Mordant's Need

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Who was responsible for all this mud, all these bootmarks?

  Geraden nudged the Image downward.

  For the first few steps, he was so absorbed in what he was doing – so caught up in the focus of the glass, the search for Terisa, the need to succeed – that he didn’t understand what was about to happen to him, didn’t realize the truth at all, even though it was perfectly plain in front of him, so obvious that any farmer or stonemason, any ordinary man or woman, would have grasped it automatically.

  But then the Image began to dim, began to grow palpably dim in the glass, and Master Barsonage croaked, ‘Light.’

  Light.

  Geraden’s hands froze on the frame. His whole body lost movement, as if the breath and blood had been swept out of him. The stairs loomed below him darkly, treads descending into an immeasurable black.

  There was no light. No lamps or lanterns or torches or candles. They had been extinguished.

  The Image still existed, of course; but without light there was nothing to see.

  He had no answer to that defense. By that one stroke, any attempt to rescue Terisa was instantly and effectively prevented. He couldn’t help her if he couldn’t find her – and how could he find her if he couldn’t see her?

  ‘Maybe—’ The air seemed to thicken in his lungs; he felt like he was suffocating. ‘Maybe there’s light farther down. Maybe only the stairs are dark.’

  At once, Master Barsonage clamped a warning hand onto his shoulder. ‘Geraden,’ he hissed as if the former Apt were far away, lost in urgency, almost out of reach, ‘how will you find it? If there is light, how will you find it? You cannot focus an Image you cannot see. You may shift it into the foundations of the house, where no light will ever reach.’

  ‘I’ve got to try.’ Geraden was choking. The mediator’s hand on his shoulder was choking him. ‘Don’t you understand? I’ve got to find her.’

  ‘No!’ Master Barsonage insisted. Geraden’s passion appeared to affect him like anguish. ‘You cannot focus an Image you cannot see.’

  That was true. Of course. Any idiot could have told him that. Even a failed Apt who had never done anything right in his life could recognize the truth. Darkness made all the mirrors blind – and all Imagers.

  Somehow, Geraden stepped back against the pressure of Barsonage’s grip. Facing the Image as it blurred into the obscure depths, he said harshly, ‘Then I’ll have to go myself.’

  With a look of iron on his face, and no hope in his heart, he made the mental adjustment of translation and stepped into the glass.

  As his face crossed into the Image, he cried out, ‘Terisa!’

  Master Barsonage wrenched him back so hard that he sprawled among the tables.

  Before he could regain his feet – or curse or fight – Adept Havelock sat down on his chest, straddling his neck.

  ‘Listen to me,’ the Adept snarled, savage with strain. ‘I can’t do this for long.’ His eyes rolled as if he were going into a seizure. ‘You can make us let you go. Just use that voice. We’ll obey. But we won’t be able to get you back.’

  Geraden bucked against the Adept, tried to pitch Havelock off him. Havelock braced his legs on either side, clutched at Geraden’s jerkin with both hands, hung on.

  ‘Listen to me, you fool! Your power sustains the shift! When you translate yourself, that glass will revert to its natural Image. You’ll be cut off! – you and the lady Terisa both! You’ll both be lost!’

  It was too much. Geraden flung Adept Havelock aside. He surged to his feet. With all his strength, he punched Master Barsonage in the chest – a blow which nearly made the massive Imager take a step backward.

  Then he faced the mirror and began to howl.

  ‘Eremis! Don’t touch her!’

  FORTY-TWO

  UNEXPECTED TRANSLATIONS

  Eremis was touching her. He was certainly touching her.

  She had never been strong enough against him. Her concentration had never been strong enough. While he had approached her in the audience hall, while he had threatened Geraden, while he had fought with the Tor, she had attempted something she didn’t know how to do, something she had never heard of before: wild with anger and desperation, she had tried to reach out to the mirror which had brought him here and change it.

