Mordant's Need

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  —the call for which her heart had always been waiting.

  She jerked her back straight, lifted her head, spun around before anyone else noticed the change.

  Yes. Blowing down from the head of the valley, the wind parted the snow like curtains, let the gray light of early evening through the clouds. As if without transition, Esmerel and the valley became a winter landscape before twilight, a scene which needed only sunshine to reveal its surprising beauty.

  Perhaps the horns – and those who sounded them – were on the far side: the far side of the manor, where the defile brought the brook gamboling over its ice into the valley.

  Now Geraden joined her, looked around. Several of the Masters breathed thanks that the snow was stopping. Guards expressed the same sentiment less delicately. None of them could hear the premonition in the air whetted with cold, the implication as penetrating as splinters.

  ‘Get the Tor,’ she said as if the horns had lifted her out of herself, despite the fact that she couldn’t hear them, could hardly remember them; maybe she had never heard them. ‘Get Prince Kragen. Tell them to hurry.’

  ‘Terisa?’ Geraden asked. ‘Terisa?’

  She ignored him. She didn’t need reason: intuition was enough. She was fixed on Esmerel and couldn’t look away.

  Master Barsonage sent Imagers into motion. Someone shouted for the Castellan. Infected by an urgency they couldn’t explain, guards began to obey, began to run. She had that much credibility with them, anyway.

  Then past the snow-clogged side of the manor came charging men on horseback. As the horses fought for speed, their nostrils gusted steam, and their legs churned the snow until the dry, light flakes seemed to boil. The sides of the valley and the snow muffled every sound, but each movement was distinct, as edged as a shard of glass.

  Three riders with longswords held up in their fists and keen hate in the strides of their fierce mounts. The riders she had seen in the Congery’s augury. The riders of her dream.

  ‘Bowmen!’ Norge snapped from somewhere nearby. ‘Be ready! We’ll pick them off as soon as they get in range.’

  ‘No!’ coughed the Tor. He had come out of his tent; he stood with his legs splayed in the snow, supported by Ribuld. ‘That is a traitor’s deed. Let them approach. We kill no one unless we must!’

  ‘Well said, my lord Tor!’ Prince Kragen arrived at a run, with his sword in both hands. Using the blade as a pointer, he commanded, ‘Look more closely!’

  The light wasn’t good: at first, she couldn’t see what the Prince was pointing at. But after a moment she realized that each of the riders had a white cloth tied to the tip of his sword.

  Flags of truce.

  A truce, Eremis? With you?

  One of the riders was certainly Master Eremis: that was unmistakable. He drove his mount plunging forward with an air of jaunty peril, as if he were in the grip of an exquisite and unutterable joy.

  Beside him came Master Gilbur, hunchbacked and murderous.

  The third man she didn’t know by sight. Nevertheless she was sure of him. The arch-Imager Vagel. A relatively small man, at least compared to Eremis and Gilbur; dwarfed by his charger. Lank gray hair fluttered from his skull. He rode with his toothless mouth open like the entrance to a pit.

  The riders of her dream.

  ‘The gall of those bastards,’ someone whispered. Ribuld? ‘The gall.’

  Abruptly, Gilbur and Vagel hauled on their reins, wrenched their horses to a halt. Just beyond reliable bow-range, they wheeled and stamped, waiting.

  Master Eremis came forward as if he feared nothing. Intensely nonchalant, he approached his enemies.

  There he stopped.

  ‘My lord Prince.’ His tone was full of secret laughter. ‘My lord Tor. Master Barsonage. Terisa and Geraden. How fortuitous that you are all here together.’

  The Tor leaned on Ribuld as if he had lost the power of speech. Geraden scowled intently, concentrating not on anger but on the ramifications of Master Eremis’ presence. Terisa faced the tall Imager and felt the blood congeal in her chest.

  ‘We are not patient with traitors,’ snapped Prince Kragen: he was the Alend Contender, accustomed to authority. ‘Tell us what you want and be done with it.’

  Master Eremis paid no attention to that demand. ‘My companions fear you,’ he said. ‘They believe you will kill them if they come near, despite our flags of truce.’

  Prince Kragen snorted. ‘That would be an action worthy of you, Eremis. We are not such men.’

