Valentine Pontifex m-3

by Robert Silverberg

  He returned quickly to the house, where Xhama was preparing the morning meal.

  “Where is Simoost?” he asked.

  The Ghayrog woman replied, without looking up, “He is in the niyk orchard, sir.”

  “The niyks are long dead, Xhama.”

  “Yes, sir. But he is in the niyk orchard. He has been there all night, sir.”

  “Go to him. Tell him I want to see him.”

  “He will not come, sir. And the food will burn if I leave.”

  Etowan Elacca, astounded by her refusal, could not for the moment find words. Then, realizing that in this time of changes some new and bewildering further change must be in the process of occurring, he nodded curtly and turned without a word and went outside once more.

  As quickly as he could he ascended the sloping terrain, past the dismal fields of stajja, a sea of yellowed shriveled shoots, and up through the stark leafless glein bushes and the dried pasty stuff that was all that was left of the hingamorts, until in time he entered the niyk orchard. The dead trees were so light that they were easily uprooted by strong winds, and most had fallen, with the others standing at precarious angles as though a giant had slapped them playfully with the back of his hand. At first Etowan Elacca did not see Simoost; and then he caught sight of the foreman wandering in a peculiarly haphazard way along the outer edge of the grove, threading a path between the leaning trees, pausing now and then to push one over. Was this the way he had spent the night? Since Ghayrogs did all their year’s sleeping in a few months of hibernation, it had never surprised Etowan Elacca to learn that Simoost had been at work during the night, but this sort of aimlessness was not at all like him.

  “Simoost?”

  “Ah, sir. Good morning, sir.”

  “Xhama said you were up here. Are you all right, Simoost?”

  “Yes, sir. I am very well, sir.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Very well, sir. Very well indeed.” But Simoost’s tone lacked conviction.

  Etowan Elacca said, “Will you come down? I have something to show you.”

  The Ghayrog appeared to be considering the request with care. Then he slowly descended until he reached the level where Etowan Elacca waited. The snaky coils of his hair, which were never entirely still, moved now in nervous jerky writhings, and from his powerful scaly body came a scent which Etowan Elacca, long familiar with the varying odors of Ghayrogs, knew to signify great distress and apprehension. Simoost had been with him for twenty years: Etowan Elacca had never before detected that scent coming from him.

  “Sir?” Simoost said.

  “What’s troubling you, Simoost?”

  “Nothing, sir. I am very well, sir. You wished to show me something?”

  “This,” said Etowan Elacca, taking from his pocket the long tapering tooth he had found in the pinnina bed. He held it forth and said, “I came upon this while I was making the garden tour half an hour ago. I wondered if you had any idea what it was.”

  Simoost’s lidless green eyes flickered uneasily. “The tooth of a young sea dragon, sir. So I believe.”

  “Is that what it is?”

  “I am quite sure, sir. Were there others?”

  “Quite a few. Eight more, I think.”

  Simoost traced a diamond shape in the air. “Arranged in a pattern like this?”

  “Yes,” said Etowan Elacca, frowning. “How did you know that?”

  “It is the usual pattern. Ah, there is danger, sir, great danger!”

  In exasperation Etowan Elacca said, “You’re being deliberately mysterious, aren’t you? What usual pattern? Danger from whom? By the Lady, Simoost, tell me in plain words what you know about all this!”

  The Ghayrog’s odor grew more pungent: it spoke of intense dismay, fear, embarrassment. Simoost appeared to struggle for words. At length he said, “Sir, do you know where everyone who used to work for you has gone?”

  “To Falkynkip, I assume, to look for work on the ranches. But what does that—”

  “No, not to Falkynkip, sir. Farther west. Pidruid is where they have gone. To wait for the coming of the dragons.”

  “What?”

  “As in the revelation, sir.”

  “Simoost—!”

  “You know nothing about the revelation, then?”

  Etowan Elacca felt a surge of anger such as he had rarely known in his tranquil and well-fulfilled life. “I know nothing whatever about the revelation, no,” he said with barely controllable fury.

