The King of Dreams

by Robert Silverberg

  Dekkeret raised both his hands in appeal. “Gently, your majesty. Gently. If there is to be another war, and may the Divine spare us from that, you know I will lead it, and I will win it. But let this rest a moment, I pray you. There’s more to tell you, and it has implications that reach far beyond the problems of the moment.”

  “Speak, then,” Prestimion said in a hollow voice. His furious outburst had left him numb. He wished he had not knocked the wine over, now.

  Dekkeret said, “Do you remember, Prestimion, when we spoke in the tasting-room at Muldemar House, just the two of us as we are this morning, and you reminded me of that strange prophecy of Maundigand-Klimd’s that a Barjazid would become the fourth Power of the Realm? Neither of us could make any sense of that then, and we put it aside as an impossibility. But in this night just past I understood its meaning. A fourth Power is needed. And with your consent I will create Dinitak Barjazid as that Power, once the matter of Mandralisca and the five Sambailids is behind us.”

  “I see that you have gone mad,” said Prestimion, all rancor gone, only sadness in his tone now.

  “Hear me out, I pray. Judge my madness for yourself when I’ve spoken.”

  Prestimion’s only response was a resigned shrug.

  “We have never known such prosperity on Majipoor as we have in the modern era,” said Dekkeret. “The era of Prankipin and Lord Confalume—of Confalume and Lord Prestimion—of Prestimion and Lord Dekkeret, if you will. But we have never known such turbulence, either. The coming of the mages and sorcerers, the rise of the strange new cults, the troublemaking of Dantirya Sambail and Mandralisca—all these things are new to us. Perhaps the one thing goes with the other, prosperity and turbulence, the uncertainties of new wealth and the mysteries of magic. Or perhaps we have simply grown too populous, now—with fifteen billion people on one world, huge though it is, perhaps there must inevitably be some discord, even strife.”

  Prestimion sat quietly, waiting to see where this was going. It was evident that Dekkeret had rehearsed this speech over and over in his mind for half the night: it behooved him, especially after his angry outburst of a few moments before, to give it some show of attention before rejecting whatever demented irrational idea it was that his chosen Coronal had managed to spawn.

  Dekkeret went on: “In the earlier time of troubles that we speak of as the time of Dvorn, the first two Powers were created, with joint command: the Pontifex the older, wiser monarch to whom the responsibility for devising policy was given, and the Coronal the younger, more vigorous man who had the task of executing those policies. Later, when a wonderful new invention made it possible, came the third Power, the Lady of the Isle, who with her multitude of associates enters the minds of great numbers of people each night and offers them solace and guidance and healing. But the equipment the Lady uses has its limitations. She can speak with minds, but she is unable to direct or control them. Whereas these helmets that the Barjazids have invented—”

  “Have stolen, rather. A sniveling treacherous little Vroon named Thalnap Zelifor invented the things. One of the many errors for which I will be someday called to account is that I put that Vroon and his helmets into the hands of Venghenar Barjazid, to our great injury ever since.”

  “The Barjazids, especially Khaymak Barjazid, have built upon that Vroon’s designs and greatly increased their abilities. I was one of the first, you will recall, to feel the force of the helmet, long ago when I was traveling in Suvrael. But what I felt then, strong as it was, was nothing like the power available in the later version of the helmet you used to strike down Venghenar Barjazid in the Stoienzar those many years ago. And the helmet that drove your brother into insanity, and has harmed so many others lately up and down the land, is far stronger yet. It is a formidable weapon indeed.”

  Dekkeret leaned forward, his gaze intently focused on Prestimion.

  “The world,” he said, “needs more stringent government than it had in years gone by, or else we will have new Mandraliscas all the time. What I propose is this: that we take the helmets into the government, giving them over to Dinitak Barjazid and making it his responsibility to search out malefactors, and to control and punish them by using his helmet to transmit powerful mental sendings. He will monitor the minds of the world, and keep the wicked in check. For this he will require the status and authority of a Power of the Realm. We will call him, let us say, the King of Dreams. His rank will be equal to our own. Dinitak will be the first of that title; and it will descend through the generations to his descendants thereafter.—There you have it, your majesty.”

  Astonishing, Prestimion thought. Unbelievable.

