Mordant's Need

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  ‘Come.’

  As if all his joints ached, he climbed back onto his horse.

  All his joints probably did ache. Terisa would have thought that he was too old for ambushes and battles. Privately, she wondered what drove him to it.

  She also wondered how much it would be safe to tell him. She and Geraden had come close to disaster by telling the Termigan too much.

  Before she had time to wonder what had become of the roan gelding, one of the Fayle’s men returned it to her; he had found it in the woods. Soon she and Geraden were riding among the Fayle’s companions toward his camp.

  After the turmoil and fright of the battle, the ride seemed reassuring and peaceful, too brief. In a short time, she found herself dismounted before a bright fire near the center of a clearing. Around her were servants and supply wains, bedrolls set out on the ground, more men, extra horses; a few of Naybel’s people had come to hear what had happened to their village. A steward brought a flagon of heated wine for the Fayle, then hurried away to get more for the lord’s unexpected guests. The way the men looked at her reminded Terisa that she hadn’t had a decent bath for days. Her hair probably looked like a rat’s nest, and her clothes were filthy. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do about those things at the moment. Instead, she attempted to ignore the stares of the Fayle’s men.

  A campstool was brought for the lord, and he seated himself near the fire as if he were chilled. Almost at once, more stools appeared for Terisa and Geraden. They sat down, accepted warm flagons of wine. Terisa took a sip, then forgot her self-consciousness – forgot that at least thirty people were watching her – long enough to give a grateful sigh. The wine was full of cinnamon and oranges, a blissful antidote for the smell of ghouls. If she had enough to drink, she might be able to get that reek completely out of her mind.

  She wanted to spend a while savoring the sensation that she was safe.

  But Geraden was already eager to talk. ‘My lord Fayle,’ he said before she was ready, ‘we’ve come a long way to tell you Master Eremis isn’t honest. He’s the one who translates these ghouls into your Care – he and Master Gilbur, and probably the arch-Imager Vagel.

  ‘We came to tell you King Joyse needs help. If he doesn’t get it, Master Eremis may destroy him.’

  By force of habit, the Fayle sat upright on his stool. His eyes were keenly blue; his gaze was precise. Looking at him, Terisa was struck by the odd thought that he would never have been able to do what King Joyse had done – make himself appear weak and foolish for years. No one who met the Fayle’s gaze would doubt that he knew what he was doing.

  ‘It is comforting to know,’ he muttered dryly, ‘that Master Eremis deserved to be thwarted. We will discuss that further. Nevertheless his dishonesty does little to explain how you came to fall into a trap which I had set for ghouls.’

  ‘Actually, it explains a lot, my lord,’ countered Geraden. ‘The rest is just details.’ For reasons Terisa understood perfectly, he was being cautious. ‘We rode here from Sternwall. The Termigan wasn’t especially glad to see us.

  ‘Like yours, his Care is being badly hurt by one of Eremis’ translations. We told him the same thing I just told you. King Joyse needs help. He didn’t seem to care about that. I think we were lucky he let us leave.

  ‘My lord, I don’t want that to happen again. The lady Terisa and I are going to fight for the King. Even if we have to do it alone, we’re going to do it. If you stand in our way, we’ll have to fight you, too.

  ‘I’d rather cut off my hands.’

  All the men around the camp were listening. Some of them pretended to be busy with their weapons or their bedding, but they were listening. A focused hush covered everything except the snorts and rustling of the horses.

  The Fayle gazed at Geraden steadily. ‘You must have told the Termigan something he especially did not wish to hear.’

  Geraden nodded.

  ‘What was it?’ asked the Fayle. ‘What could you have said to him that would make a loyal and trustworthy ally of the King suspicious of you?’

  Geraden referred the question to Terisa.

  Simply because the lord’s eyes were so blue, so exact, she assented to the risk.

  ‘We told him the truth,’ Geraden answered the Fayle. ‘We’ve both become Imagers. Terisa is an arch-Imager. The ghouls have started getting worse, haven’t they? Just recently?’

  It was the lord’s turn to nod.

  ‘That’s because of us. Eremis knew we were coming here. Or he figured it out. We were at Houseldon first. Then we were in Sternwall. Where else would we be going?

