“Mother, he’s talking about you,” Heynok whispered sharply.
Aximaan Threysz shook her head uncomprehendingly. She had lost herself in the torrent of words. “Why are we here? What is he saying?”
“What do you say, Aximaan Threysz? Has the blessing of the Divine been withdrawn from Prestimion Vale? You know it has! But not by your sin, or the sin of anyone here! I say to you that it is the wrath of the Divine, falling impartially upon the world, taking the lusavender from Prestimion Vale and the milaile from Ni-moya and the stajja from Falkynkip and who knows what crop will be next, what plague will be loosed upon us, and all because a false Coronal—”
“Treason! Treason!”
“A false Coronal, I tell you, sits upon the Mount and falsely rules—a golden-haired usurper who—”
“Ah, has the throne been usurped again?” Aximaan Threysz murmured. “It was just the other year, when we heard tales of it, that someone had taken the throne wrongfully—”
“I say, let him prove to us that he is the chosen of the Divine! Let him come amongst us on his grand processional and stand before us and show us that he is the true Coronal! I think he will not do it. I think he cannot do it. And I think that so long as we suffer him to hold the Castle, the wrath of the Divine will fall upon us in ever more dreadful ways, until—”
“Treason!”
“Let him speak!”
Heynok touched Aximaan Threysz’s arm. “Mother, are you all right?”
“Why are they so angry? What are they shouting?”
“Perhaps I should take you home, mother.”
“I say, down with the usurper!”
“And I say, call the proctors, arraign this man for treason.”
Aximaan Threysz looked about her in confusion. It seemed that everyone was on his feet now, shouting. Such noise! Such uproar! And that strange smell in the air—that smell of damp burned things, what was that? It stung her nostrils. Why were they shouting so much?
“Mother?”
“We’ll begin putting in the new crop tomorrow, won’t we? And so we should go home now. Isn’t that so, Heynok?”
“Oh, mother, mother—”
“The new crop—”
“Yes,” Heynok said. “We’ll be planting in the morning. We should go now.”
“Down with all usurpers! Long life to the true Coronal!”
“Long life to the true Coronal!” Aximaan Threysz cried suddenly, rising to her feet. Her eyes flashed; her tongue flickered. She felt young again, full of life and vigor. Into the fields at dawn tomorrow, spread the seeds and lovingly cover them, and offer the prayers, and—
No. No. No.
The mist cleared from her mind. She remembered everything. The fields were charred. They must lie fallow, the agricultural agent had said, for three more years, while the smut spores were being purged. That was the strange smell: the burned stems and leaves. Fires had raged for days. The rain stirred the odor and made it rise into the air. There would be no harvest this year, or the next, or the next.
“Fools,” she said.
“Who do you mean, mother?”
Aximaan Threysz waved her hand in a wide circle. “All of them. To cry out against the Coronal. To think that this is the vengeance of the Divine. Do you think the Divine wants to punish us that badly? We will all starve, Heynok, because the smut has killed the crop, and it makes no difference who is Coronal. It makes no difference at all. Take me home.”
“Down with the usurper!” came the cry again, and it rang in her ears like the tolling of a funeral bell as she strode from the hall.
5
Elidath said, looking carefully around the council room at the assembled princes and dukes, “The orders are in Valentine’s hand and signed with Valentine’s seal, and they are unmistakably genuine. The boy is to be raised to the principate at the earliest possible appropriate time.”
“And you think that time has come?” asked Divvis coldly.
The High Counsellor met Divvis’s angry gaze evenly. “I do.”
“By what do you judge?”
“His instructors tell me that he has mastered the essence of all the teachings.”
“So then he can name all the Coronals from Stiamot to Malibor in the correct order! What does that prove?”
