“Nothing.” She ought to be able to resist him, but her strength had deserted her. “Nothing.” His fury was thrust so closely into her face that she could hardly focus her eyes on it, hardly see him at all; he was a darkness roaring in front of her, clawing at her – too much hate to be endured. She couldn’t do anything more than whimper in protest. “Nothing.”
“You’re lying!” His intensity seemed to strangle him. “You’re lying to me!” His voice was like a howl stuck in his throat, too congested for utterance. “You’ve got friends, allies. Even when you’re locked in the dungeon, I can’t stop you from plotting. You’re going to destroy us! You’re going to destroy me!”
She felt him gathering force as if he rose up to consume her; he blotted out her vision. A spasm of his grip nearly dislocated her shoulders. Then he caught his arms around her and began to kiss her as if he had been starving for her so long that the pressure of his need had snapped his self-command.
She sank into his embrace, into the dark. She let herself fall limp, so that she scarcely felt the violence of his kisses, scarcely felt the iron of his breastplate against her chest. The darkness sucked her away, out of herself, out of existence – out of danger. It took her to a place where he couldn’t touch her and she was safe—
No. Fading wasn’t the answer. She had to do better than this. It accomplished nothing. Oh, it kept her safe, kept her spirit hidden among the secrets of her heart – but her body would still be harmed. And no one would be left to help Geraden. No one would be left to stop Master Eremis. No one would be left to champion Orison against the real enemy, against Master Eremis and his dire alliance with Master Gilbur and the arch-Imager Vagel, with Gart and Cadwal. It came down to her in the end. Myste had said, Problems should be solved by those who see them. There wasn’t anybody else.
She was terrified – but the fact that she was capable of escape gave her courage. She remained limp, lifeless, until the Castellan eased his embrace and shifted his hands to the waistband of her pants, bending her backward over the cot. Then she opened her eyes and looked at him.
She could see him clearly now, the distress bulging along the line of his jaw, the pale intensity on either side of his nose, the darkness like mania in his eyes. He scared her down to the bottom of her soul, where her fear of her father still lived and burned, distorting her. Nevertheless she caught at his wrists and held them as hard as she could, trying to stop him.
As if his kisses had made her lucid and crazy, immune to fright, she said, “You didn’t ask them why they came to see me. You didn’t bother. You didn’t ask Artagel to look at Nyle’s body. You didn’t even try to find out the truth. You just want to hurt me more than anything else in the world, and they finally gave you an excuse.”
Roaring almost silently behind the constriction in his chest, he let go of her and drew back his arm. He was going to hit her hard enough to crush her skull against the wall.
“They came to see me,” she said – lucid and completely out of touch with the reality of her plight – “because they want me to tell you where Geraden is.”
While his arm rose and his teeth flashed, he stopped. Surprise or doubt or self-disgust seemed to seize hold of him, cramp all his muscles. Hoarsely, he panted, “You’re lying. You’re still lying.”
“No.” She shook her head calmly. It was madness to be so calm. “Is it true that you didn’t ask Artagel to look at Nyle’s body?”
The Castellan was going to hit her. Or else he was going to break down right there in front of her. Precariously balanced between the extremes, he choked, “I asked. He’s had another relapse. Too sick to understand the question.”
Steady and unafraid, she shrugged away her disappointment as if it were trivial. “Never mind,” she murmured. She might have been trying to console Castellan Lebbick. “I had another visitor. One you don’t know about.
“Master Eremis was here.
“Now I can prove he’s a traitor.”
Lamplight flickered in the Castellan’s gaze. He straightened his back and stood over her as though his body had become stone; he held himself back from bloodshed with an effort of will so savage that it made him gasp for air.
“How?”
Unnatural quiet and clenched wildness, Terisa and the Castellan spoke to each other.
“He put cayenne in his wine to make himself sweat, so you would think he was exhausted.”
“You’ll never prove that.”
“He gave your guards a potion to make them sleep, so he could get away.”
“If they’re awake when I check on them, you’ll never prove that, either.”
“He has a secret way into the dungeon. It comes from his workroom in the laborium. You ought to be able to find it without too much trouble.”
When she said that, Castellan Lebbick flinched backward. He didn’t loosen his grip on himself, but his eyes betrayed a vast accumulation of pain.
“If he came here,” he asked, still breathing hard, “why didn’t you go with him? Why didn’t you escape?”
For some reason, that question cracked her mad calm. She seemed to feel herself shattering, like an eggshell. Without transition, she went from lucidity to the edge of hysteria.
“Because—” Her voice broke, and her heart hammered as if it couldn’t bear the strain any longer. “Because he wanted to use me against Geraden. The same way he used Nyle.”
A muscle began to twitch in the Castellan’s right cheek. The twitch spread until the whole side of his face felt the spasm. He was losing control.
“So if you’re telling the truth” – for the first time since she had met him, he sounded like a man who might weep – “Geraden has always been true to King Joyse. True, when almost nobody else is. And you’re true to Geraden. And I’ve been hurting my King by distrusting you – by trying to protect him from you.”
Dumbly, Terisa nodded.
Without warning, the Castellan whirled away. “I’ve got to see this ‘secret way’ for myself.” Slamming the cell door so hard that flakes of rust scattered to the stone, he started down the corridor.
Almost at once, he broke into a run. His voice echoed across the sound of his boots as he shouted as if he were calling farewell to her – or to himself – “I am loyal to my King!”
Stricken numb and hardly able to care what happened to her at the moment, Terisa pulled the torn seam of her shirt closed as well as she could. Grief threatened to overwhelm her: her own; the Castellan’s; the hurt and sorrow of anyone who had to bear the consequences of King Joyse’s decline. No, decline wasn’t the right word. He still knew what he was doing. He had brought Mordant and Orison to this dilemma deliberately. Dully, she thought about that to keep herself from considering how close she and Castellan Lebbick had come to destroying each other.
When she finally looked up from her futile attempt to make her shirt decent – or at least warm – she saw Master Quillon inexplicably standing outside the bars of her cell.
“That was bravely done, my lady,” he said in a distant tone. “Unfortunately, it was a mistake.”
She looked at him, gaped at him; her mouth hung open, and there was nothing she could do about it.
“Master Eremis lied to you. He has no passage from his workroom into the dungeon. He came to you by translation.
“When the Castellan learns that no passage exists, he will not believe another word you say. His rage will be so great that I fear he will be unable to hold himself back from killing you.”