A Man Rides Through

  Gart’s gaze swept the balcony. He took in the positions of the people below him. Instead of ripping Castellan Lebbick’s parries aside, the High King’s Monomach began to give ground.

  Artagel watched what was happening above him for one more moment, then turned his attention to Master Gilbur.

  Plainly, Gilbur intended to kill the Alend Contender.

  It was also plain that he wasn’t going to succeed. Artagel’s side was sore and tight; in some sense, he was a cripple. Nevertheless he could have handled a lone Imager armed with only a dagger in his sleep.

  “Guard the Prince!” shouted the Tor for no discernible reason. He was on his feet, his legs splayed, swaying under the influence of too much wine.

  Smiling pleasantly, Artagel aimed Prince Kragen’s sword – and barely saved himself when Master Gilbur turned suddenly, picked up one of the benches, and hurled it at his head.

  A corner of the bench punched his shoulder, and he went down; he hit the floor heavily, lost his direction. The Master’s strength was prodigious. How was it possible to fight somebody who could throw benches around with one hand? Shock numbed Artagel’s shoulder, but he ignored it. He ignored his side. Suppressing any kind of pain, he surged upright again as smoothly as he could—

  Facing in the wrong direction.

  He wheeled back to the Prince’s sprawling body just in time to block Master Gilbur’s dagger.

  Roaring, Gilbur hit Artagel’s blade so hard that Artagel nearly dropped it.

  Nearly: not quite.

  Mustering his balance, his poise, his old skill, Artagel pointed his sword at the base of Master Gilbur’s throat and dared the Imager to move again.

  The struggle over Prince Kragen apparently held no interest for Master Eremis. He approached Geraden and Terisa and the knot of Masters as if he were on the verge of an epiphany. His smile was so keen it seemed to cut the air. When Geraden cried in frustration, “Doesn’t anyone have a mirror?” Eremis began to laugh.

  He tightened his fingers, murmured something Terisa couldn’t hear.

  Instantly, a creature the size and shape of a fruit-bat swept out of the glass, flapped forward, and fastened itself to the nearest Imager’s cheek.

  The man toppled backward, screaming.

  “Eremis!” Geraden yelled as if that were the worst obscenity he knew. From under his jerkin, he produced a knife – an eating utensil he must have appropriated at breakfast – and threw it with all his strength.

  For once in his life, he did something right. He had never trained with a knife; but by chance his blade shattered the glass in Eremis’ hand as neatly as if that was what he had intended all along. Splinters sprayed out of Eremis’ grasp, glittering like jewels in the light.

  The Master’s laugh turned to a snarl.

  While he ripped out his sword, the doors of the hall slammed open and twenty guards charged inward.

  Norge’s reinforcements.

  The guards were too late to save Geraden or Terisa. Their backs were to the wallscreens: they had no escape from the easy action of Eremis’ blade. He plainly knew what to do with a sword. It seemed to flex like a live thing in his hands.

  In contrast, Artagel didn’t need any help. This was the work he had been born to do. First he slapped the dagger out of Master Gilbur’s fist. Then he began to make small, delicate cuts in the Imager’s thick neck, as if he were marking the spot at which Gilbur’s head would be hacked away. All his movements were taut and precise.

  Up on the balcony, Gart lost another Apt. Gart himself hadn’t killed anyone: Lebbick kept him back. Lebbick’s fury appeared almost equal to Gart’s skill. The Apts had accounted for five of the defenders. Surveying the situation, Gart judged that one more pikeman would die before his last student fell. He prepared himself to dispatch Lebbick, perhaps eviscerate him; then he glanced downward, saw the arrival of the reinforcements, and changed his mind.

  Before anyone could grasp his intent, he sprang away from Castellan Lebbick and vaulted over the railing.

  A drop like that could have killed him; it should have snapped his legs. But he had been jumping from high places ever since he began his training under the previous Monomach: he knew how to do it.

  When he hit the rug, he collapsed into himself and rolled to absorb the impact. Then, despite the fact that his feet and legs had gone numb as if his spine were broken, he launched himself at Artagel’s back

  The only warning Artagel got was the thump when Gart landed. He turned just in time to keep the Monomach’s sword out of his ribs.