  On some level, she knew that was impossible. She was on the wrong side of the glass, the side of the Image, not the side of the Imager. But the knowledge meant nothing to her. If she could feel a translation taking place, surely that gave her a link, a channel? And she didn’t have any other way to fight. Her need was that extreme: she didn’t care that what she was trying was probably insane. Her strange and unmeasured talent was her only weapon. If she could fade, if she could go far enough away to reach his mirror—

  His hands made that impossible. They forced her to the surface of herself when she most needed to sink away.

  First there was his grip on her arm. He flung her toward the translation point as if it were a wall against which he intended to break her bones. But he didn’t let her go.

  Then there was the bottomless instant of translation, the eternal dissolution.

  Then there was a completely different kind of light.

  It was orange and hot, part furnace, part torches – and full of smoke, rankly scented. Another man was there, someone she hadn’t seen before, a blur as Eremis impelled her past him, kept her spinning. Gilbur and Gart were right behind her, as blurred as everything else.

  And Eremis was shouting, ‘The lights! Put out the lights!’

  Before she could get her eyes into focus, see anything clearly, the torches dove into buckets of sand; a clang closed the door of the furnace. Darkness slammed against her like a wave of heat.

  ‘What went wrong?’ someone demanded in a rattling voice.

  ‘Geraden,’ snapped Master Eremis. ‘He remains alive. We must not let him see this place.’

  ‘I tried to kill him,’ Gilbur snarled. ‘I hit him hard. But that puppy is stronger than he appears.’

  ‘She must not see it,’ continued Eremis. ‘She is his creation. Who knows what bonds exist between them? Perhaps they are able to share Images in their minds.’

  The first voice, the man she didn’t know, made an assenting noise. ‘Then it is good that we were prepared for this eventuality. If we were in the Image-room—’ A moment later, he added, ‘It would be interesting to learn what he does when he regains consciousness.’

  ‘As long as he cannot find us,’ muttered Master Gilbur.

  ‘In the dark?’ Master Eremis laughed. ‘Have no fear of that.’ He sounded exultant, almost happy. His grip on Terisa shifted; with one hand, he held both her arms behind her back. ‘She is mine now – and they are ours. No matter that Geraden still lives, and Kragen. That will only add spice to the sauce. They will do exactly what we wish.’

  ‘And Joyse?’ asked the rattling voice.

  ‘You saw,’ rasped Gilbur. ‘He fled when we appeared. No doubt he is cowering in some hidey-hole, hoping for mad Havelock to save him.’

  The tone of Eremis’ laughter suggested that he doubted Gilbur’s assessment. He didn’t argue, however. Instead, he said, ‘It will be safe to renew the lights when the door is closed.’

  Firmly, irresistibly, he pushed Terisa ahead of him into the dark.

  And all the time, she was still trying to concentrate, still trying to fade.

  Now, of course, she wasn’t reaching toward the glass Eremis had used; she was struggling to find Adept Havelock’s supply of mirrors, striving to feel the potential for translation across the distance. She could sense translations as they occurred. She was sensitive to the opening of the gap between places. That must mean something. There must be some way she could use it.

  But Eremis’ grasp made everything impossible.

  He held her too roughly, so that her arms hurt; he pushed her too far ahead of him into the blind dark. Through a doorway, along a lightless passage, through another door: the visceral fear
of running into something kept her from being able to pull her heart and mind away. The way he chuckled between his teeth filled her with rage and despair.

  I’m not yours. Never. I’ll find some way to kill you. No matter what happens. I swear it.

  It was impossible to fade while she was so full of fury.

  And then the way he held her changed.

  Through the second doorway and across a rough floor, he suddenly thrust her down. She couldn’t catch herself because he didn’t free her arms: she landed heavily on a pillow, a bed. Deftly, he turned her so that she lay on her back, with her wrists now clamped above her head by one of his hands. Then he clasped something iron around her left wrist; she heard a click, a faint rattle of chain. In spite of the fetter, however, he continued to hold her arms pinned.

  He went on chuckling while his other hand undid the hooks of her soft, leather shirt, exposing her breasts, her vulnerable belly.

