Mordant's Need

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Geraden wasn’t just a murderer. He was a butcher, crazy with hate for his own brother, and nothing made sense anymore.

  For the rest of the day, Castellan Lebbick concentrated on keeping himself busy, so that he wouldn’t go down to the dungeon. Eremis’ innocence seemed to weaken him in ways he couldn’t explain, cut the ground out from under his rage. He was afraid that if he saw that woman now he would end up begging her to forgive him.

  Keeping himself busy was easy: he had plenty of duties. While he heard reports about the state of the siege, however, while he settled disputes among Orison’s overcrowded population, or discussed tactical alternatives in case Adept Havelock became ineffective against the Alend catapults, he didn’t say anything about water to anyone. He didn’t want to raise any hopes until Master Eremis proved himself. Nevertheless he sent men to adjust all the valves of the water system and incurred the outrage of hundreds of thirsty people by using the little water which the castle’s spring had accumulated to flush any possible residue of the lady Elega’s poison out of the pipes.

  And when one of his men finally brought him word that Master Eremis was at work in the reservoir, he went to watch.

  The Imager was doing what he had said he could do. In the high, cathedral-like vault of the reservoir, he stood on the stone lip of the empty pool and held his mirror leaning out over the edge. The glass was nearly as tall as he was, and set in an ornate frame; therefore it was heavy: even a man with his unexpected strength wouldn’t be able to support its weight in that position for any length of time. He had solved the problem, however, by bringing two Apts to help him. One braced the bottom of the mirror to keep it steady; the other held the top of the mirror by means of a rope looped over one of the timbers which propped up the network of pipes and screens above the pool. The assistance of the Apts enabled Master Eremis to concentrate exclusively on his translation.

  As he stroked the frame and murmured whatever invocations triggered the relationship between his talent and the glass, rain came gushing from the uneven surface of the mirror.

  He was right: the process was going to take time. However torrential the rain was, the amount which could be translated through the mirror was small compared to the size of the pool and Orison’s need. Nevertheless Castellan Lebbick could see that the glass gave significantly more water than the spring. If Master Eremis was able to keep going – and if the water was good.

  Lebbick tested one worry by requiring the Imager to drink two cups of the rainwater himself – which Master Eremis did with no discernible hesitation. But a close look at him only increased the Castellan’s other concern.

  Master Eremis was sweating in the cool air of the reservoir. His breathing was deep and hard, and his features had the tight pallor of clenched knuckles. His expression was uncharacteristically simple: for once, what he was doing required him to concentrate so acutely, exert himself so fully, that he had no energy to spare for secrets.

  He had been at work for only a short time, and already the strain had begun to tell on him. To keep his translation going, he would need more than unexpected strength. He would need the stamina of an iron bar.

  Castellan Lebbick didn’t bother to curse. He could feel something inside him failing: the Imager was beating him. This was just perfect. Eremis was going to save Orison – but that wasn’t enough for him, oh, no, not enough at all. He was going to save Orison heroically, exhausting himself with a translation which would leave no doubt in anyone’s mind about where his loyalties lay.

  A curious weakness dragged at Lebbick’s muscles. He had trouble keeping his back straight. His cheeks felt unnaturally stiff; when he rubbed them, dried blood came off on his fingers. Maybe Havelock was right about him. Maybe he had lost his mind. Two of his men and Nyle had been slaughtered, and it was his fault, not because he had trusted Eremis, whom he hated, but because he had refused to believe that bright, clumsy, likable Geraden was sick with evil. Geraden had translated atrocities to butcher his own brother. Or he had made someone else do it for him.

  The Castellan wanted his wife. He wanted to hide his face against her shoulder and feel her arms around him. But she was dead, and he was never going to be comforted again.

  Master Eremis wasn’t cold now, but he would be chilled as soon as he stopped for rest. Mortifying himself further, Castellan Lebbick ordered a cot and food, warmer clothes, a fire on the edge of the pool, brandy. Then, when he had done everything he could think of for Orison’s savior, he went back to his duties.

