Mordant's Need

by Stephen R. Donaldson

‘You didn’t have to!’ His fists caught her shirt, wrenched her off the cot so fiercely that the seam at one shoulder parted and the fabric ripped like a wail. ‘Artagel is still too sick to get out of bed, and King Joyse personally told the Tor to let me do my job with you. So instead they both came to see you.

  ‘What are you plotting? Did they tell you what to say to me? They must have. I half believed that dogpiss story about Eremis and Gart. You couldn’t make that up yourself – you don’t know enough. No, you’re all doing this together. Those riders with the red fur came from the Care of Tor. Artagel is Geraden’s brother.’ Convulsive with anger, he twisted her shirt so that it tore down one seam to the hem. ‘What are you plotting?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She ought to be able to resist him, but her strength had deserted her. ‘Nothing.’ His fury was thrust so closely into her face that she could hardly focus her eyes on it, hardly see him at all; he was a darkness roaring in front of her, clawing at her – too much hate to be endured. She couldn’t do anything more than whimper in protest. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You’re lying!’ His intensity seemed to strangle him. ‘You’re lying to me!’ His voice was like a howl stuck in his throat, too congested for utterance. ‘You’ve got friends, allies. Even when you’re locked in the dungeon, I can’t stop you from plotting. You’re going to destroy us! You’re going to destroy me!’

  She felt him gathering force as if he rose up to consume her; he blotted out her vision. A spasm of his grip nearly dislocated her shoulders. Then he caught his arms around her and began to kiss her as if he had been starving for her so long that the pressure of his need had snapped his self-command.

  She sank into his embrace, into the dark. She let herself fall limp, so that she scarcely felt the violence of his kisses, scarcely felt the iron of his breastplate against her chest. The darkness sucked her away, out of herself, out of existence – out of danger. It took her to a place where he couldn’t touch her and she was safe—

  No. Fading wasn’t the answer. She had to do better than this. It accomplished nothing. Oh, it kept her safe, kept her spirit hidden among the secrets of her heart – but her body would still be harmed. And no one would be left to help Geraden. No one would be left to stop Master Eremis. No one would be left to champion Orison against the real enemy, against Master Eremis and his dire alliance with Master Gilbur and the arch-Imager Vagel, with Gart and Cadwal. It came down to her in the end. Myste had said, Problems should be solved by those who see them. There wasn’t anybody else.

  She was terrified – but the fact that she was capable of escape gave her courage. She remained limp, lifeless, until the Castellan eased his embrace and shifted his hands to the waistband of her pants, bending her backward over the cot. Then she opened her eyes and looked at him.

  She could see him clearly now, the distress bulging along the line of his jaw, the pale intensity on either side of his nose, the darkness like mania in his eyes. He scared her down to the bottom of her soul, where her fear of her father still lived and burned, distorting her. Nevertheless she caught at his wrists and held them as hard as she could, trying to stop him.

  As if his kisses had made her lucid and crazy, immune to fright, she said, ‘You didn’t ask them why they came to see me. You didn’t bother. You didn’t ask Artagel to look at Nyle’s body. You didn’t even try to find out the truth. You just want to hurt me more than anything else in the world, and they finally gave you an excuse.’

  Roaring almost silently behind the constriction in his chest, he let go of her and drew back his arm. He was going to hit her hard enough to crush her skull against the wall.

  ‘They came to see me,’ she said – lucid and completely out of touch with the reality of her plight – ‘because they want me to tell you where Geraden is.’

  While his arm rose and his teeth flashed, he stopped. Surprise or doubt or self-disgust seemed to seize hold of him, cramp all his muscles. Hoarsely, he panted, ‘You’re lying. You’re still lying.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head calmly. It was madness to be so calm. ‘Is it true that you didn’t ask Artagel to look at Nyle’s body?’

  The Castellan was going to hit her. Or else he was going to break down right there in front of her. Precariously balanced between the extremes, he choked, ‘I asked. He’s had another relapse. Too sick to understand the question.’

