A Man Rides Through (103 page)

"Where did you go?" Geraden put in. Like Terisa, he appeared to have some special reason to be pleased by Myste's presence. Perhaps it was because he loved families. Not for the first time, Elega noticed that he had changed enormously. The sense of
ability
in him was unmistakable. In retrospect, she was ashamed that she had ever treated him with scorn.

Myste glanced a bit awkwardly at her father. "Elega told me what I needed to know," she said slowly. "When I heard the High King was marching, not to Orison, but into the Care of Tor, I felt that my way became clear. Darsint and I went to help the Perdon, if we could."

The Perdon, who fought a suicidal battle against the forces of Cadwal because his King had abandoned him.

'"I have always believed that problems should be solved by those who see them,'" Terisa said, quoting softly. Her eyes shone as if she, too, were proud of Myste.

King Joyse didn't react to the implications of what Myste and Terisa said, however. He only smiled at them, and at Elega, basking in their company. "That was well done, Myste," he murmured. "Go on."

His attitude relieved Myste. "There is little to tell, really," she said more easily. "We traveled as best we could, but the High King's army was between us and the Perdon. We were saving Darsint's fire, since we knew it would soon be depleted, so instead of attacking High King Festten from the rear we attempted to pass around him to the fore. By the time we succeeded, the Perdon had already been trapped and killed.

"That was a hard time for us. Seeing my distress"—her eyes were wide with fondness—"Darsint wanted to assail the Cadwals, to hurt them as much as he could alone." Darsint nodded. "But I felt certain that his force must not be wasted, and I required him to withhold. Together, we waited and watched, gathering as much knowledge of the High King's movements as we could without betraying our presence.

"When your army came, we were once again on the wrong side, unable to reach you directly. This time, however, our position was fortuitous. Circling the High King's forces, first to the south, then to the west, we encountered the Termigan and his men.

"Without him, we would not have been able to join you, except by a ruinous expenditure of Darsint's fire."

Geraden interrupted again. "Did he explain himself? When Terisa and I asked him to come, he refused." He looked to Terisa for confirmation. "He was pretty convincing about it."

Myste shook her head. "He told us only what he has already suggested to you. He held to Sternwall as long as he could, but at last the pits of fire in the ground left him nothing of his father's Seat. With what fighting men he could spare from the care of his people, he set out across-country to Esmerel, intending"—she faltered momentarily, then resumed in a quiet, sad tone—"intending, I think, to both use and end his hate in one swift blow against Master Eremis.

"I cannot truly vouch for the state of his mind," she added. "I can only say that he was not easily persuaded to join us, to join his purpose to ours."

"I've seen that look before," Darsint muttered. "Had his death all planned—until he met us. Now, who knows?" The champion may have shrugged inside his armor.

"It was not Darsint's presence that persuaded him," Myste continued. "He is savage against all Imagery. And I do not think he was moved by the knowledge that you were here." She faced her father frankly. "He is another lord who believes he was abandoned by his King. But for some reason your alliance with Alend changed him. He finds—Father, I must say this. I fear he finds his old enemies easier to trust."

A shadow passed across the King's face. "Who can blame him?"

Awkwardly, Myste finished her story. "Once he was persuaded, however, he did not hold back. Since then, we have spent our time searching for a way past the Cadwals which would spare Darsint's fire. Without the Termigan's aid, we could not have reached you as we did."

As she spoke, King Joyse's expression cleared. "That is well," he said when she was done. "If we are defeated, my lord Termigan will be able to do whatever he wishes with his hate. And if we are victorious, he will know that we could not have won without him. That may do much to heal him.

"In the meantime, daughter, you have brought us new hope. Did you know that your meeting with Darsint was augured?"

Elega looked at King Joyse sharply.
Augured?

Both Terisa and Geraden were grinning.

"Havelock cast an augury," Joyse explained, "in which you appeared, on your knees before Darsint as if you were begging him not to kill you."

Darsint shifted his weight uncomfortably. "She did kneel. I was hurt—out of my head. Couldn't get my eyes in focus. Everything was changed, enemies everywhere. Someone came, I fired. Nearly God-rotting killed her.

"Then I heard her voice. A woman. On her knees. Felt like shooting myself when I saw what I did to her."

Distinctly, as if he wanted no mistake on this point, he said, "She saved my life." There was a threat in his tone. He had no intention of letting Myste be harmed again.

For a moment, the King's blue eyes blurred. "When you disappeared from Orison," he continued to Myste, "I knew in my heart where you had gone—and I was afraid. That is why," he explained to Terisa, "I was so harsh with you, when I asked you to account for her absence. I could not resolve my fear of the truth.

"In fact," he went on, addressing Myste again, "when I first realized that the champion in Master Gilbur's glass was the same as the figure in Havelock's augury, I almost decided to shatter that glass. To spare you. So that Darsint would not be translated. Havelock had great difficulty dissuading me. Allowing that translation to take place—trusting the risks I had chosen—" His smile was sad and relieved and strong all at the same time. "That did not come easily. If I had let the Fayle urge me to stop the Congery, my determination might have faltered."

