Mordant's Need

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  On the other hand, he didn’t seem to be the man who had attacked her in her rooms. He wasn’t wearing black. And he didn’t keep after her. Instead, he seemed to forget her after a while. She didn’t see any more sign of him.

  After worrying about him probably more than he deserved, she put him out of her mind, concentrating her attention again on the problem of finding Master Eremis’ quarters.

  What she remembered of Geraden’s tour helped. Eventually, she found her way into the section of Orison that had been set aside for the personal use of the Masters. After that, all she had to do was locate the polished rosewood door with the full-length bas-relief carving of Master Eremis.

  As soon as she reached it, she raised her hand to knock – and stopped. She was breathing too hard. She needed a moment to become calm. But the carving on the door was really quite extraordinary. The eyes seemed to see everything, and the mouth promised pleasures which she might not like. He was much too much for her. If she had any sense left, she would admit that. She had no business taking a risk like this.

  So she didn’t knock. Gripped by the demented logic of the obsessed, she put her hand on the latch and eased the door open more quietly than the thudding of her heart.

  Exactly as she remembered it, she saw the sumptuous room in which the Master had held her and kissed her. She saw the crimson of the uppermost rug made even more dramatic by the blue of the furniture and the yellow of the drapes. She saw the filigree-cut brass urns from which perfumed lamps provided light and warmth. She saw the tapestries which covered the walls with scenes of seduction. She saw the divan—

  Master Eremis was on the divan. Fortunately, he wasn’t facing in her direction. He was lying forward, his attention focused on the woman under him. The long, clean muscles of his bare back and buttocks bunched and released to the rhythm of his movements.

  The woman’s legs were locked around his hips. Her arms clenched his back. She made moaning noises deep in her throat.

  Her clothes were scattered across the floor. Terisa recognized them. But she didn’t need the confirmation.

  The woman was unmistakably Saddith.

  She had seen something like this once before. Her parents had had separate rooms. After her mother’s death, she had begun using her mother’s room as a hiding place, a retreat, as if her mother were a more comforting presence dead than alive. Of course she hadn’t told her father; he probably had no way of knowing what he was doing when he took one of his women to her mother’s bed. She had watched for a while before she had realized what she was seeing.

  Now she closed the door softly. Hugging the cold ache in her heart, she returned to her rooms. Careful not to tear it, she finally worked her way out of the silk gown and put it away. Then she got dressed in her old clothes and went to the window to stare out at the wilderland of winter.

  She was still there near sunset when yet another group of riders approached the castle. Like the one she had seen the previous afternoon, it was larger than the Tor’s retinue – and less funerary. Again, a trumpet saluted the riders as they approached the gate. Again, Castellan Lebbick met them with a guard of honor. While they were dismounting, she thought she recognized the brawny shape and bald head of the Perdon. But she couldn’t be sure.

  TWELVE

  WHAT MEN DO WITH WOMEN

  She didn’t know how she was going to face Saddith again. Fortunately, when the maid brought her supper, old habits came to Terisa’s rescue. She responded to Saddith’s glow in the same pale, passive, covert way that she had so often dealt with her parents; she put on nonexistence like a cloak, so that nothing about her called attention to itself or disturbed the flow of Saddith’s emotions and concerns. As a result, she was able to hear Saddith’s hints and elation in safety, as if she felt nothing. And she had no trouble fending off the maid’s cheerful, leering attempts to find out how she had spent her day.

  It seemed quite possible to her that she did feel nothing. How would she have known if an emotion of any importance had taken hold of her?

  Unfortunately, the habits that saved her exacted a price. The sensation that she was fading began to steal over her. A bad night loomed ahead – and she had no mirrors with which to defend herself.

  After the maid had cleared away the tray and left for the night, Terisa took another bath, using the cold of the water and the warmth of the fire to create the illusion of physical actuality. Then she spent some time meticulously rearranging the lamps in the room, trying to bring out a reflection from the glass of the window. But the black night outside stubbornly refused to give her image back.

