The Mirror of Her Dreams (67 page)

Deliberately, she pushed herself back a little way. Trying to recover her breath, she murmured, 'That's not why I came.'

'Is it not?' Still holding her with both knees and one arm, he raised his free hand to the buttons of her shirt. 'It would be enough for me.'

Again, he kissed her.

When he let her pull back once more, his deft fingers began to open her shirt.

'Artagel will see us.' In spite of her anxiety, she kept her protest low. She wanted the Master to touch her.

'He will not if you do not raise your voice. Artagel is scrupulous.'

His hand slipped inside her shirt. His fingers were cold, bringing her nipples erect at once, making her breasts ache for him.

His behaviour and her own unexpected emotions confused her; she could hardly think. Nevertheless she made one more attempt to draw away. 'I've just talked to the King. I came straight to you from him.'

Somewhat to her chagrin-as well as to her relief-Master Eremis loosened his grip. 'A talk with the King,' he murmured, tilting his head back to peer into her face. 'That is an honour which all Orison and half of Mordant would envy you. What did the old dodderer desire?' He caressed one of her breasts. 'Does he have enough life left in him to covet my place?'

'Castellan Lebbick came to arrest me.' She wanted to explain everything clearly, make the importance of what she had learned plain; but she felt that she was babbling. 'The Tor and Geraden stopped him. But King Joyse wanted to talk to me anyway.' Quickly furious at her incoherence, she halted, took a deep breath, then said distinctly, 'He's not an old dodderer. He knows what he's doing. He's doing it on purpose.'

The Master's sharp face betrayed no reaction; yet his sudden stillness suggested that she had touched on something important. Slowly, he lowered his hand. 'My lady, you must tell me everything. Begin at the beginning. Why did Lebbick decide to arrest you?'

His attitude was like magic: it made her firmer, stronger. At once, her confusion receded. 'I think it's the same reason he arrested you. You broke one of the King's rules, I know that- but I don't think it's the real reason. I think the real reason is that he figured out we went to a meeting with the lords and Prince Kragen. He believes we're all traitors.'

It was his embrace that confirmed her, his expressionless face,

the steady pressure of his knees. She might have been willing to tell him anything. Yet she made no mention of Myste or secret passages; she said nothing about Master Quillon, Instinctively, she focused on the attack after Eremis' clandestine meeting two nights ago; on the bloodshed which had led Castellan Lebbick to her; on the Castellan's conclusions. Then she explained how the Tor and Geraden had rescued her from arrest.

After that, she had to be more careful. Acutely conscious that she wasn't a good liar, she said, 'He wanted to talk to me about his daughter Myste. She's vanished. He thought I might know where she's gone. I pretended I did to make him talk to me.' Hurrying once more to get past her falsehood, she described the answers King Joyse had given to her questions.

Now Master Eremis did react. By the weak lamplight, she thought she saw surprise, anger, excitement emerge in glimpses from the darkness surrounding him. At one point, he breathed as if involuntarily, 'That old butcher.' At another, he whispered, 'Cunning. Cunning. I was warned, but I did not believe-' Calculations as quick as his emotions ran behind his eyes.

When she was done, he thought soberly for several moments. Without releasing her, he gave the impression that they had become distant from each other. As though she weren't still clasped in his arms, he said, 'This will be a better contest than I anticipated.'

Almost immediately, however, his notice returned to her. Tightening his embrace, he studied her face and said in a detached tone, 'You have done me a considerable kindness, my lady. I wonder why. I have claimed you'-he squeezed her with his knees-'and you are mine. No woman refuses me. But I can hardly fail to observe that you are enamoured of that puppy Geraden. And you risk more than Lebbick's rage by coming here. Why have you done it?'

So she had done the right thing. She had helped him. The knowledge made her feel so weak, so ready for him, that she could hardly answer his question. If she had been braver, she would have bent to kiss him again. A kiss might be a better explanation than any rationale. But he needed this answer as much as anything else she had told him.

Awkward with conflicting priorities, she said, 'King Joyse is doing everything on purpose. I don't know why-it's insane. But he's refusing to defend Mordant on purpose. Somebody has to resist him. You're the only one who seems to have enough initiative-or intelligence-or determination-to
do
something. Everyone else is just waiting around for King Joyse to finally wake up and explain himself.'

The Master remained silent, untouched by her account of herself.

For an instant, she faltered. Then she blurted out, 'You have enemies. There's a traitor on the Congery. You were betrayed.'

In response, the lines of his face became stone. His eyes searched her face; his whole body was still. 'My lady'-softly, sardonically-'you did not come to that conclusion alone. Who told you?'

Please. You can make me sure of myself. You can do anything with me. She hardly heard herself say, 'Geraden.'

That was the wrong answer. She could feel the Master's quick anger through her skin. 'Now I understand you,' he snapped. 'You are worse enamoured than I realized. Of course
Geraden
believes there is a traitor on the Congery. There
is
a traitor on the Congery.' He glared up at her. 'But why did he reveal that fact to you?'

Before she could reply-before she could imagine what she had done to infuriate him-his anger changed to surprise. That cunning son of a mongrel,' he murmured. 'Naturally he spoke to you. For that reason alone, if for no other, you will never credit that he himself serves the traitor.'

Now she was too shocked to speak.
He himself serves
-? It was cold in the cell, too cold. She ought to button her shirt. No warmth seemed to come to her from the Master. Could Artagel overhear what was being said? Probably not: otherwise he would already have a blade at Eremis' throat.

