“I told him Nyle is still alive. You ambushed Underwell and those guards so everyone would think Geraden came back and killed him, but he’s still alive. You’ve got him hidden somewhere. You talked him into being on your side somehow – maybe he hates Geraden for stopping him when he tried to help Elega and Prince Kragen – and now you’ve got him safe somewhere.
“That’s what I told the Castellan.”
In the uncertain lamplight, Master Eremis’ smile seemed to grow harder, sharper. “Then I am glad it was never my intention to harm you. If I were to hurt you now, everyone would assume that there is some justice in your accusations.
“But I do not hold a grievance against you. I will demonstrate,” he said smoothly, “the injustice of those accusations.”
“How?” she shot back, trying to shore up her courage – trying not to think about the fact that she had betrayed Geraden to the Imager. “What new lies have you got in mind?”
His smile flashed like a blade. “No lies at all, my lady. I will not lie to you again. Behold!” Flourishing one hand, he produced a long iron key from the sleeve of his cloak. “I have come to let you out.”
She stared at him; shock made her want to lie down and close her eyes. He had a key to the cell. He wanted to let her out, help her escape – he wanted to get her away from the Castellan. She was too confused, she couldn’t think. Start over again. He had a key to the cell. He wanted—It didn’t make any sense.
“Why?” she murmured, asking herself the question, not expecting him to answer.
“Because,” he said distinctly, “your body is mine. I have claimed it, and I mean to have it. I do not allow my desires to be frustrated or refused. Other women have such skin and loins as yours, such breasts – but they do not prefer a gangling, stupid, inept Apt after I have offered myself to them. When I conceive a desire, my lady, I satisfy it.”
“No,” she said again, “no,” not because she meant to argue with him, but because he had given her a way to think. “You wouldn’t risk it. You wouldn’t take the chance you might get caught here. You want to use me for something.”
Then it came to her.
“Does Geraden really scare you that badly?”
Master Eremis’ smile turned crooked and faded from his face; his eyes burned at her. “Have you lost your senses, my lady? Scare me? Geraden? Forgive my bluntness – but if you believe that Geraden fumble-foot frightens me in any way, you are out of your wits. Lebbick and his dungeon have cost you your mind.”
“I don’t think so.” In a manner that strangely resembled the Castellan’s, she clenched her fists and tapped them on the sides of her legs as if to emphasize the rhythm of her thoughts, the inevitability. “I don’t think so.
“You know what he can do. You pretend you don’t, but you know what he can do better than anybody – better than he does. Gilbur watched him make that mirror. You knew something unexpected was going to happen when the Congery decided to let him go ahead and try to translate the champion. That’s why you argued against him. You weren’t trying to protect him. You wanted to keep him from discovering who he is.
“The reason you tried to get him accepted into the Congery was just to distract him, confuse him – make it harder for him to understand.
“When Gilbur translated the champion” – she swung her fists harder, harder – “you left Geraden and me in front of the mirror, directly in front of the mirror. You probably pushed him. You wanted the champion to kill him.” To kill both of us. The Master had been trying to take her life as well for a long time. But that was the only flaw in her convictions, the only thing which didn’t make any sense: why anybody would want to have her killed. “There isn’t any doubt about it. You’re definitely afraid of him.”
This time, the bark of Master Eremis’ laugh held no humor, no mirth at all. “You misjudge me, my lady. You misjudge me badly.”
She didn’t stop; it was too late to draw back. “That’s why you’re here,” she said, beating out the words against her thighs. “Why you want to let me out. You want me to be your prisoner. You know he cares about me,” cares about me, oh, Geraden! “and you want to use me against him. You think if you threaten to hurt me he’ll do whatever you want.”
“You misjudge me, I say. It is not fear. Fear that puppy? I would rather lose my manhood.”
She heard him, but she didn’t slow down. “The only thing” – which was already a lie, but she had no intention of telling him the truth – “the only thing I don’t understand is why you didn’t just send Gart to kill the lords of the Cares and Prince Kragen. Why else did you get them all together? You didn’t want any alliance – you knew that meeting would fail. You were just trying to undermine all of Cadwal’s enemies at the same time.
“Why didn’t you finish the job? With the lords and Prince Kragen dead, Alend and Mordant and even Orison would be in chaos. What were you afraid of?”
Abruptly, Master Eremis swung his own fists and hit the bars so hard that the door clanged against its latch. “It was not fear. Are you deaf? Do you have the arrogance to ignore me? It was not fear!
“It was policy.”
Terisa stared at him past the bars, past the stark conflict of lamplight and shadows on his face, and murmured softly, in recognition, “Oh.”
“I did not send Gart against the lords and Kragen,” he said harshly, “because it was impossible to be sure that he would succeed. The Termigan and the Perdon and Kragen are all fierce fighters. Kragen had bodyguards. And any man who killed the Tor might drown in all his blood. Also it was much too soon to risk revealing my intentions. The gamble I chose to take was safer.
“When Gilbur performed his translation, the champion came to us facing the direction we wanted him to go – in toward the most crowded parts of Orison, the rooms and towers where his havoc would be most likely to bring the lords and Kragen to ruin. That was why I wanted him, the only reason I permitted his translation to take place.
“Of course,” the Master said in digression, “once he had been translated, it was necessary to preserve him from Lebbick. I could not allow some bizarre happenstance to bring him into alliance with Orison and Mordant. Let him rampage now and do harm as he wishes, without friends or understanding. That also serves me. But my chief intent was more immediate.
“I wanted him to gut Orison, destroying all my principal enemies at once. If he had gone that way – if you had not turned him, my lady – my gamble would have brought a rich return.
“Policy, my lady. If it succeeds, I succeed with it. If it fails, I remain to pursue my ends by other means.
“And what I have done where Geraden is concerned is also policy, not fear. He is my enemy – and he appears to possess a strange talent. Therefore I will destroy him. But I will destroy him in a way that serves my ends rather than risks them. I do not” – vehemence bared his teeth – “fear that ignorant and impossible son of a coward.”
So he admitted it. She was right about him – she had reasoned her way to the truth. That discovery simultaneously relieved and terrified her. She was right about him, right about him. Geraden was innocent, and she had reached the truth alone, without anyone to help or rescue her. It was an intense relief just to recollect that he had never been able to finish anything he started with her: that he hadn’t gotten her killed – or into his bed; hadn’t gotten her confused enough to turn her back on Geraden.
On the other hand, there were no witnesses; no one else had heard him. She was alone with her knowledge – alone with him.
And he had a key to her cell.