  In response, Master Eremis laughed along the wind, sent mirth and scorn across the snow. ‘Do you hear?’ he called over his shoulder. ‘The Alend Contender thinks he is not such a man as we are.’

  ‘You’re lucky Lebbick isn’t here,’ muttered Norge. ‘He’d castrate you first and worry about honor later.’ But no one listened to him.

  Spurring their horses, Master Gilbur and the arch-Imager came forward to join Master Eremis.

  ‘Tell us what you want,’ Prince Kragen repeated harshly.

  ‘As I say,’ gloated Master Eremis, ‘it is fortuitous that you are all here together. Because you are all here, you will be able to give me what I want. I have a requirement for each of you. Each of you except the Congery’ – he sneered at Master Barsonage – ‘which has my permission to go sodomize itself whenever it chooses.’

  Instead of retorting with threats, the mediator folded his arms on his thick chest and produced a grim smile. ‘Be careful what you say, Master Eremis,’ he articulated. ‘Your insults only betray your fear.’

  ‘Fear!’ Master Gilbur waggled his sword mockingly. ‘The day you teach me to fear you, Barsonage, I will walk into this camp naked and let you use me however you wish.’

  The Tor made a weak gesture, requesting silence. In a thin voice, he said, ‘You mentioned requirements, Master Eremis.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Eremis replied with a grin. ‘And if you satisfy me, I am willing to let you all live.’

  Norge pronounced an obscenity. No one else spoke.

  ‘By now,’ the tall Imager explained, ‘even the thickest-headed among you must realize that we have an alliance with High King Festten. By force of Imagery and arms, we are prepared to crush you completely. We will wash the ground with your blood until you beg to share the Perdon’s fate.’

  ‘Try it,’ grated Ribuld. Again, no one else spoke. ‘As it happens, however,’ Master Eremis continued humorously, ‘the High King is not a comfortable ally. He wants to rule the world – and I intend that mastery for myself. Our ambitions are not well mated.’

  ‘Doubtless,’ the Tor sighed. ‘What are your requirements?’

  Master Eremis straightened his legs, raised himself high in his saddle. ‘My lord Tor, my lord Prince, I require you to surrender.’

  This time, it was Prince Kragen who laughed – a bloody and mirthless guffaw.

  ‘If you do so,’ Eremis went on smoothly, ‘if you will pledge your precious honor and your lives to me, we will turn against Festten. Our Imagery and your arms will break him here, far from his sources of supply, his reinforcements. Then it will be Mordant which rules the world, not Cadwal.

  ‘From the first,’ he commented while everyone stared at him, ‘my plans have cut in two directions. We are prepared to annihilate you, my lords. You are too paltry – you have no hope against us. At the same time, however, I have maneuvered Festten and his strength into a position of vulnerability – here, my lords, here – so that he, too, can be annihilated.

  ‘Your choice is simple. Serve me and live. Refuse me and die.’

  Geraden held himself still. Terisa glanced at him and saw that he wasn’t looking at Master Eremis. He was watching the Tor with a dangerous brightness in his eyes.

  Growling curses through his moustache, Prince Kragen also turned toward the Tor.

  For a long moment, the Tor said nothing. In fact, the way he stood, his slumped and dependent posture, suggested that he didn’t know what was going on. Nevertheless, before the P
rince could lose patience with him, the old lord found his voice.

  ‘You mentioned requirements for each of us. Except the Congery. What do you want from Master Geraden and the lady Terisa?’

  Terisa caught her breath while the knot of anger and fear inside her pulled tighter.

  Master Eremis shrugged, grinning as if only an iron will kept him from laughing his heart out. ‘A small sacrifice, my lord. It will cost you little. I require them for myself.’

  Master Gilbur snickered.

  No, Terisa ached inside herself. No.

  Geraden watched the Tor as if he expected something wonderful or terrible from the old lord.

  ‘As a condition of your surrender,’ Eremis explained. ‘When you have pledged your honor to me – and when Terisa and Geraden have been given into my hands – at that moment, High King Festten’s doom is assured.’

  No.

  Prince Kragen started to retort; but the Tor stopped him with another weak gesture. ‘An interesting suggestion, Master Eremis.’ The old lord’s frailty made him sound mild. ‘Unfortunately, you are a demonstrated traitor. What assurance is there that you can be trusted?’

