If she was her father’s daughter, she might be one of them herself.
“Now, my lady,” the Termigan said like a sharp stone, “tell me what you think I can do to help my King.”
Fortunately, she didn’t get a chance to answer. A knock at the door saved her from babbling incoherently. The Termigan turned his head, rasped, “Enter,” and one of his soldiers came into the room.
“My lord,” the man said in a pale voice. His face was ashen, but his eyes still held the red glow of lava. “It’s getting worse.”
“ ‘Worse’?” the lord demanded without moving.
The soldier jerked a nod. “They’re translating more lava. We can see it pouring out of the air. It’s building up against us faster. Two of the pits ran together.” He hesitated, then said, “Part of the wall just gave way.”
A sting of alarm went through Terisa. Half involuntarily, she said, “That’s because we’re here. We’re too dangerous.”
And because they were approaching the crisis – the point where Master Quillon said Eremis would be vulnerable. So that he would attack here. The point at which King Joyse intended to strike back. If in fact he had ever had the policy Quillon ascribed to him – or if he were still King enough to carry it out. Eremis needed to kill or paralyze the King’s allies before that moment, so that King Joyse wouldn’t have any force with which to strike.
It was probably true – although the thought made her sick – that Eremis wouldn’t try so hard to kill her and Geraden if she hadn’t convinced the Master that King Joyse knew what he was doing, that the King’s choices were deliberate, purposive, rather than passive or accidental.
“ ‘We’?” asked the Termigan. He sounded fatal – too calm for the extremity of his outrage and dismay. “One new Imager and a failed Apt? I don’t believe it.”
“You should.” Terisa couldn’t bear it. Sternwall was going to be destroyed. Like Houseldon. Because of her and Geraden. “He’s an Imager, too. He’s even more powerful than I am. Let him make a mirror, and he’ll get rid of that lava for you.
“Eremis wants us dead. He can’t take the chance we’ll talk you into helping us.”
Then she closed her eyes, trying to rest her head from this prolonged struggle against pain; trying to believe that she hadn’t condemned Geraden and herself to spend the rest of their short lives in the Termigan’s dungeons.
She expected the lord to do something vehement: spring to his feet, storm around the room, perhaps have her locked in irons. He did none of those things, however. He murmured to his soldier, and the man left the room. Then he sat still, studying Terisa flatly; his gaze was so unreadable that when she finally met it it made her want to scream.
A few moments later, the soldier returned, ushering Geraden into the Termigan’s presence.
After that, the man left.
Geraden looked at her, at the lord. He said, “My lord Termigan,” roughly, his only concession to politeness. He was already hurrying toward Terisa.
“Are you all right?” he asked in a low voice. “You were hit so hard, I thought they broke your neck.”
She managed a crooked smile, a stiff nod. Putting her hand in his, she pulled herself to her feet. “The lava’s getting worse,” she said, speaking carefully so that she wouldn’t start to yell. “I think it’s another way of attacking us.” She faced the Termigan although she spoke to Geraden, held Geraden’s hand; with all her strength, she willed the lord not to harm Geraden. “And I think Eremis is afraid of the Termigan. There must be something he can do to fight back.” Because she wanted the lord to understand that she was threatening him, she concluded to Geraden, “I told him you’re an Imager.”
And Geraden – without hesitation, almost without trepidation – supported her even though he probably had no idea what he was getting into. “That’s right,” he said. “If you’ve got any sand here, any kind of furnace or kiln, I might be able to make a mirror. I could translate that fire away.”
Terisa squeezed his hand hard and held her breath.
For the first time, she saw the Termigan react plainly. A muscle twitched in his cheek; his brows knotted into a hurt scowl. The emotion she felt wash from him wasn’t anger or even disgust: it was grief.
In a ragged voice, he said, “No. Even if you’re telling the truth. I won’t have it. I won’t have Imagery here.”
His own severity cost him this hope.
Geraden blew a sigh; but he still didn’t hesitate. “Then, my lord,” he said clearly, “there’s only one thing you can do for your people.” Terisa marveled at him – at the strength in his voice, at the certainty with which he met a dilemma that confounded her. “Evacuate Sternwall. Get your men together. Go fight for King Joyse. Before it’s too late.”
It didn’t work. “ ‘Evacuate Sternwall’?” the Termigan spat as if he had discovered a piece of glass in his food. “Leave my people? Abandon my Care?” Softly, but so intensely that it sounded like a cry from his heart, he demanded, “For what?”
“For Mordant,” answered Geraden. “For peace.”
The Termigan didn’t respond, so Geraden went on, “Orison is under siege. Prince Kragen brought the Alend army against us – at least ten thousand men. And Cadwal is marching. The High King’s army is even bigger – I don’t know how long the Perdon can hold out against it. Right now, the Alend Monarch may be in the strange position of defending Orison from Cadwal.
“I don’t think you can do anything about that. I don’t think you’ve got enough men.
“But you could attack Eremis directly.” He released Terisa’s hand so that he could move closer to the Termigan, face the lord more squarely. “He’s in league with High King Festten. But Cadwal has to fight Alend and Orison. So the place where Eremis keeps his mirrors is vulnerable – the place where he does translations like this one, the one destroying Sternwall. The place where he and Gilbur and Vagel hid to do their plotting and shape their mirrors.
“You could attack him there. In the Care of Tor. In his home. Esmerel.”
Esmerel? Terisa was surprised. That didn’t make sense. “What about his father – his brothers?” she asked stupidly. They would have betrayed him long ago. “He couldn’t use Esmerel.”
Geraden turned to her. Frowning at the distraction, he said, “Eremis doesn’t have any family. They all died in a fire years ago. Some of his servants in Orison are people who used to serve his father. I’ve heard them talk about it.”
So that also was a lie, just another of Eremis’ attempts to manipulate her. She ground her teeth. Suddenly, she felt a fierce desire to do what Geraden was proposing: ride into the Care of Tor, ride to Esmerel, attack—Get even with that bastard.
But the Termigan wasn’t moved. “Will that save Sternwall?” he asked Geraden in a voice like a winter wind.
“Probably not,” Geraden admitted. “It’ll take too long. Sternwall is probably doomed – unless something good happens for a change. Unless something happens to distract Eremis or Gilbur so they can’t keep translating that lava.”
“Then I repeat,” gritted the lord. “For what?”
This time, Geraden said simply, “You might be able to save King Joyse.”
The Termigan chewed on that for a while. Then he said harshly, “So you think there’s something worth saving? You think Joyse hasn’t just gone passive or anile?” He’d been pushed too far: he was losing his calm, his inhuman self-restraint. “You think there’s some reason why he let those shit-eating Imagers do this to my Care?”
“Yes,” Terisa said at once, before the lord’s sorrow and distress became too much for her. “I don’t like it very well. I don’t think it’s good enough. But there is a reason.”