When he had mastered the inner zone to his own satisfaction Hissune began to extend his explorations to the baffling and almost endless sprawl that lay beyond it. He visited the subterranean vaults that housed the weather machines—designed in ancient times when such scientific matters were better understood on Majipoor—by which the eternal springtime of Castle Mount was maintained, even though the summit of the Mount thrust itself thirty miles above sea level into the chilly dark of space. He wandered through the great library that coiled from one side of the Castle to the other in vast serpentine loops, and was said to contain every book ever published anywhere in the civilized universe. He roamed the stables where the royal mounts, splendid high-spirited synthetic animals very little like their plodding cousins, the beasts of burden of every Majipoori town and farm, pranced and snorted and pawed the air as they waited for their next outing. He made the discovery of Lord Sangamor’s tunnels, a series of linked chambers strung like a chain of sausages around an outjutting spire on the west face of the Mount, the walls and roof of which glowed with eerie radiance, one room a midnight blue, one a rich vermilion, one a subtle aquamarine, one a dazzling tawny yellow, one a somber throbbing russet, and on and on: no one knew why the tunnels had been built, or what was the source of the light that sprang of its own accord from the glistening paving-blocks.
Wherever he went he was admitted without question. He was, after all, one of the three regents of the realm: a surrogate Coronal, in a sense, or at least a significant fraction of one. But the aura of power had begun to settle about him long before Elidath had named him to the triumvirate. He felt eyes on him everywhere. He knew what those intent glances signified. That is Lord Valentine’s favorite. He came out of nowhere; he is already a prince; there will be no limits to his rise. Respect him. Obey him. Flatter him. Fear him. At first he thought he could remain unchanged amidst all this attention, but that was impossible. I am still only Hissune, who gulled tourists in the Labyrinth, who pushed papers about in the House of Records, who was jeered at by his own friends for putting on airs. Yes, that would always be true; but it was also true that he was no longer ten years old, that he had been greatly deepened and transformed by what he had experienced peering into the lives of scores of other men and women in the Registry of Souls, and by the training he had had on Castle Mount, and by the honors and responsibilities—mainly the responsibilities—that had been conferred on him during Elidath’s regency. He walked in a different way now: no longer the cocky but wary Labyrinth boy, always glancing in six directions for some bewildered stranger to exploit, nor the lowly, overworked clerk keeping to his proper place while nonetheless busily scrabbling for promotion to some senior desk, nor the apologetic neophyte bewilderingly thrust among the Powers of the realm and moving cautiously in their midst, but now the rising young lordling, striding with assurance and poise through the Castle, confident, secure, aware of his strengths, his purposes, his destiny. He hoped he had not become arrogant or overbearing or self-important; but he accepted himself calmly and without labored humility for what he had become and what he would be.
Today his route took him into a part of the Castle he had rarely visited, the north wing, which cascaded down a long rounded snout of the Mount’s summit that pointed toward the distant cities of Huine and Gossif. The guards’ residential quarters were here, and a series of beehive-shaped outbuildings that had been built in the reigns of Lord Dizimaule and Lord Arioc for purposes now forgotten, and a cluster of low weatherbeaten structures, roofless and crumbling, that no one understood at all. On his last visit to this zone, months ago, a team of archaeologists had been excavating there, two Ghayrogs and a Vroon overseeing a bunch of Skandar laborers sifting sand for potsherds, and the Vroon had told him then that she thought the buildings were the remnants of an old fort of the time of Lord Damlang, successor to Stiamot. Hissune had come by today to see if they were still at work and find out what they had learned; but the place was deserted, and the excavations had been filled. He stood for a time atop an ancient broken wall, looking toward the impossibly distant horizon, half concealed by the enormous shoulder of the Mount.
What cities lay down this way? Gossif, fifteen or twenty miles along, and below it Tentag, and then, he thought, either Minimool or Greel. And then, surely, Stee of the thirty million citizens, equalled only by Ni-moya in its grandeur.
He had never seen any of those cities, and perhaps he never would. Valentine himself often remarked that he had spent all his life on Castle Mount without finding the occasion to visit Stee. The world was too large for anyone to explore adequately in one lifetime: too large to comprehend, indeed.
And the thirty million folk of Stee, and the thirty million of Ni-moya, and Pidruid’s eleven million, and the millions more of Alaisor, Treymone, Piliplok, Mazadone, Velathys, Narabal: how were they faring this very moment? Hissune wondered. Amid the famines, amid the panics, amid the cries of new prophets and self-appointed new kings and emperors? The situation now was critical, he knew. Zimroel had fallen into such confusion that it was all but impossible to find out what was going on there, though surely it was nothing good. And not long ago had come news of weevils and rusts and smuts and the Divine only knew what else beginning to make their sinister way through the farming belts of western Alhanroel, so in a little while the same madness would very likely be sweeping the senior continent. Already there were rumblings: tales of sea-dragon worship openly conducted in Treymone and Stoien, and mysterious new orders of chivalry, the Knights of Dekkeret and the Fellowship of the Mount and some others, springing up suddenly in cities like Amblemorn and Normork on Castle Mount itself. Ominous, troublesome signs of greater upheaval to come.
There were those who imagined that Majipoor had some inherent immunity to the universal inevitabilities of change, merely because its social system had undergone virtually no important evolution since it had taken its present form thousands of years ago. But Hissune had studied enough of history, both Majipoor’s and that of the mother world Earth, to know that even so placid a population as Majipoor’s, stable and content for millennia, lulled by the kindnesses of its climate and an agricultural fertility capable of supporting an almost unlimited number of people, would tumble with startling swiftness into anarchy and utter disintegration if those comforting props suddenly were knocked away. That had already begun, and it would grow worse.