  ‘You need none,’ Master Eremis shot back hotly, happily. ‘Your choice is too simple for assurances. If you do not satisfy me, you will be destroyed.’

  ‘My lord Tor,’ Prince Kragen put in fiercely, ‘he wants the lady Terisa and Geraden because he fears them. Their power is our assurance that he cannot destroy us.’

  Again, the Tor gestured for silence, asking Kragen to bear with him.

  ‘Master Eremis, you are overconfident,’ he said softly, ‘so sure of your strength and your superiority that you insult us. You insult our honor – but that does not surprise us.’ His voice sank as he spoke – and yet gathered force at the same time, so that his quietness carried like a shout. ‘No one expects a man of your moral poverty to respect honor.

  ‘You do wrong, however, to insult our intelligence.

  ‘You have no interest in our surrender. You have no intention of turning against High King Festten. I doubt that the arch-Imager would permit such betrayal.’ For some reason, Vagel shook his head. ‘Gart certainly would not. Your only interest here, your only purpose in coming, is to take the lady Terisa and Master Geraden from us.’

  Eremis had heard enough. ‘My lord Tor,’ he snapped, ‘I have not yet begun to insult your intelligence – but now you demonstrate that you are mad. I fear no one. I covet Terisa’s female flesh. And I have a score to settle with Geraden. My reasons for coming are exactly as I have explained them.’

  No! Terisa protested, insisted, no.

  And the Tor said, ‘No.

  ‘You are a fool, Master Eremis. In the end, you will die a fool’s death. If you had the slightest wish for our service – if you had the slightest intention of turning against the High King’ – his passion was too fundamental to be shouted – ‘you would have treated the Perdon with more respect.’

  Dismissing Eremis, he moved with Ribuld’s support toward his tent.

  ‘My lord Tor.’ Geraden’s face shone; he looked ready now to tackle both Master Eremis and High King Festten single-handedly. He spoke to the old lord’s back formally, and his voice seemed to defy the snow and the wind, as if he had the power to command them. ‘King Joyse has been fortunate in his friends – but never as fortunate as when he won your loyalty.’

  The Tor stumbled, but Ribuld caught him.

  Prince Kragen also turned his back. Glowering bloodshed, he barked at Castellan Norge, ‘Give these traitors a count of five. Then instruct your bowmen to kill them.’

  He didn’t stay to watch the riders as they lashed their mounts away from Norge’s eager call, surged back in the direction of the manor and the defile, strained for speed as if they had been routed. Bowing first to Geraden, then to Terisa, the Prince strode off toward his own camp.

  Terisa heard a few bowstrings thrum, a few arrows hiss in the air. Unluckily, none of the riders fell.

  As if on signal, more snow came down the valley. Snow closed off the light, swarmed over the tents, drifted onto Terisa’s head and shoulders. The riders of her dream – and the Congery’s augury. Geraden was right: she belonged here. And King Joyse was fortunate in his friends.

  She put her arms around Geraden, hugged him tightly. Holding each other close, they followed the Tor toward the shelter of his tent.

  Before the snowfall became thick enough to blind the sky completely, two or three of the guards on sentry duty down at the foot of the valley thought they saw an imprecise puff of smoke overhead, riding against the wind. Then the sight was gone, and snow came down so thickly that it made everything dark.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  ON THE VERGE

  The Tor’s tent was large enough for eight or ten people to stand and shout at each other, but it was ascetically furnished – one bedroll for the lord, one for the guard at the tentflaps, a brazier for warmth, three lanterns hanging around the pole, the Tor’s camp chair, a few other stools. Maybe he wanted it that way: maybe he feared that if he ever became comfortable he wouldn’t be able to move again. Or maybe he wasn’t willing to put any more strain than necessary on the Masters and their translations.

  When Terisa and Geraden entered the tent, they found the Tor in his chair, leaning as far back as it would allow. His eyes were dull, and he was panting thinly, as if he needed somehow to get more air past an obstacle which hurt him whenever he inhaled. Ribuld and one of the guards’ physicians had removed his cloak, his mail, his shirt. Ribuld was dumb with misery.