  Swiftly, he launched a second parry, a counterstroke. He knew he couldn’t beat Gart, but in the rush of action, the heady flow of battle, he didn’t care.

  Unfortunately, he never finished his riposte. Gilbur’s quickness was like his strength: prodigious. In an instant, he sprang after Artagel and clubbed him to the floor with both fists.

  Prince Kragen was still unconscious. He could have been killed almost without effort.

  Now, however, Master Gilbur and the High King’s Monomach had other priorities. The charging guards had already covered half the distance from the doors: Master Eremis’ allies only had a few seconds left.

  Behind them, Castellan Lebbick came down on the rug with a smashing impact. He had tried Gart’s jump, had landed badly. Pain ripped a gasp out of him; it muffled the sound of splintered bones.

  Together, Gilbur and Gart raced to help Eremis.

  He was fighting for his life.

  No one had opposed his advance on the Masters, on Terisa and Geraden. The Masters were as useless and cowardly as he had always believed them to be; they wouldn’t be worth the trouble of killing. Even Master Barsonage wasn’t worth killing.

  Geraden, on the other hand—

  But at the last moment, Master Eremis had paused. He saw something in Geraden’s eyes – an unexpected threat; some kind of fatal promise.

  It caused the Master to check his swing.

  Terisa didn’t look dangerous. She didn’t even look desirable. She had turned inward with her back against the wall as if she were trying to faint.

  Eremis raised his sword to fend Geraden away while he grabbed at her.

  Suddenly, a mountain of flesh slapped against him with such force that he nearly went sprawling.

  The Tor—! Eremis got his blade up just in time to keep the fat, old lord from splitting his head open.

  Considering the Tor’s skill and age and drunkenness, his sword might as well have been a cudgel. Nevertheless it had weight behind it, and a mad, blubbering fury. Master Eremis parried as hard as he could, and again, and again; yet he was driven backward. He would have to disembowel that old slob to stop him.

  “My lord!” Geraden yelled. “Look out!”

  The Tor didn’t seem to hear the warning. He was still swinging his sword like a club when Gart kicked him in the stomach hard enough to rupture his guts.

  Retching, he collapsed to his knees and presented his exposed neck to Gart’s blade.

  Geraden jumped at Eremis.

  Gilbur intercepted him, however, and flung him aside like a handful of rags. Like Prince Kragen, Geraden wasn’t important enough to risk death over. Terisa was the one who mattered. Eremis closed a hand around her arm. Gart braced himself for the quick satisfaction of beheading the Tor.

  Fuming curses and agony, one knee crushed, an ankle cracked, Castellan Lebbick came up behind the High King’s Monomach. He was barely able to stand; every movement ground shards of bone against each other. His sword hung in his hands, too heavy to lift through the pain.

  Yet he kept Gart from killing the Tor.

  To save himself, Gart whirled and drove his sword straight through the Castellan’s heart.

  Lebbick’s eyes flew wide, as if he had just seen an astonishing sight. Blood burst from his mouth, gushed down the front of his mail. He dropped his weapon. For a moment, his hands clutched at Gart’s blade as if he wanted to wrench it out of his chest. Then, like a man who had decided to le
t go, he released the iron.

  “Bastard,” he breathed between gouts of blood as if he were talking to someone else, not Gart at all. “Now I’m free. You can’t hurt me anymore.”

  Slowly, as if performing at last the only graceful action of his life, he slid backward off Gart’s sword.

  In that way, Lebbick finished mourning for his wife.

  Full of horror, Terisa tried to break Master Eremis’ grip; but she couldn’t do it. She had never been strong enough with him. Geraden lay on the floor without moving. Helplessly, she watched as Eremis made a strange, familiar gesture, a signal she had seen once before.

  Only a heartbeat ahead of the charging guards, she and Eremis, Gilbur and Gart were translated out of the hall.

  In the resulting confusion, a long time passed before anyone noticed that King Joyse had also disappeared.