  During the afternoon, the Alends brought up a catapult against Orison’s gates – the only other part of the castle which might prove vulnerable without a prolonged assault. Master Quillon roused Havelock from a loud snooze, and the two Imagers took the Adept’s mirror around to Orison’s long northeast face to protect the gates. Castellan Lebbick, however, remained out of sight above the curtain-wall. When several hundred Alends rushed forward suddenly, carrying scaling ladders, the Castellan was ready for them. His archers forced them to retreat.

  That success relieved some of his weakness. But it wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough anymore. To keep himself from foundering, he fell back on the one distinct, comprehensible instruction he had received from his King.

  To do his job.

  That woman must be pushed.

  After dark, when the loss of light alleviated the threat of catapults, allowing the guards to concentrate on defending Orison from simpler forms of attack, Castellan Lebbick went back to the dungeon to do what King Joyse had told him.

  TWENTY-NINE

  TERISA HAS VISITORS

  After the Castellan hit her and left, Terisa Morgan remained against the wall for a long time, held up in a sitting position more by the blank stone than by any desire to keep herself from crumpling.

  It’s a trick. She told him that, didn’t she? Eremis did this somehow. Yes, she told him. To get rid of Geraden. She told him all that. She even tried to beg – tried to call on the part of herself which had babbled and pleaded with her parents, her father, No, I didn’t do it, it isn’t my fault, I’ll never do it again, please don’t do this. Don’t lock me in the closet. That’s where I fade. It’s dark, and it sucks me away, and I stop existing. Nyle is still alive.

  But the Castellan didn’t listen to her. He took hold of her shoulders and kissed her like a blow. Then he did hit her; she staggered against the wall and fell. It was the second time he had hit her. The first time, she had been full of audacity. She had told him that his wife would have been ashamed of him. She could almost have foreseen that he would hit her. But this time she was begging. Please don’t do this to me. And he hit her anyway. Like her father, he didn’t stop.

  The third time was going to be the end of her. She felt sure of that. He had promised to hurt her, and he was going to keep his promise. Just a little at first. One breast or the other. Or perhaps a few barbs across your belly. A rough piece of wood between your legs. He was going to hit and hurt her until she broke.

  She didn’t understand why he kissed her. She didn’t want to understand. Go to hell. All she wanted was to fade. The cell was cold, and the lamp was afflicted with a ghoulish flicker like a promise that it might go out at any moment, plunging her into blackness. When she was a child, the prospect of fading had always terrified her. It still did. But soon being locked in the closet had reminded her of the safety of the dark, had taught her again that she could fade to escape from being alone and unloved, scarcely able to breathe. If she didn’t exist, she couldn’t be hurt.

  If she didn’t exist, she couldn’t be hurt.

  Go to hell.

  But now, when she needed it most, it was taken away from her. She couldn’t fade: she had lost the trick of letting go. The Castellan was going to hurt her in a way she had never experienced before. That wasn’t like the relatively passive violence of being locked in a closet. It wasn’t like being left alone to save herself or go mad. It was a new kind of pain—

  And Geraden—

 
Oh, Geraden!

  She needed to fade, had to escape, in order to protect him, just in case he was still alive, just in case he had somehow succeeded at working another impossible translation. Fading was her only defense against the pressure to betray him. If she were gone, she wouldn’t be able to tell the Castellan where he was.

  And yet he was the other reason she couldn’t let go. She was too afraid for him. She couldn’t forget the way she had last seen him, the poignant mixture of anguish and iron in his face, the fatal authority in his voice and movements. The sweet and openhearted young man she loved wasn’t gone. No. That would have been bad enough, but what had happened to him was worse. He had been melted and beaten to iron without losing any of his vulnerabilities, so that the strength or desperation which led him to cast himself into a mirror wasn’t a measure of how hard he had become, but rather of how much pain he was in.

