Valentine Pontifex m-3

by Robert Silverberg

  Six months this week, he thought, since Valentine had set out on the processional. It felt like years already. Was it like this to be Coronal? Such drudgery, such captivity? For a decade, now, he had lived with the possibility of becoming Coronal in his own right, for he was the clear and obvious next in line. That had been plain almost from the day Lord Voriax had been killed in the forest and the crown had so unexpectedly passed to his younger brother. If anything were to happen to Lord Valentine, Elidath knew, they would come to him with the starburst crown. Or if the Pontifex Tyeveras ever actually died and Valentine had to enter the Labyrinth, that too could make Elidath Coronal. Unless he was too old for the job by the time that occurred, for the Coronal must be a man of vigorous years, and Elidath was already past forty, and it looked as though Tyeveras would live forever.

  If it came to him, he would not, could not, consider refusing. Refusing was unimaginable. But each passing year he found himself praying more fervently for continued long life for the Pontifex Tyeveras and a long healthy reign for the Coronal Lord Valentine. And these months as regent had only deepened those feelings. When he was a boy and this had been Lord Malibor’s Castle, it had seemed the most wondrous thing in the world to him to be Coronal, and his envy had been keen when Voriax, eight years his senior, was chosen upon Lord Malibor’s death. Now he was not quite so sure how wondrous it might be. But he would not refuse, if the crown came to him. He remembered the old High Counsellor Damiandane, father to Voriax and Valentine, saying once that the best one to choose as Coronal was one who was qualified for the crown, but did not greatly want it. Well, then, Elidath told himself cheerlessly, perhaps I am a good choice. But maybe it will not come to that.

  “Shall we run?” he said with forced heartiness. “Five miles, and then some good golden wine?”

  “Indeed,” said Mirigant.

  As they made their way from the room, Divvis paused at the giant globe of bronze and silver, looming against the far wall, that bore the indicator of the Coronal’s travels. “Look,” he said putting his finger to the ruby sphere that glowed upon the surface of the globe like a rock-monkey’s bloodshot eye. “He’s well west of the Labyrinth already. What’s this river he’s sailing down? The Glayge, is it?”

  “The Trey, I think,” said Mirigant. “He’s bound for Treymone, I imagine.”

  Elidath nodded. He walked toward the globe and ran his hand lightly over its silken-smooth metal skin. “Yes. And Stoien from there, and then I suppose he’ll take ship across the Gulf to Perimor, and on up the coast as far as Alaisor.”

  He could not lift his hand from the globe. He caressed the curving continents as though Majipoor were a woman and her breasts were Alhanroel and Zimroel. How beautiful the world, how beautiful this depiction of it! It was only a half-globe, really, for there was no need of representing the far side of Majipoor, which was all ocean and scarcely even explored. But on its one vast hemisphere the three continents were displayed. Alhanroel with the great jagged spire of Castle Mount jutting out into the room, and many-forested Zimroel, and the desert wasteland that was Suvrael down below, and the blessed Lady’s Isle of Sleep in the Inner Sea between them. Many of the cities were marked in detail, the mountain ranges, the larger lakes and rivers. Some mechanism Elidath did not understand tracked the Coronal at all times, and the glowing red sphere moved as the Coronal moved, so there could never be doubt of his whereabouts. As though in a trance Elidath traced out with his fingers the route of the grand processional, Stoien, Perimor, Alaisor, Sintalmond, Daniup, down through the Kinslain Gap into Santhiskion, and back by a winding course through the foothills to Castle Mount—

  “You wish you were with him, don’t you?” Divvis asked.

  “Or that you were making the trip in his place, eh?” said Mirigant.

  Elidath whirled on the older man. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Flustered, Mirigant said, “It should be obvious.”

  “You accuse me, I think, of an unlawful ambition.”

  “Unlawful? Tyeveras has outlived his time by twenty years. He’s kept alive only by grace of some sort of magic—”

  “By the finest of medical care, you mean,” Elidath said.

  With a shrug Mirigant said, “It’s the same thing. In the natural order of things Tyeveras should long ago have been dead, and Valentine our Pontifex. And a new Coronal should be off undertaking his first grand processional.”

