Mordant's Need

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  ‘That must have been what happened the second day you were here, when you saw the Closed Fist in a flat glass.’ It was obvious now that he was talking simply to help her, give her something to think about until she grew calmer. ‘You were so surprised to find the Closed Fist in my glass that you instinctively recreated the Image in the nearest flat mirror. But as soon as Eremis and I distracted you, you let go, and the fundamental Image came back.’

  Came back. She remembered, in spite of her distress. That Image had come back in time to let her see the Perdon’s men being attacked by rapacious black spots which chewed their hearts out.

  And Vagel had said that so far High King Festten’s only satisfaction has been the annihilation of the Perdon.

  Curse them all. Damn every one of them.

  ‘A simple matter,’ commented Havelock. He sounded as lunatic as ever, but somehow he clung to a pragmatic grasp on the situation. ‘Restore the change. You’ve been in that room. Bring the Image back, and we’ll rescue Nyle.’

  He’s chained, Terisa protested inwardly. They aren’t going to just stand there and let us cut him loose.

  Nevertheless she faced the flat glass at once, tried to push panic and doubt and urgency out of her mind, tried to recapture the particular dark where Eremis had held her prisoner—

  She couldn’t do it. She was too frantic; her concentration was too badly frayed. She couldn’t so much as remember what the bed was like, how far away the doorway was, where the staples which had held her chain and Nyle’s were in relation to each other. And without a precise Image in her mind—

  Geraden put an arm around her. ‘It isn’t your fault. It’s just impossible.’ His tone was soft, soothing; it had an undercurrent of misery and yearning, which he suppressed. He must have been through horror of his own while she was away – he must be frantic to rescue Nyle – but he put himself aside for her sake. ‘That’s why he keeps the important parts of Esmerel dark. That’s why I wasn’t able to come after you. If you shift the mirror now, you won’t know if you’ve got exactly the right piece of darkness. And if you’re wrong we might all be killed. You might produce an Image that’s actually inside a mountain somewhere, and as soon as you do any kind of translation we’ll have a few million tons of rock to deal with. You need light.’

  Hugging her, he repeated, ‘It isn’t your fault. We’ll get him out some other way.’

  There was no authority in his voice, no unexpected strength. All he was trying to do at the moment was comfort her. And yet she found that she believed him. We’ll get him out some other way. He meant it, the same way she meant, I’m going to kill him.

  Slowly, the panic in her muscles receded, and she slumped against him, mutely asking him to hold her until she had time to recover.

  ‘Geraden is right, I think.’ Apparently, Master Barsonage had returned from his exaltation. ‘Master Eremis is cunning. Darkness is a ploy to which no Imager has ever found an answer. Even the crudest translations require light. Do not blame yourself, my lady. Already your achievements seem quite miraculous.’

  All right. All right. She could never fight if she let herself collapse like this. She couldn’t reach Nyle: all right. She could still think. Eremis had violated her with his hands. Think. He had come close to doing much worse things – but she got away. It was possible to think; choose; act. Just start somewhere. Geraden still held her. The way his arms supported her was more miraculous than any translation. He had no more intention of abandoning Nyle than she did. All right.

  Start somewhere.

  She took a shuddering breath. ‘I don’t understand. How did I do it? I was on the wrong side of the glass. I didn’t think it was possible for something in an Image to translate itself out.’

  Geraden tightened his hug. It was the mediator who answered, however.

  ‘The Adept did that, my lady. The idea was Geraden’s, but he can do nothing with flat glass.

  ‘You are right. We know of no way for what is in an Image to translate itself out. Even for us – for Imagers of talent who have shaped the mirrors – entering a glass is nearly effortless, but bringing what is in the Image out requires gestures, invocations – a particular way of concentrating the Imager’s talent. After all, the mirror itself is here, not where you were.

  ‘Yet when the Image in this glass shifted from sand to darkness, we could hardly fail to notice the fact. And Geraden guessed that the shift was your doing. And Havelock is an Adept. We are fortunate’ – Barsonage smiled sourly – ‘that he is in a mood which allows him to react to events reasonably. After Geraden had made himself understood, the Adept performed the translation which rescued you.’

