“You want me to warn them,” he rasped. “Do you think I haven’t already considered that? Talk is easy. Do you know how far Orison is from here? Do you know how long it would take me to get there? The siege has already started. Cadwal is already marching. Everything he wants to destroy will be in ruins before I get halfway there. I’ll arrive like a good boy, panting and desperate, wanting something to save, and he’ll just laugh at me.
“He’ll just laugh at me.
“Terisa” – he was controlling himself with a visible effort, holding down a desire to yell at her – “I am very, very tired of being laughed at.”
All her insides ached as she watched him; he made her so sad that her anger faded, at least temporarily. She didn’t know what to say. What could she have said? She understood: of course she understood. He was beaten, and he was trying to accept it. But what she did or didn’t understand changed nothing. It didn’t help him – or Mordant. Yet she had to give him something. If she didn’t, she was going to start crying again.
Quietly, stifling her unhappiness, she asked, “What do you want me to do?”
He had considered that as well. “You’re an arch-Imager,” he said promptly. “Like Vagel. You’ve just proved that. You can pass through a mirror without changing worlds. And without losing your mind. But you’re more than that, too. You can change the Images themselves. You can do the same thing with flat glass that I do with a normal mirror. Together, we’re two of the most powerful people in Mordant. All we need is practice. And mirrors. I want you to stay here and help me defend the only thing left that’s worth fighting for.”
In the same tone, she asked, “Do you have any glass at all?”
“No, not yet. We’ve got a bit of equipment and tinct my father confiscated from some sort of hedgerow Imager back in the early days of Mordant’s peace, but we’ve never used it.
“I was worried while you were back in Orison, where Eremis could attack you – or put pressure on you by attacking me. But after what you’ve just told me, I don’t think we need to hurry. We aren’t much of a threat to him right now. He’s got us out of Orison, and he still looks innocent. We can’t hurt him where we are. And he’s got a lot of other things on his mind. He’s got to spring this trap of his – whatever it is. I think he’ll leave us alone until he’s done with Orison. He won’t worry about cleaning up minor problems like us until afterward.”
Terisa sighed softly. “We’re ‘two of the most powerful people in Mordant,’ but we’re only a ‘minor problem.’ ”
“All we need is practice,” he repeated as if that would reassure her. “By the time he gets around to us, we’ll be ready for him. If he tries to touch Domne, we’re going to tear his hand off at the wrist.”
After a pause, he concluded like a man affirming an article of faith, “There isn’t anything else.”
Maybe that was true – she didn’t know. She had gone as far as she could at the moment. He assumed she would do what he wanted: that was enough. It would give her time to think. Time to rest. She needed rest badly. With everything still unresolved, she looked up at him and said, “Speaking of Domne, I think you ought to take me to Houseldon. I want to meet your family.”
She couldn’t be sure in the dim light, but she thought she saw him almost smile.
For some reason, however, her acquiescence – and the idea of returning home – didn’t improve his mood. If he did smile, he did so in a way which denied laughter. His bitterness may have lifted a bit, but the dour humor which replaced it was equally iron and ungiving.
With a crisp accuracy entirely unlike the eager, accident-prone manner she remembered, he repacked his supplies, then watered the horses and saddled them. “Take the bay,” he said, indicating one of the mounts. “Quiss had her trained to carry pregnant women. Quiss has been pregnant a lot. I think Tholden wants to have seven sons, too.” His tone seemed gentler when he talked about such things, but that impression may have been created by what he was saying rather than by the way he said it. “But so far he only has five children, and two of them are daughters.”
The air was warmer now; nevertheless Terisa kept the blanket over her shoulders as she climbed onto the bay. This was only her second experience with a horse, and the saddle seemed dangerously high. The blanket was awkward to hold closed – but not as awkward as her torn shirt. The last thing she wanted at a time like this was to ride into Houseldon with her chest exposed.
When she was seated, he adjusted her stirrups. Then he swung up onto his own mount, an appaloosa with a look of harmless lunacy in its eyes, and led her away.
The hillside sloped downward from the Closed Fist for some distance, then became rumpled, like a rucked-up skirt. Even in the shadow of the mountains, the light was strong enough now so that she could see wildflowers scattered across the grass; but she didn’t realize how bright they were – how much brighter they were than she remembered them – until she and Geraden reached the direct sunshine. Then color seemed to burst from the grass wherever she looked: blue and lavender; mauve; yellow shot with orange; the rich, rich red of poppies. There were trees on the hillsides, too, but most of them grew down in the folds of the terrain, along the river. Mountains with snow still on them ranged north and east as well as south of her, so that she and Geraden seemed to be riding out from between their arms. As far as she could see toward the northeast, however, toward the Care of Domne, the hills were primarily covered with open grass and wildflowers.
Geraden was right: the bay was easy to ride; her gait instilled confidence. He and Terisa were soon down among the low hills, and she began to feel secure enough to attempt a trot. The whole sensation – the horse, the morning sunshine, his presence beside her – was so much more pleasant than the time she had gone riding with him and Argus that she couldn’t hold in a smile.
“Yes,” she heard him murmur as if he were answering a question. “The Care of Domne is beautiful. It’s always beautiful, no matter what happens to it – or to Mordant. No matter who lives or dies, no matter what changes. Some things—” He looked around in an effort to see everything at once. “Some things remain.”
He thought for a moment, then said, “Maybe that’s why the Domne was never willing to fight. And why King Joyse loved him anyway.”
“I don’t understand.”
Geraden shrugged. “In a way, my father is the Care of Domne. The things he values most don’t need to be fought for because they can’t be hurt.”
Terisa concentrated on her seat while the horses worked their way up a steeper hillside. After that, the ground seemed to have been smoothed out by the hand of the sun. It wasn’t level, but the slopes were long and comfortable, and the grass appeared to flow all the way to the horizon.
She probably should have been thinking about her strange talent for Imagery. After any number of denials, she had discovered that her talent was real. Surely that changed her situation, her responsibilities? But she didn’t feel that anything had changed. She had already chosen her loyalties in the struggle for Mordant, committed herself. And without glass there was nothing she could do to explore or define her abilities – whatever they actually were.
At the moment, she wasn’t interested in herself. She was interested in Geraden.
“Tell me about your family,” she suggested. “You’ve talked about them before, but it feels like a long time ago. I’d like to know who I’m going to meet.”
“Well, you won’t meet Wester,” Geraden answered absently, as if his family had nothing to do with what he was thinking. “He’s away rallying the farmsteads. That’s probably just as well. He’s the handsome one. Women fall in love with him all the time. But he’ll break your heart. The only thing he cares about is wool. If wool were glass, he’d be the greatest Imager in the world. We aren’t sure he knows women even exist.