  “These are not decisions for us to make,” Elidath grumbled.

  Divvis said, “They are Valentine’s decisions, yes. And he will not make them.”

  “He will, at the proper time.”

  “When? Five more years? Ten? Forty?”

  “Would you coerce the Coronal, Divvis?”

  “I would advise the Coronal. It is our duty—yours, mine, Mirigant’s, Tunigorn’s, all of us who were in the government before the overthrow. We must tell him: it is time for him to move on to the Labyrinth.”

  “I think it is time for us to have our run,” said Elidath stiffly.

  “Listen to me, Elidath! Am I an innocent? My father was a Coronal; my grandfather held the post you hold now; I have spent all my life close to the heart of power. I understand things as well as most. We have no Pontifex. For eight or ten years we’ve merely had a thing more dead than alive, floating in that glass cage in the Labyrinth. Hornkast speaks to him, or pretends to, and receives decrees from him, or pretends to, but in effect there’s no Pontifex at all. How long can the government function that way? I think Valentine is trying to be Pontifex and Coronal both, which is impossible for any man to carry off, and so the whole structure is suffering, everything is paralyzed—”

  “Enough,” Mirigant said.

  “—and he will not move along to his proper office, because he’s young and hates the Labyrinth, and because he has come back from his exile with his new retinue of jugglers and herdboys, who are so captivated by the splendors of the Mount that they will not allow him to see that his true responsibility lies—”

  “Enough!”

  “One moment more,” said Divvis earnestly. “Are you blind, Elidath? Only eight years back we experienced something altogether unique in our history, when a lawful Coronal was overthrown without our knowing it, and an unanointed king put in his place. And what kind of man was that? A Metamorph puppet, Elidath! And the King of Dreams himself an actual Metamorph! Two of the four Powers of the Realm usurped, and this very Castle filled with Metamorph impostors—”

  “All of them discovered and destroyed. And the throne bravely regained by its rightful holder, Divvis.”

  “Indeed. Indeed. And do you think the Metamorphs have gone politely back to their jungles? I tell you, they are scheming right this instant to destroy Majipoor and take back for themselves whatever is left, which we have known since the moment of Valentine’s restoration, and what has he done about it? What has he done about it, Elidath? Stretched out his arms to them in love. Promised them that he will right ancient wrongs and remedy old injustices. Yes, and still they scheme against us!”

  “I will run without you,” said Elidath. “Stay here, sit at the Coronal’s desk, sign those mounds of decrees. That’s what you want, isn’t it, Divvis? To sit at that desk?” He swung about angrily and started from the room.

  “Wait,” Divvis said. “We’re coming.” He sprinted after Elidath, came up alongside him, caught him by the elbow. In a low intense tone quite different from his usual mocking drawl he declared, “I said nothing of the succession, except that it is necessary for Valentine to move on to the Pontificate. Do you think I would challenge you for the crown?”

  “I am not a candidate for the crown,” said Elidath.

  “No one is ever a candidate for the crown,” Divvis answered. “But even a child knows you are the heir presumptive. Elidath, Elidath—!”

  “Let him be,” said Mirigant. “We are here to run, I thought.”

  “Yes. Let us run, and no more of this talk for now,” said Divvis.

/>   “The Divine be praised,” Elidath muttered.

  He led the way down the flights of broad stone stairs, worn smooth by centuries of use, and out past the guardposts into Vildivar Close, the boulevard of pink granite blocks that linked the inner Castle, the Coronal’s primary working quarters, to the all but incomprehensible maze of outer buildings that surrounded it at the summit of the Mount. He felt as though a band of hot steel had been wrapped about his forehead. First to be signing a myriad foolish documents, then to have to listen to Divvis’s treasonous harangue—