  “I will tell you, sir. I will tell you everything.”

  The Ghayrog was silent an instant, as though arranging his thoughts with some precision.

  Then he took a deep breath and said, “There is an old belief, sir, that at a certain time great trouble will come upon the world, and all Majipoor will be thrust into confusion. And at that time, so it is said, the sea dragons will leave the sea, they will go forth onto the land and proclaim a new kingdom, and they will work an immense transformation in our world. And that time will be known as the time of the revelation.”

  “Whose fantasy is this?”

  “Yes, fantasy is a good word for it, sir. Or fable, or, if you like, fairy-tale. It is not scientific. We understand that the sea-dragons are unable to emerge from the water. But the belief is quite widespread among some people, and they take much comfort from it.”

  “Which ones are those?”

  “The poor people, chiefly. Mainly the Liimen, though some of the other races subscribe to it also, sir. I have heard it is prevalent among some Hjorts, and certain Skandars. It is not widely known among humans, and particularly not by such gentry as you, sir. But I tell you there are many now who say that the time of the revelation has come, that the blight upon the land and the shortage of food is the first sign of it, that the Coronal and Pontifex will soon be swept away and the reign of the water-kings will begin. And those who believe such a thing, sir, are going now toward the cities of the coast, toward Pidruid and Narabal and Til-omon, so that they can see the water-kings come ashore and be among the first to worship them. I know this to be the truth, sir. It is happening all through the province, and for all I know, it is happening everywhere in the world. Millions have begun to march toward the sea.”

  “How astonishing,” said Etowan Elacca. “How ignorant I am, here in my little world within the world!” He ran his finger down the length of the dragon-tooth, to the sharp tip, and pressed it tightly until he felt the pain. “And these? What do they signify?”

  “As I understand it, sir, they place them here and there, as signs of the revelation and as trail markers showing the route to the coast. A few scouts move ahead of the great multitude of pilgrims heading west, and place the teeth, and soon afterward the others follow in their path.”

  “How do they know where the teeth have been placed?”

  “They know, sir. I do not know how they know. Perhaps the knowledge comes in dreams. Perhaps the water-kings issue sendings, like those of the Lady and of the King of Dreams.”

  “So we will shortly be overrun by a horde of wanderers?”

  “I think so, sir.”

  Etowan Elacca tapped the tooth against the palm of his hand. “Simoost, why have you spent the night in the niyk orchard?”

  “Trying to find the courage to tell you these things, sir.”

  “Why did it require courage?”

  “Because I think we must flee, sir, and I know you will not want to flee, and I do not wish to abandon you, but I do not wish to die, either. And I think we will die if we stay here longer.”

  “You knew about the dragon-teeth in the garden?”

  “I saw them placed, sir. I spoke with the scouts.”

  “Ah. When?”

  “At midnight, sir. There were three of them, two Liimen and a Hjort. They say that four hundred thousand people are heading this way out of the eastern Rift country.”

  “Four hundred thousand people will march across my land?”

  “I think so, sir.”
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br />   “There won’t be anything left once they’ve passed through, will there? They’ll come through like a plague of locusts. They’ll clean out such food supplies as we have, and I imagine they’ll plunder the house, and they’ll kill anyone who gets in their way, so I would suppose. Not out of malice, but merely in the general hysteria. Is that how you see it also, Simoost?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And when will they be here?”

  “Two days, perhaps three, so they told me.”

  “Then you and Xhama should leave this morning, should you not? All the staff should go right away. To Falkynkip, I would say. You ought to be able to reach Falkynkip before the mob gets there, and then you should be safe.”

  “You will not leave, sir?”

  “No.”

  “Sir, I beg you—”

  “No, Simoost.”

  “You will surely perish!”

  “I have perished already, Simoost. Why should I flee to Falkynkip? What would I do there? I have perished already, Simoost, can’t you perceive that? I am my own ghost.”

