The Mirror of Her Dreams (100 page)

Instinctively, Terisa froze.

The lady brought with her a sack about the size of a large purse. She supported it with both hands as though it were heavy. In contrast, however, her walk and posture didn't betray much strain. Apparently, she feared that the material of the sack might tear, spilling its contents. Her care was obvious as she put the sack down beside the lamp.,

I'm going to be too late. With an effort of will, Terisa forced herself into motion again.

But she wasn't too late. Instead of opening the sack, Elega retreated once again into the dark.

This side: another corner. How long would Elega be gone? How far did the light reach?

Where was Geraden?

The lamp made everything behind it blank, impenetrable.

She felt that she was breathing louder than the sound of the water; the effort of muffling her respiration made her want to gasp. Now she didn't need to guide herself by the timbers: the lamp showed her the rim of the pool. But she had to be quiet,
quiet.
No sound from her boots on the stone; none from her heart; none from the tense fear that constricted her chest.

How long would Elega be gone?

Not long enough. While Terisa was still too far away, the lady re-entered the reach of her light.

She was carrying a second sack. It was just like the first one. She cradled it with both hands,

Terisa wanted to freeze again.

Instead, she began to run.

At the noise of Terisa's boots, Elega whirled. The cowl of a cape flipped back from her head, and her eyes seemed to gather up all the light, flaring like violet gems. Her face was whetted and intense.

Terisa,
stop!'

Terisa jerked to a halt.

'Come no closer!' the lady warned. 'You cannot prevent me from flinging my sack into the water. That is not the best way to distribute the powder-but it will suffice.' In this light, with such extremity in her eyes, her beauty was astonishing. She looked as certain as a queen. 'And one sack will suffice, though I have brought two for safety. Do not interfere with me.'

'Elega-' Terisa had to gasp hard to clear her throat, unlock her chest. 'Don't do this. It's crazy. You're-'

'Who is with you?' demanded Elega.

'You're going to kill thousands of people. Some of them are your friends. A lot of them know and respect you.'

'Terisa!
Who is with you? Answer me!'

'You're going to kill your father.'

Deliberately, Elega adjusted her grip on her sack and started to swing it towards the water. The sack appeared to be made of some unusually supple leather.

Geraden hadn't come. There was nothing beyond the lamp except the dimly silvered night of the reservoir. 'I'm alone!' Terisa cried urgently.

The lady checked her swing.

'There's nobody with me. I'm alone.'

Elega's eyes burned. 'How can I believe that?'

Helpless to do anything else, Terisa replied bitterly, 'No one trusts me. Who would believe me if I told them you were going to do this?'

'Geraden trusts you. Together, you persuaded the Tor to be suspicious of me.'

'I know,' Terisa shot back in desperation. 'But you made him back down.' Where was Geraden? 'And Geraden
cant
believe anything like this about you. You're the King's daughter.'

For a moment, Elega studied Terisa. Slowly, she straightened her back; she faced Terisa regally. She didn't put down her sack, however.

'If no one else would believe this, why do you? How do you come to be here?'

Terisa met the lady's scrutiny as well as she could and struggled to hold down her panic. 'I guessed. We talked about the water supply, I think I suggested it.' Her self-control was fraying. In another minute, she would begin to babble. 'Elega,
why!
This is your home. You're the King's daughter. You're going to kill-'

'I am going to kill,' cut in Elega impatiently, 'a few of Orison's oldest and most infirm inhabitants. That is regrettable. Perhaps my father will be one of them.' She grimaced. 'Even that is regrettable. But no one else who drinks this tainted water will die. They will simply be too sick to fight.

'Orison will fall with little loss of life.' Her voice rose. 'At small cost to the realm, my father will be deposed, and a new power will take his place. Then Mordant will be
defended'-
she had to shout in order to hold back an uprush of passion- 'defended against Cadwal and Imagery, and the dreams with which King Joyse reared his daughters will be restored!' Her cry was strong-yet it echoed like mourning in the high silence of the reservoir. To accomplish that, I am willing to cause a few deaths.'

She might have continued: the force of what she felt might have impelled her to say more. But she didn't get the chance. All the illumination behind her condensed at once, transforming Geraden instantly out of the dark; and he charged wildly.

In fact, he charged so wildly that he caught his foot on the butt of one of the timbers.

The sound alerted Elega. As quick as a bird, she leaped aside while he crashed to the stone on the spot where she had been standing.

'Geraden!'

The impact seemed to stun him: he looked hurt. Although he bounded up almost instantly to his hands and knees, into a poised crouch, his balance shifted as if the flat stone under him were moving, and his head wobbled on his neck.

Nevertheless he was between Elega and the water.

Terisa hurried to his side. She wanted to help him up, find out how badly he was hurt. Nevertheless she couldn't take her eyes off the lady.

The two women studied each other across a space of no more than ten feet, Elega's face was dark around the violet smoulder of her eyes; she clutched her sack with both hands. Despite the fear pounding in her head, Terisa braced herself to block Elega's approach to the pool.