  With startling clarity, Terisa felt Master Eremis springing toward her through the dark, remembered his attack. As if she were panicking, she broke away from Geraden. But she wasn’t panicking; she may have lost the capacity for panic altogether.

  Before Havelock could try to avoid her, she caught her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  Just for a second, the mad old Imager’s eyes came together; he grinned at her like an ecstatic boy. It was amazing, really, how easily she was able to forgive him for failing to help her against Master Gilbur.

  Almost at once, however, his gaze split again; his nose jutted fiercely, like a promise of violence. Fortunately, he didn’t try to say anything.

  He didn’t try to stop her when she turned back to Geraden.

  Geraden was watching her hungrily. For the first time, she realized that he had tears streaming down his face.

  This clear sight of him made her stop. He had known the danger she was in. While she was Eremis’ prisoner, he had been here – cut off— She could picture him desperately trying to bridge the gap—

  Abruptly, she locked an embrace around him. ‘Oh, love,’ she breathed, aching for him. ‘You changed a mirror. You must have gone crazy trying to reach me.’

  Geraden held her hard; but again it was Master Barsonage who answered. ‘Our Geraden has proved to be nearly as great a source of wonders as you are, my lady.’ He sounded steady, but behind his self-control she could hear a tremor of pride and vindication. ‘Of course, we knew of his ability to perform astonishing things with his own glass. For that reason, in some sense we were not surprised when Orison’s enemies contrived the destruction of his mirror.’

  In shock, Terisa stiffened. The destruction—? Her link with her home was gone.

  Then how—?

  ‘Without his glass,’ the mediator continued, ‘we believed he would be helpless. But he has shown himself an Adept in his own right, at least where normal mirrors are concerned.’ Barsonage indicated a curved glass beside the flat desertscape. ‘He imposed an Image of Esmerel there and used it to search for you. Only the ploy of darkness prevented him from reaching you.’

  As she absorbed the mediator’s words, her dismay lifted. ‘You can do that?’ She was so pleased that she pushed back again to look into Geraden’s anguish. ‘You’re an Adept as well as an Imager? That’s wonderful!’ Suddenly, she was so furious that it felt like ecstasy. ‘Heaven help that bastard. We’ll tear him to pieces.’

  Her passion seemed to give him what he needed. She could see him shrug away his failure to rescue her, his helplessness to rescue Nyle. The lines of his face grew sharper; his eyes cast hints of fire.

  ‘It won’t be easy. Esmerel is two days away on a good horse. Prince Kragen thinks High King Festten has at least twenty thousand men. Not to mention all the abominations Eremis can translate. They can still use flat glass whenever they want – and we don’t know how they do it.’ He wasn’t trying to daunt her. He was simply bringing up problems in order to solve them.

  ‘I don’t care about any of that,’ she replied in the same spirit. ‘They’ve got Nyle. They’ve got the Queen. High King Festten is there. Eremis talked to him this morning. They’ve destroyed the Perdon. Annihilated is the word Vagel used. They’re destroying Sternwall and Fayle. And it’s just going to get worse.’ Tersely, she expl
ained what the arch-Imager and Master Eremis had revealed about the speed, precision, and flexibility they had achieved with mirrors. While Geraden scowled at the information, and Master Barsonage blinked in consternation, she concluded, ‘We’ve got to stop him before he goes any further.’

  The mediator started to ask a question, then subsided. But Geraden accepted her explanation without wincing. When she was done, he said, ‘There’s one more thing. King Joyse is gone.’

  Gone—?

  ‘I mean really gone. Adept Havelock says he flew away.’ Geraden glanced dubiously at the mad old Imager. ‘I don’t know what that means. But the last we heard no one’s been able to find him.’

  ‘Then who’s in charge?’ Orison without King Joyse: the concept was strangely appalling. His absence was a pit yawning at her feet. ‘This whole thing was his idea. He wanted to fight Eremis this way. Who’s giving the orders now?’