  ‘He wants to kill us before we find a way to hurt him.’

  ‘And have you found a way?’ the Fayle inquired dryly.

  ‘We’ve been trying. That’s why we went to Sternwall – why we came here. We’ve been trying to gather support for the King.’ Geraden took a deep breath. ‘And if we can’t do that, we want to find somebody who can help me make a mirror.’

  ‘You have no glass?’ The Fayle’s gaze was sharp.

  Geraden straightened his shoulders, and Terisa thought she heard a distant echo of strength in his voice, a strange menace. ‘My lord,’ he said, ‘a number of things would be different if we had as much as one small mirror between us. For one, we would have helped you fight those ghouls.’ He was speaking through his teeth. ‘That’s what our talents are good for.’

  After a moment, however, the menace faded from his tone. ‘Unfortunately, we’re helpless. So far.’

  The Fayle considered Geraden and Terisa for a while. He turned away to request food and more wine. Then he commented, ‘Perhaps you should tell me your story now. While we eat.’

  Geraden glanced at Terisa again. She nodded without hesitation. She was remembering the way the old lord had left the meeting Master Eremis had arranged between the lords and Prince Kragen. Queen Madin is a formidable woman, he had explained in an apologetic and even vaguely foolish tone. Whatever choice I make here, I must justify to her. His peaked shoulders and elongated head should have made him look silly as he walked out on Eremis’ plotting. And yet he hadn’t looked silly at all. His clear loyalty had made him admirable.

  Under the circumstances, she didn’t know what to expect from the Fayle. She was willing to trust him anyway.

  Apparently, Geraden felt the same. As soon as the decision to speak freely had been taken, he began to relax.

  He didn’t try to include everything, however. He still wanted an answer from the Fayle. So he only described the broad outlines of what he and Terisa had learned, what they had done. The Fayle flinched at the news of what had happened to Houseldon, what was happening to Sternwall; but Geraden kept on talking. Whenever the lord stopped him with a question, however, he replied in more detail.

  Most of the men were listening openly now. A few of them fingered their weapons in anger or fear. But because their attention wasn’t on Terisa she was able to ignore them.

  While Geraden and the lord spoke, she drank her wine, ate the food placed in front of her, and did a little calculating backward. That brought her to the unexpected realization that thirteen days had passed, thirteen, since her translation from Orison. In thirteen days, anything could have happened, anything at all. Prince Kragen could have taken the castle – and the Congery. High King Festten could have taken the castle and the Congery and Prince Kragen. On the other hand, Castellan Lebbick could have stuck a quiet knife in Master Eremis’ back.

  ‘The problem is,’ she put in when Geraden paused, ‘we’ve been away from Orison too long.’ Abruptly, she became the focus of attention. Swallowing a rush of self-consciousness, she forced herself to say, ‘Thirteen days for me. Fourteen for him.

  ‘We don’t have any way of knowing what’s happened in the meantime.’

  ‘So perhaps,’ the Fayle murmured slowly, ‘this strange policy of the King’s has already come to its crisis. Perhaps he is already victorious. Or perhaps he has already been defeated and killed.’
>
  ‘We can’t know,’ she agreed. ‘All we have to go on is that when we left Orison Eremis was still working hard to look innocent. And since then he’s been working hard to get us killed. He’s still afraid we can hurt him somehow.’ She shrugged. ‘It isn’t much. But as long as he’s afraid of us, we have something to hope for.’

  ‘That’s something else we might be able to do if we had a mirror,’ Geraden added. ‘Get an Image of Orison. See what’s going on.’

  The Fayle faced Geraden acutely. He looked at Terisa, searched her. After a moment, he spread his hands. The gesture was small, but it seemed full of resignation.

  ‘I have no glass, and no way to make it. I have no Imagers – what use do I have for mirrors? Every product or tool of Imagery which has ever been found in the Care of Fayle, I have given to King Joyse and Adept Havelock.’

  By degrees, his gaze drifted away toward the fire. ‘Without Imagers, my Care is helpless against these ghouls. You have been away from Orison for thirteen or fourteen days. I have not seen Romish since the day I returned from Master Eremis’ meeting. I have been in the saddle, in the villages of my Care – fighting—’

  Terisa had never heard him sound so old.

