Mordant's Need

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Master Quillon caught up with her and shoved her again to keep her going.

  For the second time, she felt a touch of cold as thin as a feather and as sharp as steel slide straight through the center of her abdomen.

  Running now, but hardly aware of it, hardly conscious of what she was doing at all, she reached the main passage and the light and turned, whirled around in time to see Master Quillon following her and a black shape with a face full of hate and glee rising behind him, clutching a long dagger to strike him down.

  No, Quillon! Quillon!

  The shape rose and swept after him while she tried to cry out a warning and couldn’t do it fast enough: black arms rose and then plunged down viciously, driving the dagger into the joining of his shoulders with such fury that blood burst from his mouth and the blade came through his chest and he was crushed to the floor as if he had been hit with a sledgehammer.

  ‘Got you, you insipid rodent!’ Master Gilbur barked in guttural triumph. ‘That is the last time you will interfere with anything we wish to do!’

  When he wrenched his blade out of Quillon’s back, blood ran from his hands like water.

  Oh, Quillon!

  Terisa remembered Master Gilbur’s hands. They looked strong enough to bend iron bars; strong enough to grind bones. Their backs were covered with black hair – hair that contrasted starkly with his white beard. The hunch in his spine only seemed to increase his physical power; the flesh of his face was knotted with murder.

  Gloating, he looked up from Quillon’s corpse. ‘My lady,’ he coughed like a curse, ‘this is fortuitous. I had not expected the pleasure of killing you. That was intended to be Gart’s task, after Eremis had finished with you. But my vigilance has been rewarded. Neither Festten’s dog nor cocksure Eremis were with me when I found you in the Image.’

  She watched him as if he were a snake, waited for him to strike.

  ‘It is a delight to rid the world of Quillon at last’ – Gilbur licked spittle from his thick lips as he stepped over the body at his feet – ‘but to twist my knife in your soft flesh will be plain ecstasy.’

  Reaching out with his blade and his bloody hands, he started toward her.

  She turned and fled.

  She ran with all her heart this time, pushed all her strength through her legs. In spite of his crooked back, Master Gilbur was fast. His first blow nearly caught her. The gap she opened between them as she sped was less than a stride; then two; then three and a bit more. Instinctively, she had run to the left; she was taking the same direction she and Geraden had taken when they had fled from the insects.

  Black arms rose and then plunged down—

  Now she would have been glad – delirious with relief – to encounter a guard. An old codger hunting for the public lavatories. A servant. Anyone to witness what was happening, distract Gilbur. But the corridor was deserted. Master Gilbur spat curses as he pursued her. She was young, and running for her life; slowly, she widened the gap. But the air had already become fire in her lungs, and he didn’t seem to be tiring.

  Plunged down—

  In one way, she had no idea where she was going. She didn’t know these passages, had never been down here without a guide. The only thought in her mind was to find help. Before she faltered. She could feel her strength ebbing now. In another way, however, her instinctive sense of direction was sure, and she followed it unhesitatingly. To escape the fierce Imager, she tapped resources in herself that she didn’t know she possessed.

  She took the route to Adept Havelock’s quarters.

  There: the side passage. A thick wooden door, apparently the entrance to a storeroom. Yes, the entrance to a storeroom. A storeroom which hadn’t been appropriated to help house Orison’s increased population. She heaved the door open, pulled it shut behind her. It had a bolt. Didn’t it have a bolt? It had to have a bolt – had to have – but she couldn’t find it, couldn’t see, there was no light in the storeroom, no illumination except thin yellow slivers from the cracks around the door.

  Master Gilbur’s bulk blocked even that light—

  —and her fingers found the bolt, slapped it home just as he crashed against the door, trying to crush her with the weight of the wood and his own momentum.

  The bolt twisted against its staples. But it held.

  It wasn’t going to hold for long. Gilbur hit the door again, raging at it and her. She couldn’t see the bolt – but she could hear the metallic screaming noise as iron rusted into wood was forced out. The staples were going to give. It was only a matter of time.