  She was tempted to give up, let go of herself and take the consequences. But she had been fighting this battle for years. What did Master Eremis have to do with her, anyway? He hadn’t created her problem. Surely she wasn’t foolish enough to believe that he could cure it? – that his touch on her body could restore what she lacked? Then why was she wasting her time feeling so miserable about him? Why was she—

  —trembling in the middle of the room with her heart in an uproar simply because someone had knocked on her door?

  She knew the answer to that one. Tonight was the night when Master Eremis and Master Gilbur were supposed to meet with the lords of the Cares.

  For a moment, she wanted to ignore whoever was outside her door. But the knock was repeated, reminding her that she really had no place to hide. Mustering her scant resources of courage, she went to answer the door.

  Master Eremis stood there grinning.

  The way he looked at her still had too much power: effortlessly, it banished all question of fading, made her real in front of him – real for him. After all, what harm had he done her by making love to Saddith? His eyes promised that his attentions were worth having. Who else did she know who could kiss her with just that combination of ardor, experience, and glee?

  And if he lost interest in her, she could bring him back by telling him about Adept Havelock and Master Quillon.

  In self-defense, trying to take a stand against him, she said, ‘I don’t want to go.’

  He came easily into the room, as if he knew her better than she did herself. ‘My lady,’ he said in a teasing tone, ‘you must.’

  ‘Why?’ The effort not to lose herself in his bright gaze and his smile made her light-headed. ‘It doesn’t have anything to do with me.’

  ‘Ah,’ the Master replied, ‘now there you are wrong.’ His manner became slightly more sober. ‘You must come with me as a demonstration of my good faith. You may be unaware of the ill repute which King Joyse has placed upon all Imagers. Either we are the creatures of his will, honest only as far as he is honest, or we retain allegiances to Cadwal and Alend which make us treacherous, or we are the source of the present peril. We are regarded in this way because the Congery was created by force rather than volition. I must persuade these unruly lords to trust me, and that can only be accomplished if I am honest with them. I must show you to them so that they will grasp what the Congery has attempted in the past – and what we mean to do now.

  ‘My lady, this has a great deal to do with you. If you do not come with me, I will gain nothing from this meeting’ – he made an attempt not to look too cheerful – ‘and all my efforts to save Mordant will be undone.’

  His hands twitched the ends of his chasuble playfully.

  She remembered his hands. She had just begun to learn what they could do. Her heart was beating in her throat. She almost said, All right. I’ll go with you. If you’ll take me back to your rooms afterward. The words came so close to utterance that she felt giddy. She had to swallow more than once before she became able to nod her head.

  He reached toward her. ‘My lady,’ he drawled as he took hold of her arm, ‘I was confident that you would understand.’

  The guards stopped him as he closed the door after her. They wanted to know where he was taking her. Castellan Lebbick’s orders. Even though – she was only vaguely aware of this – Geraden was never questioned when she left
with him. Master Eremis replied acerbically that the lady Terisa of Morgan had agreed to join him and several other Masters for a quiet supper in the quarters of the mediator of the Congery. Then he steered her away.

  The set of his jaw showed that the guards had made him angry.

  Holding her arm, he took her down out of the tower and through several of the main halls. She nearly missed her balance and stopped when she spotted the man in the gray cloak again. But he disappeared almost immediately; she lost sight of him before she could point him out to Master Eremis. Smiling apologetically to excuse her awkwardness, she walked on. The man in the gray cloak didn’t reappear.

  Master Eremis made no obvious attempt at stealth, but he moved along a route calculated to confuse the few guards they passed. Nevertheless it soon became clear that he wasn’t taking Terisa anywhere near the Congery’s private section of Orison. Nor was he moving toward the complex rooms and passages of the laborium. Rather, he was descending, circuitously but steadily, into a dank, disused part of the castle which resembled the place where Adept Havelock had his rooms – a place among the foundations of Orison. For a moment, she was struck by the wild thought that Master Eremis had something to do with Master Quillon and the Adept. But though the passages Eremis chose were cold, empty, and untended, they were still public enough to be lighted: lanterns hung from the walls at distant intervals. The side corridors and chambers seemed to indicate that this part of the castle had once been inhabited. Perhaps Orison had settled as it was built higher. Or perhaps the foundations had begun to leak. Whatever the reason, these halls and rooms had clearly been abandoned for drier quarters on some other level. Master Eremis’ boots splashed through ice-scummed puddles on the floor, and the sound echoed wetly. Terisa could hear water dripping in the distance.