  ‘I cannot win this struggle. In the end, I must fail.’ He wasn’t looking at his men. His men didn’t look at him. None of them contradicted him. ‘You saw that I have failed Aperyte. It is only one among many villages dead, gutted—

  ‘These ghouls are too many. I have hardly enough trained horsemen for four bands such as this one. I must fail.’

  ‘Then, my lord,’ Geraden said softly, formally, hinting at authority, ‘fight another way. Gather your men. Strike at Eremis in Esmerel. While any hope at all remains.’

  The old lord studied the heart of the fire. His erect posture didn’t shift, didn’t sag, but his hands hung between his knees as if they were useless. After a while, he whispered, ‘No.’

  ‘My lord—’ Geraden began.

  ‘No,’ breathed the Fayle. ‘Joyse is my King – and the husband of my daughter. I love him. I do not understand this policy. I do not like it. Yet I love him.

  ‘But he has never’ – one hand came up into a fist, fell again – ‘in all his years of warfare against Cadwal and Alend and Imagery, he has never asked a lord for aid when that lord’s Care was under attack. He came to me, freed my people. He did not ask me for any help until my Care was safe.

  ‘He will not ask me now. He has no wish to break my heart.’

  Geraden tried again. ‘My lord—’

  ‘No.’ The Fayle didn’t sound angry: he sounded sad. ‘Today we saved Naybel. You were witness. Tomorrow – or in five days – or in fifty days’ – now both hands were fists, beating the rhythm of his words against each other – ‘we will spring another trap, and it will succeed. People will live who would die if I left them to the mercy of these ghouls.

  ‘Do you hear me, Geraden? Did your father ride away from his Care? Did the Termigan?

  ‘I will not leave my people to die undefended.’

  ‘I understand, my lord.’ Geraden’s voice was as soft and sad as the lord’s, but there was no bitterness in it. ‘It doesn’t matter how desperate King Joyse is. He wouldn’t want you to abandon your own Care. He didn’t create Mordant or the Congery because he was desperate. He created them because he believes the same things you do.’

  The Fayle stared into the fire, nodded several times. In a voice like a winter breeze, he sighed, ‘Thank you.’

  Geraden hesitated momentarily, then ventured to say, ‘Unfortunately, that doesn’t change our problem. Is there anything you can do to help Terisa and me?’

  With a shift of his head, the lord brought his blue gaze to Geraden’s face. For an instant, Terisa thought he was angry. Then, however, she saw a suggestion of a smile touch his old mouth. ‘That is true, Geraden,’ he said. ‘My stubbornness does nothing to change your problem. You and the lady Terisa are Imagers, and the evil of Imagery must be met and answered by Imagers. That is your “Care,” in a manner of speaking.

  ‘I will give you supplies. If you need it, I will give you a map. And I will give you two men to ride with you as far as you choose – to Orison, even to Esmerel. They will be useless against Imagers, but they will know how to use their swords to guard your backs and clear your road.’

  Before Geraden could reply, Terisa asked, ‘Can they take us to the Queen?’

  Geraden was surprised: apparently, he hadn’t given much thought to Queen Madin. The Fayle raised an eyebrow; but this time his smile was plain. ‘A good thought, my lady,’ he murmured. ‘It would have come to me in a moment. My men can certainly take you to the Queen. She has a clear right to know what her husband has been doing.’ His smile faded at the memory. ‘After all, she has been deeply hurt by his policy. And it is possible that she may want to do something about it.’

  In response, Terisa swallowed hard and said, ‘Thanks. I appreciate that.’ The force of her relief took her aback. She had known that she wanted to meet the Queen, but she hadn’t realized before just how terrible she would feel if she and Geraden came all this way and then left without taking the time to share what they knew with King Joyse’s wife.

  Geraden stared at her, but he didn’t argue; he didn’t say, That’s a delay we don’t need, a day we could spend better on the way to Orison. Luckily, his instinct to trust her was still intact. After a moment, he let the matter drop and concentrated on eating his supper.