  BOOK

  FOUR

  FORTY: THE LORD OF LAST RESORT

  Norge ordered everyone to stay in the hall; but he was already too late. Most of King Joyse’s counselors had scattered, fled like their lord. And the Imagers were no better. Even Master Barsonage, who might in a reasonable world have been expected to set a good example – even the mediator of the Congery was gone. Apparently, he had taken Geraden with him. The only Master left was the man Eremis had killed; the creature which had actually slain him was still chewing on his head, oblivious to everything except food.

  “Perfect,” Norge muttered generally. This was as close as he ever came to despair. All those Imagers and old men who could hardly hold their water for fear, already loose in Orison; already spreading panic. They would tell their friends, their wives, their children, their servants; some of them would tell total strangers. And when the story got out – when people heard that King Joyse was gone, and Lebbick was dead, and the “hero of Orison,” Eremis, was in league with Cadwal—Norge sighed to think about it. Orison was going to come apart at the joints.

  The siege was going to succeed after all.

  Doing what he could, he sent one of the captains to take command of the gates, control the courtyard; make sure nobody did anything wild. That was the crucial place, the point at which panic could spill outward – the point at which Alend could be made aware that Orison was in chaos.

  He ordered two more men to dispatch Eremis’ vicious fruitbat. He detailed guards to locate the counselors and the Masters, so that decisions could be made. For no particular reason except thoroughness, he organized a search for the King. He made sure that Prince Kragen and Artagel were still alive.

  Then he went to help the Tor get up.

  The old lord was on his hands and knees, staring at Castellan Lebbick’s face.

  The Tor was in terrible pain. No, that wasn’t true: he was going to be in terrible pain; he knew he was going to be in terrible pain as soon as the shock of Gart’s kick faded a bit. At the moment, however, he was still stunned, protected from agony by surprise and wine.

  He wanted to raise his head, but the effort was too much for him. He couldn’t do anything except stare at Lebbick’s ruined and happy face.

  People looked like that, he thought, when their kings betrayed them. When they let something as simple and fallible as an ordinary human monarch cut the strings which held their lives together, the cords of purpose. When they drank too much—And then were lucky enough to die without having to watch everything else come apart around them.

  It would be better to die. Better to think Gart’s boot had torn something vital inside him and surrender to excruciation in advance. Better to let wine and loss carry him away. The alternatives—

  The alternatives were distinctly unpleasant.

  Unfortunately, the expression on Lebbick’s face wouldn’t let him go. Lebbick’s blood wouldn’t let him go. The first twinge of pain rumbled through his guts, and he nearly groaned aloud, Oh, Castellan. Mordant and Orison and you, he betrayed us all, abandoned us all – and you fought for him to the end. What did he ever do to deserve such service?

  As soon as the Tor asked the question, however, he found that he knew the answer. Despite his tears, he could see it in Lebbick’s twisted face, his wounds and blood. What King Joyse had done was to create something larger than any one man, something which deserved loyalty and service no matter how fallible and even treacherous the King himself proved to be.

  Mordant. A buffer between the constant, bloody warring of Cadwal and Alend.

  The Congery. An end to the ravages of Imagery when mirrors were used for nothing but power.

  Pain pushed against the back of the Tor’s throat, and his stomach knotted; but he clung to the cold stone with his hands and knees, kept his balance. When that captain, what was his name? Norge, when Norge came to him and tried to help him erect, he managed somehow to knot his fat fist in the captain’s mail and pull him down, so that Norge had to meet him face-to-face.

  “The King—” he gasped. His voice was a sick whisper, lost in the hurt clench of his abdomen.

  “Gone, my lord Tor. I’ve sent men to look for him, but I don’t expect any results.”

  “Why not?”

  Norge shrugged. “Men who vanish like that usually don’t want to be found.”

  His immunity to distress was remarkable. Peering into the captain’s face, the Tor began to remember him better. It was possible that Castellan Lebbick had promoted Norge simply because Norge was the only man under him who never flinched.

  A man like that was hard to talk to. What did he care about? What were his convictions, his commitments?

  “Help me up.” The Tor made no effort to move. The pain squeezed his voice to a husk. “I will take his place.”

