A Man Rides Through

  The tone of Eremis’ laughter suggested that he doubted Gilbur’s assessment. He didn’t argue, however. Instead, he said, “It will be safe to renew the lights when the door is closed.”

  Firmly, irresistibly, he pushed Terisa ahead of him into the dark.

  And all the time, she was still trying to concentrate, still trying to fade.

  Now, of course, she wasn’t reaching toward the glass Eremis had used; she was struggling to find Adept Havelock’s supply of mirrors, striving to feel the potential for translation across the distance. She could sense translations as they occurred. She was sensitive to the opening of the gap between places. That must mean something. There must be some way she could use it.

  But Eremis’ grasp made everything impossible.

  He held her too roughly, so that her arms hurt; he pushed her too far ahead of him into the blind dark. Through a doorway, along a lightless passage, through another door: the visceral fear of running into something kept her from being able to pull her heart and mind away. The way he chuckled between his teeth filled her with rage and despair.

  I’m not yours. Never. I’ll find some way to kill you. No matter what happens. I swear it.

  It was impossible to fade while she was so full of fury.

  And then the way he held her changed.

  Through the second doorway and across a rough floor, he suddenly thrust her down. She couldn’t catch herself because he didn’t free her arms: she landed heavily on a pillow, a bed. Deftly, he turned her so that she lay on her back, with her wrists now clamped above her head by one of his hands. Then he clasped something iron around her left wrist; she heard a click, a faint rattle of chain. In spite of the fetter, however, he continued to hold her arms pinned.

  He went on chuckling while his other hand undid the hooks of her soft, leather shirt, exposing her breasts, her vulnerable belly.

  “I must chain you,” he murmured pleasantly, “a small precaution against your strange talents – and Geraden’s. But it will not prevent me from satisfying my claim on you. You will find that I am not easily satisfied. On the other hand, we have plenty of time.

  “If you are compliant, I will keep you bound as little as possible.”

  In the dark, she struggled; she wanted to smash his face, wanted to feel his blood on her hands. He pinned her easily, however; he knew how to keep women from getting away from him. When she paused to gather her strength so that she wouldn’t weep, he curled his tongue like a lick of wet fire around each of her nipples, and his hand slipped aside the sash of her trousers.

  Gasping on the verge of tears, she tried to twist out of his hold; failed.

  Abruptly, she stilled herself, let the resistance sag out of her muscles. She wasn’t accomplishing anything; she was just contributing to her own defeat by making herself wild. She couldn’t concentrate—Let him think her stillness was a form of surrender. If he was that arrogant.

  “You will accept my manhood completely,” he murmured. “I will take possession of you in all ways. And I will not be satisfied until you beg me to enter you wherever and whenever I desire.”

  His mouth clung to her nipples, teasing them involuntarily erect, caressing and probing them. At the same time, his hand moved down into her open trousers to the place between her legs which only Geraden knew. His fingers stroked her there as if he believed that she was being seduced.

  Far away in her mind, she was imagining his death.

  When he began to pull her trousers off her hips, however, she returned to defend herself. Her eyes were starting to adjust – and this room wasn’t absolutely lightless. Hints of illumination filtered into the air from what may have been an imperfectly sealed window in the wall above her. Eremis’ head was a shape of deeper blackness poised to make her breasts ache. She couldn’t fight him physically. But she could still fight.

  Taking advantage of the fact that he had left her mouth free, she said, “Gilbur thinks King Joyse is a coward, but you don’t agree.” Her tone should have warned him: it wasn’t unsteady enough, frightened enough, to indicate surrender. “Why is that?”

  “Because, my sweet lady” – he was too full of victory to refuse to answer her – “you betrayed him to me.”

  She could feel him grinning over her in the dark.

  “I might have believed that he was a fool, or a coward, or a madman. But you came to me while Lebbick had me in his dungeon, and you opened my eyes. At a time when I might have remained innocent of the knowledge, you showed me that King Joyse understood his own actions – that he did what he did deliberately.”

