A Man Rides Through (82 page)

One of the riders who held the roads was a standard-bearer with the Alend Monarch's green-and-red pennon.

A cold wind came up out of the south, out of Tor, making the pennon flutter and snap like a challenge.

The standard-bearer held no flag of truce.

As always, however, Prince Kragen's men avoided the intersection where the roads came together. This created a gap in the Alend line, as if Kragen intended to let Orison's guard through.

The Tor spoke to Norge; Norge muttered a command Terisa didn't hear. At the head of the guard, King Joyse's plain purple insignia was raised.

Maybe Prince Kragen would think the King had returned.

Maybe he would reconsider.

Terisa gripped her reins with icy hands and prepared to nudge her nag into motion. Geraden held his head up as though he were waiting for sunrise. Ribuld scratched at his scar as if it itched in the chill, an old wound remembering pain.

Snorting steam, shaking their heads, rattling their tack, crunching the crusted mud, the horses began to follow the Tor and Castellan Norge.

Artagel still had his back to the Alends. By holding his mount stationary, he sifted through the vanguard until he was directly in front of Terisa and Geraden—until he came between them, forcing them to stop. As she had feared, he was wearing Lebbick's old, bloody mail over his shirt and leggings, Lebbick's purple sash and headband. The sword belted to his hip looked so dark and grim that it must have belonged to the dead Castellan.

When he was dressed like that, she was afraid of what he might do.

At the moment, however, he didn't do anything fearful. He clasped his brother's shoulder; without quite managing to smile, he said, "Take care of yourself. Take care of her. Rescue Nyle. This family has already suffered enough."

Geraden replied with a grin that looked like it belonged to Artagel.

Artagel turned to Terisa. Striving to appear ready and whole— perhaps for her benefit, perhaps for his own—he said stiffly, "Don't make a liar out of me now, my lady."

"A liar—" she repeated as if the cold numbed her mouth. She had no idea what he was talking about.

"I've told half the men and women in Orison you can shift Eremis' mirrors so they won't translate here." He watched her, studied her, like a man who didn't want to get caught pleading. "The Tor is heading straight for the place where the Perdon and his men were attacked."

Terisa thought her heart was going to stop.

The mirror which had brought those ravening black spots down on the Perdon and his men out of nowhere— Shapes no bigger than puppies, and yet as fatal as wolves—

She had forgotten it. Forgotten, forgotten.

Geraden winced. "Terisa—" he started to say. "Terisa—"

"Stop him," she said, gasping gouts of steam.
"Stop him.
I need time to think."

Instantly, Artagel wheeled his mount and plunged through the press of horses, chasing after the Tor.

—
gnarled, round shapes with four limbs outstretched like grappling hooks and terrible jaws that occupied more than half the body
—

The idea shocked her to the marrow, revolted her. The same creatures had attacked her and Geraden outside Sternwall—but that was different; then they had attacked completely by surprise, without time for panic or nausea. This time— The Tor and Castellan Norge were effectively defenseless. If they met Prince Kragen in the intersection, all the leaders of the armies could be struck at once. How had she
forgotten ?

Artagel had told everyone that she could
shift Eremis' mirrors.

Outside the gates, Artagel caught up with the Tor and Norge, spoke to them urgently. Master Barsonage brought his horse up between Terisa and Geraden. "What is amiss?" he asked. "I was unable to hear."

Geraden overrode the mediator. "Why hasn't he used it already? If he still has that mirror set up—if it's ready—why hasn't he used it before this? He could bring anything through. Even if he didn't hurt us, he could cripple the Alends, maybe even kill Prince Kragen—or the Alend Monarch."

"Because he didn't need it then." Terisa wasn't thinking about what she said; the words seemed to come out by themselves, reasoned into clarity by a separate part of her mind. "He needed time to set his traps, time to spring them. He needed time to get Festten's army in position^"time to get rid of the Perdon, time to make all his mirrors." The rest of her brain blundered helplessly around the edges of the promise Artagel had made in her name. "But we let him do all that safely. Prince Kragen held off—he
held off
from trying to take Orison. Nobody interfered with what Eremis was doing. So he didn't need to use this mirror. He could afford to leave Alend alone."

Geraden nodded harshly. "I understand.
Now
it's time.
Now
he needs it. We're moving. His traps are ready. He's got everything he wanted except you. He can't beat us with just one mirror. Even a few hundred of those black spots can't beat an army this size. An avalanche can't. Firecats can't. But if he can hurt us now—if he can kill the Tor, or Norge, or Prince Kragen—he can damage us terribly."

"Then we will foil him simply," put in Master Barsonage. "We will turn from the road. We will pass outside his mirror's range of focus."

Geraden nodded again, rose up in his stirrups to shout to Artagel. But Terisa said at once, "No!"

Master Barsonage and Geraden stared at her.

No. Oh, curse it. What was she
thinking?
This was insane.

"Artagel told everyone I can shift Eremis' mirrors." But that wasn't what she meant to say, that wasn't the point. She tried again. "This is a trap. We need to stick our heads in it. We need to spring it the other way. Isn't that why we're marching in the first place? Isn't that what we decided?"

Ahead of the guard, the Tor and Norge had stopped. Artagel had finished explaining what was on his mind. In the gray dawn, the Tor looked strangely sunken, irresolute, as if he were torn between the desire to flee and the necessity of marching. Kicking his mount, Artagel started back toward Terisa and Geraden.

