Mordant's Need

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  ‘Deep in thought, I see, my lady,’ said Master Eremis. ‘It makes you especially lovely.’

  She turned, her heart thudding in her throat, and saw him at the door of her cell. With one hand, he twirled the ends of his chasuble negligently. His relaxed stance suggested that he had been watching her for several minutes.

  ‘You are quite remarkable,’ he continued. ‘Ordinarily, cogitation in a woman produces only ugliness. Were you thinking of me?’

  She opened her mouth to say his name, but she couldn’t swallow her heart; it was beating too hard. Staring at him as if she had been stricken dumb, she took an involuntary step backward.

  ‘That would explain this increased beauty – if you were thinking of me. My lady’ – he smiled as if she were naked in front of him – ‘I have certainly been thinking of you.’

  ‘How—?’ She fought to regain her voice. ‘How did you get in here?’

  At that, he laughed. ‘On my legs, my lady. I walked.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. Slowly, her immediate panic receded. ‘You’re supposed to be up at the reservoir. Saving Orison. Castellan Lebbick wouldn’t let you just walk in here.’

  ‘Unfortunately, no,’ the Master agreed. His tone became marginally more sober. ‘I was forced to resort to a little chicanery. Some cayenne in my wine to produce a sweat, so that he would be impressed by the strain of my exertions. A gentle potion in the brandy I offered to the men he set to guard me, so that they would sleep. A passage which has been secretly built from my workrooms in the laborium into an unused part of the dungeons – tremendous forethought on my part, do you not agree? considering that it was never possible for me to be certain Lebbick would arrest you.’

  Terisa ignored the cayenne and the potion; they meant nothing to her. But a secret passage out of the dungeon – A way of escape – She had to take hold of herself with both hands to keep her sudden, irrational hope under command.

  Struggling to muffle the tremor in her voice, she said, ‘You went to a lot of trouble. What do you want? Do you expect me to tell you where Geraden is?’

  Again, Master Eremis laughed. ‘Oh, no, my lady.’ She was beginning to loathe his laugh. ‘You told me that a long time ago.’

  When he said that, a sting of panic went through her – a fear different than all her other frights and alarms. She forgot about the secret passage; it was secondary. She wanted to shout, No, I didn’t, I never did that! But as soon as he said it she knew it was true.

  She had refused the Tor and Artagel and Castellan Lebbick – but Eremis already knew.

  ‘Then why?’ she demanded as though she were genuinely capable of belligerence. ‘Have you come to kill me? Do you want to keep me from talking to the Castellan? You’re too late. I’ve already told him everything.’

  ‘“Everything”?’ The Imager’s dark gaze glinted as if he were no longer as amused as he sounded. ‘Which “everything” is that, my lady? Did you tell him that I have held your sweet breasts in my hands? Did you tell him that I have tasted your nipples with my tongue?’

  The recollection twisted her stomach. More angrily, she retorted, ‘I told him you faked Nyle’s death. You and Nyle set it up as an attack on Geraden. So no one would believe the things he said about you.

  ‘I told him Nyle is still alive. You ambushed Underwell and those guards so everyone would think Geraden came back and killed him, but he’s still alive. You’ve got him hidden somewhere. You talked him into being on your side somehow – maybe he hates Geraden for stopping him when he tried to help Elega and Prince Kragen – and now you’ve got him safe somewhere.

  ‘That’s what I told the Castellan.’

  In the uncertain lamplight, Master Eremis’ smile seemed to grow harder, sharper. ‘Then I am glad it was never my intention to harm you. If I were to hurt you now, everyone would assume that there is some justice in your accusations.

  ‘But I do not hold a grievance against you. I will demonstrate,’ he said smoothly, ‘the injustice of those accusations.’

  ‘How?’ she shot back, trying to shore up her courage – trying not to think about the fact that she had betrayed Geraden to the Imager. ‘What new lies have you got in mind?’

  His smile flashed like a blade. ‘No lies at all, my lady. I will not lie to you again. Behold!’ Flourishing one hand, he produced a long iron key from the sleeve of his cloak. ‘I have come to let you out.’

