A Man Rides Through (6 page)

Lebbick found the whole idea incredible.

He believed that Geraden had tried to kill Nyle: he had seen it with his own eyes. But Geraden secretly plotting Mordant's downfall? Artagel's brother in league with Gart? The son of the Domne seducing that woman to crimes she wouldn't otherwise have committed? Those things Castellan Lebbick didn't believe. No, the crimes and the plotting and the seduction were hers, not Geraden's.

And Eremis was a fool for blaming him. Or else the Master hadn't started to tell the truth yet.

So while he went about readying Orison to meet the dawn, Castellan Lebbick made Master Eremis go through all his explanations again, with more care, in greater detail. After a day without water, the castle was already experiencing considerable distress. Strict rationing created hundreds of hardships; dozens of people cheated—or tried to cheat—and had to be dealt with. On the other hand, the difficulties were much less now than they would be soon. Severity was Orison's only hope. Therefore Lebbick dispensed severity everywhere he went. And Eremis watched him. Answered his questions. Betrayed nothing.

Perhaps that was why Castellan Lebbick couldn't think of a good retort when Eremis goaded him about his loyalty to the King, on the ramparts of Orison after Adept Havelock had demonstrated the effectiveness of his defense against catapults. The Master had betrayed nothing.
We might have decided to defend Mordant ourselves, rather than waiting politely for our beloved King to fall off the precarious perch of his reason.
Some reply was essential: Lebbick knew that. But he couldn't seem to pull his yearning spirit this far away from the dungeon. Without paying much attention to what he said, he muttered, "Prove it. Get me water."

Then he didn't want to look at Eremis anymore. The tall Master's smile had become abruptly intolerable: it was too bemused, too secretly triumphant. Instead, he did his best to concentrate on what Havelock and Quillon were doing.

At first glance, the Adept seemed to be in a state of unnatural self-possession, even though the obscenities he muttered as he worked were so extravagant that they would have earned him a round of applause from any squad of the Castellan's guard. Lebbick wasn't used to seeing him do what was asked of him. The mad walleyed old goat who capered and jeered in the hall of audiences—or who incinerated important prisoners before they could be questioned— was the Havelock Lebbick knew: the man working with Master Quillon was a relative stranger. A throwback to the potent and cunning Imager who had helped King Joyse found and secure Mordant. Only the Adept's appearance seemed unchanged. He wore nothing but an ancient, unclean surcoat; what was left of his hair stuck out from his skull in wild tufts. Between the craziness of his imperfectly focused eyes and the trembling, sybaritic flesh of his lips, his nose jutted fiercely.

But a closer look showed the cost of Adept Havelock's self-possession.

He was sweating, despite the chill of the breeze. His whole body shook as if he were in the grip of a fever—as if he stood where he was and worked his Imagery by an act of will so harsh that his entire frame rebelled against it. With an unexpected pang, Lebbick noticed that there was blood running down Havelock's chin. The Adept had chewed on his lower lip until he had torn it to shreds.

For all practical purposes, he was Orison's only defense against catapults. Master Quillon had made it clear that the Congery possessed no other mirrors which could meet this particular need. Everything the Castellan had ever served or cared about depended on Havelock—and Havelock obviously wasn't going to last much longer.

"Dogswater!" Roughly, Castellan Lebbick took hold of Quillon's arm, demanded the Master's attention. "How much longer can he keep going?"

Before Quillon could answer, the Adept swung away from his glass, cackling like a demented crone.

"Long enough! Hee-hee! Long
enough!"
Havelock brandished a mouth full of bloody teeth toward Lebbick, but neither of his eyes succeeded at aiming itself at the Castellan. His voice scaled higher, tittering on the verge of hysteria. "They're throwing
rocks
at him, rocks rocks rocks rocks rocks! And
we're
the only friends he has left!
We're the only friends he has left!"

Moving too quickly to be stopped, he wiped blood from his chin onto his hands and slapped them across Lebbick's cheeks, smearing red into the grizzled stubble of the Castellan's whiskers. "And
you've
lost your
mind!"

Suddenly wild, Castellan Lebbick knocked Havelock's arms away. He snatched at his sword, barely stopped himself from sweeping it out and gutting the Adept where he stood. Trembling as badly as Havelock, he jammed his blade back into its scabbard, then clamped his arms across his chest. "Whelp of a slut," he muttered through his teeth. "You should have been locked up years ago."

For a moment, Adept Havelock grinned blood at the Castellan. Then he turned to Master Quillon. Jerking a thumb at Lebbick, he whispered as if no one but Quillon could hear him, "Did you ever know his wife?" Havelock stressed the word
know
suggestively. "I did." Without warning, he started to cackle again. "She was a better man than he'll ever be."

Still laughing, he returned to his mirror.

Master Eremis also was laughing; his eyes sparkled with mirth. "Master Quillon," he chuckled to the pained consternation in Quillon's face, "we are well and truly fortunate that only one of the King's last friends has lost his mind."

The Alend forces wheeled a third catapult into position. Adept Havelock, the King's Dastard, caused it to be destroyed also. After that, no more catapults were advanced against the castle for a while. Prince Kragen had apparently decided to reconsider his options.

But Castellan Lebbick didn't stay to watch. The mention of his wife made him so angry that he could barely endure it—and in any case his guards were perfectly capable of reporting whatever happened to him. While the blood dried on his cheeks, he stormed back into Orison and headed toward the dungeon, taking Master Eremis with him.