"Eremis wants to scare us," she said while her thoughts throbbed like her heart. "He wants to make us doubt ourselves.

"We should try doing the same thing to him."

"What do you mean, my lady?" asked Master Barsonage, nearly whispering.

"She means," Geraden snarled back as though she appalled him, "she thinks she ought to do it. Stick her head in the trap." He had to swallow fiercely to clear his throat. "Shift Eremis' mirror so he can't use it."

"Impossible," protested the mediator. "Is it not true that she has never seen the mirror which shows the place where those fatal creatures are found? And how can we be sure that Master Eremis does not intend to translate some other evil against us? And—?"

"Not that mirror," Geraden snapped, controlling his alarm with anger. "The flat one. The one that shows the intersection.

"No." Now he was speaking to Terisa, speaking so intensely that his words seemed to burn. "What makes it impossible is the vantage, the direction. We know what the Image is, but we don't know what side it's seen from, what the perspective is. You can't shift an Image if you can't identify it first, see it exactly in your mind."

He was saying, Don't do this,
don't do this.

"I've got to try." As if that were an explanation, she said, "Artagel promised." But the stricken look on Geraden's face demanded better. She made another effort. "I don't really know how far my talent goes. I haven't had very many chances to explore it. We're counting on the idea that I have power we can use, but we don't really know what we're counting on. And the closer we get to Esmerel, the more dangerous everything is. I've got to try."

Geraden clearly wanted to argue, shout. Deliberately, she went on, "We're staking everything on the hope that King Joyse didn't abandon us. He
trusted
us—he
trusts
us to make his plans work while he's away." She had the distinct impression that she was completely out of her mind. "If we aren't going to at least make the attempt, we might as well stay here."

For one painful moment, Geraden's expression turned to bleak, bitter iron. But then his lips pulled back into a fighting grimace. "I'm coming with you."

"No, you aren't," Terisa countered before Master Barsonage could object. "We can't afford to risk both of us."

"If you think I'm going to let you do this alone—" Geraden began.

She wasn't listening to him: she had already hauled on her reins, dug her heels into the nag's sides. As if she were unaware of her own quickness and had never considered the possibility that she wouldn't be obeyed, she commanded, "Stop him, Ribuld. Keep him here," and started to forge among the riders toward Artagel, the Tor, and Castellan Norge.

Ribuld caught Geraden by the strap of his swordbelt and neatly plucked him off his horse. While Geraden sputtered in outrage, Ribuld wrestled with him. Geraden was tougher than he appeared, nearly frantic as well: he managed to unseat Ribuld. They fell together into the mud. But Geraden couldn't break away.

Terisa reached Artagel.

"I need protection," she panted; her own strange audacity took her breath away. "Eremis won't miss a chance to attack when he sees me in his mirror. Somebody's got to keep me alive so I can work."

Artagel's excitement shone as brightly as Geraden's frenzy. Calling men after him, he wheeled his mount and began clearing a path for her.

They reached the Tor and Norge and rode past with six more guards behind them, hurrying now so that she wouldn't have time to lose her nerve—so that she wouldn't be infected by the Tor's slumped irresolution.

While she rushed toward the intersection, she tried to clear her mind, make herself ready.

This decisive urgency was different than the rage which sometimes blocked her. It was full of fear—and fear lead to fading—and fading led to translation. The first thing she needed was an alternative Image, a place she could shift Eremis' glass
to.
As soon as she recognized that necessity, however, her mind filled up with scenes which couldn't bear attack: the Closed Fist; rooms and halls in Orison; Sternwall; Vale House. She had to thrust them away, get them out of her thoughts before she did something terrible unintentionally. If only she had seen any part of Esmerel accurately, she could have used it—or tried to use it—to hurl Eremis' attack back against him.

He had cleverly avoided that danger.

Was his foresight really that good? Was he ready for her now?

A squad of Alend horse rode into the intersection, intending either to meet or to stop her. Artagel stretched his mount a few strides ahead and began yelling at the Alends, warning them away. She caught a glimpse of Prince Kragen, saw him react without hesitation, shout his men back.

Around her, the trees seemed to skid into focus past the bare ground leading from Orison. She had only been here on one previous occasion: the day Geraden had caught Nyle, dooming him to Master Eremis. And the ground then had been still covered with snow, the trees still black, leafless. And beyond the intersection had been cold, ice-caked snow, not an army of Alends.

Sawing inexpertly on the reins, she brought her horse to a halt. At once, Artagel and his companions formed a defensive cordon around her; instinctively, they faced the Alends with their swords drawn, as if the danger came from Prince Kragen's soldiers.

Her pulse straining and her head giddy, she did her best to ignore the men, the horses, the swords. A number of the Alends sat their mounts with their spears levelled—
ignore
that. She needed
time,
time to see the place vividly as it was now, time to consider it from as many different angles as possible; time to prepare herself for the Image which had to be shifted.

Unfortunately, her enemies weren't stupid. And her disappearance from Eremis' cell had given them at least a hint of her true talents. Either she had effected her escape herself, or she possessed some kind of link with Geraden which had enabled him to locate and translate her in the dark. In either case, she was a dangerous opponent.