  ‘I must chain you,’ he murmured pleasantly, ‘a small precaution against your strange talents – and Geraden’s. But it will not prevent me from satisfying my claim on you. You will find that I am not easily satisfied. On the other hand, we have plenty of time.

  ‘If you are compliant, I will keep you bound as little as possible.’

  In the dark, she struggled; she wanted to smash his face, wanted to feel his blood on her hands. He pinned her easily, however; he knew how to keep women from getting away from him. When she paused to gather her strength so that she wouldn’t weep, he curled his tongue like a lick of wet fire around each of her nipples, and his hand slipped aside the sash of her trousers.

  Gasping on the verge of tears, she tried to twist out of his hold; failed.

  Abruptly, she stilled herself, let the resistance sag out of her muscles. She wasn’t accomplishing anything; she was just contributing to her own defeat by making herself wild. She couldn’t concentrate – Let him think her stillness was a form of surrender. If he was that arrogant.

  ‘You will accept my manhood completely,’ he murmured. ‘I will take possession of you in all ways. And I will not be satisfied until you beg me to enter you wherever and whenever I desire.’

  His mouth clung to her nipples, teasing them involuntarily erect, caressing and probing them. At the same time, his hand moved down into her open trousers to the place between her legs which only Geraden knew. His fingers stroked her there as if he believed that she was being seduced.

  Far away in her mind, she was imagining his death.

  When he began to pull her trousers off her hips, however, she returned to defend herself. Her eyes were starting to adjust – and this room wasn’t absolutely lightless. Hints of illumination filtered into the air from what may have been an imperfectly sealed window in the wall above her. Eremis’ head was a shape of deeper blackness poised to make her breasts ache. She couldn’t fight him physically. But she could still fight.

  Taking advantage of the fact that he had left her mouth free, she said, ‘Gilbur thinks King Joyse is a coward, but you don’t agree.’ Her tone should have warned him: it wasn’t unsteady enough, frightened enough, to indicate surrender. ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Because, my sweet lady’ – he was too full of victory to refuse to answer her – ‘you betrayed him to me.’

  She could feel him grinning over her in the dark.

  ‘I might have believed that he was a fool, or a coward, or a madman. But you came to me while Lebbick had me in his dungeon, and you opened my eyes. At a time when I might have remained innocent of the knowledge, you showed me that King Joyse understood his own actions – that he did what he did deliberately.’

  Terisa’s spirit squirmed at the thought; but she kept her body passive.

  ‘This revelation enabled me to adjust my plans to accommodate the possibility that he may have been setting traps of his own. If I had been forced to wait until Quillon finally exposed himself and Joyse by rescuing you, I might have found myself in difficulty. But you’ – Eremis entered her maliciously with his fingers, making her flinch – ‘gave me time to prepare a more personal snare – time to arrange for Queen Madin’s abduction, to cut the ground out from under Joyse at precisely the moment when I might be most exposed to counterattack.

  ‘You made that possible, my lady.’ His head was turned toward her now, momentarily sparing her breasts. He was gloating, hardly able to contain his triumph. At that moment, he might have been willing to tell her anything. ‘You allowed me to perfect my plans against an opponent who may have proved worthier than he appeared.’

  As he spoke, her mind turned cold and sick. It was true: she had given King Joyse to his enemies.

  ‘You deserve Saddith’s fate for attempting to thwart me. But because I am grateful I will use only as much force as you require.’

  He laughed again – a snort of pleasure and contempt. Her senses were full of him. He smelled of sweat and confidence. ‘Gart wished to kill you when you left Vale House, but I did not allow it. Doubtless your death and Geraden’s would have been to our benefit. But then who would have taken the news of the Queen to King Joyse? How else could I arrange to master both you and Joyse at the same time, except by letting you live?

  ‘You have served me perfectly, despite your opposition.’ His fingers continued to work between her legs. ‘My only regret is that I do not yet have Geraden in my power. That will come, however. I have said that I must think of something truly special to reward him for his interference, his dunderheaded enmity, and I will do it.