  “Sir—sir—”

  “There’s no more time to waste,” said Etowan Elacca. “You should have taken your wife and gone at midnight, when you saw the teeth being placed. Go. Go. Now.”

  He swung about and descended the slope, and as he passed back through the garden he replaced the dragon-tooth where he had found it, in the pinnina bed.

  In midmorning the Ghayrog and his wife came to him and implored him to leave with them—they were as close to tears as Etowan Elacca had ever seen a Ghayrog come, for Ghayrog eyes have no tear ducts—but he stood firm, and in the end they departed without him. He called the others who had remained loyal together, and dismissed them, giving them such money as he happened to have on hand, and much of the food from the larder.

  That night he prepared his own dinner for the first time in his life. He thought he showed respectable skill, for a novice. He opened the last of the fireshower wine, and drank rather more than he would normally have allowed himself. What was happening to the world was very strange to him, and difficult to accept, but the wine made it a little easier. How many thousands of years of peace there had been! What a pleasant world, what a smoothly functioning world! Pontifex and Coronal, Pontifex and Coronal, a serene progression moving from Castle Mount to the Labyrinth, governing always with the consent of the many for the benefit of all; though of course some benefited more than others, yet no one went hungry, no one lived in need. And now it was ending. Poisonous rain comes from the sky, gardens wither, crops are destroyed, famines begin, new religions take hold, ravenous crazy mobs swarm toward the sea. Does the Coronal know? Does the Lady of the Isle? The King of Dreams? What is being done to repair these things? What can be done? Will kindly dreams from the Lady help to fill empty bellies? Will threatening dreams from the King turn the mobs back? Will the Pontifex, if indeed there is a Pontifex, come forth from the Labyrinth and make lofty proclamations? Will the Coronal ride from province to province, urging patience? No. No. No. No. It is over, Etowan Elacca thought. What a pity that this could not have waited another twenty years, or thirty perhaps, so that I could have died quietly in my garden, and the garden still in bloom.

  He kept watch through the night, and all was still.

  In the morning he imagined he could hear the first rumblings of the oncoming horde to the east. He went through the house, opening every door that was locked, so they would do as little damage as possible to the building as they ransacked it for his food and his wines. It was a beautiful house, and he loved it and hoped it would come to no harm.

  Then he went out into the garden, among the shriveled and blackened plants. Much of it, he realized, had actually survived the deadly rain: rather more than he thought, since he had had eyes all these dark months only for the destruction, but indeed the mouthplants were still flourishing and the nightflower trees and some of the androdragmas, the dwikkas, the sihornish vines, even the fragile bladdertrees. For hours he walked among them. He thought of giving himself to one of the mouthplants, but that would be an ugly death, he thought, slow and bloody and inelegant, and he wanted it said of him, even if there might be no one to say it, that he had been elegant to the last. Instead he went to the sihornish vines, which were festooned with unripened fruits, still yellow. The ripe sihornish was one of the finest of delicacies, but the fruit when yellow brims with deadly alkaloids. For a long while Etowan Elacca stood by the vine, utterly without fear, simply not yet quite ready. Then came the sound of voices, not imagined this time, the harsh voices of city folk, many of them, borne on the fragrant air from the east. Now he was ready. He knew it would be more gentlemanly to wait until they were here, and bid them be welcome to his estate, and offer them his best wines and such dinner as he could provide; but without his staff he could not provide much in the way of hospitality, after all; and, besides, he had never really liked city folk, particularly when they came as uninvited guests. He looked about one last time at the dwikkas and the bladdertrees and the one sickly halatinga that somehow had survived, and commended his soul to the Lady, and felt the beginnings of tears. He did not think weeping was seemly. And so he put the yellow sihornish to his lips, and bit eagerly into its hard unripe flesh.

