Have I not tried to tell you that you are more special than you realize?
Geraden and Terisa have been saved from the rubble. Geraden is unconcious, Terisa is very shaky.
Someone gives her strong brandy to drink, as a doctor checks poor Geraden over, then Terisa. Master Quillon urges her to go to rest in her rooms.She was shivering. The temperature of the air seemed to drop rapidly - although that was just reaction, she knew, just as her body and mind suffering the consquences of what she had been through. Her gray gown, so warm and self-effacing earlier, now gave her no protection at all. Granite dust coated every fiber of the material, covered every inch of her skin, made her hair feel like ruined wool.
Master Quillon escorts Terisa back to her rooms personally. She questions him about Geraden's safety, then asks why the King waited so long before he allowed the Castellan to attempt to stop the translation."Yes," sighed Master Barsonage, "We must all rest. And think. We must find some way to combat this champion. Now that his proper glass is broken, we have no good weapon against him."
When they reach her suite, it turns out that all of the guards have been pulled away to help with the crisis. The Master says he will guard the rooms himself until the guards and Saddith can come. In her fatigue and mental fog Terisa mentions to Quillon that Artagel had saved her life the previous night."My lady, the Fayle tried to warn King Joyse, but he was not heard. The King refused. Castellan Lebbick had no orders to intervene. He acted upon his own initiative, after the Fayle spoke to him."
She has only been in her room a short time when the Princess Myste comes to see her, begging for help and a place to hide. Before, during, and after interruptions from Saddith the two have a long and very secret conversation...Myste has come to Terisa to use the secret passage in the back of her wardrobe. She intends to sneak away from Orison to find and aid the champion. She feels that it is her duty to "solve the problem" as she is the one who sees it -- that the champion is either human and needs her help as a fellow human, or he is an intelligent tool of Imagery and needs her help as would a hound or a horse."Why did you tell no one?"
She blinked at him, unable to fathom his distress. This was going on too long. She wanted to lie down. To make him stop she asked, "Who do you expect me to trust?"
For just a moment, he looked as miserable and desperate as a soaked rabbit. then he stood and scowled. "I take your point, my lady. You are not in an easy position. Someday it will improve - if you live that long. Go to your rooms," he continued brusquely. "Bolt the door. I will guard you until Lebbick's men return to duty. As soon as I can, I will have your maid bring food and wine."
The fog was growing thicker. She stared at him blankly.
His expression softened, " Go my lady." He took her arm to urge her toward the door. "You need rest. And if you remain standing here your mistrust will become unbearable to me."
Terisa agrees to help her, to hide her, to even lie for her to her sister Elega...and Myste leaves Orison shortly after sunset."Yet I have always believed that problems should be solved by those who see them - that when a difficulty presents itself the person who becomes aware of it should answer it instead of trying to pass it on to someone else." Her voice cast hints of passion like glints of gold in the firelight. "This is more true rather than less for a king's daughter. What is a king if not a man who accepts responsibilities for problems when he sees them? And should his daughter not do the same?"
In the morning Terisa is awakened by horns. She sees the Fayle, other Lords, and Prince Kragen all leaving. She looks for her mocassins, wanting the comfort of the familiar, and cannot find them anywhere.
Shortly thereafter, the Castellan comes stomping into her rooms. He says that he is through with her lies. He tells her Gilbur has vanished. He tells her that the nearly all fifty men he sent after the champion have been killed by a product of Imagery, a cat the size of a house that set fire to everything around it. He tells her that he found the chair in her wardrobe and the blood on the soles of her mocassins.
Then Geraden comes in to summon Terisa to a meeting of the Congery. Lebbick sends him away, telling him Terisa is arrested and will be taken to the dungeons of Orison. Geraden quickly leaves, leaving Terisa feeling completely abandoned.
Lebbick tells her what he thinks has been happening since she came to Mordant, and what he thinks her role has been. He tells her Eremis has been arrested. He tricks her into admitting that her secret passage goes nowhere near where Kragen's men were killed -- and thus, admitting she knows something about that...Everybody was betraying everybody else; she was just a minor item on everybody's list. She couldn't defend herself because she couldn't figure it all out. And she didn't have anybody to betray because there was nobody on her side.
Amazingly, given her background of abuse and her usual self-effacing manners, Terisa shows defiance to Lebbick.
A guard then comes from King Joyse, telling the Castellan that Terisa is NOT under arrest and that she is summoned to the King."I don't deserve to be trated like this. If your wife were here, she would be ashamed of you."
After that, panic made her giddy. She saw the widening like a flare of madness in his eyes, but she didn't understand it. She heard him say, as if he were speaking a foreign language, "Thank you, my lady. I haven't had this much fun since King Joyse let me punish that garrison commander." Through a veil of dread, she watched him let go of her arms, cock himself back, and swing the back of his hand at her head.
Instinctively, she jerked her head down, jerked her arms up.
Deflected, his blow was still hard enough to knock her to the floor. Pain began to roar in her ears. She had the impression that she was going blind: the only thing she could see was the Castellan staring at his hand as though it belonged to someone else.
The pain had a voice. It said distinctly, "What am I doing?"
"Someday my lady," he said softly, "my chance will come. When that happens, you aren't going to escape me."
.. 
* 