  She had cried, I’m not an Imager! I can’t help you! And he had turned away from her because he didn’t have any other choice. She wasn’t the answer to his need. He had flung himself into the glass and was gone, unreachable, so far beyond hope or help that he didn’t even appear in the Image of the mirror. Even an Adept couldn’t have brought him back.

  That was how she knew where he was.

  If he were still alive at all. And if the translation hadn’t cost him his sanity.

  She should have gone with him.

  Yes. She should have gone with him. That was another reason she couldn’t fade: she couldn’t forget that she had already failed him. And failed herself at the same time. She loved him, didn’t she? Wasn’t that what she had learned in their last day together? – that he was more important to her even than Master Eremis’ strange power to draw a response from her body? that she believed in him and trusted him no matter what the evidence against him was? that she cared about him too much to take any side but his in the machinations and betrayals which embroiled Mordant? Then what was she doing here? Why had she stood still and simply watched him risk his life and his mind, without making the slightest effort to go with him?

  She should have gone.

  She was blocked from escaping inside herself by her fear of the Castellan. By her fear for Geraden. And by shame.

  After a while, the wall began to pain her back. Imperfectly fitted pieces of granite pressed against her spine, her shoulder blades. Cold seemed to soak into her from the floor, despite the warm riding clothes Mindlin had made for her, despite her boots. Perhaps it would be wiser if she got up and went to the cot. But she didn’t have the heart to move, or the strength.

  Now you are mine.

  Geraden, forgive me.

  ‘My lady.’

  She couldn’t see who spoke. Nevertheless his voice didn’t frighten her, so after a while she was able to raise her head.

  The Tor stood at the door of her cell. His voice shook as he murmured again, ‘My lady.’ His fat fists gripped the bars of the door as if he were the one who had been locked up – as if he were imprisoned and she were free. Dully, she noticed the lamplit tears spreading across his cheeks.

  ‘My lady, help me.’

  His appeal reached her. He was her friend, one of the few people in Orison who seemed to wish her well. He had saved her from the Castellan. More than once. Biting back a groan, she shifted onto her hands and knees. Then she got her feet under her and tottered upright.

  Swaying and afraid that she might faint, she moved closer to the door. For the moment, that was the best she could do.

  ‘My lady, you must help me.’ The old lord’s voice shook, not because he was urgent, but because he was fighting grief. ‘King Joyse has given Lebbick permission to do anything he wants to you.’

  She didn’t understand. Like the Castellan’s kiss, this was incomprehensible. Somehow, she found herself sitting on the floor again, hunched forward so that her graceless and untended hair hid her face. Permission to do anything. King Joyse had smiled at her, and his smile was wonderful, a sunrise that could have lit the dark of her life. She could have loved that smile, as she loved Geraden. But it was all a lie. Anything he wants to you. It was all a lie, and there was no hope left.

  ‘Please,’ the Tor breathed in supplication. ‘My lady. Terisa.’ He was barely able to contain his distress. ‘In the name of everything you respect – everything you would find good and worthy about him, if he had not fallen so far below himself. Tell us where Geraden has gone.’

  Involuntarily, her head jerked up. Her eyes were full of shadows. You, too? Nausea closed around her stomach. You’ve turned against him, too? She couldn’t reply: there weren’t any words. If she tried to say anything, she would start to cry herself. Or throw up. Not you, too.

  ‘You will not hurt him, my lady.’ The Tor was pleading. He was an old man and carried every pound of his weight as if it were burdensome. ‘I care nothing for his guilt. If he lives, he is far from here, safe from Lebbick’s outrage. We are besieged. Lebbick cannot pursue him. And no one else can use his glass. It will cost him nothing if you speak.

  ‘But King Joyse—’ The lord’s throat closed convulsively. When he was able to speak again, his voice rattled in his chest like a hint of mortality. ‘King Joyse has trusted the Castellan too long. And he is no longer himself. He does not understand the permission he has given. He does not know that Lebbick is mad.