  Terisa’s spirit squirmed at the thought; but she kept her body passive.

  “This revelation enabled me to adjust my plans to accommodate the possibility that he may have been setting traps of his own. If I had been forced to wait until Quillon finally exposed himself and Joyse by rescuing you, I might have found myself in difficulty. But you” – Eremis entered her maliciously with his fingers, making her flinch – “gave me time to prepare a more personal snare – time to arrange for Queen Madin’s abduction, to cut the ground out from under Joyse at precisely the moment when I might be most exposed to counterattack.

  “You made that possible, my lady.” His head was turned toward her now, momentarily sparing her breasts. He was gloating, hardly able to contain his triumph. At that moment, he might have been willing to tell her anything. “You allowed me to perfect my plans against an opponent who may have proved worthier than he appeared.”

  As he spoke, her mind turned cold and sick. It was true: she had given King Joyse to his enemies.

  “You deserve Saddith’s fate for attempting to thwart me. But because I am grateful I will use only as much force as you require.”

  He laughed again – a snort of pleasure and contempt. Her senses were full of him. He smelled of sweat and confidence. “Gart wished to kill you when you left Vale House, but I did not allow it. Doubtless your death and Geraden’s would have been to our benefit. But then who would have taken the news of the Queen to King Joyse? How else could I arrange to master both you and Joyse at the same time, except by letting you live?

  “You have served me perfectly, despite your opposition.” His fingers continued to work between her legs. “My only regret is that I do not yet have Geraden in my power. That will come, however. I have said that I must think of something truly special to reward him for his interference, his dunderheaded enmity, and I will do it.

  “If you are compliant, my lady, you will live a life which many women would envy. But him” – Eremis’ fingers hurt her, nearly made her gasp – “him I will destroy.”

  “I doubt it,” she said, breathing hard to diffuse the pain. She was going to kill him. All she had to do was stay alive long enough. “He can do translations you don’t understand. Translations you didn’t even know were possible until he brought me to Orison.”

  For a moment, Eremis’ laugh sounded more like a snarl. “That is true. And it offends me. But again I have been abundantly forewarned. The Congery’s augury made me suspicious of Geraden. And Gilbur learned much while teaching him to shape his mirror. That allowed me to set in motion all the dangers and distractions which prevented both him and you from exploring your talents, learning what they were. And it allowed me to preserve the disregard in which he was held by the Masters, so that the Congery did not try to help you.

  “In that way, we gained a great deal of necessary time.

  “And now, of course, he is helpless. You cannot threaten me with his power. He can translate nothing he cannot see.”

  “I know that,” Terisa replied harshly – too harshly. She hadn’t intended to let so much of her fury show. “But you can’t see, either. You need light sometime – unless you’re planning to give up on Orison and Mordant and Alend, and spend the rest of your life just raping me.” She felt him grin over her. “And when you go out into the light” – she did her best to lodge each word like a knife in his vitals – “you’ll find that he knows too m
uch about you. He knows how you use flat mirrors without going mad.”

  Eremis’ reaction was stronger than she was expecting. He stiffened; his breath hissed between his teeth; his hand raked across her belly as if to hurt her breasts – or strike her face.

  “How is that, my lady?”

  Lying still, expressing defiance with her voice alone, she said, “You put the flat glass inside a curved one and work both translations at the same time.”

  As quickly as she had gained it, she lost her advantage. The Master relaxed tangibly; his fingers stroked her nipples while the tension ran out of him. “That is quite accurate,” he commented. “And I must say that I am impressed by Geraden’s ability to reason his way so near the truth. By now, however, Barsonage has discovered that the technique you describe is impossible. Glass translated through glass only shatters.

  “The true secret, my lady, lies in the oxidate which prepares the curved mirror. That is my discovery, the result of my sweat and study. I learned how to make a mirror into which other mirrors could be translated.”

