Rages he had never felt, needs he had never understood, lusts he had never imagined; loathsome things, destructive things; fears so inarticulate and consuming that they deformed the Master’s essential being.
Long years ago, before King Joyse brought him to the Congery, Gilbur had been an Imager living alone in the Armigite hills, interested only in his own researches. But he had been attacked; and in the struggle the roof of his cave had fallen on him, pinning him under a block of stone. He had lain there for hours or days until Eremis had rescued him.
During that time, he had suffered like the damned.
Excruciating pain in the long, lonely dark; a horror of death elevated to agony by every terrible fear he could imagine; screams no one would ever hear, even though they went on for the rest of his life.
He had come through that experience mangled in spirit as well as in body. It had made him who he was: hungry and violent; eager for power; devoted to Eremis. Many times since joining the Congery, he would have gone amok, if he hadn’t been restrained by Eremis’ presence – or crippled by the suspicion that it was Eremis who had attacked him in the first place. Now he hurled all his twisted needs and desires into his translation; hurled them all at Geraden.
They should have been enough to make Geraden quail. But they weren’t. In an odd, unforeseen way, he was prepared for them.
He, too, had once been buried alive, under the rubble of Darsint’s escape from Orison. He had tasted pain and horror, hopeless suffocation. And now, as then, other people’s needs were more important to him than his own.
If Gilbur’s translation succeeded, Terisa and Artagel and Nyle would die. Everyone in and around the stronghold would probably die. Without the help Geraden and Terisa could give, King Joyse might die, taking Mordant and eventually Alend with him.
So Geraden ignored the harsh anguish Gilbur sent at him. He closed his mind to his visceral fear of trembling stone. He shut the wolves out of his awareness.
Will-to-will, he met Master Gilbur’s madness and held the mirror, sealing the glass in the onset of translation, keeping the earthquake back.
That was Gilbur’s chance. If he had let go of the mirror then and used his dagger, he could have killed Geraden almost without effort.
But he didn’t let go. Maybe he couldn’t. Or maybe somewhere down at the bottom of his heart he wanted to be stopped. Whatever the reason, he clung to the glass frame, clung to his translation, and tried to make his hate stronger than Geraden’s determination.
In the end, it wasn’t his hate that failed him: it was his body. Without warning, while he strained and raged, a pain as heavy as a spear drove through the center of his chest.
He blanched; his hands slipped from the mirror; involuntarily, he clutched at his heart. Slowly, his jaw dropped, and his eyes began to gape. Reaching for air he could no longer find, he stumbled to his knees as if the ground had been cut out from under him.
His whole face twisted as if he wanted to curse Geraden before he died. But he had lost his chance. He was already dead as he toppled to the stone.
The wolves would have killed Geraden then. He was too shaken to defend himself, too deeply shocked. Artagel and Nyle arrived in time to save him, however. Artagel was exhausted, of course, hardly able to lift his arms; but he had Gart’s sword, and it seemed to give him strength. And Nyle swung his chains crazily, which made one or two of the wolves hesitate, giving Artagel the opportunity to dispatch them.
The three brothers hugged each other long and hard before they went to look for Terisa.
“No.” Master Eremis caught her by the wrist and pulled her hand away from him. “Not yet. I am not ready to trust you.” But he was ready to do everything else to her. “I have not forgotten that you once kicked me.”
She continued to gaze at him as if he hadn’t spoken. The combination of hunger and absence in her eyes didn’t change.
Again, he wondered what she had hidden away in the secret places of her heart. Was that where she kept her fear? Or did she still have surprises left in her?
He was ready for everything about her, ready to take away everything she had. Before he was done, she would confess her secrets, all of them, she would give him everything about herself, hoping that it would save her. But nothing would save her. He was going to take all she had and leave her empty.
Now, however, she wasn’t looking at him any longer. Her attention had returned to the mirror.
Kragen still held his ground, blocked the right side of the valley with more success than Eremis had expected from him; but the defense to the left continued crumbling. The forces of Alend and Mordant seemed to dissolve under the Cadwal charge. Hurrying to take advantage of this opportunity, the Cadwals gathered speed.
High King Festten followed them, bringing all his reinforcements to that side. In moments, Festten himself rode past the dead length of the slug-beast, entering the valley at a hard canter.
As soon as the High King was in reach, Joyse struck. With the third portion of his army, he came down the valley like a hammer and smashed into the front of the charge.
At the same time, Kragen abandoned his position. Leaving behind only enough men to keep his side of the valley closed for a short time, he brought the rest of his strength against the Cadwal incursion.
And the Termigan did the same from the other side.
He was retreating, his men were scrambling for their lives, they were already beaten – and suddenly they turned and became a coherent force again and attacked. Backed by the rampart wall, they drove into the Cadwals near the narrowest point of access to the valley—
—hit so hard, so unexpectedly, that they cut Festten off.
With four or five thousand of his men still outside the valley, out of reach, the High King found himself facing his old enemy in battle.
Here for a short time at any rate the conditions of combat were almost even: the numbers of the armies were nearly equal. Nevertheless there was nothing equal about the way the men fought.
The Cadwals had been taken by surprise, outmaneuvered; their greatest weapon, the slug-beast, was dead; they couldn’t retreat. Their consternation was obvious through the mirror, as vivid as a shout. And the forces of Mordant and Alend struck as if they knew that while King Joyse led them they could never be defeated.
They didn’t know that Joyse was as good as dead, that Eremis could translate him to madness at any time. They only knew that he was leading them again, and fighting mightily, that no one had ever seen him lose. His spirit seemed to sweep them with him, carry them all to power.
Almost immediately, what should have been an even fight began to look like a victory for the King.
Terisa cleared her throat. Softly, but precisely, so that each word was unmistakable, she asked, “Do you hear horns?”
Horns?
Eremis studied her narrowly. He didn’t care about the battle, not anymore; the fire in him needed a different outlet. No matter what happened in the valley, Joyse’s doom was here: this mirror would ruin him. And if Festten was beaten first, so much the better. Eremis was done with that alliance. It had served its purpose.
But she wasn’t looking at him.
He wanted her to look at him. He wanted to see fear in her eyes.
With his hands on her shoulders, he turned her.
Still she wasn’t afraid. The hunger she had revealed earlier was gone. Blankness filled her gaze.
No, Terisa, he promised, there is no escape that way. There is no part of you so secret that I cannot find it and hurt it.
To get her attention, he unclasped his cloak and let it drop, then undid his trousers so that she could see the size of his passion against her.
Still her eyes showed no fear. She looked past him or through him as if she had gone blind.
Fiercely, he caught hold of her, closed his arms around her, sealed his mouth on hers. He meant to kiss her until she resisted – or melted—