Mordant's Need

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  The fun part of the fight was over.

  Moved by instincts he didn’t know he had, Geraden went down as if he had been clubbed.

  The first vicious black shape missed him; its own momentum carried it beyond him, momentarily out of reach. And the second—

  But Master Gilbur was bringing a whole stream of the beasts into the Image-room, translating them at Geraden as fast as they could leap. The Master’s teeth gnashed the air, and his face burned, as if he were on his way to ecstasy.

  A whole world of creatures like that. Of course. Ravening as if they had already eaten their way through all their natural prey. Terisa had shattered a mirror to end an attack like this; but that mirror wasn’t this one. No, she had broken the flat glass which showed the intersection outside Orison. The original mirror, the source of the creatures, remained intact.

  Obviously.

  Flipping to the side, scrambling his legs under him, stumbling as if he would never regain his balance, Geraden struggled out of the direct spring of the creatures.

  Three, five, nine of them, he lost count. Sliding in his boots as if the sunlit stone were ice, he rounded the edge of a mirror, wheeled behind it.

  He was too frantic to think. And he had no chance against Master Gilbur anyway. All he knew was that he had to hurt the King’s enemies as much as he could before he died. Gilbur clearly believed the gnarled shapes would get him before he did much harm. No doubt the Master was right. But every bit of damage might help. Any mirror Geraden could break might be the crucial one, the one that made sense of the Congery’s augury – the one that gave King Joyse a chance against his doom.

  The slug-beast had been killed. Surely anything was possible—

  From behind, without knowing or caring what its Image was, Geraden took hold of the mirror and wrenched it onto its back.

  And caught it before it hit the floor.

  Inspiration: unexpected insight. As if the mere touch of the mirror’s frame had shocked him, everything inside his head seemed to take fire and become new.

  Not damage. If damage was all he tried to do, Gilbur had no reason to fear him. He would be dead in moments.

  Imagery, on the other hand—

  The first black shapes were already scrabbling over the stone to fling themselves on him. And more came furiously, avid for flesh. Master Gilbur turned his mirror in order to translate the creatures straight at Geraden.

  Burning with inspiration, Geraden heaved the mirror upright again and opened it just as the nearest creature hit the glass.

  Gone. As if the shape had never existed. Translated somewhere, he had no idea where, he still hadn’t had a chance to so much as glance at the scene in the mirror.

  Another and another, in rapid succession: gone. The gnarled creatures seemed to have no minds – or at least no sense of danger. Their hunger overwhelmed all other instincts; maybe they were starving to death in their own world. They hurled themselves into the glass as if it were Geraden’s flesh.

  The fire blazing up inside him felt like joy and triumph.

  Four five six—

  Master Gilbur bellowed something savage and sprang to a different mirror.

  The last few shapes came at Geraden madly, their jaws stretched open, and Master Gilbur brought wolves rushing into the Image-room, wolves with spines along their curved backs and malign purpose in their eyes, wolves that were too big for Geraden’s shield and would be forced by their sheer size to attack him over or around the mirror; and at that moment Geraden made the mistake of realizing what he was doing.

  He was doing something worse than the translation of alien evils into his own world: he was translating them somewhere else, into a place completely unready for them, completely innocent. Whatever lived and moved in the Image he held was now being assaulted by vicious and entirely unexpected creatures for no good reason except to save his life.

  No, this was wrong, it was wrong, he had no right to do it. These creatures, and the wolves, and anything else Gilbur might produce were only malignant because they had been translated, only because they were out of place. In their own worlds, they didn’t deserve to be slaughtered. And no one else deserved to be slaughtered simply because Geraden was desperate.

  Shoving the mirror away, he dove to the side.

  The last black shapes struck the glass hard and slammed it onto its back. As they bounded up from the splinters to continue their attack, they left behind a shattered Image of their fellow creatures dying horribly in the acid of bitten ghouls.

  A hunting snarl throbbed through the air; jaws slavered. Geraden scrambled across the ring of mirrors, trying to stay ahead of the gnarled shapes and the wolves.

