“Thievery!” was the bellowed answer of Gialaurys. “Thievery! Thievery!” And would have rushed forward into the halberds of Korsibar’s guard, but that Prestimion reined him in, for he saw that it was certain death to offer any resistance to the takeover. And thus he and his friends withdrew from the room in astonishment and defeat, and the Coronal’s throne was Korsibar’s, though it had been the tradition on Majipoor since the earliest days that a Coronal’s son might never inherit his father’s office.
No, Navigorn had no recollection of any of that, or of the great war that had followed and had cost the lives of so many men great and small. Korsibar in time had been overthrown, and Prestimion’s sorcerers had sliced his usurpation out of the history of the world. But that day in the Labyrinth blazed as incandescently as ever in Prestimion’s mind, that time when the throne that had been promised to him had been snatched from his grasp by treachery, forcing him to launch that bloody war against his own former friends in order to restore the proper order of things.
Navigorn’s voice broke him from his reverie: “Will there be a new set of Pontifical Games, Prestimion, when we all go down to the Labyrinth to wait for Confalume to die?”
“We don’t know yet that Confalume is dying,” Prestimion said curtly. “But even if he is—more games? No. Not this time, I think.”
He looked toward the window. Dawn was breaking over Fa.
Navigorn was probably right, he thought: Confalume’s stroke was the herald of the old Pontifex’s end, and before very long Majipoor would see yet another change of reign. He would go to the Labyrinth to become Pontifex, and Dekkeret would take his seat atop Castle Mount as Coronal.
Was he ready for that? No, of course not. Navigorn had said it truly: no Coronal ever wants to go to the Labyrinth. But to it he would go, all the same, as was his duty.
Prestimion did wonder how so restless a nature as his was going to abide life in the underground capital. Even the Castle had proven too confining to him; throughout his reign he had roamed constantly about the world, seizing every excuse to visit distant cities. He had made no less than three grand processionals, something that few Coronals before him had done. But his whole reign had been like an unending grand processional for him: he had traveled as no Coronal had ever traveled before.
Of course he would not be required to hide himself away in the Labyrinth once he became Pontifex. It was merely the custom. The Pontifex, the senior monarch, was supposed to remain secluded; the young and glorious Coronal, it was, who went forth among the populace to see and be seen. He meant to abide by that rule, up to a point. But only up to a point.
How long is it going to be, he asked himself, before everything changes for me?
The Thismet dream, perhaps, had been an omen. The past was reaching out to reclaim him, and soon they would all replay the time of old Prankipin’s death once more. But this time he would have the role of the outgoing Coronal that had been Confalume’s then, and Dekkeret would be the new prince moving to the center of the stage.
At least there were no new Korsibars waiting in the wings. He had seen to that. Confalume, when he was Coronal, had let it be known that he had chosen Prestimion to succeed him, but had never formally named him as Coronal-designate, feeling that that was an unseemly thing to do while old Prankipin was still alive. Prestimion had not made that mistake. In the interests of an orderly succession he had already named Dekkeret as his heir, and had explained to his own sons why the sons of a Coronal could never hope to inherit their father’s throne.
So all was in order. There was no reason for any forebodings. What would be would be, and everything would go well.
Well, then, Prestimion thought, let the changes begin.
He was ready for them. As ready as he ever would be.
To Navigorn he said briskly, “I suppose you’re right that I’d do best to return to the Castle before heading down to the Labyrinth. I’ll want to have a long talk with Varaile first. And I should meet with the Council, of course—prepare them for the succession—”
The only response was a loud snore. Prestimion glanced back at Navigorn. Navigorn was asleep in his chair.
“Falco!” Prestimion called, opening the door. “Diandolo!”
The steward and the page came running.