  The Tor wasn’t trying to stand, and Norge didn’t try to lift him. Instead, the captain asked calmly, “You, my lord?”

  “Me.” For all the strength the Tor could muster, he might as well have been whispering deliberately. Maybe Gart really had ruptured something vital. “Who else? I am the King’s oldest friend. Apart from Adept Havelock – and you will not offer him the rule of Orison and Mordant.”

  No question about it: the hurt in his bowels was going to be stupendous. Already it seemed to cut off his supply of air. Sweat or tears ran from him as if he were a sodden towel being twisted. There were too many candles glaring in his eyes. Yet he kept his grip on the captain.

  “And I am the only lord here. King Joyse suffered me to remain when the others rode away. I have acted as his chancellor and advisor. Something must be done about the panic. Power must be assumed by someone who will be believed. Who else would you have?

  “Who else is there?”

  Norge blinked at this question as if he didn’t think it was worth answering.

  “I have no hereditary claim, no official standing.” The Tor wanted to wail or weep, but he couldn’t get that much voice past the pain. “But if you support me in this, Castellan Lebbick’s second, a man with the King’s guard behind him—” A gasp came up from his kneecaps, nearly blinding him. “If you support me, I will be accepted.”

  “My lord Tor,” the captain remarked dispassionately, “even if I support you, you’ll scarcely be able to stand.” After a moment, he added, “If I can say so without offense, my lord, you aren’t the king I would have chosen.”

  “A fat old man sodden with wine and unable to stand.” It was embarrassing to be in tears at a time like this, but the Tor’s hurt had to have some outlet. “I understand. Do you?”

  “My lord” – Norge’s calm was maddening, really – “you need a physician. Let people in better condition worry about Orison.”

  “Fool,” the lord moaned. “You do not understand.” Pulling on Norge’s mail, heaving against the pain, he got one leg under him; that enabled him to shift his other hand from the floor to Norge’s shoulder. He felt like he had Eremis’ fruitbat gnawing on his guts. Nevertheless he panted through his tears and sweat, “Someone must take command. Orison must be led. And I am here. Prince Kragen is here. For the first time, we know our enemies
. We must not miss this opportunity.”

  “Opportunity?” Norge asked noncommittally.

  Oh, for the strength to scream! The Tor’s stomach and throat seemed to be filling up with blood. “An alliance with Alend,” he croaked out. “Against Cadwal. A chance to end this siege and fight.”

  The captain said nothing; his reaction was unreadable.

  “Norge.” Peering through a blur of pain, the lord leaned closer to whisper straight into the captain’s face. “If I can make an alliance with Prince Kragen, will you support me?”

  Norge spent an astonishing amount of time lost in thought. He took forever to arrive at a decision. Or maybe he just seemed to take forever.

  Then he said, “All right, my lord Tor,” as if he had never hesitated in his life.

  The Tor groaned thickly – relief and anguish. A desire to lie down and hug his belly nearly overwhelmed him. Somehow, however, he forced himself to ask, “How is the Prince?”

  Norge glanced away, then answered, “Rousing.”

  Hoarse with stress, the Tor breathed, “Reports. I need reports. I must know what is happening.”

  Ponderously, as if Norge weren’t carrying most of his weight, the old lord struggled to his feet.

  For a moment, pain rose like vomit into his mouth. He couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe; if Norge hadn’t held him, he would have fallen. But that was intolerable. So much weakness was intolerable. If he let himself fail now, Castellan Lebbick would probably get up from the dead and go do his job for him.

  With a gasp that went through him like a blade, he pulled air into his chest.

  Almost at once, his vision cleared.

  Prince Kragen was rousing, no question about it. Artagel still sprawled on the floor as if Master Gilbur had broken his neck; but the Prince was crawling stupidly toward his sword.

  A guard who didn’t know any better and probably hated Alends stepped forward to kick the sword out of Kragen’s reach.

  “Stop,” coughed the Tor.

  Norge ordered the guard to stop.

  Still barely conscious, Prince Kragen got a hand on his sword and at once began climbing to his feet.