“The teachings are more than merely lists of kings, Divvis, as I hope you have not forgotten. He has had the full training and he comprehends it. The Synods and Decretals, the Balances, the Code of Provinces, and all the rest: I trust you recall those things? He has been examined, and he is flawless. His understanding is deep and wise. And he has shown courage, too. In the crossing of the ghazan-tree plain he slew the malorn. Did you know that, Divvis? Not merely eluded it, but slew it. He is extraordinary.”
“I think that word is the right one,” said Duke Elzandir of Chorg. “I have ridden with him on the hunt, in the forests above Ghiseldorn. He moves quickly, and with a natural grace. His mind is alert. His wit is agile. He knows what gaps exist in his knowledge, and he takes pains to fill them. He should be elevated at once.”
“This is madness!” cried Divvis, slapping the flat of his hand several times angrily against the council-hall table. “Absolute raving madness!”
“Calmly, calmly,” Mirigant said. “Such shouting as this is unseemly, Divvis.”
“The boy is too young to be a prince!”
“And let us not forget,” the Duke of Halanx added, “that he is of low birth.”
Quietly Stasilaine said, “How old is he, Elidath?”
The High Counsellor shrugged. “Twenty. Twenty-one, perhaps. Young, I agree. But hardly a child.”
“You called him ‘the boy’ yourself a moment ago,” the Duke of Halanx pointed out.
Elidath turned his hands palm upward. “A figure of speech and nothing more. He has a youthful appearance, I grant you. But that’s only because he’s so slight of build, and short of stature. Boyish, perhaps: but not a boy.”
“Not yet a man, either,” observed Prince Manganot of Banglecode.
“By what definition?” Stasilaine asked.
“Look about you in this room,” Prince Manganot said. “Here you see the definition of manhood. You, Stasilaine: anyone can see the strength of you. Walk as a stranger through the streets of any city, Stee, Normork, Bibiroon, simply walk through the streets, and people will automatically defer to you, having no notion of your rank or name. Elidath the same. Divvis. Mirigant. My royal brother of Dundilmir. We are men. He is not.”
“We are princes,” said Stasilaine, “and have been for many years. A certain bearing comes to us in time, from long awareness of our station. But were we like this twenty years ago?”
“I think so,” Manganot said.
Mirigant laughed. “I remember some of you when you were at Hissune’s age. Loud and braggartly, yes, and if that makes one a man, then you surely were men. But otherwise— ah, I think it is all a circular thing, that princely bearing comes of feeling princely, and we put it on ourselves as a cloak. Look at us in our finery, and then cover us in farmer’s clothes and set us down in some seaport of Zimroel, and who will bow to us then? Who will give deference?”
“He is not princely now and never will be,” said Divvis sullenly, “He is a ragged boy out of the Labyrinth, and nothing more than that.”
“I still maintain that we can’t elevate a stripling like that to our rank,” said Prince Manganot of Banglecode.
“They say that Prestimion was short of stature,” the Duke of Chorg remarked. “I think his reign is generally deemed to have been successful, nevertheless.”
The venerable Cantalis, nephew of Tyeveras, looked up suddenly out of an hour’s silence and said in amazement, “You compare him with Prestimion, Elzandir? What precisely is it that we are doing, then? Are we creating a prince or choosing a Coronal?”
“Any prince is a potential Coronal,” Divvis said. “Let us not forget that.”
“And the choosing of the next Coronal must soon
occur, no doubt of that,” the Duke of Halanx said. “It’s utterly scandalous that Valentine has kept the old Pontifex alive this long, but sooner or later—”
“This is altogether out of order,” Elidath said sharply.
“I think not,” said Manganot. “If we make him a prince, there’s nothing stopping Valentine from putting him eventually on the Confalume Throne itself.”
“These speculations are absurd,” Mirigant said.
“Are they, Mirigant? What absurdities have we not already seen from Valentine? To take a juggler-girl as his wife, and a Vroon wizard as one of his chief ministers, and the rest of his raggle-taggle band of wanderers surrounding him as a court within the court, while we are pushed to the outer rim—”
“Be cautious, Manganot,” Stasilaine said. “There are those in this room that love Lord Valentine.”