After a moment, of course, he realized that the last thing he wanted was to have the leering Imager with him when he confronted that woman again. Luckily, he was able to deflect his course before Eremis could guess where he was going. Instead of exposing his obsession, he led Eremis toward the Masters' quarters to check on Nyle.

"A good thought," Master Eremis commented when it became clear where Lebbick was headed. "I wish for news of Nyle's condition myself."

"Sure you do," rasped the Castellan. "He's the one who was going to prove your innocence. He was going to prove his own brother is the real traitor. Isn't that what you said?"

"Indeed." Obviously, Eremis wasn't afraid of Lebbick at all. "You find it impossible to believe that I am concerned about him for
his own sake. I understand perfectly. Considering your attitude toward me, I am gratified that you believe I wish him well for my own reasons." The Master's sarcasm seemed to contain an undercurrent of hilarity; he sounded like he was trying to conceal his enjoyment of a good joke. "As I said, he is my proof that I am innocent of Geraden's accusations."

Lebbick kept on walking. When he replied, he hardly cared whether Eremis heard him or not. Primarily for his own benefit, he muttered under his breath, "Laugh now, you goat-rutting bastard. Someday I'm going to learn the truth about you. When I do, I'll have an excuse to feed you your balls."

He was so clenched inside himself, so obsessed with his own thoughts, that he didn't expect a retort. After Master Eremis spoke, the Castellan wasn't sure that he had heard his companion correctly.

"Try it."

Behind his bland smile, Eremis looked as eager as an axe.

Grinding his teeth, Castellan Lebbick strode down the corridor toward the Imager's quarters.

They were reached by a short hall like a cul-de-sac, with servants' doors on either side and the main entrance at the end. Master Eremis' ostentatious rosewood door made Lebbick sneer: it was carved in a bas-relief of the Imager himself, representing clearly his sense of his own superiority. But the door itself wasn't important; it changed nothing. No, what mattered—Castellan Lebbick clung to what mattered with both fists—was that the door was properly closed, and that two reliable guards were on duty in the hall, controlling access to Master Eremis' chambers.

The guards saluted, and Lebbick demanded a report.

"Underwell and two of our men have been in there all night, Castellan," the senior guard said. "Nyle must still be alive, or Underwell would have come out. But we haven't heard anything."

Master Eremis said, "Good," but the Castellan ignored him. Brushing past the guards, Lebbick jerked the door open.

Then for a long moment he just stood there and stared dumbly into the room, trying as if all his common sense and reason had evaporated to figure out why the guards hadn't heard anything. That much carnage should have made some noise.

Behind him, his men stifled curses. Master Eremis murmured, "Excrement of a pig!" and began whistling thinly between his teeth.

There were three men in Eremis' sitting room, the two guards and Nyle. All three of them had been slaughtered.

Well, not
slaughtered,
exactly. Lebbick's brain struggled to function. The dead men hadn't actually been cut to pieces. The damage didn't look like it had been done with any kind of blade. No, instead of being victims of slaughter, human butchery, the men resembled carcases on which predators had gorged. Huge predators, with jaws that took hunks the size of helmets out of the chest and guts and limbs of his guards,
his guards.
The bodies lay in a slop of blood and entrails and splintered bones.

As for Nyle—

In some ways, he was in better condition; in some ways, worse. He hadn't been as thoroughly chewed on as the guards. But both his arms were gone, one at the elbow, the other at the shoulder. And his head had been bitten open to the brain: his whole face was gone. He was recognizable only by his general size and shape, and by his position on Eremis' sumptuous divan.

The Castellan started grinning. He wanted to laugh. He couldn't help himself: despair was the only joke he understood. Almost cheerfully, he said, "You aren't going to be seducing any women here for a while, Imager. You won't be able to get all this blood out. You'll have to replace everything."

Eremis didn't seem to hear. He was asking softly, "Underwell? Underwell?"

Of course, there should have been
four
men here: Lebbick knew that. His two guards. Nyle. And Underwell. With a feral smile, he sent a guard to search the other rooms. He still had that much self-possession. But he was sure the physician was gone. Why would Underwell want to stay and get caught after committing treachery like this?

For some reason, the fact that what had happened should have been impossible didn't bother Lebbick.

"Castellan," the senior guard said in a constricted voice, as if the air were being squeezed from his chest, "nobody went in or out. I swear it."

"Imagery." Castellan Lebbick relished the word: it hurt so much that he seemed to enjoy it. "They must have been hit too hard, too fast. Maybe it was that firecat. Or those round things with teeth the Perdon talked about." The desire to at least chuckle was almost un-supportable. "They didn't even have a chance to shout. Imagery."

"I fear so." Master Eremis' manner was unusually subdued, but his
eyes shone like bits of glass. "Our enemies have been able to do such things ever since the lady Terisa of Morgan was brought here."

"And in your quarters, Imager." Lebbick kept on grinning. "In your care. Protected by arrangements you made."

At that, Eremis' eyes widened; he blinked at the Castellan. "Are you serious? Do you blame me for this?"

"It was done by Imagery. You're an Imager. They're your rooms."

"He was alive when I left him," Master Eremis protested. "Ask your guards." For the first time, Lebbick saw him look worried. "And I have spent all the rest of my time with you."

The Master's point was reasonable, but Castellan Lebbick ignored it. "You're an Imager," he repeated. As he spoke, his voice took on a slight singsong tone, as if deep inside himself he were trying to rock his hurt like a sick child. "You think you're a good one. Do you expect me to believe 'our enemies' have a flat glass that shows your rooms and you don't know about it? They made it and then never used it, never gave you any kind of hint, never did anything that might possibly have made a good Imager like you aware of what they had? Are
you
serious?"