A Man Rides Through (115 page)

They should have been enough to make Geraden quail. But they weren't. In an odd, unforeseen way, he was prepared for them.

He, too, had once been buried alive, under the rubble of Darsint's escape from Orison. He had tasted pain and horror, hopeless suffocation. And now, as then, other people's needs were more important to him than his own.

If Gilbur's translation succeeded, Terisa and Artagel and Nyle would die. Everyone in and around the stronghold would probably die. Without the help Geraden and Terisa could give, King Joyse might die, taking Mordant and eventually Alend with him.

So Geraden ignored the harsh anguish Gilbur sent at him. He closed his mind to his visceral fear of trembling stone. He shut the wolves out of his awareness.

Will-to-will, he met Master Gilbur's madness and held the mirror, sealing the glass in the onset of translation, keeping the earthquake back.

That was Gilbur's chance. If he had let go of the mirror then and used his dagger, he could have killed Geraden almost without effort.

But he didn't let go. Maybe he couldn't. Or maybe somewhere down at the bottom of his heart he wanted to be stopped. Whatever the reason, he clung to the glass frame, clung to his translation, and tried to make his hate stronger than Geraden's determination.

In the end, it wasn't his hate that failed him: it was his body. Without warning, while he strained and raged, a pain as heavy as a spear drove through the center of his chest.

He blanched; his hands slipped from the mirror; involuntarily, he clutched at his heart. Slowly, his jaw dropped, and his eyes began to gape. Reaching for air he could no longer find, he stumbled to his knees as if the ground had been cut out from under him.

His whole face twisted as if he wanted to curse Geraden before he died. But he had lost his chance. He was already dead as he toppled to the stone.

The wolves would have killed Geraden then. He was too shaken to defend himself, too deeply shocked. Artagel and Nyle arrived in time to save him, however. Artagel was exhausted, of course, hardly able to lift his arms; but he had Gart's sword, and it seemed to give him strength. And Nyle swung his chains crazily, which made one or two of the wolves hesitate, giving Artagel the opportunity to dispatch them.

The three brothers hugged each other long and hard before they went to look for Terisa.

"No." Master Eremis caught her by the wrist and pulled her hand away from him. "Not yet. I am not ready to trust you." But he was ready to do everything else to her. "I have not forgotten that you once kicked me."

She continued to gaze at him as if he hadn't spoken. The combination of hunger and absence in her eyes didn't change.

Again, he wondered what she had hidden away in the secret places of her heart. Was that where she kept her fear? Or did she still have surprises left in her?

He was ready for everything about her, ready to take away everything she had. Before he was done, she would confess her secrets, all of them, she would give him everything about herself, hoping that it would save her. But nothing would save her. He was going to take all she had and leave her empty.

Now, however, she wasn't looking at him any longer. Her attention had returned to the mirror.

Kragen still held his ground, blocked the right side of the valley with more success than Eremis had expected from him; but the defense to the left continued crumbling. The forces of Alend and Mordant seemed to dissolve under the Cadwal charge. Hurrying to take advantage of this opportunity, the Cadwals gathered speed.

High King Festten followed them, bringing all his reinforcements to that side. In moments, Festten himself rode past the dead length of the slug-beast, entering the valley at a hard canter.

As soon as the High King was in reach, Joyse struck. With the third portion of his army, he came down the valley like a hammer and smashed into the front of the charge.

At the same time, Kragen abandoned his position. Leaving behind only enough men to keep his side of the valley closed for a short time, he brought the rest of his strength against the Cadwal incursion.

And the Termigan did the same from the other side.

He was retreating, his men were scrambling for their lives, they were already beaten—and suddenly they turned and became a coherent force again and attacked. Backed by the rampart wall, they drove into the Cadwals near the narrowest point of access to the valley—

—
hit so hard, so unexpectedly, that they cut Festten off.

With four or five thousand of his men still outside the valley, out of reach, the High King found himself facing his old enemy in battle.

Here for a short time at any rate the conditions of combat were almost even: the numbers of the armies were nearly equal. Nevertheless there was nothing equal about the way the men fought.

The Cadwals had been taken by surprise, outmaneuvered; their greatest weapon, the slug-beast, was dead; they couldn't retreat. Their consternation was obvious through the mirror, as vivid as a shout. And the forces of Mordant and Alend struck as if they knew that while King Joyse led them they could never be defeated.

They didn't know that Joyse was as good as dead, that Eremis could translate him to madness at any time. They only knew that he was leading them again, and fighting mightily, that no one had ever seen him lose. His spirit seemed to sweep them with him, carry them all to power.

Almost immediately, what should have been an even fight began to look like a victory for the King.

Terisa cleared her throat. Softly, but precisely, so that each word was unmistakable, she asked, "Do you hear horns?"

Horns?

Eremis studied her narrowly. He didn't care about the battle, not anymore; the fire in him needed a different outlet. No matter what happened in the valley, Joyse's doom was
here:
this mirror would ruin him. And if Festten was beaten first, so much the better. Eremis was done with that alliance. It had served its purpose.