  Strange things were happening in the Image of Esmerel’s valley. The slug-beast was definitely dead, no mistake about that. And its death altered the terms of the conflict. High King Festten committed all his forces to a killing charge. In two thrusts, seven or eight thousand men on each side of the supine monster, he sent his army to catch King Joyse while there was no escape, while the confused and lesser strength of Alend and Mordant was trapped between the defile at one end of the valley and the tremendous corpse blocking the other.

  King Joyse should already have been crushed under the weight of the callat. He was still up and fighting, however. Prince Kragen was with him, and the Termigan, and Castellan Norge; but they weren’t enough to keep him alive. No, he endured because the monster’s death had galvanized his army: that impossible rescue from certain destruction had transformed panic into hope and fury. As fast as their horses or their legs could move them, his men came to support their King; the first several hundred of them had already charged in among the callat.

  The Cadwals hadn’t yet had time to catch up with the redfurred creatures. The callat had to face the recovered force of King Joyse’s army alone.

  Geraden dashed past the flat glass with black shapes on his heels. Master Gilbur seemed to be having trouble finding wolves. He had translated three, no, four into the Image-room; but now he was studying the Image, scanning its focus rapidly in search of more predators. The use he and Eremis had made of the wolves previously must have depleted their population.

  Four would be enough, of course. The gnarled shapes would be enough. Geraden couldn’t keep ahead of them, couldn’t fight—

  Not this way.

  The first wolf appeared to rear straight up in front of him, springing for his head. Urgently, he wrenched himself aside. His boots skidded out from under him; he thumped down on his back, sliding beneath the attack.

  The wolf landed among the black creatures.

  They didn’t care what they ate; they only wanted food. Swiftly, they all pounced on the wolf.

  At once, their struggle became a whirl, a snarling dervish, a mad ball of claws and fangs. The wolf was big, powerful; the shapes sank their hooks and teeth in and clung.

  With the air knocked out of his lungs, Geraden lay still.

  As if they recognized a mortal enemy, the other wolves sped to help their fellow.

  Master Gilbur spat curses, then crowed obscenely as he located more wolves.

  Geraden couldn’t breathe. He could hardly move his limbs. Nevertheless he had to act now, had to grab this brief chance. He might never get another one.

  Talent was a remarkable thing: he was learning more about it all the time. He was an Adept of some kind; he could use other people’s mirrors. And he had rescued himself and Terisa out of her former apartment, out of a world which had no Imagery. All he had to do was concentrate, take Master Gilbur by surprise.

  In a way, it helped that he couldn’t breathe. It almost helped that the struggle between the wolves and the gnarled creatures was only ten feet away, and that the wolves were winning, crunching the bones of the smaller beasts. The extremity of his plight left no room for doubt or hesitation.

  He turned his head toward the mirror and studied the Image, fixed it in his mind: a forest full of harsh shadows, slashed by light there and there; boughs ang
ling upward; underbrush of a kind he had never seen before. During the spaces between his heartbeats, he memorized the scene.

  Master Gilbur hunched beside the mirror, clutching the frame with one fist, crooning to the glass. A feral ecstasy lit his features, as bright as fire, as consuming as lava.

  When the first of the new wolves started through the mirror, Geraden closed his eyes and shifted the Image in his mind.

  And the Image in the mirror shifted.

  He didn’t know what he shifted it to, and he didn’t care. Instinctively, he must have selected some place or vista to fill the mirror: he couldn’t imagine a blank glass. But that detail was unimportant. What mattered was that he could reach out with his talent, that by surprise if not by strength he could break Master Gilbur’s hold on the glass.

  It worked. The Image melted while the wolf was still caught in the prolonged instant of translation.

  The wolf was cut in half.

  The mirror shattered.

  Gilbur wheeled to confront Geraden. For a moment, the brutal Imager actually gaped. Then rage knotted his face, and he let out a roar which seemed to strike the air dumb, leaving the battle of the wolves without a sound.

  He turned to the next mirror in the ring.

