7 APOLOGIZING

Geraden's interruption appeared to sadden the King. His smile changed to lines of fatigue and melancholy as he looked towards the Apt. 'I see that, Geraden,' he said quietly. 'I'm not blind, you know.'

'I'm sorry,' Geraden murmured. 'I just meant that she's important. I had to bring her to you.' He was hurrying. The Congery sent me into the mirror this morning to try to get the champion they wanted. But I didn't find him. I found her instead. She might be the answer to the auguries.'

Adept Havelock continued to ignore Geraden and Terisa. Scrutinizing the board, he reached out finally and moved one of the King's men, hopping one of his own. Then, triumphantly, he responded by demolishing a whole line of opposing pieces and arriving at the last row, where he crowned himself with severe emphasis.

Grimly, forcing himself to speak in spite of his embarrassment,

Geraden went on, 'She proves you've been right all along. The mirrors don't create what we see. The Images really exist.'

King Joyse studied Geraden for a moment. Then he sighed wearily and turned to Terisa. 'My lady,' he said, 'please pardon me. It appears that this urgent young man will not allow us the freedom to play hop-board just now.

'Be reasonable, Geraden,' he continued, shifting his attention back to the Apt. 'You know that I agree with you. But what does her presence here truly prove?' The quaver in his voice persisted: he sounded like he was rehearsing an argument so old that he would no longer have got any satisfaction out of winning it. 'Surely it's possible that you found her instead of the champion you sought because of one of your unfortunate mishaps? Or perhaps you've touched on an unsuspected strength in yourself, and you found her instead of the champion because she was what you wished to find? In what way does her translation demonstrate the fundamental nature of Imagery-or of mirrors?'

Geraden looked first startled by the King's argument, then vaguely nauseated. 'But I

saw-' he protested incoherently. 'It wasn't the same.'

King Joyse watched him mildly and waited for him to pull his thoughts together.

With an effort, Geraden said slowly, 'I made that mirror myself. I saw the champion I was supposed to find in it. He was right there in front of me when I stepped into the glass. But during the translation everything changed. I arrived in a room that was totally different from the Images. She is totally different. What you're saying is that I made her up-by some kind of accident, either because I didn't know what I was doing or because I didn't know my own strength. How is that possible?' In reply, the King shrugged-a bit sadly, Terisa thought.

'Who can say? Centuries ago, no one believed that Imagery itself was possible. Even a hundred years ago, no one believed that Imagery might threaten the existence of the very realms which made use of it.

'Geraden,' he said to the pain on the Apt's face, 'I don't claim that she does not exist. I only observe that her presence here doesn't settle the question.'

Geraden shook his head and tried again. 'But if you think that way-and you push it far enough-you can't prove anything exists. You can't prove I'm here talking to you. You can't prove you're playing hop-board with anybody but yourself. You might not be playing it anywhere except in your own mind.'

At that, the King smiled, then grimaced humorously. 'Unfortunately, I'm confident that my games of hop-board are real-and my opponent as well. The drubbings I receive are too painful for any other explanation.'

'Very wise,' remarked Adept Havelock unexpectedly, without raising his eyes from the board. In lugubrious concentration, he moved two or three of King Joyse's men to other squares; then with his crowned piece he jumped them all, hitting each square emphatically as if to compensate for his wall-eyed vision. 'Only hop-board is real. Ask any philosopher. Nothing else'-he fluttered one hand in dismissal-'signifies.'

Without meaning to, Terisa smiled at the fond grin King Joyse directed at Havelock. The Adept's way of playing checkers made it clear that he wasn't in his right mind; nevertheless she found the King's affection for the old Imager catching. Watching them, she forgot for a moment that the present conversation had anything to do with her.

But Geraden was too vexed and unhappy to enjoy the King's playful attitude. 'My lord King, this isn't a joke. The realm is tottering, and all of Mordant is waiting for you to do something about it.' He gathered momentum as he spoke, until his urgency seemed to clear away his smaller uncertainties, contritions, and anxieties. 'I don't know why you haven't, but the Masters finally couldn't wait any longer. They-' He caught himself. 'We

are doing our best to find an answer. And we have. I think we have, anyway. The lady Terisa isn't the champion we were expecting -but that probably doesn't matter. There's a reason she's here instead of what we were expecting, and I don't think it has anything to do with accidents. I'm not an arch-Imager in disguise. And mirrors don't have minds of their own.'

As she studied his intent expression, Terisa caught a glimpse of what made him so accident-prone. He was too many things at once-a boy, a man, and everything in between-and the differing parts of himself seldom came into balance. She found him attractive in that way. Yet the perception saddened her: she herself wasn't too many things, but too few.

The King was watching Geraden as well; and the lines of his old visage seemed to hint at a sadness of his own. But they also suggested interest and perhaps a kind of pride. 'So much confidence is remarkable,' he commented. The quaver in his voice made his nonchalance sound unsteady, feigned. 'You've spoken of what you've seen, Geraden. Tell me what you've seen that gives you this confidence.'

Geraden hesitated, glancing at Terisa in appeal as though he believed she knew what he was about to say; as though he felt it would be more convincing if it came from her. But of course she had no idea what he had in mind. After a moment, he returned his gaze to King Joyse.

'My lord King,' the Apt said, his own voice shaking with determination and alarm, 'she is a Master of Imagery.'

At that, the King fixed a watery and unreadable look on Terisa -a look which could have indicated surprise or boredom.

Without a glance at the other people in the room, Havelock swept all the men off the board and began to set up a new game. 'I believe,' Geraden went on softly, 'her power pulled my translation away from where I thought I was going.'

The assertion was so absurd that several moments passed before Terisa realized she was expected to answer it. Then,

helplessly, she began to blush under the scrutiny of the two men.