  She hugged her arms against the cold and tried to remember the way back, so that she wouldn’t get lost.

  Without warning, a dark shape seemed to materialize out of the wall. She flinched involuntarily. The nearest lantern was twenty or thirty feet away, and its dim light made the figure look as bulky and dangerous as a bear.

  But Master Eremis chuckled through his teeth; and a moment later she made out a profile with a bald head, thick eyebrows, and a shaggy mustache. The man was wrapped in a fur cloak the same dark, wet color as the shadows. He probably presented such a bestial shape because he was still wearing his pallettes and gorget under the cloak.

  Now that she looked harder, she saw the faint outline of a doorway behind him. He must have been waiting concealed there for Master Eremis to come along.

  ‘Master Eremis,’ the man breathed. His greeting steamed in the cold. ‘They are all foregathered – even that hunchbacked dog you say we must endure to reassure the Congery. You are not what I call prompt.’ Terisa could see only half his face in the lantern light, but the one eye on that side glared at her. ‘Why do you bring a woman?’

  ‘My lord Perdon,’ the Imager replied, ‘it is not as easy as you imagine to arrange for a meeting like this to take place in secret.’ The softness of his voice muffled his sarcasm. ‘Lebbick watches everything – or thinks he does. A number of plausible lies must be placed in a variety of ears. I will explain the woman.’

  The Perdon glowered at Terisa a moment longer. ‘Explain her well, Master Eremis.’ Then he shifted his gaze to the Imager. ‘When you persuaded me to this meeting, I promised that I would gather the other lords as quickly as possible. But the task of sending summons and receiving answer across such distances at this season seemed likely to take at least fifteen days. You assured me, however, that less time would be required. I must confess that I did not entirely believe you. Now I am astonished that you were right to such an impossible degree.’

  In surprise, Terisa nearly said aloud, Fifteen days? He told us six. He told the Congery you promised six.

  The Master’s grip on her arm kept her quiet. ‘Imagery has its uses,’ he commented enigmatically.

  ‘Doubtless it has,’ said the Perdon. ‘And doubtless you will explain them, also – when you see fit. But one answer you must give me. I am troubled by the Tor’s presence among us.’

  ‘Troubled, my lord Perdon?’

  ‘Yes, Master Eremis.’ A clenched fist showed between the edges of the Perdon’s cloak. ‘I do not trust him here. He has been too steadfastly the King’s friend. I agreed to summon him only because I believed him too old – and too fat – to make the journey. His presence now alarms me.’

  At that, Master Eremis cocked an eyebrow. ‘Now you begin to alarm me. I begin to suspect, my lord Perdon, that it is not the Tor you distrust. It is me.’

  The Perdon’s scowl didn’t waver.

  ‘This distresses me.’ Eremis let a glint of anger into his voice. ‘When you spoke of fifteen days, I knew that the time would be less because the Termigan was already on the road to Orison. I have a flat glass which chances to show his seat in Sternwall, and I saw him depart.

  ‘When the Tor arrived, I did not hesitate to include him. Has no one spoken to you, my lord? Has the Tor himself not told you why he is here? He came to demand a response from our brave King because his eldest son was killed by some instance of vile Imagery. And the King has refused. He refuses even to hear the demand – as he has also refused audiences to the Fayle and the Armigite.

  ‘The Tor loves his sons,’ Master Eremis concluded. ‘I believe he will be our ally now.’