  From its dark depths, he brought out a burst of lightning so hot that it scorched the stone floor; a blast of thunder so loud that it thudded in Geraden’s tight lungs; a wind so hard that it seemed to hammer him down even though he hadn’t tried to rise, hadn’t tried to move.

  The Imager was translating a storm into the chamber.

  Using it to buffet and confuse and overwhelm Geraden until Master Gilbur could get to him and drive a dagger into his heart.

  Now that he had Terisa down on the floor and hurt, Master Eremis thought he would begin to take advantage of her. He found, however, that he had trouble pulling his attention away from the mirror.

  He liked surprises: they were tests, opportunities. Yet the death of the slug-beast nagged at him. That was an unforeseen development. Of course, the creature could have collapsed for any number of reasons which had nothing to do with the battle. Nevertheless its demise suggested that he had underestimated his enemy’s capabilities.

  And King Joyse’s forces were rallying now. That was perfectly predictable – but still frustrating to watch. Festten had made the right decision: to launch a full-scale assault while the armies of Mordant and Alend were still in disarray. Unfortunately, his men were too far away to save the callat. And King Joyse and Prince Kragen were doing entirely too good a job of pulling their forces into order to meet the Cadwal charge.

  Soon the battle would degenerate into a simple contest of steel and determination.

  King Joyse would lose, of course. Festten had him heavily outnumbered. And Gilbur had an impressive array of mirrors at hand. Yet Master Eremis wasn’t pleased. On the scale of armies, Gilbur’s remaining resources were relatively minor. And if the Cadwal victory weren’t ultimately achieved by Imagery, the High King would become more difficult to rule in future. He would trust his own strength more, Eremis’ less. He might begin to think he could dispense with Master Eremis altogether. And Gart was somewhere in the stronghold—

  The Master was prepared for all these eventualities. Nevertheless he didn’t find them especially attractive.

  Carefully, Terisa got to her feet, so that she, too, could look at the mirror. She had the smudge of a growing bruise on her cheekbone, but it only made her lovelier. When she had been hurt enough, she would be intolerably beautiful.

  Master Eremis considered hitting her again. But that was too crude, really. He expected better of himself: more imagination, greater subtlety. And he wanted to see what his enemies were going to do.

  He wanted to see what Gilbur was going to do.

  It would be something violent, something effective. Considering Gilbur’s susceptibility to rage of all kinds, however, it might also be something premature. Master Eremis didn’t want to see Joyse die too soon, too easily.

  At the moment, there was no danger of that. The callat were beaten: Joyse was able to disengage, with Kragen, Norge, and the unanticipated Termigan. They rode a short way up the valley, conferred with each other briefly, then began shouting orders which conveyed nothing through the glass. And their army seemed to come into order around them almost magically.

  None too soon, Kragen spurred away to command the defense to the right of the monster’s corpse. Norge went to the left, with the Termigan beside him. Well, Joyse was an old man. No doubt he needed rest. He didn’t appear to be resting, however. Instead, he rode everywhere, organizing his men.

  For some reason, he divided them into three forces: one to support Kragen; one for Norge and the Termigan; one for himself.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Terisa thinly, in that impersonal, disinterested tone.

  Master Eremis felt that he was beginning to comprehend her. That tone didn’t indicate defeat. It was a sign of withdrawal: not of retreat, but of hiding, of covert intentions. Perhaps she thought that if she could go far enough away in her mind, he wouldn’t be able to hurt her. Or perhaps she hid so that she could take him by surprise.

  A small thrill of anticipation ran through his veins, and he shifted his weight slightly onto the balls of his feet.

  ‘Have you ever understood anything?’ he countered with amiable sarcasm.

  His scorn didn’t seem to touch her. She may have been too distant to hear it accurately. In the same tone, she said, ‘You have all these flat mirrors, but you don’t use them very well.’

  Another surprise: one with exciting possibilities. What was she thinking?

  ‘Do we not?’ he asked casually.

  ‘You have a glass that shows Vale House.’ Despite her dullness, her voice was strangely distinct. ‘You could have taken Queen Madin yourself. You could have brought her here as a hostage. She would have been more use to you than Nyle.’