Close to panic, she replied, 'No. No, of course not. That's crazy. I don't even know what you're talking about.'

Carefully, Geraden said, 'I found her in a room entirely walled with mirrors.'

'So what?' A distant, self-conscious part of her mind was surprised by how this ludicrous conception frightened her. 'Everybody has mirrors. A lot of people use them for d6cor. They're just pieces of glass-with something on the back to make them reflect. They don't mean anything.'

In response to her alarm, King Joyse murmured as if he were trying to comfort her, 'Perhaps in your world that is so. Here the truth is otherwise.'

But Geraden was already saying as definitively as he could, 'Each of her mirrors showed her own Image exactly. They showed my Image exactly. And she isn't hurt. I'm not hurt. I ought to be raving by now. Or my mind should be completely empty. But I'm all right. She's all right. They were her mirrors.'

An amazed dismay stopped Terisa's mouth. She felt she couldn't understand what was literally being said to her. Each of her mirrors showed her own Image exactly. Here that wasn't true. Suddenly, her grasp on the ordinary details of life-the plain facts which showed that she was in contact with reality-was threatened, denied.

And King Joyse peered at her with an intent interest which made everything worse. 'Is this correct, my lady?' he asked as if she had just claimed to be some kind of exotic insect. The story is told that an Imager once chanced to form a flat mirror which showed the exact spot on which he stood. Therefore he saw himself in the glass-and was immediately cancelled. His body remained where it was until its balance failed, but his spirit had entirely ceased to exist. It was lost in translation. How do the people of your world avoid this fate?'

Groping for sense, she countered, That's impossible. Mirrors can't hurt anybody. They just show you what you look like. Except reversed. Like a pool of water. Haven't you ever looked at yourself in a pool of water?'

Both men studied her oddly. In a soft, musing tone, King Joyse said, 'We're taught from childhood to be wary of Images. We don't seek them out.'

Without any particular forewarning, Adept Havelock pounded his fist on the table, then picked up the checkerboard and threw it at the ceiling.

The checkers made a sound like wooden rain against the granite of the ceiling and fell back to bounce noiselessly in the blue and red rug.

Tottering to his feet, the old Imager roared, 'Horror and bollocks!' His eyes squinted ferociously at both the King and Geraden; patches of scarlet burned on his face; his fat lips shook like wattles. 'She's a woman!' He struck a wild gesture in her direction with the back of his hand. 'Are you and every man-jack feeble-wit Imager of the Congery

blind! She is female, fe-fe-FE-male.' Saliva sprayed from his mouth. 'Oh, my groin!' Because she didn't know what else to do, Terisa stood and stared at him.

'Look at you!' Still using the back of his hand, he hit King Joyse across the chest-a blow which was more dramatic in intention than in effect. 'And you!' With his other hand, he struck Geraden. 'Or here!' Awkwardly but quickly, he bobbed towards the floor like a poorly constructed rooster, then pulled himself erect. 'And here!' Another bob. 'And here!' Each time he stood upright again, he brandished a checker in his open palm. 'All men, every one! Every one of them!'

But when his hand was full of checkers, he flung them down again. 'By the hoary goat of the arch-Imager!' he shouted as if the three people in front of him had insulted him beyond mortal endurance, 'she is a woman!'

Moving with an attempt at vehemence which his frail limbs couldn't support, he stamped/shuffled to the outer door of the chamber, jerked it open, and slammed it shut again without leaving. Then, somewhat unsteadily, he retrieved the checkerboard from the floor and set it squarely on the table. Oblivious to everyone else, he took his seat and began to study the empty board as if an intense game were in progress.

King Joyse sighed delicately.

Geraden said, 'I'm sorry.' Terisa wasn't quite sure why. Her heart pounded as if she had somehow escaped a crisis.

'No matter, my boy,' replied the King, patting Geraden's shoulder absent-mindedly, as though the Apt had in fact committed some minor offence. For a moment, his gaze seemed to swim out of focus while he thought about something-or perhaps he was simply taking a quick nap on his feet. Then he nodded to himself. Smiling irrelevantly in Terisa's direction, he said, 'Geraden, it occurs to me to be surprised that the Congery released the lady Terisa in your company. She is here by Imagery-and some of the Masters, I know, are jealous. Also I suspect that they would always prefer to keep what they do secret from me. Yet here you are. How do you account for that?'

Geraden made an effort to look at the King squarely; but his discomfiture was too strong for him.

'Did you tell the Masters that she may be a Master herself?' The Apt swallowed thickly. 'No.'

'Ah,' King Joyse said mildly. That explains it, then. Of course they let her go, thinking

her to be just another of your mishaps. But why didn't you tell them?'

A slow flush spread over Geraden's face. Muscles knotted in his forehead. His embarrassment was so acute that it nearly brought tears to Terisa's eyes. But he clamped his jaws shut and didn't answer.

'My boy, that may have been foolish.' The King's hand put no pressure on Geraden's shoulder, but his expression was kind. 'You've been trying for-what is it now?-ten years?-to become an Imager, a member of the Congery. How can you hope to succeed, if you risk angering the very men who control the knowledge, skill, and position you crave?'

'My lord King.' Geraden forced himself to let the King see the sharp pain in his eyes; and a sudden dignity came to him. 'If I had told them, they would have commanded me to keep all this secret from you. Then I would have been compelled to disobey them directly-and my hope of a chasuble would be lost forever.' There was an undercurrent of bitterness in his voice. 'I can't bear disloyalty to the King of Mordant. I can't give up my dreams. So I act like a fool. They'll believe I didn't notice her mirrors-or didn't understand the significance of what I saw.'

In response, another of the smiles which had first touched Terisa's heart lit the King's face. For a moment, his age, weakness, and uncertainty fell away, and he became simply happy.