  Geraden didn’t flinch: he had regained his feet; felt as combative as she did. ‘We don’t know. We’ve been down here most of the time. Probably nobody knows where to find us.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘With King Joyse gone and Castellan Lebbick dead, the whole place may be collapsing.’ Another flicker of hesitation. ‘They may have turned on the Prince.’

  That was true. Terisa imagined riots storming through the upper levels of the castle; panic and bloodshed. It was conceivable that Orison might destroy itself.

  She wheeled on Adept Havelock.

  ‘Where is he? This was his idea. Your idea. Curse that old man, we need him.’

  A sick feeling rose in her stomach as she saw Havelock hunch forward with conspiratorial glee; his eyes nearly gyrated in opposite directions, rapacious and loony. He crooked a finger at her, summoning her near, as if he wanted to tell her a secret.

  She didn’t move; nevertheless he reacted as if she had come closer to hear him.

  ‘I have seen an Image,’ he whispered, ‘an Image, an Image. In which the women are peculiar. Their tits are on their backs. Because of this, they look very strange. But it must be delightful to embrace them.’

  Grinning, he concluded, ‘He came to me and commanded. Commanded. What could I do? I don’t know how to beg.’ His manner didn’t change, yet without transition his tone turned fierce. ‘I have said it and said it. Hop-board pieces are men. Women make everything impossible.’

  Terisa wanted to swear at him – and give him a hug as if he needed comforting. Torn between anger and pity, she faced Geraden and Master Barsonage again. She included the mediator in what she was saying, but all of her attention and intensity were focused on Geraden.

  ‘We’ve got to find out what’s going on.’

  Both men nodded, Barsonage willingly, Geraden in passion and approval.

  ‘Somebody has got to figure out what King Joyse intended to do now and make sure it gets done.’

  Master Barsonage hesitated. Geraden nodded again.

  To the Master, she said, ‘We’ll explain as soon as we get the chance. King Joyse set this all up. It’s all deliberate.’ Then she took hold of Geraden’s arm.

  Clasping each other hard, they strode away into the passage which led to the storeroom, out of Adept Havelock’s quarters.

  Master Barsonage followed them quickly. The bristling of his eyebrows and the frown of his concentration gave him a look of unfamiliar certainty.

  Behind them, Havelock picked up his featherduster and went back to cleaning his already immaculate mirrors. The particular glass he chose to work on now happened to show the Image in which he had found the flying brown cloud that he had used against Prince Kragen’s catapults.

  Like Castellan Lebbick, he had been abandoned.

  He didn’t seem to be aware that he was weeping like a child.

  Terisa, Geraden, and Master Barsonage heard weeping, especially in the lower levels of the castle, where most of Orison’s newer occupants had been crowded: small children; frightened women; helpless oldsters and invalids. They heard shouts of alarm and fear, cries of protest and distrust. They heard blows. Once they saw several guards raise the butts of their pikes to strike at men who wanted to break out of a closed corridor. The men cursed and pleaded as they were forced back; the rumor of Gart’s attack had reached them, and they wanted to clear a path for their families out of Orison before Cadwal’s army arrived from nowhere to butcher them all.

  But there was no sign of a riot.

  Instead of rioting, the castle was full of guards. They were everywhere, blocking the movement of people and panic, controlling access to crucial passages or stairs or doors, facing down farmers and merchants and servants and stonemasons who wanted to attack or flee with their loved ones because Orison had been penetrated.

  ‘Who is in command?’ Master Barsonage demanded of the guards. ‘Where is King Joyse?’

  The answer was, Pissed if I know. Or the equivalent.

  ‘Where did you get your orders?’ asked Geraden.

  That was easier. Norge. Castellan Lebbick’s second.

  For the moment, the fact that Norge was actually only one of the Castellan’s seconds-in-command seemed unimportant. The point was that power still existed in Orison. It was being held together by someone from whom the guards were willing to take orders. Someone with enough credibility to be obeyed during an emergency.

  Norge himself? What gave him precedence over the other captains? Who gave him precedence?

  A Master of the Congery? Impossible. Never in the mediator’s absence.

  One of King Joyse’s counselors? One of Orison’s lords? Unlikely.

  Prince Kragen himself? Inconceivable.