The corners of the lady's mouth hinted at a smile. In a formal tone, as if she wanted the reservoir to hear her, she said,
'My
lady Terisa. I am sorry that I did not persuade you to join me. I believed you when you said you were alone. Clearly, you are a better player of this game than I realized.'

Nothing about her gave the impression that she was caught or beaten.

Geraden, get up!

Abruptly, he wrenched himself to his feet-stumbled sideways, then recovered. His gaze appeared oddly out of focus, as if his eyes were aimed in slightly different directions. Breathing heavily, he bent over and braced his hands on his knees to support the weight of his sore head.

'Blast you, Elega,' he panted, 'don't you know we caught Nyle? Castellan Lebbick has him, I don't expect you to care what happens to anybody as minor as a son of the Domne, but you ought to care about the fact that he didn't get through to the Perdon.

'You made a nice speech about defending the realm and restoring dreams. But you can't pretend that any more. You aren't doing this for Mordant. You're doing it for Alend.'

The lady's eyes flared.

'Or you're doing it for Prince Kragen-which comes to the same thing. When you're done, we'll all be ruled by the Alend Monarch. Then it won't be you who decides what happens to your dreams. It won't even be your personal Prince. It'll be Margonal. Once Orison falls, you won't be anybody except the oldest daughter of the Alend Monarch's worst enemy.

'Give it up before you get hurt.'

As if she were in pain, Elega lowered her gaze. 'Perhaps you are right,' she murmured. 'You have caught me. I was a fool to believe the word of an Alend.' Her grip on the sack shifted.

Terisa shouted a warning-too late, as usual-as the lady flung her sack over Geraden's head towards the pool.

At the edge of the light, it arched towards the still, dark water.

Geraden leaped for it.

So did Terisa.

Before they collided with each other, his reaching fingers hooked the soft leather and deflected it.

They fell on top of each other. His arms and legs were all around her: she couldn't sort her way out of them.

After an interminable instant, she found herself on the floor while he scrambled to regain his feet. She was gazing straight along the smooth stone at the sack. It had landed right at the rim of the pool-so close that she could have put her hand on it.

But it had split open when it hit. A strange green powder was already pouring into the water. As she watched, the sack slumped empty.

Then the light went out.

A heavy splash cast sibilant applause around the reservoir as the other sack sank into the pool.

Across the dark, Elega said, 'Prince Kragen is a truer man than you are, Geraden fumble-foot. He will not be false to me.'

Small waves continued to slap and echo against the sides of the pool long after the King's daughter was gone.

LATER THAT NIGHT, a small band of men on horseback launched an attack which no one understood at the time against the heavy gates of Orison. With a great whooping and hallooing, the men charged forward, shot burning arrows into the wood or up at the parapets, then brandished their swords and challenged the defenders to come out and fight instead of cowering inside the walls like girls.

Their arrows had no effect on the gates: some of Castellan Lebbick's guards had spent the past four days soaking the wood with water. And the attackers themselves seemed more drunk than dangerous. Nevertheless they made enough noise to be heard by every man on duty around the walls.

While the captain in command of the watch readied a sortie, the riders escaped. They could be heard laughing derisively for a few moments after the night had swallowed their retreat.

When this was reported to the Castellan, he had less to say about it than might have been expected. By that time, he had passed from his usual fulminating outrage into a tightly coiled fury which resembled equanimity. He looked almost cheerful as he went about his work, preparing Orison to meet an Alend siege with a totally inadequate supply of clean water.

Some time earlier, Terisa and Geraden had had the disconcerting experience of appearing to improve his mood by telling him about their encounter with the lady Elega.

When they first approached him, he acted like a man who was savage with lack of sleep. His eyes had a harried cast, and some of his gestures seemed aimless, as if he weren't aware of making them. His personality changed stress and fatigue into ire, however. His problem was that he had nothing to do: Orison was as ready as possible for a struggle he had no expec-

tation of winning. Because he couldn't rest, he was in danger of driving his own forces ragged before the real test of their strength began,

He had never been very good at resting. The strict urgency inside him kept him on his feet. Now, however, he couldn't rest because rest meant sleep-and sleep meant dreams.

His dreams were haunted.

As a younger man, he had occasionally had nightmares about his revenge on the Alend garrison commander who had raped and tortured his wife of four days with such relish and variety. But over the years the stable mildness of her companionship- and the clear worth of the work he did for his King-had taken the sting out of those dreams.

But now she was dead. He was alone-effectively abandoned even by King Joyse. And when he dreamed, he didn't dream of revenge.

He dreamed that he was an Alend garrison commander with a young Termigan sod's nubile bride tied helpless in front of him. He dreamed of all the things that could be done to her to make her scream and her husband mad.

He dreamed of relish.

And he awoke trembling-
ha,
Castellan Lebbick,
trembling,
a man who hadn't quailed in the face of any dread or danger since the day when King Joyse had cut him free and let him take his revenge.