  Steady and unafraid, she shrugged away her disappointment as if it were trivial. ‘Never mind,’ she murmured. She might have been trying to console Castellan Lebbick. ‘I had another visitor. One you don’t know about.

  ‘Master Eremis was here.

  ‘Now I can prove he’s a traitor.’

  Lamplight flickered in the Castellan’s gaze. He straightened his back and stood over her as though his body had become stone; he held himself back from bloodshed with an effort of will so savage that it made him gasp for air.

  ‘How?’

  Unnatural quiet and clenched wildness, Terisa and the Castellan spoke to each other.

  ‘He put cayenne in his wine to make himself sweat, so you would think he was exhausted.’

  ‘You’ll never prove that.’

  ‘He gave your guards a potion to make them sleep, so he could get away.’

  ‘If they’re awake when I check on them, you’ll never prove that, either.’

  ‘He has a secret way into the dungeon. It comes from his workroom in the laborium. You ought to be able to find it without too much trouble.’

  When she said that, Castellan Lebbick flinched backward. He didn’t loosen his grip on himself, but his eyes betrayed a vast accumulation of pain.

  ‘If he came here,’ he asked, still breathing hard, ‘why didn’t you go with him? Why didn’t you escape?’

  For some reason, that question cracked her mad calm. She seemed to feel herself shattering, like an eggshell. Without transition, she went from lucidity to the edge of hysteria.

  ‘Because—’ Her voice broke, and her heart hammered as if it couldn’t bear the strain any longer. ‘Because he wanted to use me against Geraden. The same way he used Nyle.’

  A muscle began to twitch in the Castellan’s right cheek. The twitch spread until the whole side of his face felt the spasm. He was losing control.

  ‘So if you’re telling the truth’ – for the first time since she had met him, he sounded like a man who might weep – ‘Geraden has always been true to King Joyse. True, when almost nobody else is. And you’re true to Geraden. And I’ve been hurting my King by distrusting you – by trying to protect him from you.’

  Dumbly, Terisa nodded.

  Without warning, the Castellan whirled away. ‘I’ve got to see this “secret way” for myself.’ Slamming the cell door so hard that flakes of rust scattered to the stone, he started down the corridor.

  Almost at once, he broke into a run. His voice echoed across the sound of his boots as he shouted as if he were calling farewell to her – or to himself – ‘I am loyal to my King!’

  Stricken numb and hardly able to care what happened to her at the moment, Terisa pulled the torn seam of her shirt closed as well as she could. Grief threatened to overwhelm her: her own; the Castellan’s; the hurt and sorrow of anyone who had to bear the consequences of King Joyse’s decline. No, decline wasn’t the right word. He still knew what he was doing. He had brought Mordant and Orison to this dilemma deliberately. Dully, she thought about that to keep herself from considering how close she and Castellan Lebbick had come to destroying each other.

  When she finally looked up from her futile attempt to make her shirt decent – or at least warm – she saw Master Quillon inexplicably standing outside the bars of her cell.

  ‘That was bravely done, my lady,’ he said in a distant tone. ‘Unfortunately, it was a mistake.’

  She looked at him, gaped at him; her mouth hung open, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  ‘Master Eremis lied to you. He has no passage from his workroom into the dungeon. He came to you by translatio
n.

  ‘When the Castellan learns that no passage exists, he will not believe another word you say. His rage will be so great that I fear he will be unable to hold himself back from killing you.’

  It was too much. Fear and loneliness filled Terisa’s chest, and she started crying.

  THIRTY-ONE

  HOP-BOARD

  After a while, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  She was crying hard; but the touch was unexpected, and it startled her. She looked up to find Master Quillon beside her. His nose was twitching, and his eyes were gentle; clearly, he intended to comfort her.

  ‘My lady,’ he murmured, ‘it has been painful for you, I know. And it must seem unjustified. You asked for none of this. And though we did not choose you, we have not hesitated to use you. I will give you all the help I can.’

  Help, she thought through her tears. All the help I can. It was too late. The Castellan was too strong. He had too much power. She couldn’t prove anything against Master Eremis. Nobody was going to be able to help her.