  For the first time, Terisa saw the place under the lord’s ribs where Gart had kicked him.

  Involuntarily, she tightened her grip on Geraden.

  The Tor’s injury was swollen like a tumor, black-purple and angry; it bloated out from his belly as if his skin might burst.

  ‘Oh, my lord,’ Geraden breathed, nearly groaned. ‘What are you doing to yourself?’

  The Tor had been bleeding inside for days, killing himself with the effort to fill his King’s place.

  He made a dismissive gesture; he may have wanted Terisa and Geraden to go away. Nevertheless they stayed where they were. After a moment, Geraden asked the physician, ‘How is he?’

  ‘As you see,’ the man muttered. ‘I told him this would happen. We all told him.’ He mixed some herbs in a goblet and handed it to the Tor. ‘He’s too old. He drinks too much wine. He shouldn’t be alive.’

  For some reason, Ribuld shot out his arm, knotted his fist in the physician’s cloak, jerked the man silent. Almost at once, however, he seemed to realize the uselessness of his anger. Releasing the physician, he muttered an apology, then moved away to get a stool for the Tor’s legs.

  With his legs supported, the lord was able to sink down until he could rest his head on the back of the chair. His eyes were closed now, and a bit of the strain went out of his breathing; apparently, the physician’s herbs did him some good. He looked like he might sleep.

  He didn’t, however. Without opening his eyes, he murmured, ‘Where?’

  The physician stopped to listen.

  ‘“Where,” my lord?’ asked Ribuld.

  The Tor’s fat lips tightened around a spasm of pain. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. Then, tightly, he asked, ‘Where is Nyle?’

  Where is Nyle. Where are Eremis and Gilbur and Vagel. Where is their laborium. Where is the High King. Terisa resisted an impulse to curse herself.

  Geraden squeezed her, then left her to approach the old lord. Controlling himself grimly, he said, ‘We’ve been wrong, my lord. Terisa and I. He was never here. We just assumed he would use Esmerel.’ Geraden glanced at Terisa. ‘I guess Nyle made the same assumption. He told Terisa Eremis was here. But he wasn’t.’

  Clenching his courage, Geraden concluded, ‘We’ve brought you into a trap we can’t get out of.’

  The Tor inhaled weakly around his hemorrhage. ‘Where?’ he repeated.

  ‘Somewhere close.’ Geraden seemed to
be speaking to Terisa as well as to the lord. ‘Close enough for High King Festten to attack us. Close enough for Eremis and Vagel and Gilbur to find their way here through the snow. If I had to guess, I’d say the first thing Eremis did after he decided he wanted to rule the world – maybe even before he found Vagel – was build a secret stronghold for himself. Somewhere in these hills.’ Somewhere in this maze. ‘But it could be anywhere. Even if it’s just on the other side of the valley rim, we can’t get to it.’

  The Tor exhaled thinly, a constricted sigh. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘What will you do’ – the Tor made an effort to be clear – ‘when Master Eremis decides to use Nyle against you?’

  Terisa was glad that the old lord couldn’t see the flush of distress in Geraden’s face, the flinch around his eyes.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Geraden murmured.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said without thinking, ‘maybe we can find them. The snow will cover us. It’s almost night. Maybe we can sneak out through that ravine and find them.’

  Geraden shook his head. ‘Snow and night will cover him, too. They’ll cover his guards. If we don’t get lost and freeze to death, we’ll probably be captured.’

  All right. All right. It wasn’t a good idea. But we’ve got to do something. We can’t just sit here and watch – watch—

  Watching the lord’s struggle to breathe made Terisa feel sick and wild.

  At that moment, she heard voices outside the tent: a bark of command, a muffled acknowledgment.

  The tentflaps were swept aside, and King Joyse strode in.

  He startled Terisa so badly that she nearly stumbled to her knees.

  He was filthy. Clots of mud clung to his battle gear – his breastplate and mail leggings, the protective iron pallettes on his shoulders, the brassards strapped to his arms. His mail had been cut, hacked at by swords. Blows dented his breastplate. Blood stained his thick cloak and the leather under his armor; black streaks marked the tooled scabbard which held his longsword. Grime filled his beard, caked his hair to his scalp.