But she wasn't looking at him.

He wanted her to look at him. He wanted to see fear in her eyes.

With his hands on her shoulders, he turned her.

Still she wasn't afraid. The hunger she had revealed earlier was gone. Blankness filled her gaze.

No, Terisa, he promised, there is no escape that way. There is no part of you so secret that I cannot find it and hurt it.

To get her attention, he unclasped his cloak and let it drop, then undid his trousers so that she could see the size of his passion against her.

Still her eyes showed no fear. She looked past him or through him as if she had gone blind.

Fiercely, he caught hold of her, closed his arms around her, sealed his mouth on hers. He meant to kiss her until she resisted— or melted—

But she was already limp. All her muscles had gone dead. Her lips felt cold, as if the blood in her heart had become ice.

He gripped her brutally, so furious at her for defying him this way that he wanted to break her back, punish her at once, absolutely. He was strong enough: he could do it. Crushing his forearms across her spine, he tried to find the place where she could still feel pain.

An unexpected movement caught the corner of his eye.

She turned her head toward it as if she knew what it meant.

Before he had time to think, he looked at the mirror.

The movement was there; but it wasn't the movement of armies, it wasn't in the Image. The Image itself was moving, modulating—

While he watched, the scene which the glass reflected became a large room with a bed and instruments of enjoyment; stone floors; sunshine.

At the center of the scene, facing Eremis, stood a tall, naked man with a nose that was too big, cheekbones that sloped too much toward his ears, a thatch of black hair too far back on his skull. Despite their usual intelligence and humor, the man's eyes were wide, almost gaping.

His arms held an unattractively dressed woman. Her body sagged against him as if the last of her strength had faded away.

Her eyes, on the other hand—

They were no longer blank. She had gone so far down inside herself that she had reached a place of unexpected power. Darkness seemed to spill from her gaze like a void overflowing, a black emptiness reaching out to gather him in.

He was seeing himself, and her; that was his own Image echoed in the flat mirror. It had a luminous quality, a precise perfection, which startled him like a revelation, as if it were all he needed to know.

Let me show you what I can do.

The last thing he felt before his mind vanished into eternal translation was a sense of complete astonishment.

FIFTY-TWO: NO MORE FIGHTING

Terisa seemed to hang limp there in Master Eremis' frozen embrace for a long time.

At one point, she thought she remembered a peculiar tremor under her feet, a trembling in the stone. It was gone before she noticed it, however, and her recollection of it was uncertain.

Nevertheless the effort of trying to think helped bring her back.

Now she remembered something else, something she couldn't be mistaken about: the sound of horns.

She had heard them plainly, winding through her heart: the music of hunting, the bold summons of music; the call to risk and beauty. Even though mirrors couldn't transmit sound, the horns had come to her while she watched King Joyse ride into battle; she had heard the horns as she had seen him fight. They had lifted her up—

The memory of them lifted her now, restored her to herself.

It was time to move.

She didn't know what had happened to Artagel and Geraden, but she wasn't afraid; not yet. Gart would have stopped Geraden if he could. And Master Gilbur would have attacked King Joyse by Imagery if he could. Since Gilbur had done nothing—except make the floor tremble?—Geraden and Artagel must still be alive. She wanted to see them, however, all three of the brothers. She wanted to feel Geraden's arms around her and look at Artagel's face and find out how Nyle was.

She took one last look at her Image, making sure of herself. Then she released her hold on the mirror, so that it could resume its natural reflection.

After that, she began to squirm out of Eremis' grasp.

He was as hard as stone, still erect and rigid; every part of him was tight with unsatisfied ambition and striving. As a result, she found it difficult to get away from him. Nevertheless, because he couldn't react to her movements, he couldn't keep her.

After a moment, she was free.

He went on standing as though she were his forever—as if he had only turned his head momentarily from her best kiss to glance at the mirror before consummating their embrace.

Vaguely, she wondered if he might be in pain, if he had enough of himself left to feel outrage or loss. She doubted it.

Then Geraden and Artagel and Nyle entered the room.

Despite their obvious exhaustion, they had all come to fight for her. Artagel held his sword poised; Nyle swung his chains; Geraden's face was full of threats. They all came forward to fling themselves at Master Eremis. But when they saw that he wasn't moving, that he couldn't move, and she was unharmed, Geraden gave a shout of joy, Artagel blinked in happy astonishment, and Nyle dropped his chains.

Oh, Geraden. Oh, love. Mute with relief and constricted weeping, she hugged him and hugged him while Artagel thumped her back boisterously and Nyle shed quiet tears of his own.

None of them asked any questions. They were all happy to wait a while to find out what had happened.

On the other hand, after a moment they all found themselves looking at the mirror.

Its focus had to be adjusted before they could see King Joyse. He had ridden so far down the valley, was so heavily engaged among the Cadwals, that he was momentarily out of view. When they located him, however, they saw almost at once that he might win this battle.