  Yet he knew Divvis to be right. The world could not much longer continue this way. When great actions needed to be undertaken, Pontifex and Coronal must consult with one another, and let their shared wisdom check all folly. But there was no Pontifex, in any real sense. And Valentine, attempting to operate alone, was failing. Not even the greatest of Coronals, not Confalume, not Prestimion, not Dekkeret, had presumed to try to rule Majipoor alone. And the challenges they had faced were as nothing compared with the one confronting Valentine. Who could have imagined, in Lord Confalume’s day, that the humble subjugated Metamorphs would ever rise again to seek redress for the loss of their world? Yet that uprising was well under way in secret places. Elidath was not likely ever to forget the last hours of the war of restoration, when he had fought his way into the vaults where the machines that controlled the climate of Castle Mount were kept, and to save those machines had had to slay troops clad in the uniform of the Coronal’s own guard—who as they died changed form and became slit-mouthed, noseless, slope-eyed Shapeshifters. That was eight years ago: and Valentine still hoped to reach that nation of malcontents with his love, and find some honorable peaceful way of healing their anger. But after eight years there were no concrete achievements to show; and who knew what new infiltration the Metamorphs had effected by now?

  Elidath pulled breath deep into his lungs and broke into a furious pounding gallop, that left Mirigant and Divvis far behind within moments.

  “Hoy!” Divvis called. “Is that your idea of jogging?”

  He paid no attention. The pain within him could be burned away only by another kind of pain, and so he ran, in a frenzy, pushing himself to the limits of his strength. On, on, on, past the delicate five-peaked tower of Lord Arioc, past Lord Kinniken’s chapel, past the Pontifical guest-house. Down the Guadeloom Cascade, and around the squat black mass of Lord Prankipin’s treasury, and up the Ninety-Nine Steps, heart beginning to thunder in his breast, toward the vestibule of the Pinitor Court—on, on, through precincts he had traversed every day for thirty years, since as a child he had come here from Morvole at the foot of the Mount to be taught the arts of government. How many times he and Valentine had run like this, or Stasilaine or Tunigorn—they were close as brothers, the four of them, four wild boys roaring through Lord Malibor’s Castle, as it was known in those days—ah, how joyous life had been for them then! They had assumed they would be counsellors under Voriax when he became Coronal, as everyone knew would happen, but not for many years; and then Lord Malibor died much too early, and also Voriax who followed him, and to Valentine went the crown and nothing had ever been the same for any of them again.

  And now? It is time for Valentine to move on to the Labyrinth, Divvis had said. Yes. Yes. Somewhat young to be Pontifex, yes, but that was the hard luck of coming to the throne in Tyeveras’s dotage. The old emperor deserved the sleep of the grave, and Valentine must go to the Labyrinth, and the starburst crown must descend—

  To me? Lord Elidath? Is this to be Lord Elidath’s Castle?

  The thought filled him with awe and wonder: and also with fear. He had seen, these past six months, what it was to be Coronal.

  “Elidath! You’ll kill yourself! You’re running like a madman!” That was Mirigant’s voice, from far below, like something blown by the wind out of a distant city. Elidath was nearly at the top of the Ninety-Nine Steps now. There was a booming in his chest, and his vision was beginning to blur, but he forced himself onward, to the last of the steps, and into the narrow vestibule of dark green royal-stone that led to the administrative offices of the Pinitor Court. Blindly he careened around a corner, and felt a numbing impact and heard a heavy grunt; and then he fell and sprawled and lay breathing hard, more than half stunned.

  He sat up and opened his eyes and saw someone—a youngish man, slender, dark of complexion, with fine black hair elaborately decked out in some fancy new style—getting shakily to his feet and coming toward him.

  “Sir? Sir, are you all right?”

  “Crashed into you, did I? Should have—looked where I was going—”

  “I saw you, but there was no time. You came running so fast—here, let me help you up—”

  “I’ll be fine, boy. Just need to—catch my breath—”

  Disdaining the young man’s help, he pulled himself up, dusted off his doublet—there was a great rip up one knee, and bloody skin was showing through—and straightened his cloak. His heart was still thumping frighteningly, and he felt wholly absurd. Divvis and Mirigant were coming up the stairs, now. Turning to the young man, Elidath began to frame an apology, but the strange expression on the other’s face halted him.

  “Is something wrong?” Elidath asked.

  “Do you happen to be Elidath of Morvole, sir?”

  “I do, yes.”

  The boy laughed. “So I thought, when I took a close look. Why, you’re the one I was looking for, then! They said I might find you in the Pinitor Court. I bring a message for you.”