Geraden?

'My lady, you must learn to think more clearly.' The Imager sounded almost sympathetic. 'I know that the young son of the Domne is attractive to you. That is understandable, considering that he created you. If you had not come to me of your own volition, I would not say such things. I would simply give your fine body the love it craves-the love for which it was made- and keep my thoughts to myself. But if you wish to help me, you must use your mind to better effect.

Take into account whatever reasons Geraden may have given for his belief that the Congery conceals a traitor, and add to them what we have learned since. Along with his initial questions, Lebbick did not fail to mention that Master Gilbur has disappeared. Does it not seem likely, my lady, that he himself is the traitor?'

Yes, she thought, held by his arms and knees and his intent gaze. No. How could he foresee that I would go to your meeting? How could he know where I would be after the meeting, so he could translate those men to attack me? (Don't translations with flat mirrors drive people crazy?) But those arguments no longer seemed to make sense. Gilbur was the one who had vanished.

'I confess,' Master Eremis went on softly, 'I did not foresee his treachery. Foolishly, I trusted him simply because he has cause to feel gratitude towards me. But when Geraden went into his glass, purportedly seeking our champion, and brought you to us instead, my eyes were opened.

'My lady, do you never try to understand why I do what I do? Did you never ask yourself why I involved Master Gilbur in my meeting with the lords of the Cares, when it was plain to all the Congery that he and I stood on opposite sides of every issue? I was trying to expose him, to give him means and opportunity to betray himself. And I succeeded-

'At a greater cost than I had anticipated,' he commented. 'Orison's wall breached. The champion gone. Myself arrested. And stripped of my chasuble by that officious lout Barsonage to prove the Congery's good faith to the Castellan.'

He snarled in disgust, then resumed his reasoning. 'Did you never wonder why I have placed so much value on Geraden's life? I wanted him alive so that I might try to gain his friendship, insinuate myself into his counsels, study his strange abilities.

'Did you never ask yourself why I attempted to have him admitted to the Congery as a Master? Surely that must have seemed gratuitous, even to someone who knew so little of Orison and its conflicts. In that I did not succeed. Oh, I gained a part of what I wanted-I learned how our good King had reacted to his first encounter with you. That information might have aided me, if I had possessed the key to understand it.' His voice grew sharper as he spoke, more urgent and demanding. 'But I did not accomplish my chief end, which was to tighten a snare around Geraden-to place him where he would be watched, even by fools who did not fear him, where his secrets might be forced into the open, and where the achievement of his lifelong dream might help blind him to his true talents.'

'No.' Terisa's protest was too strong to be kept still. 'That doesn't make sense.' The Master's assertion made everything in her chest hurt. 'What talents?' As though she were rising up inside herself, she demanded, 'What makes you think that he and Master Gilbur have anything to do with each other?'

'Use your mind!' Eremis replied between his teeth.
'
It was Gilbur who shaped the mirror which first showed the champion. It was he who taught Geraden to copy that glass, he who watched and verified every step of the process, from the refining of the finest tinct to the sifting of the precise sand to the polishing of the exact mould. He must have seen what went wrong, what was changed, to produce the mirror which translated you here.

'Think. While he shaped his glass, Geraden showed abilities which have never been seen before, abilities which allowed him to twist all the laws of Imagery to his own purposes-abilities as great in their way as the arch-Imager's ability to pass through flat glass and remain sane.

'Gilbur must have known this. He must have witnessed it. Yet
he said nothing.
Something fundamental occurred under his nose, and he made no mention of it.

'What conclusion do
you
draw, my lady? What conclusion
can
you draw? Are you able to insist that I am wrong?'

No. She shook her head leadenly, and her heart reeled. This time she couldn't contradict him. In his logic, as in his physical magnetism, he was too much for her. If she accepted the proposition of Master Gilbur's treachery, then all the rest followed impeccably.
It was he who taught Geraden-
Why hadn't she thought of that for herself?

It was still possible, she argued dimly, like a woman who was about to faint, it was still possible that Geraden was her friend. That he meant her well. If he was as ignorant and accident-prone as everyone believed-

Clutching at straws, she breathed, 'Maybe. Maybe you are. You saw what happened when he tried to stop Master Gilbur from translating the champion. Maybe he's being used and doesn't know it.' Her temples were beginning to ache. 'Maybe he was misled while he was making his mirror-maybe he thought it
was
an exact copy. How would he know if Master Gilbur lied to him? Maybe these 'abilities' are Master Gilbur's, not Geraden's.'

Master Eremis shook his head. 'That is conceivable.' His face seemed to be growing darker. 'Why do you imagine that I have relied on subterfuge rather than direct action? I have not wanted to risk harm to anyone who might be innocent. But remember two things, my lady.

The first is a fact. It is Geraden who figures so prominently in the augury, not Gilbur. That cannot be meaningless.

'The second is a possibility. As it is conceivable that Geraden is being manipulated, so it is also conceivable that he and Gilbur feigned their conflict in order to disguise their relationship, thereby freeing Geraden to continue his work when Gilbur was forced to flee.'

At once, Terisa retorted, 'That's crazy!' so strongly that she surprised herself. She and Geraden had been buried alive together. 'Master Gilbur almost got him killed!'

Taugh!' Abruptly, the Master was angry again. 'Gilbur could not have foreseen that-or caused it. He was busy with his translation.' The pressure of his knees increased. 'Do not insult my intelligence.'