  Artagel?

  Was the situation so bad that no one could be found to take charge except Geraden’s independent-minded and slightly crippled brother?

  Terisa wanted to run. She would have run if Geraden hadn’t held her back.

  As she and her companions left the castle’s lower levels, however, Orison’s mood improved. Here the halls were under better control; less frightened by the possibility of an attack by Imagery. Soon a guard appeared who saluted the mediator. ‘Master Barsonage,’ he panted. Apparently, he had come running from the Imager’s quarters. ‘Geraden. The lady Terisa?’ He knew enough about the day’s events to be surprised. ‘You’re wanted in the King’s rooms.’

  The King’s rooms? Terisa and Geraden and Master Barsonage stopped in their tracks.

  ‘The audience hall is no longer safe,’ explained the guard.

  ‘Who wants us?’ demanded Barsonage instantly.

  Breathing hard, the guard replied, ‘My lord Tor. He says he’s taken command. In the King’s absence. He and Norge. Norge is the new Castellan.’

  The Tor. Terisa felt a surge of energy. Bless that old man!

  ‘What about Prince Kragen?’ she asked.

  The guard hesitated as if he were unsure of how much he should say. After a moment, however, he answered, ‘It’s just a rumor. I was told my lord Tor offered him an alliance.’

  Geraden let out a fierce cheer.

  Together, he and Terisa started into a run.

  Master Barsonage took time to pursue the question. ‘What was the Prince’s reply?’

  The guard said, ‘I don’t know.’

  Barsonage did his best to catch up with Terisa and Geraden.

  In the King’s tower, more guards joined them, escorted them upward. Guards swept the King’s doors open; Terisa, Geraden, and the mediator went in. For the sake of dignity – not to mention caution – they slowed their pace as they entered.

  The King’s formal apartment was just the way she remembered it – richly appointed, paneled blond, carpeted in blue and red. She hardly noticed the furnishings, however. Although there were only eight or ten men – most of them captains – in the room, it seemed crowded; too full of anxiety and passion, conflict.

  Before the door closed, she heard Prince Kragen’s voice blare like a trumpet, ‘I will not do it!’

  Her chest tightened. She found suddenly that sh
e was breathing harder than she had realized. The Prince’s shout seemed to throb around her, and the hope she had felt at the idea of an alliance began to curdle.

  On one side of Prince Kragen stood Artagel, close enough to react to what the Prince did, far enough away to dissociate himself from the Alend Contender. On the other side was a captain Terisa didn’t know. Norge?

  All three of them had their backs to the doors. Each in his separate way, they confronted the chair where King Joyse used to sit when he played hop-board.

  There sat the Tor, slumping over his great belly as if he were barely able to keep himself from oozing out of the position he had assumed.

  ‘The alternatives you propose,’ the old lord was saying as if he were in a kind of pain which had nothing to do with Prince Kragen, ‘are intolerable.’ He had a hand over his face. ‘I will not permit you to occupy Orison, making us little more than a hostage population. I do not call that an alliance.’

  ‘And I do not call it an alliance to wait outside in danger while you sit here in safety,’ retorted the Prince hotly. ‘If – no, when High King Festten marches against us – we will be helpless while you remain secure, watching the outcome. We must be allowed to enter Orison. I will not remain where I am, waiting for King Joyse to return – if he ever does return – and tell me his pleasure – if his pleasure involves anything more productive than a game of hop-board.’

  The Tor didn’t look strong enough to raise his head. ‘I understand your dilemma, my lord Prince. Of course I do. But you cannot believe that Orison’s people – or Orison’s defenders – will sit quietly on their hams while Alend takes power over them. I have already said that I will open the gates to you if you—’

  ‘No!’ Prince Kragen barked. ‘Do you take me for a fool? I have no intention of making Orison’s people hostage. I will grant them precisely as much freedom and respect as the necessary crowding of so many bodies permits. But I will not submit my forces to your authority.’

  Orison’s captains muttered restively. Some of them were viscerally incensed at the idea of an alliance with Alend. And some of them had noticed Geraden and Master Barsonage – had noticed Terisa—