A Man Rides Through (17 page)

Because she was moving by instinct rather than conscious thought, she didn't remember the possibility that the hidden door might be bolted until she found it open. Master Quillon had probably left it that way. He had probably intended to bring her here himself. Weak with relief and need, she opened the door and hurried into the lighted passage which led to Havelock's domain.

The first room she came to was cluttered with mirrors.

Nothing had changed since her last visit here. The disarray was composed of full-length mirrors so uneven in shape and color that they showed Images she couldn't begin to interpret; bits of flat glass that would have fit in her pocket; mirrors the right size for a dressing table, but piled on top of each other and scattered as if to keep anyone from seeing what they showed. All of them had been gleaned by King Joyse during his wars and never restored to the Congery; all of them were set in rich or loving frames which belied the neglect of their present circumstances. And all of them were useless. The Imagers who had made them were dead.

They didn't have anything to do with her. She rushed past them.

The passage took two or three turns, but she didn't lose her way. In a moment, she reached another door. She thought she could hear Master Gilbur still pounding to get into the storeroom—or perhaps the sound was simply caused by panic beating in her ears— so she pulled the door open and stumbled into the large, square chamber which Adept Havelock used as a study, and which gave him access to Orison's networks of secret passages.

The air was musty, disused—something had gone wrong with the ventilation. There were too many people in the castle. Smoke from lamps with wicks that needed trimming curled lazily around the pillar which held up the center of the ceiling.

The Adept was there, lurking in his madness like a spider.

Master Quillon had asked Terisa to believe that Havelock had helped King Joyse plan the destruction of Mordant. Quillon had expected her to believe it—expected her to believe that the old Adept's insanity didn't prevent him from wisdom or cunning. And perhaps her dead rescuer was right. Perhaps only a madman like Havelock could have conceived a strategy which relied for its sole chance of success on Castellan Lebbick's stability.

Nevertheless Terisa had nowhere else to turn now. Surely Quillon would have brought her here, if he had lived. The Adept had to help her. He had helped her in the past. He had tried to answer her questions. And Master Gilbur might catch up with her at any moment. He might kill the Adept as well, if he got the opportunity. And the Castellan was still after her.

"Havelock!" she gasped, wracking her lungs to force out words, "Gilbur killed Master Quillon. He's after me. I need help. You've got to help me."

Got to. As soon as she stopped running, she knew that she wouldn't be able to stay on her feet much longer.

The Adept stood beside his hop-board table, hunching over it as if he had a game in progress, studying the board intently even though there were no men on it. He didn't look up until she spoke; then, however, he raised his head and smiled amiably. Smoke eddied around him. One eye considered her casually; the other began a scrutiny of the wall behind her.

"My lady Terisa of Morgan," he said in a tone of loopy mildness. "What a pleasant surprise. Fornicate you between the eyes. I trust you are well?"

"Havelock,"
she insisted. "Listen to me. I need help. Gilbur killed Master Quillon. He's right behind me."

The Adept's smile showed his teeth. "I'm glad to hear it," he replied as if she had just indulged in a pleasantry. "You certainly
look
well. Rest and peace do wonders for the female complexion.

"Now, tell me what you would like to know. I'm completely at your service today."

Horror welled up in her; she could hardly control it. The strain of defending Orison had finished him. He was gone, entirely out of touch with sanity. The air was too thick to give her lungs any relief. Quillon had been killed, and she was going to be killed, and the Adept himself was probably going to be killed. She didn't know how to get through to him. Nearly weeping, she cried, "Don't you understand? Can't you hear me?
Gilbur just killed Master Quillon.
He's coming
here."

Abruptly, he switched eyes, regarded her with the orb which had been staring at the wall. His nose cut the air like the beak of a hawk. On the other hand, his fleshy smile didn't waver.

"My lady Terisa of Morgan," he said again, "it would be my very great pleasure to rip the rest of your clothes off and throw you in a pigsty. Today I can answer questions. Ask me anything you want.

"But," he commented as if this particular detail were trivial, "I can't help you. Not today."

She stopped and stared at him, almost retching for air and aid. I can't help you. Not today.

Oh, Quillon!

"Almost everybody," he went on in the same tone of relaxed good cheer, "wants to know why I burned up that creature of Imagery who tried to get Geraden. Timing, that's the answer. Good timing. It doesn't matter what you look like. It doesn't even matter what you smell like. Anybody will lick your ass if you've got good timing. We weren't ready. If Lebbick found out who our enemies are from that creature, it would all collapse. We wouldn't be weak enough to defend ourselves."

"Havelock!"
Terisa wanted to hit him, curse at him, tear her hair. "Master Quillon was
your friend.'
Gilbur just killed him! Don't you even
care?"

Without transition, Adept Havelock passed from amiable lunacy to wild fury. "Cunt!" With a roar, he brandished his right hand, pinching the fingers together as if he held a checker. "This is you!" Wheeling to the table, he banged his hand down on the board several times, jumping imaginary pieces; then he mimed flinging his checker savagely into the corner of the room. "Gone! Do you understand me?
Gone!