  Ignoring her frantic need for air and rest, she groped across the storeroom toward the door hidden at the back – the entrance to Adept Havelock’s secret rooms.

  Because she was moving by instinct rather than conscious thought, she didn’t remember the possibility that the hidden door might be bolted until she found it open. Master Quillon had probably left it that way. He had probably intended to bring her here himself. Weak with relief and need, she opened the door and hurried into the lighted passage which led to Havelock’s domain.

  The first room she came to was cluttered with mirrors.

  Nothing had changed since her last visit here. The disarray was composed of full-length mirrors so uneven in shape and color that they showed Images she couldn’t begin to interpret; bits of flat glass that would have fit in her pocket; mirrors the right size for a dressing table, but piled on top of each other and scattered as if to keep anyone from seeing what they showed. All of them had been gleaned by King Joyse during his wars and never restored to the Congery; all of them were set in rich or loving frames which belied the neglect of their present circumstances. And all of them were useless. The Imagers who had made them were dead.

  They didn’t have anything to do with her. She rushed past them.

  The passage took two or three turns, but she didn’t lose her way. In a moment, she reached another door. She thought she could hear Master Gilbur still pounding to get into the storeroom – or perhaps the sound was simply caused by panic beating in her ears – so she pulled the door open and stumbled into the large, square chamber which Adept Havelock used as a study, and which gave him access to Orison’s networks of secret passages.

  The air was musty, disused – something had gone wrong with the ventilation. There were too many people in the castle. Smoke from lamps with wicks that needed trimming curled lazily around the pillar which held up the center of the ceiling.

  The Adept was there, lurking in his madness like a spider.

  Master Quillon had asked Terisa to believe that Havelock had helped King Joyse plan the destruction of Mordant. Quillon had expected her to believe it – expected her to believe that the old Adept’s insanity didn’t prevent him from wisdom or cunning. And perhaps her dead rescuer was right. Perhaps only a madman like Havelock could have conceived a strategy which relied for its sole chance of success on Castellan Lebbick’s stability.

  Nevertheless Terisa had nowhere else to turn now. Surely Quillon would have brought her here, if he had lived. The Adept had to help her. He had helped her in the past. He had tried to answer her questions. And Master Gilbur might catch up with her at any moment. He might kill the Adept as well, if he got the opportunity. And the Castellan was still after her.

  ‘Havelock!’ she gasped, wracking her lungs to force out words, ‘Gilbur killed Master Quillon. He’s after me. I need help. You’ve got to help me.’

  Got to. As soon as she stopped running, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to stay on her feet much longer.

  The Adept stood beside his hop-board table, hunching over it as if he had a game in progress, studying the board intently even though there were no men on it. He didn’t look up until she spoke; then, however, he raised his head and smiled amiably. Smoke eddied around him. One eye considered her casually; the other began a scrutiny of the wall behind her.

  ‘My lady Terisa of Morgan,’ he said in a tone of loopy mildness. ‘What a pleasant surprise. Fornicate you bet
ween the eyes. I trust you are well?’

  ‘Havelock,’ she insisted. ‘Listen to me. I need help. Gilbur killed Master Quillon. He’s right behind me.’

  The Adept’s smile showed his teeth. ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he replied as if she had just indulged in a pleasantry. ‘You certainly look well. Rest and peace do wonders for the female complexion.

  ‘Now, tell me what you would like to know. I’m completely at your service today.’

  Horror welled up in her; she could hardly control it. The strain of defending Orison had finished him. He was gone, entirely out of touch with sanity. The air was too thick to give her lungs any relief. Quillon had been killed, and she was going to be killed, and the Adept himself was probably going to be killed. She didn’t know how to get through to him. Nearly weeping, she cried, ‘Don’t you understand? Can’t you hear me? Gilbur just killed Master Quillon. He’s coming here.’

  Abruptly, he switched eyes, regarded her with the orb which had been staring at the wall. His nose cut the air like the beak of a hawk. On the other hand, his fleshy smile didn’t waver.

