Geraden blinked hard, shook his head. No, he wasn’t going blind. The Image he was staring at hadn’t changed at all.
Distressed and baffled, he turned toward Master Barsonage—
—and saw Esmerel, as clear as sunlight, exactly as he had envisioned it, in the curved mirror standing beside the flat glass he had chosen to work with.
“By the pure sand of dreams,” he murmured, “that’s incredible.” A curved mirror, a curved mirror. Excitement leaped up in him; he could hardly restrain a yell. “I wouldn’t have believed it myself.” A curved mirror, of course! Flat glass was Terisa’s talent, not his. If he had tried to translate himself through a flat glass, he would have gone mad. Like Havelock.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Havelock advised sententiously. “If you think I’m going to kiss your boots again, just because you can do a little trick like that, you’re full of shit.”
But curved glass—! Like the only mirror he had ever been able to make for himself, the mirror which had reached Terisa behind the Image of the champion. He could shift the Images in curved mirrors.
Quickly, before he had time to be overwhelmed by his discovery, he approached the glass and began to adjust the focus.
“Now I’ll find her.” The pressure of hope and need cramped his lungs. “I’ll get her away from you, you bastard. If I find you, I’ll even get you. Just try to stop me. Just try.”
Fighting the tremors in his hands, the long shivers which made his fingers twitch, he tipped the mirror’s frame to bring the Image of Esmerel closer.
Distance was the problem, distance. He knew that – and tried to keep it out of his mind, tried not to let it terrify him. If the focus of the Image was too far from the place where Terisa was being held, he wouldn’t be able to adjust the mirror enough to reach her. Every glass had a limited range: it couldn’t be focused more than a certain distance from its natural Image. If he couldn’t reach Terisa, he would have to start over again from the beginning: based on what he learned now, he would have to build the Image of Esmerel again, re-create it in his mind – but closer this time, closer.
In his present turmoil, that kind of concentration might be impossible.
No, don’t fail, he exhorted the glass, don’t fail now, you’ve never done anything right in your life except love her, she’s all there is for you and Orison and Mordant and even Alend, don’t fail now.
With a jerk because his hand was unsteady, the Image moved to a near view of the entrance under the portico.
Another jerk.
The Image moved into the forehall of the manor.
Geraden stopped breathing.
Like the exterior walls, the floor was formed of fitted planks anchored with stone. Years of use and wax made the boards gleam, but couldn’t conceal the fact that men who didn’t care what damage they did had been there in nailed boots – had been there recently. Mud, footprints, gouged spots, splinters: they were all distinct in the Image.
Nevertheless the forehall was empty.
Sweat streamed into Geraden’s eyes. He scrubbed at it with the back of his hand. Dimly, he was aware that both Master Barsonage and Adept Havelock were standing over him, watching his search; but he had no attention to spare for them.
More smoothly, he moved the Image into the first room which opened off the forehall.
A large sitting room: the kind of room in which formal guests sipped sweet wines before dinner. Tracked with mud and boot marks.
Bloodstains.
Deserted.
“Why is no one there?” asked the mediator softly. “Where is Master Eremis? Where are his mirrors – his power?”
Geraden’s heart constricted. Nausea rose in his throat as he moved the Image through the house.
A cavernous dining room. More mud and boot marks, more bloodstains. The edges of the table were ragged with swordcuts.
Deserted.
Oh, Terisa, please, where are you?
Geraden scanned two more fouled rooms, both empty, then located a wide staircase sweeping downward.
“The cellars,” murmured Master Barsonage. “That is where they would imprison her.”
Of course. The cellars. Esmerel’s equivalent of a dungeon. Eremis wouldn’t keep his mirrors or his apparatus or any of his secrets where passersby or even tradesmen might catch sight of them. Everything would be belowground.
Who was responsible for all this mud, all these boot marks?
Geraden nudged the Image downward.
For the first few steps, he was so absorbed in what he was doing – so caught up in the focus of the glass, the search for Terisa, the need to succeed – that he didn’t understand what was about to happen to him, didn’t realize the truth at all, even though it was perfectly plain in front of him, so obvious that any farmer or stonemason, any ordinary man or woman, would have grasped it automatically.
But then the Image began to dim, began to grow palpably dim in the glass, and Master Barsonage croaked, “Light.”
Light.
Geraden’s hands froze on the frame. His whole body lost movement, as if the breath and blood had been swept out of him. The stairs loomed below him darkly, treads descending into an immeasurable black.
There was no light. No lamps or lanterns or torches or candles. They had been extinguished.
The Image still existed, of course; but without light there was nothing to see.
He had no answer to that defense. By that one stroke, any attempt to rescue Terisa was instantly and effectively prevented. He couldn’t help her if he couldn’t find her – and how could he find her if he couldn’t see her?
“Maybe—” The air seemed to thicken in his lungs; he felt like he was suffocating. “Maybe there’s light farther down. Maybe only the stairs are dark.”
At once, Master Barsonage clamped a warning hand onto his shoulder. “Geraden,” he hissed as if the former Apt were far away, lost in urgency, almost out of reach, “how will you find it? If there is light, how will you find it? You cannot focus an Image you cannot see. You may shift it into the foundations of the house, where no light will ever reach.”
“I’ve got to try.” Geraden was choking. The mediator’s hand on his shoulder was choking him. “Don’t you understand? I’ve got to find her.”
“No!” Master Barsonage insisted. Geraden’s passion appeared to affect him like anguish. “You cannot focus an Image you cannot see.”
That was true. Of course. Any idiot could have told him that. Even a failed Apt who had never done anything right in his life could recognize the truth. Darkness made all mirrors blind – and all Imagers.
Somehow, Geraden stepped back against the pressure of Barsonage’s grip. Facing the Image as it blurred into the obscure depths, he said harshly, “Then I’ll have to go myself.”
With a look of iron on his face, and no hope in his heart, he made the mental adjustment of translation and stepped into the glass.
As his face crossed into the Image, he cried out, “Terisa!”
Master Barsonage wrenched him back so hard that he sprawled among the tables.
Before he could regain his feet – or curse or fight – Adept Havelock sat down on his chest, straddling his neck.
“Listen to me,” the Adept snarled, savage with strain. “I can’t do this for long.” His eyes rolled as if he were going into a seizure. “You can make us let you go. Just use that voice. We’ll obey. But we won’t be able to get you back.”
Geraden bucked against the Adept, tried to pitch Havelock off him. Havelock braced his legs on either side, clutched at Geraden’s jerkin with both hands, hung on.
“Listen to me, you fool! Your power sustains the shift! When you translate yourself, that glass will revert to its natural Image. You’ll be cut off! – you and the lady Terisa both! You’ll both be lost!”