The Mirror of Her Dreams (17 page)

Then she heard it: from somewhere far away, a faint, metallic clashing sound, a dim shout.

Havelock spat a perfectly comprehensible obscenity and threw himself up the stairs, dousing his light as he ran.

For a fraction of a second, she remained frozen as darkness slammed down through the passage. Then she sprang instinctively, as quick as fear, after the Adept, straining desperately to catch him before he left her alone in the dark.

His raw panting loomed ahead of her, almost within reach. She stretched, stretched-and her fingers hooked the fabric of his surcoat.

That was enough. He made a sharp, unexpected turn: she was able to follow, guided by her small grip on his clothes.

His turn took them towards a glow of lamplight; but the illumination came too late. Half a heartbeat after his feet thudded on wooden boards instead of stone, she tripped over the rim of the wardrobe door and sprawled headlong to the floor of her bedroom.

There were peacock feathers everywhere. They floated through the air, swirled in small eddies across the rugs, draped themselves delicately over the edges of the bed. One of them wafted into her face, blinding her while a harsh voice gasped, 'My lady!' and iron rang like a carillon.

The voice sounded like Ribuld's.

She snatched down the feather in time to see him parrying frantically, sparks raining from the length of his longsword.

He and Argus fought with all their strength against a third man who held the entry to the bedroom, blocking them from her.

The feathers were part of a decoration which this man had torn down to use as a shield.

He wore a cloak and leather armour so black that he was difficult to see: he confused Terisa's sight like a shadow cast on an uneven surface; all his movements looked like the flitting and darting of a shadow. Only his longsword caught and held the light, gleaming evilly as it struck fire from the opposing blades.

He seemed to be at least a hand shorter than Ribuld or Argus, slimmer than either of them. Yet his blows were as strong as theirs.

It was clear that they weren't winning.

Both of them were already badly battered. Argus had a vivid bruise under one eye, and his knuckles were bleeding. Ribuld had sustained a cut to the joining of his neck and shoulder. Notches and tears marked their mail: their opponent had been able to hit them at will.

Now Ribuld reeled away from the force of the attack. Losing his balance took him out of his assailant's reach, but it also fetched him heavily against the side of the fireplace. He stumbled to his knees.

Argus tried to surge forward, his sword hammering for the man's skull. The man was defter, however: his longsword leaped to catch Argus' blow and turn it. Then he smashed his now-tattered shield into Argus' face. Before Argus could counter, the man in black dealt him a kick to the groin which nearly pitched him on his head.

When he hit the floor, he hunched over and began retching.

As smooth as a shadow, the man turned towards Terisa.

Now she saw his face. His eyes shone yellow in the lamplight; he had a nose like the blade of a hatchet; his teeth were bared in a feral grin. She had the indistinct impression that there were scars on his cheeks.

His cloak seemed to billow about his shoulders as he clenched the hilt of his longsword in both hands and raised his blade against her.

'
My lady!' shouted Ribuld again.

Charging like a ram, he launched himself at her attacker's back.

She had risen to her hands and knees, but she couldn't move. None of this made any sense. She could only watch as the man in black swung away from her and accepted Ribuld's assault.

Their blades met so hard that she thought she could hear them break. The sound of the iron was the sound of shattering. But this time Ribuld and his longsword held: it was the man in black who was forced to slip the blow past his shoulder and parry the return stroke.

He parried so well, however, that Ribuld had to skip backward to keep his hands intact.

The attacker followed at once, hacking at Ribuld from one side and then the other. Ribuld took the blows with his blade; sparks spat over his forearms, but he didn't appear to feel the burns. He was retreating again, but under control this time, looking for an opening.

Abruptly, the man jumped away from Ribuld-jumped towards Argus. While Argus gaped horror at him, helpless with pain, the man whirled his sword to lop off Argus' head.

'No!' Desperately, Ribuld tried to catch his opponent in time. But desperation made him reckless. He had no defence when the man in black changed the direction of his stroke. The flat of his blade hit Ribuld in the face and levelled him

'Now, my lady,' the man said in a voice like silk, 'let us end this.'

With his longsword poised in front of him, he strode into the bedroom.

For some reason, Terisa thought that this time no one would rescue her, that no young man would appear out of her dreams and risk his life to save hers. If she wanted to live, she would have to do something to save herself-shout for help, jump to her feet and flee into the secret passages of Orison, something. But she remained lost, unable to understand why anyone would attack her with such hate, unable to move.

Fortunately, at the last moment Adept Havelock hopped out of his hiding place in the wardrobe and fired his glass into her assailant's eyes.

The man gave a roar of pain and recoiled. For an instant, he stood with his forearms crossed over his eyes, his longsword jutting at the ceiling. Then he snarled a curse. Though he plainly couldn't see a thing, he brought his blade down and started forward again, probing the air for someone to strike.

In the other room, Argus heaved himself into a crouch, reached for his sword. 'Now-' he grunted, in sharp pain and ready for murder. 'Now I've got you.'

Terisa's attacker froze. If he could have seen Argus, he would have known that he was safe: Argus was barely able to crawl an inch at a time. But the man couldn't see. He hesitated momentarily while he listened to the sounds Argus made; then he whirled away from Terisa, took an immense, acrobatic leap which carried him over both Argus and Ribuld, and found his way to the door. A second later, he was gone.

Groaning, Argus nudged Ribuld's inert form. 'Go after him, you fool. Don't let him get away.'