  ‘My lady Terisa of Morgan,’ he said again, ‘it would be my very great pleasure to rip the rest of your clothes off and throw you in a pigsty. Today I can answer questions. Ask me anything you want.

  ‘But,’ he commented as if this particular detail were trivial, ‘I can’t help you. Not today.’

  She stopped and stared at him, almost retching for air and aid. I can’t help you. Not today.

  Oh, Quillon!

  ‘Almost everybody,’ he went on in the same tone of relaxed good cheer, ‘wants to know why I burned up that creature of Imagery who tried to get Geraden. Timing, that’s the answer. Good timing. It doesn’t matter what you look like. It doesn’t even matter what you smell like. Anybody will lick your ass if you’ve got good timing. We weren’t ready. If Lebbick found out who our enemies are from that creature, it would all collapse. We wouldn’t be weak enough to defend ourselves.’

  ‘Havelock! ’ Terisa wanted to hit him, curse at him, tear her hair. ‘Master Quillon was your friend! Gilbur just killed him! Don’t you even care?’

  Without transition, Adept Havelock passed from amiable lunacy to wild fury. ‘Cunt!’ With a roar, he brandished his right hand, pinching the fingers together as if he held a checker. ‘This is you!’ Wheeling to the table, he banged his hand down on the board several times, jumping imaginary pieces; then he mimed flinging his checker savagely into the corner of the room. ‘Gone! Do you understand me? Gone!

  ‘Don’t you think I want to be sane? Don’t you think I want to help? He was the only one who knew how to help me. But I used it all up! This morning – against those catapults! I used it all up!’

  Dumb with shock, Terisa gaped at him. He was too far gone. She didn’t know how to reach him.

  An instant later, however, his rage disappeared as suddenly as it had come. Both his eyes seemed to grow glassy with sorrow, and he turned his back on her slowly. ‘Today I can’t help you,’ he murmured to the blank checkerboard. ‘Go deal with Gilbur yourself.’

  He lowered himself into a chair near the table. His shoulders began to shake, and a high, small whine came from his clenched throat. After a moment, Terisa realized that he was sobbing.

  Lost and numb, she left him alone there and went to deal with Gilbur herself.

  She was so sick with dread and dismay and grief that she didn’t even wince when she heard the Adept bolting his door after her, locking her away from any possibility of escape.

  Like a sleepwalker – like a woman trying to locate herself, discover who she was, in a glass made from the pure sand of dreams – she returned to the room where Havelock kept his mirrors.

  Master Gilbur was already there.

  He didn’t notice her. He was too full of wonder at what he had found: mirrors he had never known existed, dozens of them; a priceless treasure for any Imager with the talent to use them, any Adept. She could have tried to hide. The look on his face made her think that it might even be possible to sneak past him. He was so caught up in what he was seeing—

  With a forlorn shrug, she took one of the small mirrors stacked on a trestle table near her and tossed it to the floor so that it shattered in all directions.

  A cloud of dust billowed from the impact, softening the sound. The whole room was thick in dust; the mirrors apparently hadn’t been cleaned in decades.

  Nevertheless the sound of breakage got his attention. He jerked around to face her, raised his massive fists. His eyes burned; fury seemed to fume from his beard. ‘You dare!’ he coughed. ‘You dare to destroy such wealth, such power! For that, I will not simply kill you. I will hack you apart.’

  ‘No, you won’t.’ To her astonishment, her voice was steady. Perhaps she was too numb to be afraid any longer. As if she did this kind of thing all the time, she put the trestle table between them so that it blocked his approach. ‘If you take one step toward me, I’ll break another mirror. Every time you do anything to threaten me, I’ll break another mirror. Maybe I’ll break everything here before you get your hands on me.’

  Numbness was a good start. It led to fading. She could stand here and confront Master Gilbur with all his hate like a woman full of courage – and at the same time she could go away, evaporate from in front of him. Give up her existence and follow mist and smoke to safety. By the time he got his hands on her – she knew he was going to get his hands on her somehow – she would be gone.