  “Dinitak, as I understand it, has no descendants at present,” he replied at once. “But that’s the least of the things I see wrong with this scheme of yours.”

  “And the others?”

  “It’s tyranny, Dekkeret. We rule now by the consent of the people, who freely make us their kings. But if we have a weapon that permits us to control their minds—”

  “To guide their minds. Only the wicked need fear it. And the weapon is already loose in the land. Better that we make it exclusively ours, forbidden to anyone else, than to leave it out there for future Mandraliscas. We, at least, can be trusted. Or so I prefer to think.”

  “And your Dinitak? Can he? He’s a Barjazid, I remind you.”

  “Of the same blood,” said Dekkeret, “but not of the same nature. I saw that in Suvrael, when he urged his father Venghenar to go with me to the Castle and show you the first helmet. Later we saw that again when he came to us at Stoien, bringing a helmet we could use against his father in the rebellion. You were suspicious of him then, do you remember? You said, ‘How can we trust him?’ when he showed up bearing the helmet. You thought it might be all some intricate new scheme of Dantirya Sambail’s. ‘Trust him, my lord,’ is what I said to you then. ‘Trust him!’ And you did. Were we wrong?”

  “Not then,” Prestimion said.

  “Nor will we be now. He is my closest friend, Prestimion. I know him as I’ve never known anyone else. He’s driven by a set of moral beliefs that make the rest of us seem like pickpockets. You said it yourself at Muldemar, remember, that time when he gave you an answer that was truthful, but a little too blunt? ‘You are no diplomat, Dinitak, but you are an honest man,’ or words to that effect.—Did you notice that although he came with me on this trip, Keltryn didn’t?”

  “Keltryn?”

  “Fulkari’s younger sister. She and Dinitak have had a little romance—but why would you know that, Prestimion? You were off at the Labyrinth when it started. Anyway, he wouldn’t take Keltryn with him. Said it was improper to be traveling with an unmarried woman. Improper! When did you last hear a word like that?”

  “A very holy young man, I agree. Too holy, perhaps.”

  “Better that than otherwise. We’ll marry him off to Keltryn sooner or later—if she’ll have him, that is; Fulkari tells me she’s furious with him for leaving her behind—and they’ll begin a tribe of holy young Barjazids who can succeed their great ancestor as Kings of Dreams in the centuries ahead. And fear of the harsh dreams that the King of Dreams can send will maintain peace in the land forever after.”

  “A nice fantasy, isn’t it? But it makes me very uneasy, Dekkeret. I once took it upon myself to meddle with the minds of everyone on Majipoor in one great swoop, at Thegomar Edge, when I had my mages wipe out all memory of the Korsibar uprising. I thought then it was a good thing to do, but I was wrong, and I paid a bitter price for it. Now you propose a new kind of mind-meddling, a constant ongoing monitoring.—I won’t allow it, Dekkeret, and that ends it. You would need to have the approval of the Pontifex to establish any such system, and that approval is herewith withheld. Now, if we can return to the problem of Mandralisca—”

  “You doom us all to chaos, Prestimion.”

  “Do I, now?”

  “The world has become too complicated to be governed from the Labyrinth and the Castle any longer
. Zimroel has grown wealthy and restless under Prankipin and Confalume and you. And they know how long it takes to ship troops from Alhanroel to deal with any sort of trouble there. The rise of the Procurator Dantirya Sambail as a sort of quasi-king in Zimroel was the beginning of a secessionist movement there. Now it’s gone another step. There’ll be the constant threat of divisiveness and insurrection across the sea unless we have some direct and immediate way of intervening. The whole structure will come apart.”

  “And you actually think that using the Barjazid helmet is the only way we have of holding the world government together?”

  “I do. The only way short of turning Zimroel into an armed camp with imperial garrisons stationed in every city, that is. Do you think that would be better? Do you, Prestimion?”

  Abruptly Prestimion rose and went to the window. He yearned for nothing more than to bring this maddening discussion to an end. Why would Dekkeret not yield, even in the face of a Pontifical refusal? Why would he not see the impossibility of his great idea?

  Or am I, Prestimion wondered, the one who refuses to see?