“Get everything ready for our departure. We’ll leave for the Castle right after breakfast. Diandolo, wake up Prince Taradath and tell him that we’re leaving, and that it’s my intention to leave on time. Oh, and a message has to go to Duke Emelric of Fa, letting him know that my presence at the Castle has suddenly been required and that with great regret I must cancel the rest of my stay here. Before you do that, though, send a courier off to the Lady Varaile at the Castle with word that I’m on my way back, and—well, that should be enough for now.” Quietly, so as not to awaken Navigorn, Prestimion began to gather up the scattered papers of state that covered his desk.
11
A pale, tense face appeared in the doorway of Mandralisca’s work-chamber. A hesitant tenor voice said, in not much more than a throaty whisper, “Your grace?”
Mandralisca glanced up. A young man; a boy, more accurately. Green eyes, long straw-colored hair. Earnest, starry-eyed look on his face.
He pushed aside the maps that he had been studying. “I know you, I think. You were with me on the Vorthinar mission, weren’t you?”
“Yes, your grace.” The boy seemed to be trembling. Mandralisca could hardly hear him. “There is a visitor here who says that he has—”
A visitor? This was not a place where visitors came, this isolated ridgetop settlement above that barren, dry, remorseless valley.
“What did you say? A visitor?”
“A visitor, yes, sir.”
“Speak up, will you?—Are you afraid of me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And why is that?”
“Because—because—”
“Something about my face? The look in my eyes?”
“You simply are a frightening person, sir.” The words came out all in a burst. But the boy was gaining courage. His eyes met Mandralisca’s squarely.
“Yes. I am. The truth is that I work at it. I find it a helpful thing to be frightening.” Mandralisca indicated with an impatient gesture that he should enter the room instead of hovering at the door. The work-chamber, a circular room with an arched roof and burnt-orange mud-plastered walls, was a small one. The entire house was small: the Five Lords might live in palaces, but they had not bothered to provide one for their privy counsellor. “Where do you come from, boy?”
“Sennec, sir. A town not far downriver from Horvenar.”
“How old?”
“Sixteen.—Your visitor, sir, says—”
“Let my damned visitor wait. Let him eat manculain turds while he waits. It’s you I’m talking to just now. What’s your name?”
“Thastain, sir.”
“Thastain of Sennec. The rhythm’s a little brusque. Count Thastain of Sennec: does that sound better? Thastain, Count of Sennec. Count of Sennec and Horvenar. A certain grandeur, that, wouldn’t you say?”
The boy did not reply. His expression was a mixture of bewilderment, fear, and, perhaps, irritation or even anger.
Mandralisca smiled. “You think I’m playing some game with you?”
“Who would ever make me a Count, your grace?”
“Who would ever have made me one? But I am. Count Mandralisca of Zimroel: there’s real poetry for you! I was a country boy just like you, once, a country boy from the Gonghars. It was Dantirya Sambail who put the title on me, the day before he died. ‘You have served me well, Mandralisca, and it’s high time I gave you a proper reward.’ We were in the jungles of the Stoienzar then. We didn’t know they were about to catch up with us. I knelt down and he touched my shoulder with his dagger and proclaimed me a Count right there on the spot, Count of Zimroel, a title that no one had ever had before. The next day Prestimion’s men found our camp and the Procurator was killed.
But I got away, and I took my Countship with me.—We’ll make you a Count too, one of these years, maybe. But first we have to turn the Lord Gaviral into a Pontifex. And the Lord Gavahaud, I suppose, into a Coronal.”
That brought only a blank-faced stare, and then a puzzled frown.
Perhaps he had said too much. It was time to send the boy away, Mandralisca realized. There was an odd pleasure in all of this, though: Thastain’s innocence was a charming novelty, and Mandralisca himself was in a strangely expansive mood this morning. But he had learned long ago to mistrust pleasure, even to fear it. And he was beginning to feel too relaxed with the boy. That was dangerous.
He said, “Do you happen to know the name of this visitor of mine?”
“Barz—Braj—Barjz—”
“Barjazid?”
“Barjazid, yes! That’s it, sir! Khaymak Barjazid, of Suvrael!”
Yes. Yes. Mandralisca remembered, now: the correspondence, the offer, the invitation to come. It had all slipped from his mind.