Geraden cleared his throat. "Adept Havelock tried to tell us about that augury—tried to tell Terisa. I'm still not sure why. All he managed to do at the time was scare us. But maybe he was trying to make us understand you better. As well as he could, in his condition—"

Dryly, King Joyse replied, "Perhaps. Don't underestimate him. At his worst, he's still the best hop-board player I know."

Without preamble, Terisa said, "There's got to be something we can do."

At once, the King shifted his attention to her. "My lady?"

"They're all here." She didn't seem to be speaking to him, or to anyone. Her eyes studied the air; her attention was inward. "All the pieces are in place. Myste and the champion. Elega and Prince Kragen. The Masters. Lebbick's army. He and the Perdon and the Tor all did what they were supposed to do before they were lost— sacrificed so the rest of us would come to this position. Even Torrent did her part. Everyone is doing what you want them to do, what you gave them the chance to do.

"Except Geraden and me."

Again, King Joyse asked softly, "My lady?"

No one else spoke. Geraden studied Terisa intently; Myste watched her with shining eyes.

"We've done what we can," Terisa said. "We helped bring about this position. But now we're useless. We might as well be pushed off the board."

Now she met King Joyse's gaze. "What do you want from us?"

He smiled at her as if she were wonderful. "My lady, I can beat the High King. I want you to defeat Master Eremis."

Before she could react—before Geraden or Elega or anyone else could say anything—Castellan Norge strode through the tent-flaps, unannounced and hurrying.

"My lord King," he said with as much urgency as his phlegmatic manner could convey, "you'll want to see this. Something's going to happen."

So quickly that he may have been trying to escape the questions Terisa and Geraden wanted to ask, King Joyse left his chair and followed the Castellan out of the tent.

Elega hesitated momentarily; she thought she ought to say something to Terisa and Geraden—or even to Myste and Darsint. But her heart was with her father, with the battle and Prince Kragen; she couldn't remain behind.

Outside, she hardly noticed that the rest of the people in the tent joined her only a moment later.

The valley was full of midmorning sunshine. Only midmorning, after all that had happened— Above the ramparts, the sky was immeasurably blue, as clean and complete as springtime. The air was turning subtly but unquestionably warmer, and under the sunlight the night's thick snowfall had gone slushy. Where the army had trampled the snow, a few small stretches of dark, wet dirt were beginning to appear. The stream down the center of the valley ran more loudly, taking in water from the snow-melt.

Like King Joyse and his companions around the pennon, every Mordant and Alend from the valley foot to Esmerel watched what could be seen of High King Festten's army.

The Cadwal forces appeared to be withdrawing.

No, not withdrawing: dividing. The High King parted his men into a new formation, half on either side with a space of clear ground between them as wide as the valley itself.

"Does he think he can lure us out there?" Norge inquired. "Does he think we're crazy enough to let him hit us from both sides?"

"No," King Joyse snapped, unintentionally brusque. "He is making room."

"Eremis is going to translate something," Terisa breathed to Geraden. "If I go down there, if I get close enough— If I can figure out the Image, the way I did at the crossroads, I might be able to break his mirror."

She wasn't talking to the King, but he heard her anyway. "You will not, my lady," he said at once. "If you fail, you will be the first victim. That risk is too great, even for me."

Geraden put his arm around her. He may have been trying to reassure her. Or maybe he was making sure she didn't sneak away.

Anticipation and dread knotted the atmosphere. King Joyse had said,
They will attempt something extravagant
— Everyone who had ever heard stories of the old wars knew that Imagers were capable of atrocities which could freeze blood in the heart.

Nevertheless when the next attack came no one was ready for it.

Because she was expecting something, concentrating hard, Terisa felt just a suggestion of the visceral cold of translation. Eremis' mirror was focused too far away to touch her strongly. She tightened her grip on Geraden.

In the clear space between the sides of the Cadwal army, a monster appeared.

She had seen it before. Every member of the Congery was familiar with it.

Huge eyes, insatiable and raging. Teeth dripping poison in a maw big enough to swallow houses. A vast, sluglike body. Slime-streaked sides.

Once, during the old wars, that beast had destroyed an entire village, eaten it hut by hut. The worm was too big to be killed, too big even to be hurt. Given time, it could have consumed anything. But King Joyse had captured the mirror from which the monster came, and Adept Havelock had translated the beast back to its cave in the Image.

Now Master Eremis had the mirror, and the beast was furious.

The creature gave a roar of hideous outrage, howling so fiercely that the walls of the valley rang. Then it slithered forward and began devouring the rubble that blocked High King Festten's approach, attacking the mounds as if piled rock offended it.

In spite of training and experience, determination and courage, the King's army broke into panic.

The monster's teeth among the rubble were as loud as detonations, inescapably destructive. Already the archers hidden in the mounds had to leap and run, risk snapping their legs or backs to get away. And when the rock was gone, the creature would enter the valley—

It would consume the entire army itself. Or it would drive guards and soldiers to the walls, where High King Festten's men could crush them at leisure. Or it would force them out of the valley, where the Cadwal army could fall on them from both sides.
Something extravagant
— This was extravagant, all right. But it wasn't desperate. It was a masterstroke, completely unanswerable; defeat as stark and terrible as the creature's teeth.

Helpless to save themselves, the Alend and Mordant ranks came apart like water and began spilling in all directions. Their cries were everywhere; hoarse and frantic; doomed.