  But Master Quillon was standing beside her. With his hand on her shoulder. Inside her cell. When she blinked her eyes clear, she saw that the door was open.

  The Imager glanced where she was looking and commented like a shrug, ‘Fortunately, the Castellan was in such dudgeon that he forgot to lock it. I doubt that any of the guards would be willing to open it for us when he is at this level of outrage.’

  By degrees, the open door and Master Quillon’s unexplained presence fixed her attention. The pressure of sobs receded in her chest; her breathing grew steadier. Without meeting the Master’s gaze, she muttered, ‘Did Havelock send you this time?’

  ‘Indirectly,’ Quillon replied. ‘I am here for his benefit – and for the King’s. To save all Mordant. But primarily’ – his grip on her shoulder tightened a bit – ‘I have come to let you out of this prison.’

  Let me out—? Her eyes jerked to his: she stared at him, unable to control the way her face suddenly burned with yearning and hope. Her mouth shaped words she couldn’t find her voice to say out loud: You’re going to set me free?

  Abruptly, Master Quillon took his hand from her shoulder and sat down next to her on the cot. Now his gaze studied the floor instead of meeting hers. ‘My lady,’ he said to the stones, ‘it pains me to see you so surprised. And it pains me even more to know that we deserve your surprise. I do not like some of the things we have done to you. And I lack King Joyse’s talent for risks. We deserve any recrimination you might make against us.’

  Then his tone became more sardonic. ‘The truth is that we deserve to be betrayed – by you as well as by Geraden, if by no one else. But a blind man could see now that you are faithful to him, and so you will not betray us. In that we are exceptionally fortunate. Perhaps our good fortune is as great as our need.’

  Because she was too confused to follow what he was saying, she asked, ‘Is this going to be another lecture?’

  He winced; perhaps he thought she was being sarcastic. But he didn’t back down. ‘Not if you do not wish it, my lady. If you wish me to keep my mouth shut, I will simply take you away from here and let you do whatever you choose without argument – or explanation. But I tell you plainly’ – then he did look at her, letting her see the pain on his face – ‘that you will wound me if you do not permit me to explain. And I think you will increase the difficulty of your own decisions.’

  She could hardly believe what she heard. To be helped, to be offered explanations, to be offered freedom—! Far from resenting him, as he apparently expected, she was hard pressed to restrain herself from weeping again in gratitude.

  But she had to have more self-command than this. Otherwise it would all be wasted on her. She would go wrong. So she didn’t jump to accept his offer. Instead, she did her best to think again, to make her brain resume functioning. Tentatively, groping for what she wanted to understand first, she asked, ‘How do you know Master Eremis doesn’t have a secret way in here? How do you know what he said to me?’

  ‘I heard him,’ Master Quillon retorted with sudden sharpness. He didn’t seem to like what he had heard. ‘I have been secreted down here since noon, when Prince Kragen stopped bringing up catapults against us. I heard your conversations with both the Castellan and Eremis – and with the Castellan again.’ He made an effort to speak more softly. ‘That is how I became certain of your loyalty to Geraden.’

  As if he thought she wasn’t asking the right questions – not being hard enough on him – he said almost at once, ‘You will ask why I did not intervene when the Castellan threatened you. My lady, please believe that I would have done so. You found your own answer to his violence, however. Because he must not know my part in all this, if that can be avoided, I left you to deal with him alone.’

  ‘No,’ she said reflexively, abstract with concentration. He was right: that was something she wanted to ask him, a subject she wanted to pursue. But not yet. ‘Tell me about that later.’ First things first. She had to pull her mind into some kind of order. ‘He said he built a secret way from his workroom into the dungeon. How can you be sure that isn’t true?’

  The Master rubbed his nose to make it stop twitching. ‘It would be impossible to do such work secretly, with so many Apts everywhere in the laborium. Regardless of that, however, I know Eremis did not use a passage to come here. I saw him arrive and depart. He was translated.’

  ‘You mean—’ He can pass through flat glass, too, and not lose his mind? Can everybody do it? ‘You mean he has a mirror with this dungeon in its Image?’