  At the moment, her determination to kill him was all that kept her from despair. There simply wasn’t room in her for so much anger and the horror of seeing her last hope collapse.

  “Most of my fellow Masters,” Eremis continued, “would laugh themselves sick if they knew how I have spent my years as an Imager. And yet on my small discovery the world hinges. When I am done, all Mordant and Alend and Cadwal will be at my service, and even High King Festten will acknowledge me supreme.”

  The prospect filled him with passion. He began kissing Terisa again, and this time she could feel his hunger in the way his mouth nipped and sucked her nipples, the way his tongue thrust against them. His free hand was back inside her trousers, pulling them down, making her ready for him.

  If he had let her arms go – just for a second – she would have done her best to put his eyes out. In spite of his triumph, however, he didn’t shift the grip that kept her under control.

  She had no way to make him stop.

  She didn’t need to make him stop. Out of the dark, the unfamiliar, rattling voice said sourly, “Festten wants you.”

  Nearly choking with anger, Master Eremis sprang to his feet and wheeled away from Terisa. “Am I to be interrupted with her forever? She is mine, I tell you, and I have earned her. Festten does not command me!”

  The other voice conveyed a shrug. “He has twenty thousand men who believe otherwise. And he desires a report.”

  Her arms were free. She pulled them down, swung her legs off the bed, sat up; she tested the chain. It wasn’t long enough to let her reach Eremis. The cold cuff on her wrist held.

  “Report to him yourself,” Eremis countered. “Send Gilbur to report. Send Gart. I do not come and go to suit the High King.”

  “Eremis,” the rattling voice warned, “think. The High King trusts me. He has always trusted me. But he does not trust you. He accepts your leadership – he does as you wish – only because you obtain results which please him. You bring him nearer to victory than he has ever been.

  “But now you have risked a foray into the heart of Orison itself, and have accomplished nothing except Lebbick’s death and her capture. High King Festten considers that so far all his actions under your guidance have come to nothing. His only satisfaction has been the annihilation of the Perdon.

  “He desires a report.”

  “That sheepfucker,” growled Eremis in disgust. “A man who has lost his interest in women – a man who can only find pleasure in animals – is not fit for kingship.”

  Nevertheless his tone expressed acquiescence. Despite his anger and frustration, the Master left Terisa alone. Muttering obscenities to himself, he strode away through the dark.

  Because she wasn’t done – because she had never been further from surrender and wanted to know her enemy – she demanded after him sharply, “Why are you doing this?”

  He must have paused. His tone was at once hard and light; malign; jubilant.

  “Because I can.”

  Almost at once, she was sure that he was gone.

  For what felt like a long moment, she didn’t move. She had given King Joyse to his enemies. Queen Madin’s abduction was her fault. She had gone to Eremis in the dungeon and told him what he needed to know and let him command her to betray Geraden and how could she have been so stupid? And Geraden didn’t know the secret of the oxidate. He couldn’t fight the Master. He couldn’t find her in the dark.

  Hope was out of the question, really.

  Never mind that. She probably didn’t have room for hope anyway. Her yearning for Eremis’ blood was too big: it squeezed out everything else. It made the kind of concentration she needed impossible. She was powerless precisely because her ache for power was so intense.

  The chain left her room to move around the bed. Grimly, she pulled up her trousers, tied the sash tightly, and began to rebutton her shirt.

  “Unfortunate,” the rattling voice muttered.

  She froze.

  How many people were watching her – people she couldn’t see?

  “I see well without light. Darkness conceals no secrets from me. But opportunities to witness such nakedness have been rare in recent years.” The speaker’s voice sounded like pebbles on glass. “A woman with such proud breasts, and yet so full of fear. A tantalizing combination. And there is time. Eremis will be away for some little while. Festten will question him narrowly before allowing him to go ahead with his plans.”

  Terisa wanted to finish buttoning her shirt, but she couldn’t make her fingers work. How many people—? Until now, she had only been afraid of Eremis, not of the dark itself, not of the place where he had left her.