  And in the meantime she might delay him long enough—

  ‘You would not!’ protested Gilbur, momentarily surprised out of his rage.

  Terisa picked up another mirror and measured the distance to the Master’s head. ‘Try me.’

  Numbness. Fading.

  Time.

  ‘No, my lady.’ His features gathered into their familiar scowl. He was breathing heavily, as if his back pained him. ‘You try me. All this glass is beyond price – in the abstract. In practice, it is useless. A mirror can only be used by the man who made it. There are new talents in the world, and mine is one of them. I can make mirrors with a speed and accuracy which would astound the Congery, if those pompous fools only knew of it. But only an Adept has the talent to work translations with a glass he did not make.

  ‘If you believe I will not kill you, you are stupid as well as foolish.’

  He took a step toward her.

  She threw the glass at him and snatched up another.

  The delicate tinkling noise of broken glass shrouded by dust filled the room.

  He halted.

  ‘Maybe nobody except Havelock actually has that talent,’ she said, nobody except Havelock, for all the good that did her, ‘but you think you might be able to learn it. It might be a skill, not a talent. You’ve never had a chance to find out the truth because other Imagers won’t let you experiment with their mirrors. With these, you could do all the experimenting you want. You could learn anything there is to learn.’

  Fading. Time. With her peripheral vision, she picked out the mirror she wanted – a flat glass in a rosewood frame, nearly as tall as she was. Through a layer of dust, its Image showed a bare sand dune, nothing else. Somewhere in Cadwal, she guessed. One of the less hospitable portions of High King Festten’s land. In the Image, the wind was blowing hard enough to raise sand from the dune like steam.

  Carefully, she edged toward it.

  ‘But I’m not going to let you have them,’ she continued without pausing. ‘Not if you try to get me.’

  Master Gilbur faced her as if he ached to leap for her throat. One hand clutched his dagger; the other curled in anticipation. He restrained himself, however. ‘A clever point,’ he snarled. ‘You are cleverer than I thought. But it is futile. You cannot leave this room without coming within my reach. Or without moving out of reach of the mirrors. In either case, I will cut you down instantly. What do you hope to gain?’

  Time. It was amazing how little fear she felt. Her substance was leaching away b
efore his eyes, and he was blind to it. Now she could ease herself into the dark whenever she wished, and then there would be nothing he could do to hurt her. Nothing that would make any difference. All she wanted was time.

  She took another small step toward the glass she had chosen.

  Then she went still because she thought she heard boots.

  ‘I’m not greedy.’ Now her voice tried to shake, but she didn’t let it. Instead, she began to speak louder, doing what she could to hold the Master’s attention. ‘I don’t want much. I just want to frustrate you.

  ‘You and Eremis are so arrogant – you manipulate, you kill. You don’t have the slightest interest in what happens to the people you hurt. You’re sick with arrogance. It’s worth breaking a few mirrors just to upset you.’

  Suddenly, she saw movement in the passage behind him.

  Trying to gain all the time she could – trying to strike some kind of blow in Master Quillon’s name, and Geraden’s, and her own – she flung the mirror she held at Gilbur’s head.

  He dodged her throw effortlessly.

  And even that went wrong for her. Her life had become such a disaster that she couldn’t even throw something at a man who hated her without saving him. Dodging, he pivoted and leaped toward the table to close on her. As a result, the first guard charging into the room missed his swing.

  Before the man could recover, Master Gilbur hammered him to the floor with a fist like a bludgeon.

  The second guard had the opposite problem: he had to check the sweep of his sword in order to avoid his companion. That took only an instant – but an instant was all the time Gilbur needed to plant his dagger in the guard’s throat.

  Castellan Lebbick entered the room behind his men alone.

  He held his longsword poised; the tip of the blade moved warily. He glanced at Terisa, then returned his gaze to the Master. He was coiled to fight, ready and dangerous. She thought that she had never seen him look so calm. This was what he needed: a chance to do battle for Orison and King Joyse.