“He’s traveled a long way, then, this Khaymak Barjazid. Where is he now?”
“In the compound, sir, where everyone is kept who comes up the valley road from the pungatan desert. The guards at the first gatehouse found him and brought him in. He claims that you and he have business to discuss.”
Mandralisca felt a stab of excitement. The Barjazid at last! The new one, the brother, the unexpected survivor. He had taken his time about it. He had been dangling the promise of his arrival for most of the past year. And the promise of other things as well. I can be of great use to you, Barjazid had written. Allow me to visit you and show you what I have. “Thank you, Count Thastain. Tell him to come in.”
Thastain moved toward the door. “I’ll fetch him, your grace.”
“Yes. Do.” But—no, Barjazid should have been here months ago. Let the damned slippery bastard fry out there a little while longer. He was no stranger to desert heat, anyway. And it would not do to seem too eager, now that the man—and, Mandralisca assumed, his wares—finally were here. Overeagerness forfeits you the advantage every time.—“Wait, boy!”
“Sir?”
Mandralisca fashioned his long, tapering fingers into a steeple. “One more question, first, before I let you go. Tell me a little more about yourself. Why did you enroll in the service of the Five Lords? What were you hoping to gain by it?”
“To gain, sir? I don’t understand. I wasn’t looking to gain anything. It was a matter of my duty, your grace. The Five Lords are the rightful rulers of Zimroel, by descent from the Procurator Dantirya Sambail.”
“Very prettily spoken, Count Thastain. I admire your devotion to the cause.”
Again the boy headed for the door, as though he could not get himself away from Mandralisca’s presence too soon.
Mandralisca said, halting him once more, “Do you know, I wonder, what work I performed when I first entered the retinue of the Procurator Dantirya Sambail?”
“How could I know that, sir?”
“How could you, indeed. I was his poison-taster. A very old-fashioned position, that. Something out of the time of myth and fable. Dantirya Sambail felt that he needed one. Or perhaps he just wanted one, as a kind of ornamental decoration, a bit of medieval pageantry. Whatever was put before him to eat or drink, I tasted first. A snip of his meat, a sip of his wine. He never let anything enter his mouth without trying it on me first. I made quite an impression, do you know, standing at his shoulder during banquets at the Castle or the Labyrinth.” Mandralisca smiled a second time: close to the quota for the entire morning, he thought. “Go, now. Fetch me my Barjazid.”
12
“Shall I go with you?” Varaile asked. “I could, you know.”
“Are you that eager to see the Labyrinth again?”
“No more so than you are, Prestimion. But it’s been an age since we traveled together. You aren’t trying to avoid me, are you?”
He looked at her in genuine surprise. “Avoid you? You have to be joking. But I want this to be a brief, uncomplicated visit, quickly down, quickly back. He apparently isn’t as sick as we thought, after all. I’ll meet with him for a couple of days, discuss such important business as there happens to be, offer him my wishes for continued long life and good health, and come home. If I go with you, or Dekkeret, or Septach Melayn or Dembitave, or anybody but a Coronal’s minimal traveling retinue, the trip is bound to become a much more involved sort of thing, with all manner of formal events suddenly necessary. I don’t want to put him under any kind of strain. And I certainly don’t want to show up with so many members of the court that Confalume gets the idea that this is some kind of official farewell visit to a dying man.”
“I don’t remember suggesting that you take the whole court,” Varaile said. “I simply offered to accompany you myself.”
Prestimion took her hands in his and brought his face very close to hers. They were almost exactly of the same height. Smiling, he touched the tip of his nose to hers. “You know that I love you,” he said softly. “I feel that this is a trip I should make alone. If you want to come with me, I’m not going to stop you. But I’d rather just go down there myself and come back as fast as I can. It isn’t as though you and I won’t have plenty of time to be in the Labyrinth together in the years to come.”
“You will come right back, then?”
“This time, yes. The next time I go, it’ll be for a longer stay, I’m afraid.”
