A Man Rides Through (65 page)

"The story is that she went to his bed, the night after the lady Terisa's disappearance. She said that she grieved for him in his distress and wished to comfort him. Those who were willing to doubt her—and they were few after the extent of her injuries became known—said that she offered herself to him so that he would elevate her above the position of a chambermaid."

Again, Geraden wanted to explode. "And
that
didn't warn you?" he snapped. "It didn't make you suspicious at all? Didn't you remember she was Eremis' lover? I told you that. I
told
you he's been using her. Didn't it ever occur to you that he might have sent her to Lebbick? What have you done with your
mind?"

"Geraden." Master Barsonage's face turned hard; his eyes glittered. "You are no longer an Apt. No one could deny that you have become an Imager. Yet I remain the mediator of the Congery. I expect your respect.

"I have admitted my fault. I did not foresee the danger to your glass. In other matters, however, I have not earned your anger."

With difficulty, Geraden restrained himself. "I'm sorry," he gritted, unable to unclench his jaws. "I didn't mean to offend you. I'm just terrified for Terisa." At once, he went on, "Do you mean you
were
suspicious of Eremis? What did you do?"

The mediator studied Geraden for a moment, then apparently decided to let himself be mollified. Shrugging again, he replied, "The relationship between Master Eremis and the maid was of interest to me, naturally. But it was a matter of inference only—hardly a demonstration of treachery. And his public display of loyalty was impressive. I might," he admitted wryly, "have dismissed my suspicions, inevitable though they were.

"However, your brother Artagel came to speak with me—"

Geraden held himself still, waiting.

"After the lady Terisa's show of talent," Master Barsonage explained, "the Congery at last went to work with a will, showing the kind of dedication King Joyse has always wanted. Respecting the strictures he had placed upon us from the first, we began to search for tools of defense, ways in which we might preserve Orison, or even Mordant—methods to oppose or assist you and the lady Terisa when we learned the truth about you."

Half-smiling, the mediator digressed to say, "Prince Kragen seemed on the verge of breaking Orison's gates when you distracted him. I can assure you, however, that he would not have been able to enter this castle without my consent."

Then he resumed, "In this work, Master Eremis at first took no part. He was assumed to be resting after the exertion of refilling the reservoir."

Geraden held his breath.

"The day after the riot, however, he came to me to announce that he was ready to take up his duties among the Congery.

"He could not know that I had had a long conversation with Artagel several days previously.

"Artagel informed me that—despite his own evidence—Castellan Lebbick was now convinced of your innocence. He was convinced of Master Eremis' guilt. And his reasoning was persuasive. From Artagel, it was very persuasive."

Master Barsonage sighed. "Unfortunately, Geraden, there was no proof. There was no basis on which Master Eremis could be accused, no way it could be shown that the man who had saved us from Alend had done so for Cadwal's benefit rather than our own.

"Therefore I could not turn against him. I could not so much as deny him his place in the Congery, for fear that he would be alerted to my distrust. And yet I also could not further expose the Congery to his betrayal.

"Geraden, I have not served you well—but I have served the King better. I concealed the Congery's true work from Master Eremis. I lied to him about it. I allowed him to see no sign of it, play no part in it. He does not know how well prepared we are to assist in the defense of Orison."

Geraden cleared his lungs slowly. His head was clear, and a number of things seemed to be growing clearer around him. After all, there was really no way Master Barsonage could have predicted that Eremis would use Saddith to start a riot in order to cover up an attack on his, Geraden's mirror. But to keep the Congery's work secret—to do practical labor on Orison's behalf without allowing the knowledge to fall into Eremis' hands— That was well done.

And Artagel trusted him, trusted Terisa. Even Castellan Lebbick had trusted both of them, despite Master Eremis' manipulations.

There was hope. He didn't know what it was yet, but he had the strongest feeling—

"What did you tell him?" he asked the mediator softly. "What kind of lie did he believe?"

Unexpectedly, Master Barsonage smiled—a grin so sharp it seemed almost bloodthirsty. "I told him that we have dedicated all our resources to discovering how our enemies are able to make use of flat mirrors without going mad."

A muscle twitched in Geraden's cheek. Yes, that was a lie which would be believed by anyone who was convinced of the Congery's fundamental ineffectuality. "Wasn't that true?" he asked.

The lift of the mediator's shoulders was like his grin. "There was truth in it. I have asked two of the Masters to concentrate on that question. The rest of us, however, have been laboring for more immediate results."

Geraden felt his courage coming back to him, his hope growing stronger. "Good," he pronounced.

"How did Eremis react?"

"He offered his help." As he spoke, Barsonage lost his look of fierceness; it faded into a more familiar bafflement. "In fact, he proposed the most plausible theory I have ever heard. He suggested that the translations are done, not with one mirror, but with two. A flat glass is placed in the Image of another mirror, and then both translations are enacted simultaneously, so that the flat mirror functions like a curved one and therefore doesn't exact the usual penalty."

"He told you
that?"
Geraden was startled; his still-fragile self-confidence flinched. "Then it must be wrong." His own theory must be wrong.

"It is," sighed Master Barsonage. "Did you know that translation pulverizes glass? I did not. Yet it is true. We have attempted Master Eremis' suggestion three times, and each time the flat mirror was reduced to powder as it passed into the Image of the curved mirror."