  For a long time he stared out silently into the streets of Stoien city. He remembered a time when he had stared out another window of this very building at pillars of smoke rising from the fires set by lunatics at the time of the plague of madness, a plague that he had, however indirectly he had done it, brought upon the world himself.

  Did he, he asked himself, want to see fires such as those in the cities of Majipoor again? In Zimroel: in wondrous Ni-moya, and magical crystalline Dulorn, and tropic Narabal of the sweet sea breezes?

  You doom us all to chaos, Prestimion—

  A fourth Power of the Realm.

  A King of Dreams.

  Young Barjazid wearing the helmet, roving the night to seek out those who threatened to break the peace, and warning them sternly of the consequences, and punishing them if they disobeyed.

  Of the same blood but not of the same nature—

  It would be a mighty transformation. Did he dare? How much less risky it would be simply to apply the Pontifical veto to this wild scheme and put it away, and send Dekkeret off to Zimroel to crush this new uprising and hurl Mandralisca finally into his grave. While he himself returned to the Labyrinth and lived out the rest of his days pleasantly there amid imperial pomp and ceremony, as Confalume had done for so long, never needing to grapple with the hard questions of governance, for he had a Coronal who could grapple with such things for him.

  A constant threat of divisiveness and insurrection across the sea. The whole structure will come apart—

  From somewhere behind him Dekkeret said, “I want to point out, your majesty, that we have that vision of Maundigand-Klimd’s to take into account here. And also, on my journey here across Alhanroel, there were several occasions when I had visionary experiences of my own, to my great surprise, that seemed to indicate—”

  “Hush,” Prestimion said softly, without turning. “You know what I think of visions and oracles and thaumaturgy and all the rest of that. Be quiet and let me think, Dekkeret. I pray you, man, just let me think.”

  A King of Dreams. A King of Dreams. A King of Dreams.

  And finally he said, “The first step, I think, is to speak with Dinitak. Send him to me, Dekkeret. The powers you want to entrust to him are greater even than our own, do you realize that? You say we can trust him, and very likely you’re right, but I can’t act just on your say-so. I suspect that I need to find out just how holy he is. What if he’s too holy, eh? What if he thinks that even you and I are miserable sinners who need to be brought in check? What would we be loosing on the world, in that case? Send him to me for a little chat.”

  “Now, you mean?” Dekkeret asked.

  “Now.”

  15

  “The plan is this,” Dekkeret told Fulkari, two hours later. “We are to call it simply a grand processional. It won’t be labeled in any way as a military expedition. But it’ll be a grand processional that looks a lot like a military expedition. The Coronal will be accompanied not only by his own guardsmen, but by a contingent of Pontifical troops—a substantial number of Pontifical troops. Which gives the whole enterprise something of the aspect of a peacekeeping mission, since a grand processional would normally involve Castle personnel only, and the forces of the Pontifex would have no role in it. The message we’ll be sending, then, is this: ‘Here is your new Coronal, and hail him as your king. But if anyone among you has treasonous thoughts of insurrection, you are warned that there is an army standing here behind him that will bring you to your senses.’”

  “Was this Prestimion’s idea, or yours?”

  “Mine. Based on his suggestion long ago that one good way I could investigate the situation in Zimroel at first hand was to go there under the guise of making a grand processional. I managed to convince him just now that we’d do best by holding back the option of actual warfare to be our last resort, one that we can always call upon if I get the wrong sort of reception when I’m over there.”

  “Zimroel!” Fulkari said, shaking her head in wonder. “That’s a place I never dreamed I’d see.” There was no mistaking the sheen of excitement in her eyes. It was as though she had not heard him mention the prospect of becoming embroiled in warfare at all. “We’ll go to Ni-moya, of course. And Dulorn? They say that Dulorn looks like something out of a fairy tale, an entire city built out of white crystal. What about Pidruid? Til-omon?—Oh, Dekkeret, when do we sail?”

  “Not for some while, I’m afraid.”