  ‘My lady, he is my friend. I have served him with my life, and with the lives of all my Care, for decades. Now he is not what he was. I acknowledge that. At one time, he was the hero of all Mordant. Now it is the best he can do to defend Orison intelligently.

  ‘But he has only become smaller, my lady, not less good. He means well. I swear to you on my heart that he means well.

  ‘If you defy Lebbick, the Castellan will do his worst. And when King Joyse understands what his permission has done to you, he will lose the little of himself that remains.

  ‘Help me, my lady. Save him. Tell us where Geraden has gone, so that Lebbick will have no excuse to hurt you.’

  Terisa couldn’t focus her eyes. All she seemed to see was the light reflecting on his cheeks. He was asking her to rescue herself. After all, he was right: if she revealed where Geraden was, the Castellan would have no more excuse to harm her. And in the process King Joyse would be saved from doing something cruel. And the Tor himself – the only one of the three she cared about – might be able to stop crying.

  With more strength than she knew she had, she got to her feet. ‘King Joyse is your friend.’ To herself, she sounded dry and unmoved, vaguely heartless. ‘Geraden is mine.’ Then, trying to ease the old man’s distress, she murmured, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘“Sorry”?’ His voice broke momentarily. ‘Why are you sorry? You will suffer – and perhaps you will die – out of loyalty to a man who has killed his own brother, and it will do him no good. Perhaps he will never know that you have done it. You will endure the worst Lebbick can do to you and accomplish nothing.’ His hands struggled with the bars. ‘You have no cause to be sorry. In all Orison, you alone will pay a higher price for your loyalty than King Joyse will.

  ‘No, my lady. The sorrow is mine.’ The rattle in the Tor’s chest made every word he said painful to hear. ‘It is mine. You will meet your agony heroically, and you will either speak or hold still, as you are able. But I am left to watch my friend bring to ruin everything he loves.

  ‘I did not come to you with this at once. Do not think that. Since King Joyse gave his orders, I have been in torment, wracking my heart for the means to persuade him, move him – to understand him. I have begged at his door. I have bullied servants and guards. Do not think that I bring my pain to you lightly.

  ‘But I have nowhere else to turn.

  ‘My lady, your loyalty is too expensive.

  ‘Whatever I have done, I have done in my King’s name. He is all that remains to me. I beg of you – do not let him destroy himself.’

  ‘No.’ Terisa couldn’t bear the sight any longer, so she turned her back on the T
or’s dismay. ‘Geraden is innocent. Eremis set this all up.’ She spoke as if she were reciting a litany, fitting pieces of faith together in an effort to build conviction. ‘He faked Nyle’s death to make Geraden look bad, because he knew Nyle was never going to support his accusations against Geraden. If the King lets me be hurt’ – a moment of dizziness swirled through her, and she nearly fell – ‘he’s going to have to live with the consequences. Geraden is innocent.’

  ‘No, my lady,’ the Tor repeated; but now she heard something new in his voice – a different kind of distress, almost a note of horror. ‘In this you are wrong. I care nothing for Geraden’s guilt. I have said that. Only the King matters to me. But you have placed your trust in someone evil.’

  She stood still, her pulse loud in her ears and doubt gathering in her gut.

  ‘Nyle is unquestionably dead.’ The lord sounded as sick as she felt. ‘I have seen his body myself.’

  Unquestionably dead. That made her move. Groping, she found her way to the cot. It smelled of stale straw and old damp, but she sat down on it gratefully. Then she closed her eyes. She had to have a little rest. In a minute or two, when her heart had stopped quaking, she would answer the Tor. Surely she would be able to think of an answer? Surely Geraden was innocent?

  But a moment later the thought that Nyle really had been murdered cut through her, and everything inside her seemed to spill away. Unconscious of what she was doing, she stretched out on the cot and covered her face with her hands.

  Eventually, the Tor gave up and left, but she didn’t hear him go.

  At noon, the guards brought her a meal – hard bread and some watery stew. She panicked at their approach because she thought they might be the Castellan; her relief when she saw who they were left her too weak to get off the cot.