He had had much the same kind of conversation with Dekkeret a little while earlier, and not a very different one with Septach Melayn. They were all treating him as though he, and not Confalume, were the invalid. They viewed the probability of the Pontifex’s death as an enormous crisis for him, and wanted to gather around him, to protect and comfort him.
They were right to some degree, of course. It was a big thing he was facing—not this visit to the Labyrinth, but the inescapable transition that lay somewhere not far ahead in his life. Did they think, though, that he was likely to break down and burst into tears the moment he set foot in the subterranean capital? Did they believe he was so incapable of dealing with the prospect of becoming Pontifex that he must have his nearest and dearest beside him at all times? How could he explain to them that Coronals lived every day of their lives, day and night, in the awareness that they might become Pontifex at any moment? That possibility was inherent in the job; anyone who was unable to handle it was by that very fact unqualified to be Coronal.
In the end, the only member of his household who went with him was Prince Taradath. The boy had been disappointed by the abrupt termination of his long-promised trip to Fa, and had never seen the Labyrinth, besides. Meeting his majesty the Pontifex would be a memorable thing for him.
And it would be useful for Taradath to get a glimpse, however brief, of the administrative machinery of the Pontificate. Taradath, at fifteen, showed signs of ripening into a worthwhile young man, for whom some good role in the government no doubt would be found when Dekkeret was Coronal. The sons of Coronals, aware that they could never be Coronals themselves, often turned out to be frivolous idlers, or, what was much worse, vainglorious empty-headed boobies like Korsibar. Prestimion hoped for better things from his own boys.
They took the customary route to the Labyrinth, down the River Glayge aboard the royal barge through the fertile agricultural lowlands. At another time Prestimion might have made a little processional out of it, stopping at important river cities like Mitripond or Palaghat or Grevvin, but he had promised Varaile that this would be a quick trip. He entered the Labyrinth through the Mouth of Waters, the gate that Coronals used, and descended swiftly through the many levels of the underground city, past the warrens and burrows that were the offices of the bureaucrats and the grand architectural marvels below them—the Hall of Winds, the Court of Columns, the Place of Masks, and the others, those strangely beautiful places that would seem like places of wonder to anyone who loved the Labyrinth, as Prestimion doubted he ever could—and arrived at
last at the deepest level, the imperial sector, where the Pontifex had his lair.
Protocol called for the High Spokesman to the Pontifex, the Labyrinth’s ranking official, to greet him. That post had been held for the past five years by the venerable Duke Haskelorn of Chorg, a member of a family that traced its descent from the Pontifex Stalvok of ten reigns earlier. Haskelorn was a man nearly as old as Confalume himself, plump and pink-faced, with long drooping cheeks and a thick roll of flesh below his chin. As was the custom here, he wore the tiny mask across his eyes and the bridge of his nose that was a kind of badge of office among the officials of the Pontificate.
“Confalume—” Prestimion began at once.
“—is in fine health, and looks forward to seeing you at once, Lord Prestimion.”
Fine health? What was the High Spokesman’s idea of fine health? Prestimion had no idea what to expect. But he was confounded, upon entering the vestibule of the maze of rooms, a labyrinth within the Labyrinth, that was the residence of the Pontifex of Majipoor. A smiling Confalume, formally clad in the ornate scarlet-and-black Pontifical robes, was standing—standing!—in the arched doorway at the vestibule’s inner end, holding his arms out toward Prestimion in a warm show of welcome.
Prestimion was so thoroughly taken aback that it was a moment before he could speak, and when he found his tongue the best he could do was stammer, “They told me—that you—you were—”
“Dying, Prestimion? Already well on my way back to the Source, eh? Whatever you may have heard, my son, here’s the truth: I am risen from my bed of affliction. As you see, the Pontifex stands on his own two legs. The Pontifex walks. A little stiffly, true, but he walks. He speaks, as well. Not yet dead, Prestimion, not even close to it.—You say nothing. Speechless with joy, are you? Yes, I suppose you are. You are reprieved from the Labyrinth for a little while longer.”
The King of Dreams Page 10