  “But if it’s such an urgent situation—”

  “Even so. Alaisor’s where the ships bound for Zimroel embark, so we’ll need to go back up there first. The fleet will have to be assembled, the imperial troops mustered. That’ll take time, all the rest of the summer, perhaps. Meanwhile the official proclamations of a processional have to be drawn up and shipped to every city of Zimroel that I’ll be visiting, so that they’ll be on notice to receive me with the splendor that Coronals are customarily received when they come to town.” He smiled. “Oh, one more thing: you and I have to get married, also. Toward the end of this week, is probably the best time. Prestimion himself has agreed to perform—”

  “Married? Oh, Dekkeret—!” There was mingled delight and perplexity in her tone. But it was the perplexity that predominated. Her lower lip trembled a little. “Here, in Stoien? We aren’t going to have a Castle wedding? You know I’ll do it wherever you want. But why such short notice, though?”

  He took her hands between his. “They tend to be very conventional people over in Zimroel, I understand. It simply won’t look right to them if the Coronal shows up on his first grand processional accompanied by—by a—”

  “A concubine? Is that the word you want?” Fulkari stepped back and laughed. “Dekkeret, you sound exactly like Dinitak now! Improper! Unseemly! Shameful!”

  “Let’s say ‘awkward,’ then. The situation in Zimroel’s so delicate that I can’t risk any sort of political embarrassment when I’m over there. But if the answer’s no, Fulkari, you’d better tell me now.”

  “The answer’s yes, Dekkeret,” she replied unhesitatingly. “Yes, yes, yes! You knew that.” Then the jubilant gleam went from her eyes and she looked away from him, and in quite a different tone she went on, “But still—I always thought—the way these things are done, you know, at the Castle, in Lord Apsimar’s Chapel, where Coronals are supposed to get married, and then the reception afterward in the courtyard by Vildivar Close—”

  Dekkeret understood. This was Lord Makhario’s many-times-great-granddaughter speaking, Lady Fulkari of Sipermit, to whom the ways of the Castle aristocracy were second nature. Fearing now that she would be inexplicably cheated of the grand and glorious wedding ceremony that she had assumed would be hers ever since the moment of their betrothal.

  Gently he said, “We can get married again at the Castle later on. The full business, I promise you, Fulkari, the total grand event, with your sister as your bridesmaid
and Dinitak my best man, and the whole court watching, and a second honeymoon in High Morpin at the lodge the Coronal keeps there for his private holidays. But we’ll have our first honeymoon in Ni-moya. And a wedding performed by the Pontifex himself, right here and now, before he sets off back to the Labyrinth.—What do you say?”

  “Well, of course, we can’t have the Coronal Lord of Majipoor making the grand processional in the company of some little tart, can we? By all means, let’s make it official, then. I’ll marry you wherever, whenever you want, whatever you think is best.” There was that lovely sparkle of delight and mischief in her eyes again. “But afterward, my lord, when we are home at the Castle again—satin and velvet, and Lord Apsimar’s Chapel, and the courtyard by Vildivar Close—”

  It was a simple ceremony, almost perfunctory, absurdly so for so solemn a rite of state as a Coronal’s wedding: held in Prestimion’s suite, the Pontifex presiding, Varaile and Dinitak as witnesses, Septach Melayn and Gialaurys looking on.

  The whole thing took no more than five minutes. Prestimion did wear his scarlet-and-black robes of office, and the starburst crown was on Dekkeret’s brow, but otherwise it could just as well have been the wedding of a shopkeeper and his pretty young clerk at the office of the municipal Justiciar. All those who were present understood the reasons for this haste. A proper royal wedding would follow in the fullness of time, yes—once the challenge of the Five Lords of Zimroel had been met. But for now the basic proprieties would be satisfied. Lord Dekkeret and the Lady Fulkari would go off to Zimroel with wedding bands on their fingers, and let no one in the western continent breathe a word about the wickedness of Castle morality.

  The wedding feast, at any rate, was a properly luxurious affair, with wines of five colors, and plate upon plate of Stoienzar oysters and smoked meats and the pungent pickled fruits that they doted on here in the tropical lands. Septach Melayn sang the ancient wedding anthem in a creditable if reedy tenor, and Fulkari, a little tipsy, gave Prestimion so unexpectedly passionate a kiss that the Pontifex’s eyes went wide and the Lady Varaile clapped her hands in mock admiration; and at the appropriate moment Dekkeret gathered up his bride and carried her off to their suite on the floor below, making such a lively show of boyish eagerness that one might readily think this would be the first night that she and he had ever spent together.