“There is no one here who does not,” Manganot retorted. “You may be aware, and Mirigant can surely confirm it, that upon the death of Voriax I was one of the strongest advocates of letting the crown pass to Valentine. I yield to no one in my love of him. But we need not love him uncritically. He is capable of folly, as are we all. And I say it is folly to take a twenty-year-old boy from the back alleys of the Labyrinth and make him a prince of the realm.”
Stasilaine said, “How old were you, Manganot, when you had your princehood? Sixteen? Eighteen? And you, Divvis? Seventeen, I think? Elidath, you?”
“It is different with us,” said Divvis. “We were born to rank. I am the son of a Coronal. Manganot is of the high family of Banglecode. Elidath—”
“The point remains,” Stasilaine said, “that when we were much younger than Hissune we were already at this rank. As was Valentine himself. It is a question of qualification, not of age. And Elidath assures us that he is qualified.”
“Have we ever had a prince created out of commoner stock?” the Duke of Halanx asked. “Think, I beg you: what is this new prince of Valentine’s? A child of the Labyrinth streets, a beggar-boy, or perhaps a pickpocket—”
“You have no true knowledge of that,” said Stasilaine. “You give us mere slander, I think.”
“Is it not the case that he was a beggar in the Labyrinth when Valentine first found him?”
“He was only a child then,” said Elzandir. “And the story is that he hired himself out as a guide, and gave good value for the money, though he was only ten years old. But all of that is beside the point. We need not care about what he was. It is what he is that concerns us, and what he is to be. The Coronal Lord has asked us to make him a prince when, in Elidath’s judgment, the time is right. Elidath tells us that the time is right. Therefore this debate is pointless.”
“No,” Divvis said. “Valentine is not absolute. He requires our consent to this thing.”
“Ah, and would you overrule the will of the Coronal?” asked the Duke of Chorg.
Divvis, after a pause, said, “If my conscience bade me do so, I would, yes. Valentine is not infallible. There are times when I disagree greatly with him. This is one.”
“Ever since the changing of his body,” said Prince Manganot of Banglecode, “I have noted a change also in his personality, an inclination toward the romantic, toward the fantastic, that perhaps was present in him before the usurpation but which never was evident in any significant way, and which now manifests itself in a whole host of—”
“Enough!” said Elidath in exasperation. “We are required to debate this nomination, and we have done so, and I make an end to it now. The Coronal Lord offers us the knight-initiate Hissune son of Elsinome, for elevation to the principate with full privileges of rank. As High Counsellor and Regent I place the nomination before you with my seconding vote. If there is no opposition, I propose it to be recorded that he is elevated by acclamation.”
“Opposed,” said Divvis.
“Opposed,” said Prince Manganot of Banglecode.
“Opposed,” said the Duke of Halanx.
“Are there any others here,” asked Elidath slowly, “who wish to be placed on record in opposition to the will of the Coronal Lord?”
Prince Nimian of Dundilmir, who had not previously spoken, now declared, “There is an implied threat in those words to which I take exception, Elidath.”
“Your exception is duly noted, although no threat is intended. How do you vote, Nimian?”
“Opposed.”
“So be it. Four stand in opposition, which falls well short of a carrying number. Stasilaine, will you ask Prince Hissune to enter the council-chamber?” Glancing about the room, Elidath added, “If any who cast opposing votes wish now to withdraw them, this is the moment.”
“Let my vote stand,” the Duke of Halanx said at once.
“And mine,” said the Prince of Banglecode, and Nimian of Dundilmir also.
“And what says the son of Lord Voriax?” Elidath asked.
Divvis smiled. “I change my vote. The thing is done: let it have my support as well.”
At that Manganot rose halfway from his seat, gaping in astonishment, face coloring. He began to say something, but Divvis cut short his words with an upraised hand and a sharp sudden glare. Frowning, shaking his head in bewilderment, Manganot subsided. The Duke of Halanx whispered something to Prince Nimian, who shrugged and made no reply.