  ‘Well,’ the Perdon murmured. ‘Well.’ He had turned his head. All his face was in shadow. ‘He has been the King’s friend for forty years. But perhaps grief will make him bitter. Perhaps it is worth the risk to have him with us.’

  ‘My lord Perdon,’ said the Master dryly, ‘you have already implied that I am late. If we do not go to them soon, the other lords will become restive, and then we will have no one with us.’

  The Perdon’s eye came flashing back into the light. He stretched out his fist and touched the Imager’s chest lightly. ‘Be warned, Master Eremis,’ he whispered. ‘I am the lord of the Care of Perdon. I do not like manipulation – or abused trust. And I suspect that my fellow lords have similar prejudices.’

  Then he turned and strode away down the corridor, his heels loud against the stone.

  For a moment, Master Eremis held Terisa where she was. ‘Someday,’ he said in a musing tone, ‘that rash lord really must be taught to be more careful with his threats.’

  Almost involuntarily, as if the question were forced out of her, she asked, ‘Why did you lie to the Congery? You told them it was the Perdon’s idea to meet tonight.’

  At once, he raised a finger to his lips. ‘My lady,’ he whispered, ‘I have already explained that some of my fellow Masters do not like or trust me. They only accepted the risk of this meeting because they believed it to be based on the Perdon’s honor rather than on my foresight. Now I advise you not to utter a word until you are once again safely in your rooms.’

  Still holding her arm tightly, he drew her after the Perdon.

  They followed the hard echo of his bootheels until they had passed another turn; then she saw light streaming from an open doorway ahead. The door wasn’t guarded: apparently, the lords of the Cares still believed they were safe in Orison. The Perdon strode through the doorway, and Terisa heard low voices greet him. A moment later, Master Eremis took her into the light.

  There he released her arm and gave her a small nudge forward. She had the impression that he had stepped back – that he was using her entrance to provide some kind of distraction.

  The door opened on a room as plain as a cell and not much larger. The light came from several lanterns set on a long, crude wooden table which filled at least half the space. The heavy chairs around the table made the chamber crowded.

  As soon as she entered the room, Terisa noticed Master Gilbur: he sat at the far end of the table, and his features were clenched in an acid scowl, as if he had been trading insults with someone.

  The Perdon was still on his feet, but the other
lords were seated. She recognized the Tor, of course. He sat near Master Gilbur. Out of direct contact with the winter, his skin had a less abused color; but his face still looked like a handful of mealy potatoes, and his eyes were glazed. There was an enormous flagon on the table in front of him.

  Opposite him was a man whom Terisa took at once to be the Armigite, simply because of Saddith’s description. The softness of his face made it appear fleshier than it really was, and his expression was petulant; his hair was darkened and pomaded into elaborate curls; his clothes were rich in a way that somehow suggested a lady’s bedroom. He was the only man in the room who looked younger than Master Eremis: clearly, he had inherited his place rather than earning it in Mordant’s wars.

  Like the other lords, he was armed, but the slim blade at his side seemed essentially decorative.

  The man next to him was a strong contrast: he appeared to have been chipped from a block of flint. Every line of his face, every glance of his eyes, every gesture of his hands looked like it had been made sharp by blows, hammered to a cutting edge. His skin had a dusty tinge that suited his flat eyes. His eyebrows seemed to have no color.

  He must have been the Termigan. Terisa reasoned this because he wasn’t old enough to be Queen Madin’s father. The lord across from him – beside the Tor – was much more likely to be the Fayle. This man was at least the Tor’s age; the sparse white hair on the back of his skull was cut short; he was as lean as a whippet. His face was so long, and had so much jaw, that he might have looked lugubrious if his eyes hadn’t been so bright, blue, and precise. The way he sat – upright in his chair, with his arms crisply folded over his thin chest – implied the stoicism Saddith had attributed to him.

  With the exception of the Tor – whose attention was fixed on his flagon – everyone was looking at her. The Fayle’s keen gaze betrayed nothing; but the Termigan regarded her indignantly, the Armigite’s face wore a sneer, and Master Gilbur’s customary scowl was black and stormy.