  Later that night, however, when she and Geraden were in their bedding together, a short distance away from the Fayle’s men, he said under his breath, ‘I didn’t know you wanted to meet Queen Madin. Or is it Torrent you’re so interested in?’

  Terisa didn’t answer directly. After musing for a while, she murmured, ‘Do you remember what the Castellan said to Elega – the message he said King Joyse sent to her?’ In case he didn’t remember, she reminded him: ‘“I am sure that my daughter Elega has acted for the best reasons. She carries my pride with her wherever she goes. For her sake, as well as for my own, I hope that the best reasons will also produce the best results.” ’

  ‘Yes,’ returned Geraden. ‘It still doesn’t make sense. It still doesn’t fit with what Master Quillon told you.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ she said to keep him quiet. ‘Do you remember that talk I had with Adept Havelock, while you and Artagel were on the other side of the pillar – after he rescued us from those insects?’

  Obediently, Geraden nodded.

  ‘He talked about Myste,’ she whispered, ‘and the Congery’s champion. He said he had cast an augury about King Joyse, and one of the Images showed Myste and the champion together.’

  Obediently, Geraden didn’t interrupt.

  ‘I’ve always wondered why he told us that. If it wasn’t just because he’s crazy. And I’ve always wondered why King Joyse got so upset when I lied to him about Myste – when I said she went back to her mother. Why he was relieved when I told him I helped her go after the champion.’

  In silence, Geraden waited patiently. At last, he suggested, ‘Why don’t you tell me what you think?’

  ‘I think—’ Terisa held her breath, then forged ahead. ‘I think there’s more to King Joyse’s plans than Master Quillon told us. I think his daughters are important – I think his whole family is important somehow. I think he wanted to throw Elega and Prince Kragen together. I think he wanted Myste to go after the champion.’

  ‘You think he wanted us to go talk to Queen Madin and Torrent? Isn’t that a little farfetched? After all, he didn’t know either one of us had any talent. There was no way he could have predicted we would ever be here.’

  That was true. And it made everything more dangerous. Nevertheless Terisa persisted. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘I want to go talk to Queen Madin and Torrent. Just in case.’ After a moment, she added, ‘He had reason to think we might have talent.’

  She could feel Geraden grinning in the dark. ‘My lady, you’ve got a remarkably
subtle mind. Or indigestion – I can’t figure out which.’

  She got a hand under his jerkin and poked him in the ribs until he apologized.

  Then she poked him for apologizing.

  With so many potential spectators nearby, she and Geraden actually got more sleep than usual. And the next day two of the Fayle’s men guided them to Romish.

  The lord’s seat was situated on a fertile plain uncharacteristically – for this Care – devoid of trees. The land for a mile or two in each direction had been cleared to make room for the fields which fed the city. But Terisa saw no more of Romish itself than the earthwork wall around it. As Myste had said, Queen Madin and Torrent lived in a manor outside the city.

  The manor, Vale House, which a former Cadwal prince had raised to shelter his poor relations while he ruled Fayle, was tucked into a fold among small hills perhaps half a mile upstream along the small Kolted River which provided most of the water for Romish and the fields. As a defensive position – Terisa surprised herself by thinking about such things – the location of Vale House left a lot to be desired: in full daylight, a rider could probably get within twenty yards of the building unnoticed. On the other hand, the House was so easily reached from Romish, and so stoutly constructed, that it was probably in no danger most of the time. Its walls were of stone – strong against ghouls – and the timbers of its doors were banded with iron.

  Through the long dusk of the plain, the Fayle’s men guided Terisa and Geraden among the hills to Vale House. They dismounted before the high doors. The Fayle’s men told the emerging servants to fetch torches for light, grooms for the horses; also the lady Queen Madin. The windows of the House filled up with brightness as lamps and lanterns were lit inside. In a short time, a woman came across the porch to the steps with a blaze of illumination behind her, as regal as if she ruled the world.

  The Fayle’s men bowed and stepped back.

  ‘My lady Queen.’ Geraden bowed as well, bending so low that he nearly fell over. There was a suggestion of tears in his voice. Madin was a sovereign to him, after all – and the wife of the King he loved. ‘It does my heart good to see you again.’