  She stared at him; shock made her want to lie down and close her eyes. He had a key to the cell. He wanted to let her out, help her escape – he wanted to get her away from the Castellan. She was too confused, she couldn’t think. Start over again. He had a key to the cell. He wanted— It didn’t make any sense.

  ‘Why?’ she murmured, asking herself the question, not expecting him to answer.

  ‘Because,’ he said distinctly, ‘your body is mine. I have claimed it, and I mean to have it. I do not allow my desires to be frustrated or refused. Other women have such skin and loins as yours, such breasts – but they do not prefer a gangling, stupid, inept Apt after I have offered myself to them. When I conceive a desire, my lady, I satisfy it.’

  ‘No,’ she said again, ‘no,’ not because she meant to argue with him, but because he had given her a way to think. ‘You wouldn’t risk it. You wouldn’t take the chance you might get caught here. You want to use me for something.’

  Then it came to her.

  ‘Does Geraden really scare you that badly?’

  Master Eremis’ smile turned crooked and faded from his face; his eyes burned at her. ‘Have you lost your senses, my lady? Scare me? Geraden? Forgive my bluntness – but if you believe that Geraden Fumblefoot frightens me in any way, you are out of your wits. Lebbick and his dungeon have cost you your mind.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ In a manner that strangely resembled the Castellan’s, she clenched her fists and tapped them on the sides of her legs as if to emphasize the rhythm of her thoughts, the inevitability. ‘I don’t think so.

  ‘You know what he can do. You pretend you don’t, but you know what he can do better than anybody – better than he does. Gilbur watched him make that mirror. You knew something unexpected was going to happen when the Congery decided to let him go ahead and try to translate the champion. That’s why you argued against him. You weren’t trying to protect him. You wanted to keep him from discovering who he is.

  ‘The reason you tried to get him accepted into the Congery was just to distract him, confuse him – make it harder for him to understand.

  ‘When Gilbur translated the champion’ – she swung her fists harder, harder – ‘you left Geraden and me in front of the mirror, directly in front of the mirror. You probably pushed him. You wanted the champion to kill him.’ To kill both of us. The Master had been trying to take her life as well for a long time. But that was the only flaw in her convictions, the only thing which didn’t make any sense: why anybody would want to have her killed. ‘There isn’t any doubt about it. You’re definitely afraid of him.’

  This time, the bark of Master Eremis’ laugh held no humor, no mirth at all. ‘You misjudge me, my lady. You misjudge me badly.’

  She didn’t stop; it was too late to draw back. ‘That’s why you’re here,’ she said, beating out the words against her thighs. ‘Why you want to let me out. You want me to be your prisoner. You know he cares about me,’ cares about me, oh, Geraden! ‘and you want to use me against him. You think if you threaten to hurt me he’ll do whatever you want.’

  ‘You misjudge me, I say. It is not fear. Fear that puppy? I would rather lose my manhood.’

  She heard him, but she didn’t slow down. ‘The only thing’ – which was already a lie, but she had no intention of telling him the truth – ‘the only thing I don’t understand is why you didn’t just send Gart to kill the lords of the Cares and Prince Kragen. Why else did you get them all together? You didn’t want any alliance – you knew that meeting would fail. You were just trying to undermine all of Cadwal’s enemies
at the same time.

  ‘Why didn’t you finish the job? With the lords and Prince Kragen dead, Alend and Mordant and even Orison would be in chaos. What were you afraid of?’

  Abruptly, Master Eremis swung his own fists and hit the bars so hard that the door clanged against its latch. ‘It was not fear. Are you deaf? Do you have the arrogance to ignore me? It was not fear!

  ‘It was policy.’

  Terisa stared at him past the bars, past the stark conflict of lamplight and shadows on his face, and murmured softly, in recognition, ‘Oh.’

  ‘I did not send Gart against the lords and Kragen,’ he said harshly, ‘because it was impossible to be sure that he would succeed. The Termigan and the Perdon and Kragen are all fierce fighters. Kragen had bodyguards. And any man who killed the Tor might drown in all his blood. Also it was much too soon to risk revealing my intentions. The gamble I chose to take was safer.