Stasilaine returned, with Hissune beside him, clad in a simple white robe with a golden splash on the left shoulder. His face was lightly flushed, his eyes were unnaturally bright, but he was otherwise calm and contained.
Elidath said, “By nomination of the Coronal Lord Valentine and the acclamation of these high lords, we name you to the principate of Majipoor, with full rank and privilege.”
Hissune bowed his head. “I am moved beyond words, my lords. I can barely express my gratitude to you all for bestowing this unimaginable honor upon me.”
Then he looked up, and his gaze traveled through the room, resting for a moment on Nimian, and on Manganot, and on the Duke of Halanx, and then, for a long while, on Divvis, who returned his stare coolly and with a faint smile.
6
That lone sea dragon, so strangely beating its wings against the water at twilight, was a harbinger of stranger things to come. In the third week of the voyage from Alaisor to the Isle of Sleep an entire herd of the huge creatures suddenly manifested itself off the starboard side of the Lady Thiin.
Pandelume, the pilot, a Skandar with deep blue fur who once had hunted sea dragons for her livelihood, was the first to sight them, just after dawn, as she was taking her sightings from the observation deck. She carried the news to Asenhart the Grand Admiral, who conferred with Autifon Deliamber, who took it upon himself to awaken the Coronal.
Valentine went quickly to the deck. By now the sun had come up out of Alhanroel and cast long shadows upon the waters. The pilot handed him her seeing-tube and he put it to his eye, and she trained it for him on the shapes that moved through the sea far in the distance.
He stared, seeing little at first except the gentle swells of the open sea, then shifting his gaze slightly to the north and refining his focus to bring the sea dragons into view: dark humped shapes thronging the water, moving in close formation, swimming with strange purposefulness. Now and again a long neck rose high above the surface, or vast wings were fanned and fluttered and spread out on the bosom of the sea.
“There must be a hundred of them,” cried Valentine, amazed.
“More than that, my lord,” said Pandelume. “Never while I was hunting them did I encounter a herd so big. Can you see the kings? Five of them, at least. And half a dozen more, nearly as large. And dozens of cows, and young ones, too many to count—”
“I see them,” Valentine said. In the center of the group was a small phalanx of animals of monstrous size, all but submerged, but their spine-ridges cleaving the surface. “Six big ones, I’d say. Monsters—bigger even than the one that shipwrecked me when I sailed on the Brangalyn! And in the wrong waters. What are they doing here? Asenhart, have you ever hea
rd of sea-dragon herds coming up this side of the Isle?”
“Never, my lord,” the Hjort said “somberly. “For thirty years I have sailed between Numinor and Alaisor and never once seen a dragon. Never once! And now an entire herd—”
“The Lady be thanked they’re moving away from us,” said Sleet.
“But why are they here at all?” Valentine asked.
No one had an answer to that. It seemed unreasonable that the movements of sea dragons through the inhabited parts of Majipoor should so suddenly undergo drastic change, when for thousands of years the marine herds had with extraordinary loyalty followed well-worn roads in the sea.
Placidly did each herd take the same route on each of its lengthy migrations around the world, to the dragons’ great loss, for the dragon hunters out of Piliplok, knowing where to find them, fell upon them each year in the proper season and worked a fearful slaughter on them so that dragon meat and dragon oil and dragon milk and dragon bones and many another dragon-derived product might be sold at high profit in the marketplaces of the world. Still the dragons traveled as they always had traveled. The vagaries of winds and currents and temperatures sometimes might induce them to shift some hundreds of miles north or south of their customary paths, probably because the sea creatures on which they fed had shifted, but nothing like this departure had ever been seen before—a whole herd of dragons curving up the eastern side of the Isle of Sleep and apparently making for the polar regions, instead of passing south of the Isle and the coast of Alhanroel to enter the waters of the Great Sea.
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