  ‘If you are compliant, my lady, you will live a life which many women would envy. But him’ – Eremis’ fingers hurt her, nearly made her gasp – ‘him I will destroy.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ she said, breathing hard to diffuse the pain. She was going to kill him. All she had to do was stay alive long enough. ‘He can do translations you don’t understand. Translations you didn’t even know were possible until he brought me to Orison.’

  For a moment, Eremis’ laugh sounded more like a snarl. ‘That is true. And it offends me. But again I have been abundantly forewarned. The Congery’s augury made me suspicious of Geraden. And Gilbur learned much while teaching him to shape his mirror. That allowed me to set in motion all the dangers and distractions which prevented both him and you from exploring your talents, learning what they were. And it allowed me to preserve the disregard in which he was held by the Masters, so that the Congery did not try to help you.

  ‘In that way, we gained a great deal of necessary time.

  ‘And now, of course, he is helpless. You cannot threaten me with his power. He can translate nothing he cannot see.’

  ‘I know that,’ Terisa replied harshly – too harshly. She hadn’t intended to let so much of her fury show. ‘But you can’t see, either. You need light sometime – unless you’re planning to give up on Orison and Mordant and Alend, and spend the rest of your life just raping me.’ She felt him grin over her. ‘And when you go out into the light’ – she did her best to lodge each word like a knife in his vitals – ‘you’ll find that he knows too much about you. He knows how you use flat mirrors without going mad.’

  Eremis’ reaction was stronger than she was expecting. He stiffened; his breath hissed between his teeth; his hand raked across her belly as if to hurt her breasts or strike her face.

  ‘How is that, my lady?’

  Lying still, expressing defiance with her voice alone, she said, ‘You put the flat glass inside a curved one and work both translations at the same time.’

  As quickly as she had gained it, she lost her advantage. The Master relaxed tangibly; his fingers stroked her nipples while the tension ran out of him. ‘That is quite accurate,’ he commented. ‘And I must say that I am impressed by Geraden’s ability to reason his way so near the truth. By now, however, Barsonage has discovered that the technique you describe is impossible. Glass translated through glass only shatters.

  ‘The true secret, my lady, lies in the oxidate which prepares the curved mirror. That is my disco
very, the result of my sweat and study. I learned how to make a mirror into which other mirrors could be translated.’

  At the moment, her determination to kill him was all that kept her from despair. There simply wasn’t room in her for so much anger and the horror of seeing her last hope collapse.

  ‘Most of my fellow Masters,’ Eremis continued, ‘would laugh themselves sick if they knew how I have spent my years as an Imager. And yet on my small discovery the world hinges. When I am done, all Mordant and Alend and Cadwal will be at my service, and even High King Festten will acknowledge me supreme.’

  The prospect filled him with passion. He began kissing Terisa again, and this time she could feel his hunger in the way his mouth nipped and sucked her nipples, the way his tongue thrust against them. His free hand was back inside her trousers, pulling them down, making her ready for him.

  If he had let her arms go – just for a second – she would have done her best to put his eyes out. In spite of his triumph, however, he didn’t shift the grip that kept her under control.

  She had no way to make him stop.

  She didn’t need to make him stop. Out of the dark, the unfamiliar, rattling voice said sourly, ‘Festten wants you.’

  Nearly choking with anger, Master Eremis sprang to his feet and wheeled away from Terisa. ‘Am I to be interrupted with her forever? She is mine, I tell you, and I have earned her. Festten does not command me!’

  The other voice conveyed a shrug. ‘He has twenty thousand men who believe otherwise. And he desires a report.’

  Her arms were free. She pulled them down, swung her legs off the bed, sat up; she tested the chain. It wasn’t long enough to let her reach Eremis. The cold cuff on her wrist held.

  ‘Report to him yourself,’ Eremis countered. ‘Send Gilbur to report. Send Gart. I do not come and go to suit the High King.’

  ‘Eremis,’ the rattling voice warned, ‘think. The High King trusts me. He has always trusted me. But he does not trust you. He accepts your leadership – he does as you wish – only because you obtain results which please him. You bring him nearer to victory than he has ever been.