  Mirigant and Divvis had entered the vestibule now. They came alongside Elidath, and from their look he knew he must be a frightful sight, flushed, sweating, half crazed from his lunatic run. He tried to make light of it, gesturing at the young man and saying, “It seems I ran down this messenger in my haste, and he’s bearing something for me. Who’s it from, boy?”

  “Lord Valentine, sir.”

  Elidath stared. “Is this a joke? The Coronal is on the grand processional, somewhere west of the Labyrinth.”

  “So he is. I was with him in the Labyrinth, and when he sent me to the Mount he asked me to find you as the first thing I did, and tell you—”

  “Well?”

  He looked uneasily at Divvis and Mirigant. “I believe the message is for you alone, my lord.”

  “These are the lords Mirigant and Divvis, of the Coronal’s own blood. You can speak in front of them.”

  “Very well, sir. Lord Valentine instructs me to tell Elidath of Morvole—I should say, sir, that I am the Knight-Initiate Hissune, son of Elsinome—instructs me to tell Elidath of Morvole that he has changed his plan, that he is extending the grand processional to the continent of Zimroel as well, and also will visit his mother the Lady of the Isle before he returns, and that therefore you are requested to serve as regent throughout the full time of his absence. Which he estimates to be—”

  “The Divine spare me!” Elidath whispered hoarsely.

  “—a year or perhaps a year and a half beyond the time already planned,” said Hissune.

  11

  The second sign of trouble that Etowan Elacca noticed was the drooping leaves on the niyk trees, five days after the falling of the purple rain.

  The purple rain itself was not the first sign of trouble. There was nothing uncommon about such a thing over on the eastern slope of the Dulorn Rift, where there were significant outcroppings of fluffy light skuvva-sand of a pale reddish-blue color. At certain seasons the wind from the north that was called the Chafer scoured the stuff free and hurled it high overhead, where it stained the clouds for days, and tinted the rainfall a fine lavender hue. It happened that the lands of Etowan Elacca were a thousand miles west of that district, on the other slope of the Rift entirely, just a short distance inland of Falkynkip; and winds laden with skuvva-sand were not known to blow that far west. But winds, Etowan Elacca knew, had a way of changing their courses, and perhaps the Chafer had chosen to visit a different side of the Rift this year. And in any event a p
urple rain was nothing to worry about: it merely left a fine coating of sand on everything, that was all, and the next normal rain washed it all away. No, the first sign of trouble was not the purple rain but the shriveling of the sensitivos in Etowan Elacca’s garden; and that happened two or three days before the rain.

  Which was puzzling, but not really extraordinary. It was no great task to make sensitivos shrivel. They were small golden-leaved psychosensitive plants with insignificant green flowers, native to the forests west of Mazadone, and any sort of psychic discordance within the range of their receptors—angry shouting, or the growling of forest beasts in combat, or even, so it was said, the mere proximity of someone who had committed a serious crime—was sufficient to make their leaflets fold together like praying hands and turn black. It was not a response that seemed to have any particular biological benefit, Etowan Elacca had often thought; but doubtless it was a mystery that would unfold itself upon close examination, and someday he meant to make that examination. Meanwhile he grew the sensitivos in his garden because he liked the cheerful yellow glint of their leaves. And, because Etowan Elacca’s domain was a place of order and concord, never once in the time he had been growing them had his sensitivos undergone a withering—until now. That was the puzzle. Who could have exchanged unkind words at the border of his garden? What snarling animals, in this province of bland domesticated creatures, might have put the equilibrium of his estate into disarray?

  Equilibrium was what Etowan Elacca prized above all else. He was a gentleman farmer, sixty years old, tall and straight-backed, with a full head of dazzling white hair. His father was the third son of the Duke of Massissa, and two of his brothers had served in succession as Mayor of Falkynkip, but government had never interested him: as soon as he came into his inheritance, he had purchased a lordly span of land in the placid rolling green countryside on the western rim of the Dulorn Rift, and there he had built a Majipoor in miniature, a little world, distinguished by its great beauty and its calm, level, harmonious spirit.