Free A Man Rides Through by Stephen Donaldson Page B

hurt and furious. "Don't lie to me. Don't lie to me anymore." Now his eyes were clear and hot, bright with passion or fever. "I've seen the body myself."
     
    And while she reeled inside herself he continued, "After Geraden stabbed him, he was still alive. That much is true. Eremis rushed him to his own rooms and got a physician for him. That was his only chance to stay alive. Eremis got him that chance. Then Eremis put guards on him—inside the room and outside the door. In case Geraden tried again.
     
    "It didn't work." Artagel's forehead seemed to bulge between the bars; he might have been trying to break his skull. "Lebbick found them. The guards were killed. Some kind of beast fed off them. Geraden must have translated something into the room—something they couldn't fight.
     
    "Nyle was killed. It chewed his face off."
     
    Just for a second, that image struck her so horribly that she quailed. Oh, Nyle! Oh, my God. Visceral revulsion churned inside her, and her hands leaped to cover her mouth. Geraden, no!
     
    She should have gone with him. To prevent all this.
     
    But then she saw iron and anguish, and Geraden came back to her. She knew him. And she loved him. Terisa, I did not kill my brother. Without warning, she was angry. Years of outrage which she had stored away in the secret places of her heart abruptly sprang out, touching her with fire.
     
    "Say that again," she breathed, panted. "Go on. Say it."
     
    Artagel was beyond the reach of surprise. Baring his teeth in a snarl, he repeated, "Nyle was killed. The beast chewed his face off."
     
    "And you believe Geraden did that?" She lashed her protest at him. "Are you out of your mind? Has everybody in this whole place gone crazy?"
     
    He blinked dumbly; for one brief moment, he seemed to regard her in a different light. Almost at once, however, his own horror returned. His legs were failing. Slowly, he began to slip down the bars.
     
    "I saw his body. I held it. I've still got his blood on my clothes."
     
    That was true. Her lamp was bright enough to reveal the dried tins on his nightshirt.
     
    "I don't care." She was too angry to imagine what the experience had been like for him—to hold his own brother's outraged corpse his arms and have no way to bring the body back to life. "Geraden is your brother. You've known him all his life. You know him better than that."
     
    Artagel continued slipping. His side hurt too much: apparently, he couldn't use his hands. She reached through the bars and grabbed his nightshirt to support him somehow; but he was too heavy for her. Finally he bent his legs and caught his weight on his knees. "I tell you I've seen his body."
     
    He pulled her down with him until she was on her knees as well. Raging into his face, she gasped, "I don't care. Geraden didn't do it."
     
    "And I tell you I've seen his body." In spite of weakness and fever, Artagel met her with the unflinching passion which had twice led him to hurl himself against the High King's Monomach. "You deny it, but it isn't going to go away. An Imager did it. Translation is the only way a beast could get into that room and out again. But it wasn't Eremis. He was with Lebbick the whole time.
     
    "Right now, he's up in the reservoir translating a new water supply. He's the only reason we've got any hope at all. I took Geraden's side against him"—Artagel's voice seemed to be thick with blood—"and I was wrong. He's saving us.
     
    "Geraden killed Nyle. I'm going to track him down whether you tell me where he is or not. The only difference it's going to make is time."
     
    "And then you're going to cut his heart out." Terisa couldn't bear any more. He made her want to shriek. With an effort of will, she let go of his shirt, drew back from him. "Get out of here," she muttered. "I don't want to hear this." The image of what had happened to Nyle sucked at her concentration. She thrust it away with both hands. "Just get out of here."
     
    Then the sight of him—fierce