"Don't you think I
want
to be sane? Don't you think I
want
to help? He was the only one who knew how to help
me.
But I used it all up! This morning—against those catapults!
I used it all up!"

Dumb with shock, Terisa gaped at him. He was too far gone. She didn't know how to reach him.

An instant later, however, his rage disappeared as suddenly as it had come. Both his eyes seemed to grow glassy with sorrow, and he turned his back on her slowly. "Today I can't help you," he murmured to the blank checkerboard. "Go deal with Gilbur yourself."

He lowered himself into a chair near the table. His shoulders began to shake, and a high, small whine came from his clenched throat. After a moment, Terisa realized that he was sobbing.

Lost and numb, she left him alone there and went to deal with Gilbur herself.

She was so sick with dread and dismay and grief that she didn't even wince when she heard the Adept bolting his door after her, locking her away from any possibility of escape.

Like a sleepwalker—like a woman trying to locate herself, discover who she was, in a glass made from the pure sand of dreams— she returned to the room where Havelock kept his mirrors.

Master Gilbur was already there.

He didn't notice her. He was too full of wonder at what he had found: mirrors he had never known existed, dozens of them; a priceless treasure for any Imager with the talent to use them, any Adept. She could have tried to hide. The look on his face made her think that it might even be possible to sneak past him. He was so caught up in what he was seeing—

With a forlorn shrug, she took one of the small mirrors stacked on a trestle table near her and tossed it to the floor so that it shattered in all directions.

A cloud of dust billowed from the impact, softening the sound. The whole room was thick in dust; the mirrors apparently hadn't been cleaned in decades.

Nevertheless the sound of breakage got his attention. He jerked around to face her, raised his massive fists. His eyes burned; fury seemed to fume from his beard. "You dare!" he coughed. "You dare to destroy such wealth, such power! For that, I will not simply kill you. I will hack you apart."

"No, you won't." To her astonishment, her voice was steady. Perhaps she was too numb to be afraid any longer. As if she did this kind of thing all the time, she put the trestle table between them so that it blocked his approach. "If you take one step toward me, I'll break another mirror. Every time you do anything to threaten me, I'll break another mirror. Maybe I'll break everything here before you get your hands on me."

Numbness was a good start. It led to fading. She could stand here and confront Master Gilbur with all his hate like a woman full of courage—and at the same time she could go away, evaporate from in front of him. Give up her existence and follow mist and smoke to safety. By the time he got his hands on her—she knew he was going to get his hands on her somehow—she would be gone.

And in the meantime she might delay him long enough—

"You would not!" protested Gilbur, momentarily surprised out of his rage.

Terisa picked up another mirror and measured the distance to the Master's head. "Try me."

Numbness. Fading.

Time.

"No, my lady." His features gathered into their familiar scowl. He was breathing heavily, as if his back pained him.
"You
try
me.
All this glass is beyond price—in the abstract. In practice, it is useless. A mirror can only be used by the man who made it. There are new talents in the world, and mine is one of them. I can make mirrors with a speed and accuracy which would astound the Congery, if those pompous fools only knew of it. But only an Adept has the talent to work translations with a glass he did not make.

"If you believe I will not kill you, you are stupid as well as foolish."

He took a step toward her.

She threw the glass at him and snatched up another.

The delicate tinkling noise of broken glass shrouded by dust filled the room.

He halted.

"Maybe nobody except Havelock actually has that talent," she said, nobody except Havelock, for all the good that did her, "but you think you might be able to learn it. It might be a skill, not a talent. You've never had a chance to find out the truth because other Imagers won't let you experiment with their mirrors. With these, you could do all the experimenting you want. You could learn anything there is to learn."

Fading. Time. With her peripheral vision, she picked out the mirror she wanted—a flat glass in a rosewood frame, nearly as tall as she was. Through a layer of dust, its Image showed a bare sand dune, nothing else. Somewhere in Cadwal, she guessed. One of the less hospitable portions of High King Festten's land. In the Image, the wind was blowing hard enough to raise sand from the dune like steam.

Carefully, she edged toward it.

"But I'm not going to let you have them," she continued without pausing. "Not if you try to get me."

Master Gilbur faced her as if he ached to leap for her throat. One hand clutched his dagger; the other curled in anticipation. He restrained himself, however. "A clever point," he snarled. "You are cleverer than I thought. But it is futile. You cannot leave this room without coming within my reach. Or without moving out of reach of the mirrors. In either case, I will cut you down instantly. What do you hope to gain?"

Time. It was amazing how little fear she felt. Her substance was leaching away before his eyes, and he was blind to it. Now she could ease herself into the dark whenever she wished, and then there would be nothing he could do to hurt her. Nothing that would make any difference. All she wanted was time.

She took another small step toward the glass she had chosen.

Then she went still because she thought she heard boots.

"I'm not greedy." Now her voice tried to shake, but she didn't let it. Instead, she began to speak louder, doing what she could to hold the Master's attention. "I don't want much. I just want to frustrate you.

"You and Eremis are so arrogant— You manipulate, you kill. You don't have the slightest interest in what happens to the people you hurt. You're
sick
with arrogance. It's worth breaking a few mirrors just to upset you."