  “Sadly, however, Eremis does not like used meat. And I do not like any meat enough to risk my alliance with him. Hide your breasts – or flaunt them – as you choose.” She heard relish as well as scorn in the rattle. “They will not sway me.”

  As if she had been waiting for his permission, she fumbled at the fastenings of the shirt.

  At last, her eyes were adjusting to the dark. When she peered hard, she was able to discern the outlines of a figure near where she guessed the doorway to be. The voice came from that direction.

  Clenching her teeth for courage, she stood up and tested the chain.

  She was able to swing her arms before she came to its limit. Following it to its anchor, she found that it was stapled into the wall at the head of the bed – nearly ten feet of it, enough to let her perform almost any conceivable gymnastic feat on the bed, but not enough to let her evade the dim figure in the doorway. Nevertheless she was comforted to have that much range of motion. If everything else failed, she would at least have a chance to hit Master Eremis before he touched her again.

  Deliberately, she wrapped some of the chain around her fist to give it weight. She placed her back against the wall. Then she faced the figure with the rattling voice.

  “You’re Vagel.” She didn’t need confirmation: she was sure. “The famous arch-Imager. The man who drove Havelock mad. Why do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Put up with him. You call it an alliance, but he probably treats you like a servant. You’re the arch-Imager. The most powerful man anybody has ever heard of. Why are you serving him? Why isn’t it the other way around?”

  The outlines of the figure suggested a shrug. “Power,” he said like stones scattering against a mirror, “is more often a matter of position than of talent. He told you the truth, in a way. The whole world hinges on the little discovery which enables him to translate glass through glass. But that is not his real power.”

  “Really?” She couldn’t stifle her impulse to goad Vagel. She was too frightened and furious for any other approach. Apparently, Vagel had been listening – watching – while Eremis had her naked. “What is?”

  “His real power,” rattled the arch-Imager, “is that he is irreplaceable to all his allies – because of his talents, of course,
but also because of his position, in the Congery, in Orison. What access do I have to his resources, his freedoms? Gilbur, I grant you, has also been favorably placed. But there it is his talent which is replaceable. He is only swift – uncommonly swift – rather than brilliant. And he hates everyone too much to form bonds – everyone except Eremis.

  “No, Eremis’ real power is that he can have his way with anyone.

  “He has his way with me, although my Imagery far surpasses his – and although I am the link which allowed him to begin his dealings with Festten, years ago when he rescued me from renegade destitution among the Alend Lieges. He will have his way with Festten, despite the High King’s taste for absolute authority. He will have his way with you” – Vagel let out a malign chuckle – “until the only thing which prevents you from begging for death is that he does not let you speak.

  “He will even have his way with King Joyse in the end.” Now Vagel’s tone suggested hard things – broken things with sharp edges. “For that reason I do not care how utterly I serve him.”

  Unexpectedly, Terisa had stopped listening. The Alend Lieges. The way he said those words triggered a small leap of intuition, fitted an odd, minor detail into place. In surprise, she said, “Carrier pigeons.”

  Vagel was silent, as if she had startled him.

  “You’re the one who brought carrier pigeons here. You gave them to the Alend Lieges.”

  “Those mucky barons,” growled the arch-Imager. “Their squalor and their petty ambitions nearly drove me mad. They demanded – demande— Power. Imagery. I had to satisfy them to keep myself alive, me, the greatest Imager they had ever known. And yet they were satisfied with birds that could carry messages. I would have destroyed them long ago – I would have required that of Eremis – if they weren’t such little men.

  “For that also, for the humiliation they cost me, Joyse will suffer.”

  “Revenge,” Terisa muttered. Her attention shifted back to Vagel. “He and Havelock beat you back when you thought you were about to become the master of the world, and you can’t live with it. Now you don’t care who has the power. You don’t care how much Eremis humiliates you. All you care about is hurting the people who showed you you were wrong about yourself.