For him, the trick would be to determine exactly what that lie was.
Thinking about things like this made him look like he was about to burst with good humor.
THIRTY-EIGHT: CONFLICT AT THE GATES
“The trick,” Geraden said the first time they rested the horses, “is not to get stopped.”
They had ridden hard for most of the morning: the road from Romish was easy going, and he was in a hurry. But the horses couldn’t sustain a pace like that indefinitely.
“Oh, really?” Terisa didn’t realize how sourly she spoke. She was still thinking about Torrent: the idea of the King’s shy daughter riding away alone in a foolish and dangerous effort to rescue Queen Madin clung to her mind like a splash of acid. “We’re going back to Orison. Where Master Eremis wants us. Why would anybody try to stop us?”
Geraden looked at her sharply; for a moment, he seemed unsure how to respond. As if he had missed the point, he said, “We’ve been riding so long – and it feels so good to be with you – I keep thinking you know Mordant better than you do. Would you like to look at the map again?”
She shook her head. She didn’t care about the map. She didn’t care about being stopped. At the moment, she didn’t even care about having to face Eremis again.
Geraden, that’s how Argus got killed.
“Well,” he explained, still missing the point, “there’s really only one fast way to get from Romish to Orison, and that’s along this road – the main road through Armigite. Which just happens to be the route Prince Kragen used. It’s his link to Alend – his supply line, his line of retreat. It’ll be crawling with his men.
“On top of that, even the Armigite can’t be as stupid as people think. He’s got to have scouts and spies everywhere, especially along the road. He needs to know what’s happening. And right now he probably wants an Imager or two more than anything in the world. If his men get their hands on us, they aren’t going to let us go just because we smile and say please.”
Terisa stared into the trees without saying anything.
“And on top of that” – Geraden’s tone became slowly harsher – “I assume Orison is still under siege. I assume it hasn’t already fallen, or there wouldn’t be any reason to kidnap Queen Madin. If we’re going to get in to see King Joyse, we’ll have to get past the whole Alend army.
“The men who took the Queen were Alends. It looks like this is some plot of Prince Kragen’s. So he’s the one we have to worry about. And he won’t let us in to Orison until he’s ready – until his trap is ready.”
He surprised her, and she winced. “Do you really think that’s true? Do you really think Prince Kragen is responsible for kidnapping the Queen?”
“Don’t you? You said those men were Alends. They took her toward Alend.”
The acid in her mind was turning to nausea. “But if he’s responsible—” Until now, she hadn’t considered the question closely. “That means he’s working with Master Eremis. Where else would he get an Imager who could translate an avalanche?”
Geraden watched her and waited.
“But if that’s true, why did Eremis refill the reservoir? Why didn’t he just let Prince Kragen into Orison?”
“An interesting question,” Geraden murmured past his teeth.
She tried to imagine an explanation; but almost at once another aspect of the situation struck her. “If the Prince did it, he must have done it behind Elega’s back. She’d never approve of something like that.”
Geraden nodded once, roughly.
The implications brought Terisa to a halt. “Elega’s being betrayed herself.” She faced Geraden squarely, showed him her distress. “What’re we going to do?”
The way he met her gaze gave the impression that he had accomplished his goaclass="underline" he had shifted the direction of her thoughts. “We’ll stay on the road until we get close to Batten,” he replied. “That’s where the Alends will pick it up. And it turns south there to meet the road from Sternwall. We can go straight southeast toward Orison. We’ll save some miles – and maybe we won’t lose much time.
“When we reach the siege, we’ll try to get to Elega before the Prince realizes what we’re doing.” Abruptly, he grinned – a sharp smile with no humor in it. “If she knows what happened to her mother – if she allowed it to happen, if she approves of it – I’m going to be very disappointed in her.”
“And if she doesn’t know,” Terisa completed for him, trying to reassure herself, “she might be willing to help us.”
He nodded again.
After a while, they mounted their horses and went on.
They rode out of the last hills of Fayle onto one of Armigite’s many fertile flatlands at what felt like a breakneck pace. Leaving the woods behind increased Terisa’s anxiety: Armigite appeared to be almost unnaturally open, as if everything that moved through it were somehow exposed. Perhaps that was why the Armigite had become what he was: perhaps his personality had been distorted by the pressure of being so exposed. But actually there were quite a few trees around, even in lowlands which had obviously been under cultivation before Prince Kragen and his army crossed the Pestil. Concealment was scarce, but shade was available. Partly for that reason, and partly because of the soil’s richness, the flats of Armigite bore no resemblance to the arid spaces of Termigan.
Terisa and Geraden made good progress, despite the lack of fresh mounts. He studied the map repeatedly – they were still crossing a part of Mordant where he had never been before – and assured her that their progress was good. He may have been trying to shore up her spirits. For some reason, his own didn’t appear to need support: his keenness suggested that he liked this rush across the landscape, this clear and urgent sense of purpose; that he was eager to return to Orison. By the time nightfall forced them to halt and make camp, they were well on their way toward making the journey to Orison as Queen Madin had intended it, in three days.
The more he looked ahead, however, the more her attention turned backward. Torrent had touched her unexpectedly, made her aware of her own inadequacies. In their separate ways, each of the King’s daughters had daunted her. They had inherited more courage than she seemed to possess. Her determination to oppose Master Eremis was little more than a pretense, after all – a pretense that she could somehow transcend her past.
As she gazed across the campfire into the open dark of Armigite, she murmured, “Geraden, there’s something I don’t understand.”
“Just ‘something’?” he returned, making a transparent effort to jolly her out of her mood. “Then you are marvelous to me, my lady. My lack of understanding doesn’t stop at ‘something.’ It’s as vast as the world.”
She looked over at him. His face was as dear as ever. And if anything he had become more handsome; the excitement he had felt since Torrent left brought out the best in his eyes, in the lines of his features. He didn’t deserve her gloom. For his sake, she made an effort to smile.
“That’s probably true. But I’ll bet you know the answer to this one.”
He met her eyes and smiled back. “Try me.” The dancing light of the campfire created the impression that his smile went all the way to the bone.
Almost at once, she found that the weight pushing down on her spirit wasn’t quite as heavy as she had thought.
“I think I will,” she said. “But first I want you to explain something.”
The gleam in his eyes grew brighter as he waited for her to continue.
“That avalanche,” she said. “They must have used two mirrors. Isn’t that right? One to translate it away from wherever they found it. One to translate it to Vale House.”
“Yes,” Geraden replied at once. “But that’s been true of everything we’ve seen. Those pits of fire outside Sternwall. The ghouls in Fayle. Even the creatures that attacked Houseldon.” A shadow which might have been grief or rage darkened his gaze briefly. “They all needed two mirrors. That must be Eremis’ secret. It must be how he’s able to attack so many different places in Mordant without actually going to them. And it must be how he’s able to move people in and out of Orison without costing them their minds.