  ‘When Gilbur performed his translation, the champion came to us facing the direction we wanted him to go – in toward the most crowded parts of Orison, the rooms and towers where his havoc would be most likely to bring the lords and Kragen to ruin. That was why I wanted him, the only reason I permitted his translation to take place.

  ‘Of course,’ the Master said in digression, ‘once he had been translated, it was necessary to preserve him from Lebbick. I could not allow some bizarre happenstance to bring him into alliance with Orison and Mordant. Let him rampage now and do harm as he wishes, without friends or understanding. That also serves me. But my chief intent was more immediate.

  ‘I wanted him to gut Orison, destroying all my principal enemies at once. If he had gone that way – if you had not turned him, my lady – my gamble would have brought a rich return.

  ‘Policy, my lady. If it succeeds, I succeed with it. If it fails, I remain to pursue my ends by other means.

  ‘And what I have done where Geraden is concerned is also policy, not fear. He is my enemy – and he appears to possess a strange talent. Therefore I will destroy him. But I will destroy him in a way that serves my ends rather than risks them. I do not’ – vehemence bared his teeth – ‘fear that ignorant and impossible son of a coward.’

  So he admitted it. She was right about him – she had reasoned her way to the truth. That discovery simultaneously relieved and terrified her. She was right about him, right about him. Geraden was innocent, and she had reached the truth alone, without anyone to help or rescue her. It was an intense relief just to recollect that he had never been able to finish anything he started with her: that he hadn’t gotten her killed – or into his bed; hadn’t gotten her confused enough to turn her back on Geraden.

  On the other hand, there were no witnesses; no one else had heard him. She was alone with her knowledge – alone with him.

  And he had a key to her cell.

  Without meaning to do it, she had stripped herself of her only protection – the appearance of incomprehension that let him think she wasn’t a threat to him, led him to believe he could do anything he wanted with her.

  In quick panic, she tried to fake a defense. ‘Prove it,’ she replied, groaning inwardly at the way her voice shook. ‘Leave me here. Go back to the reservoir and save Orison from Alend. If you aren’t afraid of him, you don’t need me.’

  Her own alarm was too obvious: it seemed to restore his humor, his equanimity. He began to smile again, voraciously.

  ‘Tush, my lady,’ he said in deprecation, ‘you do not truly wish that. I have touched you in places you will never forget. No man will ever treasure the ardor of your loins or the supplication of your breasts as I do – most assuredly not that lout Geraden, whose clumsiness will make his every caress a misery to you. If you consult your heart, you will accompany me willingly.

  ‘If you should prove useful to me, how does that harm you? You will still be my lady. And you will be rewarded. I am going to win this contest. King Joyse considers it a mere game, an exercise in hop-board, and that is one of many reasons why Mordant will be defeated. Alend will be defeated, and Cadwal will be consumed. When I am done, there will be no power left in all this world which is not mine. Then the woman who stands with me will have riches and indulgence beyond her wildest imaginings.

  ‘You would look well in that place, my lady. If you accompany me willingly, it will be yours.’

  Terisa studied him hard. She didn’t listen to what he was saying; his offer meant nothing to her. But the fact that he made it meant something. It meant something. When he stopped, she muttered, ‘Take Saddith. She wants the job,’ speaking aloud for her own benefit, so that the sound of the words would help her think. ‘I’m still trying to figure out why you bother pretending to seduce me. You’ve got a key. You’re bigger than I am. Why don’t you just come in here, rape me, club me over the head, and let Gilbur or Vagel translate me to some other dungeon where you can use me without having to be nice about it?’

  ‘Because’ – he had recovered from the unpleasant surprise she had given him; now he was very sure of himself – ‘that is not what you truly wish, my lady. Your deepest desire is not to defy me, but to open yourself so that I may teach you the joy of your body – and mine.’

  She shook her head, hardly hearing him. Any explanation he gave was automatically false. Still for her own benefit, she went on, ‘You’re not just afraid of Geraden. You’re afraid of me.’ She felt a growing sense of wonder and dismay. ‘You’re trying to trick me for the same reason you’ve been trying to have me killed. You’re afraid of me.’

