforming Geraden instantly out of the dark; and he charged wildly.

  In fact, he charged so wildly that he caught his foot on the butt of one of the timbers.

  The sound alerted Elega. As quick as a bird, she leaped aside while he crashed to the stone on the spot where she had been standing.

  ‘Geraden!’

  The impact seemed to stun him: he looked hurt. Although he bounded up almost instantly to his hands and knees, into a poised crouch, his balance shifted as if the flat stone under him were moving, and his head wobbled on his neck.

  Nevertheless he was between Elega and the water.

  Terisa hurried to his side. She wanted to help him up, find out how badly he was hurt. But she couldn’t take her eyes off the lady.

  The two women studied each other across a space of no more than ten feet. Elega’s face was dark around the violet smolder of her eyes; she clutched her sack with both hands. Despite the fear pounding in her head, Terisa braced herself to block Elega’s approach to the pool.

  The corners of the lady’s mouth hinted at a smile. In a formal tone, as if she wanted the reservoir to hear her, she said, ‘My lady Terisa, I am sorry that I did not persuade you to join me. I believed you when you said you were alone. Clearly, you are a better player of this game than I realized.’

  Nothing about her gave the impression that she was caught or beaten.

  Geraden, get up!

  Abruptly, he wrenched himself to his feet, stumbled sideways, then recovered. His gaze appeared oddly out of focus, as if his eyes were aimed in slightly different directions. Breathing heavily, he bent over and braced his hands on his knees to support the weight of his sore head.

  ‘Blast you, Elega,’ he panted, ‘don’t you know we caught Nyle? Castellan Lebbick has him. I don’t expect you to care what happens to anybody as minor as a son of the Domne, but you ought to care about the fact that he didn’t get through to the Perdon.

  ‘You made a nice speech about defending the realm and restoring dreams. But you can’t pretend that anymore. You aren’t doing this for Mordant. You’re doing it for Alend.’

  The lady’s eyes flared.

  ‘Or you’re doing it for Prince Kragen, which comes to the same thing. When you’re done, we’ll all be ruled by the Alend Monarch. Then it won’t be you who decides what happens to your dreams. It won’t even be your personal Prince. It’ll be Margonal. Once Orison falls, you won’t be anybody except the oldest daughter of the Alend Monarch’s worst enemy.

  ‘Give it up before you get hurt.’

  As if she were in pain, Elega lowered her gaze. ‘Perhaps you are right,’ she murmured. ‘You have caught me. I was a fool to believe the word of an Alend.’ Her grip on the sack shifted.

  Terisa shouted a warning – too late, as usual – as the lady flung her sack over Geraden’s head.

  At the edge of the light, it arched toward the still, dark water.

  Geraden leaped for it.

  So did Terisa.

  Before they collided with each other, his reaching fingers hooked the soft leather and deflected it.

  They fell tangled together. His arms and legs were all around her: she couldn’t sort her way out of them.

  After an interminable instant, she found herself on the floor while he scrambled to regain his feet. She was gazing straight along the smooth stone at the sack. It had landed right at the rim of the pool – so close that she could have put her hand on it.

  But it had split open when it hit. A strange green powder was already pouring into the water. As she watched, the sack slumped empty.

  Then the light went out.

  A heavy splash cast sibilant applause around the reservoir as the other sack sank into the pool.

  Across the dark, Elega said, ‘Prince Kragen is a truer man than you are, Geraden fumblefoot. He will not be false to me.’

  Small waves continued to slap and echo against the sides of the pool long after the King’s daughter was gone.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  THE BEGINNING OF THE END

  Later that night, a small band of men on horseback launched an attack that no one understood at the time against the heavy gates of Orison. With a great whooping and hallooing, the men charged forward, shot burning arrows into the wood or up at the parapets, then brandished their swords and challenged the defenders to come out and fight instead of cowering inside the walls like girls.

  Their arrows had no effect on the gates: some of Castellan Lebbick’s guards had spent the past four days soaking the wood with water. And the attackers themselves seemed more drunk than dangerous. Nevertheless they made enough noise to be heard by every man on duty around the walls.