"Glass and splinters!" Geraden groaned. This was too much: he was wrong again; everything he thought he understood was wrong; Eremis was too far ahead of him. Hope was nonsense. He couldn't hold his head up, face the older Imager. There was nothing he could do to save Terisa.

"This surprises you," observed the mediator thoughtfully. "Not Master Eremis' suggestion, but rather its failure surprises you. Geraden, you amaze me. You had already considered this idea for yourself, when no other member of the Congery had so much as imagined it."

Eremis was playing with him, playing with all of them, using them in an elaborate and insidious game they couldn't win, a game from which they couldn't even escape because they didn't know the rules. Like Prince Kragen in his audience with King Joyse, forced to play hop-board. At the mercy of his opponent.

But Master Barsonage was still speaking. "You have disguised yourself for years as Geraden fumblefoot," he said in a tone of admiration, "and now at last I learn that your talent is prodigious. You are able to do translations which diverge from the Image in your mirror. Ideas which astonish us are familiar to you.

"Is there more, Geraden? Does your talent encompass other wonders as well?"

Geraden hardly heard the mediator. He was thinking, Oh, prodigious. Absolutely. They tremble when I walk into the room.

He was thinking, A riot against Castellan Lebbick.

Eremis wanted to preserve Orison for Cadwal. And no man could defend the castle better than Lebbick. And yet Eremis had sent his own lover to get beaten nearly to death, simply to generate a grievance against Lebbick, simply to make a riot possible, simply to make it possible for a riot to enter the laborium, so that Geraden's mirror could be destroyed. All that risk for nothing except to dispose of Geraden's only weapon.

Were Eremis and Gilbur and Vagel really that badly afraid of him?

It sounded ridiculous. But—

He took hold of himself, did his best to steady his heart.

But they knew his talent better than he did. Why else had they gone to such lengths to distract him, confuse him, demean him, kill him? Master Gilbur had guided—and studied—every moment of his mirror-making.

They knew his talent better than he did.

They feared it for reasons he didn't yet understand.

The same kind of argument had helped move him into action while Houseldon burned—and yet he had made no progress toward understanding it. Why had Eremis needed to attack Houseldon? Or Sternwall, for that matter? Why wasn't the destruction of Geraden's only mirror enough?

Suddenly—so suddenly that he couldn't pretend he had been listening to the mediator—Geraden said, "Havelock."

Master Barsonage blinked. "Havelock?"

"He's got all those mirrors." Geraden was already on his way toward the door. "Come on."

Mirrors which had helped Terisa escape from Gilbur. Mirrors which didn't belong to any Imager except the Adept—mirrors Geraden could take chances with.

Outside the mediator's quarters, he began to hurry; in a moment, he was almost running. Nevertheless Master Barsonage caught him, got a heavy hand on his arm and slowed him to a fast walk.

"What do you hope to accomplish with the Adept's mirrors? Will he permit you to touch them?"

A manic laugh burst from Geraden. "Oh, he'll let me touch them. He is certainly going to let me touch them."

Moving as rapidly as he could with Master Barsonage clasped on his arm, and refusing to answer the mediator's first question, refusing even to think about it for fear that the possibilities would evaporate if he did, he headed toward the lower levels of Orison, down toward the only entrance he knew of to Adept Havelock's personal domain.

During his one previous visit there, the circumstances had been very different. For one thing, Orison's extra inhabitants hadn't arrived yet; the depths of the castle had been deserted. And for another, he hadn't been paying particularly close attention: most of his mind had been focused on Artagel, suffering from a chestful of corrosive black vapor. As a result, he was momentarily flustered by the realization that he now didn't know how to get where he was going.

Fortunately, Master Barsonage knew.

At least some of the Adept's secrets had been exposed when Castellan Lebbick had followed Master Gilbur and Terisa into the room where Havelock kept his mirrors. As a matter of course, the Castellan's discovery had eventually been reported to the mediator of the Congery. And Master Barsonage had gone so far as to visit that room full of mirrors himself, in part to see it with his own eyes, in part to make one more painful and ultimately futile effort to communicate with the Adept—specifically, to persuade Havelock that the Congery as a whole should be given access to these mirrors.

The memory caused Master Barsonage to shudder whenever he thought of it. Adept Havelock had responded with a gracious bow, had taken his hand as if to congratulate him, had kissed each of his fingers like a lover—and while Barsonage was distracted by this odd performance, Havelock had urinated on his feet.

Occasionally, Master Barsonage dreamed of beating the Adept senseless. Although he would never have admitted having them, he enjoyed those dreams.

Nevertheless he didn't hesitate to take Geraden to the Adept's quarters.

He and Geraden approached through the storeroom full of empty crates—crates, apparently, in which Havelock's mirrors had been brought to Orison. A door in a niche at the back of the room let them into a short passage. Unexpectedly, Geraden stopped.

Pointing at the impressive array of bolts and bars inside the door, he asked, "Doesn't he ever lock this place? Does he let people just walk in whenever they want?"

Master Barsonage sniffed in distaste. "I cannot say. I have come here three times. Twice the door was sealed, and he would not open it to me. Perhaps he did not hear me. The third time, the door was open. I found him snoring in his bed. And when I roused him, he was"—Barsonage grimaced—"unpleasant."