  This time when Master Eremis laughed his amusement was unforced and unmistakable. ‘Oh, my lady,’ he chortled, ‘you are a wonderment. You flatter yourself beyond recognition. If you were not so earnest, I would believe you drunk with pride.

  ‘Nevertheless I will respect what you say. Perhaps you desire a little force. Perhaps that will add spice to your eventual surrender. Since you suggest it—’

  With a final chuckle, he pushed the key into the lock and turned it.

  Without a second’s hesitation, Terisa reared back and yelled at the top of her lungs, ‘Guards!’

  Master Eremis froze. His gaze flicked away down the passage, then sprang back to her in instant fury.

  She put her whole heart into it:

  ‘Guards!’

  A door clanged in the distance. A rumor of boots ran along the corridor.

  The Imager snarled a curse. ‘Very well, my lady,’ he hissed savagely. ‘That was your last chance, and you have lost it.’ In a swirl of darkness, he turned to leave. ‘Now you will face the consequences of your foolishness. When Lebbick is done with you’ – he spoke sharply enough to raise echoes after him, so that she could hear him as he left – ‘expect worse from me.’

  Then he was gone.

  His departure was so abrupt – and the approach of the guards sounded so ominous – that just for an instant she thought she had made a mistake.

  That concern evaporated almost immediately, however: it was burned away by the swift, hot awareness that she preferred being left to the Castellan’s mercy. He was unpredictable and violent, capable of almost any atrocity when his loyalties were outraged. Yet he was faithful – far more trustworthy than the people in whom he had placed his faith. In fact, that discrepancy was what drove him wild. She would rather fight a man like him, who was at least true to his King, than be seduced by a man like Master Eremis, who was false to everybody.

  The guards arrived at her cell, demanded an explanation threateningly because Castellan Lebbick might take them to task for anything they did in regard to her. For a moment, she was right on the edge of telling them what had happened. Master Eremis was here. He’s got a secret entrance to the dungeons. He’s a traitor. But her instinct for subterfuge made her swallow the words. No. She might need them. The Castellan would be back: she might need everything she could possibly tell him.

  Facing the guards as if she had become bold, she replied, ‘I want to see him.’

  The two men gaped at her.
One of them asked stupidly, ‘Who? The Castellan?’

  She nodded.

  The other leered, ‘Waste of effort. Last time a woman wanted to see him, he had her stripped and flogged and thrown out of Orison.’ He grinned at the memory. ‘Had nice tits, too. Would have done better to come to me.’

  Terisa closed her eyes to control an upswelling of disgust. ‘Tell him,’ she demanded. ‘Just tell him.’

  The guards looked at each other. The first one said, ‘He isn’t going to like it.’ But the other shrugged.

  Walking loudly, they went away.

  She sat down on her cot and tried to believe that she knew what she was doing.

  She didn’t have much time to prepare herself. Scant moments after the guards left, she heard Castellan Lebbick’s rage echoing along the corridor.

  ‘I don’t give a trough of horseshit who she wants to see! You irresponsible sons-of-sheep are going to be cleaning latrines before morning! You’re going to clean latrines until everything you eat tastes like piss and your wives and even your children stink as bad as you do! Who gave you the fornicating permission to let her have visitors?’

  Then the door between the guardroom and the dungeons rang viciously against its frame; and boots came, as hard as hate, along the damp stone corridor.

  Shocked, she found herself murmuring helplessly, Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no, on the verge of panic.

  The Castellan stamped to the front of her cell like a man with murder on his mind. The glare in his eyes was fierce enough to wither what little courage she had left; his jaws were knotted with violence. Like a blow, he rammed the key into the lock, turned it, and slammed the door open. The door hit the bars so hard that they belled like a carillon.

  ‘You heartless slut!’ He came into the cell, came straight at her. ‘I’ve been tearing my guts out over you all day, and you’ve been having visitors!’

  Involuntarily, she flinched back onto the cot, cowered against the wall. ‘The Tor!’ she cried out, trying to keep him from hitting her. ‘Artagel! They came here. I didn’t ask to see them.’