  How is it possible to fight people who can pass through flat glass without going mad?

  ‘I fear so, my lady. I suspect it is the same mirror which translated those hunting insects against Geraden. The passages of Orison are confusing, I know, but actually we are not far from the translation point they used – and Gart used when he attacked you and the Prince. There is considerable stone between this cell and that corridor, but of course stone would be no obstacle to an Image, if the focus of its glass could be shifted that far.

  ‘Incidentally, you may wonder why your enemies do not send more of those insects against you while you are here and helpless.’ Actually, she hadn’t wondered anything of the kind, but Master Quillon went on anyway, ‘It is the Adept’s opinion that they must be given the scent of their victim before they will hunt. For anyone associated with the Congery, it would be easy to obtain something belonging to Geraden – a small possession, a piece of clothing. But opportunities to loot your rooms or wardrobes have been kept as near to nonexistent as possible. Without your scent, the insects cannot be sent against you.’

  Involuntarily, Terisa shuddered. She didn’t want to think about those hideous—

  Master Quillon saved her. He continued talking.

  ‘Considering that Eremis wants you – perhaps as a hostage, perhaps as a lover – wants you enough to risk coming here, it is an interesting question why he has not used his mirror to translate you away. You would be entirely in his power then. But I suspect that the focus of his mirror has already been shifted as far as it will go.

  ‘He must find it quite exasperating that the perfect solution to his dilemma is denied him by the small fact that you are here rather than eight cells farther down the corridor. As I say, we have been more fortunate than we deserve.’

  The Master had done it again, gone off at a tangent, distracted her. Sudden frustration welled up in her. ‘Then why don’t you stop him?’ She turned toward Quillon, demanding an answer with her whole body. ‘Get the Castellan to arrest him. Lock him up somewhere safe. He’s going to betray everybody. You’ve got to stop him.’

  ‘My lady’ – Master Quillon’s voice was soft, and his eyes studied her as if he wondered how much of the truth she would be able to bear – ‘it is too soon.’

  Too soon? Too soon? She gaped at him, unable to speak.

  ‘We do not know where his strength is located. We do not know how this trick of translatio
n is done. We do not know how far his alliances extend, or how many powers he is prepared to bring out of his mirrors against us. We do not know what his plans are – how he means to destroy us. Until his trap is sprung, we have no effective way to strike back at him.’

  Still she gaped at him. Her head was spinning. With an effort, she asked thinly, ‘“We”?’

  The Master smiled slightly, sourly. ‘Yes, my lady. King Joyse, for the most part. And Adept Havelock, when he is able. I follow their instructions.’ He paused while she went pale with shock; then he admitted, ‘Not a very impressive cabal, I fear. There is no one else.’

  A moment later – perhaps because she couldn’t stop staring at him – he seemed to take pity on her. ‘We cannot afford allies,’ he explained. ‘It is the essence of the King’s policy to appear weak. Confused in his priorities. Unable to achieve decisions. Careless of his kingdom. And it would be impossible to create that appearance if his intentions were not kept secret. If Queen Madin knew the truth, would she turn her back on her husband in his time of gravest peril? If the Tor knew the truth, how well would he play the part of the forlorn and hectoring friend? If Castellan Lebbick knew the truth – No, it would be disastrous. He has no subterfuge in him. And no one would believe that King Joyse had lost his will or his wits, while Lebbick remained confident.’

  We, she murmured to herself, King Joyse, as if the words made no sense, We cannot afford allies. It was all deliberate.

  ‘The fact is,’ said Quillon, ‘that everyone who loves the King would behave differently if they understood him. And so it would all come to nothing. I am trusted only because throughout Orison I am so easily taken for granted – and because King Joyse must have one friend and Imager who is more reliable than the Adept.’

  ‘But why?’ The words burst from Terisa. ‘Why? Mordant is falling! Orison is under siege! Everybody who loves him or is loyal to him has been hurt!’ All deliberate. Of course. She knew that. But the reason—! ‘He’s destroying his whole world, the world he created. Why would he do such a terrible thing?’