  Oh, that. Master Eremis was mildly disappointed; he had hoped for something a bit more interesting. ‘A predictable idea,’ he commented acidly, ‘and not precisely brilliant. If I had done that, I would have given up the wedge I wished to drive between Joyse and Margonal. I would have given up the obstacles I wished to place in your path.

  ‘I must confess I am still somewhat surprised that Margonal let you into Orison. That was not a reasonable decision, in view of the news you carried.’ He paused to let Terisa volunteer an explanation, but she didn’t speak. No matter. He would get all the answers he wanted from her eventually. ‘I am sure,’ he resumed, ‘I came very close to achieving exactly what I desired with the Queen.

  ‘If, on the other hand, I had done as you – and Festten – advise, I might have gained nothing. The Queen would have been in my hands – and the translation would have made her mad. Damaging hostages is a blade with two edges. Her madness might have hurt Joyse enough to weaken him. Or it might have incensed him enough to disregard her. Then the effort of attacking her would have been wasted.’

  There remained the question of what had happened to the Queen. And the question of how Joyse had contrived to rejoin his army, after his disappearance from Orison. But those answers could wait as well. Thinking about his own tactics brought new joy to the Master’s loins. The satisfaction he wanted from Terisa was long overdue.

  ‘But you have this mirror now,’ she said as if she couldn’t see her peril in his eyes. ‘Why don’t you just translate King Joyse and Prince Kragen? Make them mad? Then you can’t lose. Without them, the army will collapse. And you can lock them up the way you did Nyle. You can laugh at them until they die.’

  Oh, how she pleased him! She made him laugh. ‘I will do that, I assure you,’ he promised. ‘At the right moment, I will do it, and it will give me more pleasure than you can conceive.’

  In the mirror, along the sides of the monster, the forces of Cadwal and Mordant and Alend met for their last battle.

  ‘At first, of course,’ Eremis explained, ‘I had to be cautio
us. You taught me to respect your talents. If I had given you the chance, you might have broken my mirror. But that danger ended when you came here. When you gave yourself into my power.’

  Initially, the fight was even. The walls of the valley and the bulk of the slug-beast narrowed the ground, restricted the number of Cadwals able to advance together. And Joyse’s men fought as if they were inspired. Even Kragen and that dour loon the Termigan seemed inspired. For a time, at least, Festten lost a lot of men and gained nothing.

  ‘Now I wait only to let these armies do each other as much harm as possible. Joyse cannot win, but before he dies he may give Festten a victory as costly as any defeat. That will humble even the High King’s arrogance. It will make him too weak to think he can command or refuse me.’

  Then, inevitably, the defenders on the left began to crumble. Norge went down; he disappeared under a rush of Cadwal hooves. In spite of his native grimness, the Termigan was forced backward. Their men tried to retreat in some semblance of order, but the Cadwals surged after them, overtook them, hacked them apart. Festten’s strength started flooding into the valley.

  ‘So I will let the battle progress a while. I will wish Joyse all the success he can manage. And then’ – Eremis was so delighted that he wanted applause – ‘at the crucial moment I will translate him away to the madness and ruin he deserves.’

  He wasn’t particularly surprised to see Festten himself lead the second wave of the assault. The High King had an old and overwhelming desire to see Joyse die; he would have been ecstatic to kill his nemesis himself. Eremis considered, however, that Festten was taking a useless risk. The Master had no intention of allowing the High King the gratification he craved.

  There was something odd in the way Terisa regarded Master Eremis, something that resembled hunger. Softly, she asked, ‘Have you hated him all your life? Even when you were just a kid? the first time you translated that monster? Did you hate him even then?’

  ‘Hate him?’ Eremis laughed again. ‘Terisa, you mistake me. You always mistake me.’ The pressure inside him was rising, rising. ‘I do not hate him. I hate no one. I only despise weakness and folly. As a youth, when I shaped the mirror which showed what you call “that monster,” I translated it merely as an experiment. To learn what I could do. Later I was forced to abandon my glass in order to avoid being captured with it, and that vexed me. I promised then I would retaliate.