  8

  Though she had merely intended to rest her eyes a moment or two before she began preparing dinner, a deep and powerful sleep came quickly over Elsinome when she lay down, drawing her into a cloudy realm of yellow shadows and rubbery pink hills; and though she had scarcely expected a sending to come to her during a casual before-dinner nap, she felt a gentle pressure at the gateways of her soul as she descended into the fullness of her slumber, and knew it to be the presence of the Lady coming upon her.

  Elsinome was tired all the time, lately. She had never worked so hard as in the last few days, since news of the crisis in western Zimroel had reached the Labyrinth. Now the cafe was full all day long with tense officials of the Pontificate, exchanging the latest information over a few bowls of fine Muldemar or good golden Dulornese wine—they wanted only the best, when they were this worried. And so she was constantly running back and forth, juggling her inventories, calling in extra supplies from the wine merchants. It had been exciting, in a way, at first: she felt almost as though she were participating herself in this critical moment of history. But now it was merely exhausting.

  Her last thought before falling asleep was of Hissune: Prince Hissune, as she was still trying to learn to regard him. She had not heard from him in months, not since that astonishing letter, so dreamlike itself, telling her that they had called him to the highest circle of the Castle. He had begun to seem unreal to her after that, no longer the small sharp-eyed clever boy who once had amused and comforted and supported her, but a stranger in fine robes who spent his days among the councils of the great, holding unimaginable discourse on the ultimate destinies of the world. An image came to her of Hissune at a vast table polished to mirror brightness, sitting among older men whose features were unclearly limned but from whom there radiated great presence and authority, and they were all looking toward Hissune as he spoke. Then the scene vanished and she saw yellow clouds and pink hills, and the Lady entered her mind.

  It was the briefest of sendings. She was on the Isle—that much she knew from the white cliffs and the steeply rising terraces, though she had never actually been there, never in fact been outside the Labyrinth—and in a dreamlike drifting way she was moving through a garden that was at first immaculate and airy and then imperceptibly became dark and overgrown. The Lady was by her side, a black-haired woman in white robes who seemed sad and weary, not at all the strong, warm, comforting person Elsinome had met in earlier sendings: she was bowed with care, her eyes were hooded and downcast, her movements uncertain. “Give me your strength,” the Lady murmured. This is all wrong, thought Elsinome. The Lady comes to us to offer strength, not to receive it. But the dream-Elsinome did not hesitate. She was vigorous and tall, with a nimbus of ligh
t flickering about her head and shoulders. She drew the Lady to her, and took her against her breast and held her in a close strong embrace, and the Lady sighed and it seemed that some of the pain went from her. Then the two women drew apart and the Lady, glowing now as Elsinome was, touched her fingers to her lips and threw a kiss to Elsinome, and vanished.

  That was all. With startling suddenness Elsinome woke and saw the familiar dreary walls of her flat in Guadeloom Court. The afterglow of a sending was on her beyond any doubt, but the sendings of other years had left her always with a strong sense of new purpose, of directions redirected, and this one had brought only mystification. She could not understand the purpose of such a sending; but perhaps it would manifest itself to her, she thought, in a day or two.

  She heard sounds in her daughters’ room.

  “Ailimoor? Maraune?”

  Neither girl answered. Elsinome peered in and saw them huddling close over some small object, which Maraune put quickly behind her back.

  “What’s that you have there?”

  “It’s nothing, mother. Just a little thing.”

  “What kind of thing?”

  “A trinket. Sort of.”

  Something in Maraune’s tone made Elsinome suspicious. “Let me see it.”

  “It really isn’t anything.”

  “Let me see.”

  Maraune shot a quick look toward her older sister. Ailimoor, looking uneasy and awkward, simply shrugged.

  “It’s personal, mother. Doesn’t a girl get to have any privacy?” Maraune said.

  Elsinome held out her hand. Sighing, Maraune brought forth and reluctantly surrendered a small sea-dragon tooth, finely carved over much of its surface with unfamiliar and peculiarly disturbing symbols of an odd, narrow-angled sort. Elsinome, still in part enveloped in the strange aura of the sending, found the little amulet sinister and menacing.