  While the captain in command of the watch readied a sortie, the riders escaped. They could be heard laughing derisively for a few moments after the night had swallowed their retreat.

  When this was reported to the Castellan, he had less to say about it than might have been expected. By that time, he had passed from his usual fulminating outrage into a tightly coiled fury that resembled equanimity. He looked almost cheerful as he went about his work, preparing Orison to meet an Alend siege with a totally inadequate supply of clean water.

  Sometime earlier, Terisa and Geraden had had the disconcerting experience of appearing to improve his mood by telling him about their encounter with the lady Elega.

  When they first approached him, he acted like a man who was savage with lack of sleep. His eyes had a harried cast, and some of his gestures seemed aimless, as if he weren’t aware of making them. His personality changed stress and fatigue into ire, however. His problem was that he had nothing to do: Orison was as ready as possible for a struggle he had no expectation of winning. Because he couldn’t rest, he was in danger of driving his own forces ragged before the real test of their strength began.

  He had never been very good at resting. The strict urgency inside him kept him on his feet. Now, however, he couldn’t rest because rest meant sleep – and sleep meant dreams.

  His dreams were haunted.

  As a younger man, he had occasionally had nightmares about his revenge on the Alend garrison commander who had raped and tortured his wife of four days with such relish and variety. But over the years the stable mildness of her companionship – and the clear worth of the work he did for his King – had taken the sting out of those dreams.

  But now she was dead. He was alone – effectively abandoned even by King Joyse. And when he dreamed, he didn’t dream of revenge.

  He dreamed that he was an Alend garrison commander with a young Termigan sod’s nubile bride tied helpless in front of him. He dreamed of all the things that could be done to her to make her scream and her husband mad.

  He dreamed of relish.

  And he awoke trembling – he, Castellan Lebbick, trembling, a man who hadn’t quailed in the face of any dread or danger since the day when King Joyse had cut him free and let him take his revenge.

  At the sight of Geraden’s stiff-faced determination and the woman Terisa’s stubbornly controlled alarm – alarm which he instinctively wanted to justify – something leaped through him like fire in a mound of dry brush.

  By the time Geraden finished describing what Elega had done, Castellan Lebbick was smiling.

  ‘Congra
tulations,’ he said almost genially, ‘Here’s another triumph for you. The lady Terisa’ – he spoke as if she weren’t present – ‘gave you the perfect chance to do something right for a change – and what did you do? You decided to be a hero by saving Orison alone. You must be particularly proud of yourself.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ the woman put in unexpectedly. Despite her alarm and her downcast gaze, she had courage. ‘You make it impossible for anybody to tell you anything. If I turned out to be wrong – if Elega did something else while you were guarding the reservoir – you would accuse us of conspiring to distract you.’

  Yes, the Castellan mused, she was an interesting woman. And her turn was coming. Someday soon he would have her in his power. Then she would learn what it really meant to be accused. He would teach her thoroughly.

  He still found it difficult to distrust the Apt: as the Domne’s son and Artagel’s brother, Geraden had an automatic claim on Castellan Lebbick’s good opinion. And he had stopped Nyle. That may have been stupid, but it was certainly honorable.

  The woman, on the other hand—

  Curious, wasn’t it, how she just happened to be the one who became suspicious of Elega – how she just happened to be the one who figured out what Elega was doing. All Lebbick knew of her was that she was an Imager. And that she acted like an enemy of Alend. And that High King Festten wanted her dead. And that she lied to him when the truth would have helped him serve his King. The rest was inference, speculation, dream.

  The smile with which he regarded her would have curdled milk. Still addressing Geraden, he asked, ‘Do you know what I’m going to have to do now?’

  ‘Yes, Castellan.’ The Apt sighed as though he anticipated more abuse. ‘You’re going to have to face this whole siege with only the spring for water.’

  ‘That’s right. We’ve doubled our population. That spring doesn’t give a tenth of what we need. We’re going to have to ration water severely. I’m going to have to put pregnant women and tired old men and children on rations that will make them ache with thirst. Because you thought it would be fun to be a hero for a change. And that’s not all.’