Terisa stared about her, too stunned to think in logical sequences. Ribuld and Argus had tried to defend her-and had almost been killed for their pains. The wood of the door was splintered around the bolt. If the man recovered his sight and came back-The Adept was out of his mind, of course, but he understood what took place around him to some extent, at any rate.

'Havelock,' she murmured vaguely, 'did you know this was going to happen?'

He wasn't there. He had already left. The door hidden in the back of the wardrobe was closed.

THE EVENTS OF the next half hour had blurred edges and imprecise tones. Her nerves jangled like badly tuned strings, and her pulse refused to slow down: with so much adrenaline in her veins, she should have been more alert, had a better grasp on what was happening. But everything seemed to leak away as soon as she focused her attention on it. Reality had become like sand, trickling through her fingers.

'Get help,' Argus coughed in her direction. He hadn't moved from Ribuld's side; he was hunched there, barely able to hold himself up with his arms. 'If he comes back-'

That was probably intended to mean something. Hadn't she just been thinking the same thing herself? But now she was unsure of it.

Her instinct was to simply run away. Use the Adept's secret passage and! find her way back to Master Quillon. She wanted warm arms around her. She wanted someone who knew what he was doing to take care of her. Surely Master Quillon would be able to comfort her? So she felt that she was doing the hardest thing she had done in years when she made her way around Ribuld and Argus to the bell-pull behind one of the feather displays. From there, she was exposed to the open door. But she didn't know how else to call for help.

She tugged on the satin cord of the pull as hard as she dared. Then she returned to her bedroom.

An impulse she didn't immediately understand made her rearrange the clothes in the wardrobe and then close the door, concealing the secret passage.

Before long-or perhaps after a long time, according to how she happened to feel at the moment-her summons was answered. But not by Saddith. The woman who appeared in the doorway had the look of a chambermaid; she was older than Saddith, however, blowzy with sleep and hasty dressing, and in no good humour. Nevertheless after one look at Ribuld and Argus, at the scattered feathers and the broken door, she forgot her irritation and fled.

For a moment, she could be heard squalling into the distance: 'Ho, guards! Help!'

Tool woman,' Argus muttered through his teeth.

Ribuld was stirring. His hands rubbed at his face, then flinched away from his bruised forehead. 'Daughter of a goat,' he groaned. 'Who
was
that bastard?' Weakly, he propped himself up on one elbow and peered around the room. When he saw Terisa, he gave a sigh of relief and sank back to the floor again.

'I'm dying,' Argus whispered thickly. 'Hogswill unmanned me.'

Torget it,' replied Ribuld in a prostrate tone. 'Won't change your life.'

Shortly, Terisa heard nailed boots hammering the stone of the outer corridor-a lot of boots. Brandishing his longsword, a man dressed like Ribuld and Argus sprang through the doorway. He had five companions behind him, all ready for a fight: they looked clenched for violence, like the three riders in her dream. But there was no fight available. They scanned the rooms quickly, then gathered around Terisa's defenders. 'What happened?' one of them asked, awkwardly jocose. 'Did you two lechers finally meet a woman tougher than you are?'

Before Argus or Ribuld could answer, another man stamped into the room. From his close-cropped, grey-stained hair to his out-thrust jaw, from his swaggering shoulders to his hard strides, he bristled with authority, though he was shorter than Terisa- nearly a foot shorter than any of the men around him. He was dressed as they were, with the addition of a purple sash draped over one shoulder across his mail and a purple band knotted above his stiff, grey eyebrows. His eyes held a perpetual glare, and his mouth snarled as if it had long ago forgotten any other expression.

He glanced around the room, assessing the situation, then stalked up to Terisa and gave her a rigid bow. 'My lady,' he said. In spite of its quietness, his voice made her want to flinch.

'I'm Castellan Lebbick, commander of Orison and the guard of Mordant. I'll speak to you in a moment.'

At once, he turned on Argus and Ribuld. Without raising his voice, he made it sound like a lash. 'What's going on here?'

Uncomfortably, they tried to explain the situation. As a personal favour, Apt Geraden had asked them to keep an eye on the lady Terisa of Morgan, in case she got in trouble. He said he didn't know what kind of trouble. But they were off duty, so they decided to do what he asked. Nothing happened for a long time. Then the man in black appeared in the corridor. He walked up to them and told them to let him in, he had business with the lady Terisa. When they asked him what his business was, he snatched out his sword, broke the door open, and tried to kill her. After that, he gave up and ran away.

Listening to them, Terisa realized that neither Argus nor Ribuld knew she had been out of her rooms. In fact, neither of them had seen Adept Havelock. Because of this, they weren't able to account for her attacker's flight. Glancing at Terisa as if he believed she were responsible, Argus mumbled something about a light, then winced at the way Castellan Lebbick looked at him.

Ignoring her, the Castellan sent the six guards out of the room at a run to rouse the rest of the watch and begin a search for the man in black-'Although,' he muttered as they left, 'he's probably halfway to oblivion by now.' Then he returned his attention to Ribuld and Argus.

Tet me get this straight. He fought the two of you away from the door long enough to break it open. He got as far as the doorway to the bedroom. He knocked one of you out and crippled the other. Then he panicked and ran away. Doubtless he was terrified by how easily you were overcome. Maybe everybody who serves the King is like you. I'm surprised he didn't die of fright.'