Why had these plagues come? Hissune had no idea. What was being done to deal with them? Plainly, not enough. Could anything be done? What were rulers for, if not to maintain the welfare of their people? And here he was, a ruler of sorts, at least for the moment, in the grand isolation of Castle Mount, far above a crumbling civilization: badly informed, remote, helpless. But of course the ultimate responsibility for dealing with this crisis did not lie with him. What of Majipoor’s true anointed rulers, then? Hissune had always thought of the Pontifex, buried down there at the bottom of the Labyrinth, as a blind mole who could not conceivably know what was happening in the world—even a Pontifex who, like Tyeveras, might be reasonably vigorous and sane. In fact the Pontifex did not need to keep close touch with events: he had a Coronal to do that, so the theory ran. But Hissune saw now that the Coronal too was cut off from reality, up here in the misty reaches of Castle Mount, just as thoroughly sequestered as the Pontifex was in his pit. At least the Coronal undertook the grand processional from time to time, and put himself back in touch with his subjects. Yet was that not precisely what Lord Valentine was doing now, and what help was that in healing the wound that widened in the heart of the world? Where was Valentine at this moment, anyway? What actions, if any, was he taking? Who in the government had heard so much as a word from him in months?
We are all wise and enlightened people, Hissune thought. And with the best will in the world we are doing everything wrong.
It was nearly time for the day’s meeting of the Council of Regency. He turned and made his way at a quick lope toward the interior of the Castle.
As h
e began the ascent of the Ninety-Nine Steps he caught sight of Alsimir, whom he had lately named as the chief among his aides, waving wildly and shouting from far above. Taking the steps two and three at a time, Hissune raced upward while Alsimir came plunging down just as swiftly.
“We’ve been looking all over for you!” Alsimir blurted breathlessly, when he was still half a dozen steps away. He seemed amazingly agitated.
“Well, you’ve found me,” Hissune snapped. “What’s going on?”
Pausing to collect himself, Alsimir said, “There’s been big excitement. A long message came in from Tunigorn an hour ago, in Gihorna—”
“Gihorna?” Hissune stared. “What in the name of the Divine is he doing there?”
“I couldn’t tell you that. All I know is that that’s where he sent the message from, and—”
“All right. All right.” Catching Alsimir by the arm, Hissune said sharply, “Tell me what he said!”
“Do you think I know? Would they let someone like me in on great matters of state?”
“A great matter of state, is it, then?”
“Divvis and Stasilaine have been in session in the council room for the last forty-five minutes, and they’ve sent messengers to all corners of the Castle trying to find you, and half the high lords of the Castle have gone to the meeting and the others are on their way, and—”
Valentine must be dead, Hissune thought, chilled.
“Come with me,” he said, and went sprinting furiously up the steps.
Outside the council chamber he found a madhouse scene, thirty or forty of the minor lords and princes and their aides milling about in confusion, and more arriving at every moment. As Hissune appeared they moved automatically aside for him, opening a path through which he moved like a sailing ship cutting its way imperiously through a sea thick with drifting dragon-grass. Leaving Alsimir by the door and instructing him to collect from the others whatever information they might have, he went in.
Stasilaine and Divvis sat at the high table: Divvis bleak-faced and grim, Stasilaine somber, pale, and uncharacteristically downcast, his shoulders slumped, his hand running nervously through his thick shock of hair. About them were most of the high lords: Mirigant, Elzandir, Manganot, Cantalis, the Duke of Halanx, Nimian of Dundilmir, and five or six others, including one that Hissune had seen only once before, the ancient and withered Prince Ghizmaile, grandson of the Pontifex Ossier who had preceded Tyeveras in the Labyrinth. All eyes turned upon Hissune as he entered, and he stood for a moment transfixed in the gaze of these men, the youngest of whom was ten or fifteen years his senior, and all of whom had spent their lives in the inner corridors of power. They were looking toward him as though he alone had the answer they required to some terrible and perplexing question.
“My lords,” said Hissune.
Divvis, scowling, pushed a long sheet of paper across the table toward him. “Read this,” he muttered. “Unless you already know.”
“I know only that there is a message from Tunigorn.”
“Read it, then.”
To Hissune’s annoyance there was a tremor in his hand as he reached for the paper. He glowered at his fingers as though they were in rebellion against him, and forced them to grow steady.
Clusters of words leaped from the paper at him.
—Valentine gone off to Piurifayne to beg the forgiveness of the Danipiur—
—a Metamorph spy discovered traveling in the Coronal’s own entourage—
—interrogation of the spy reveals that the Metamorphs themselves have created and spread the pestilences wracking the farmlands—
—a great sandstorm—Elidath dead, and many others—the Coronal has vanished into Piurifayne—
—Elidath dead—
—the Coronal has vanished—
—a spy in the Coronal’s entourage—
—the Metamorphs have created the pestilences themselves—
—the Coronal has vanished—
—Elidath dead—
—the Coronal has vanished—
—the Coronal has vanished—
—the Coronal has vanished—
Hissune looked up, appalled. “How certain is it that this message is authentic?”
“There can be no doubt,” said Stasilaine. “It came in over the secret transmission channels. The ciphers were the correct ones. The style of phrase is certainly Tunigorn’s, that I will warrant myself. Put your faith on it, Hissune: this is altogether genuine.”
“Then we have not one catastrophe to deal with, but three or four,” Hissune said.
“So it would appear,” said Divvis. “What are your thoughts on these matters, Hissune?”
Hissune gave the son of Lord Voriax a slow, careful look. There seemed to be no mockery in his question. It had appeared to Hissune that Divvis’s jealousy of him and contempt for him had abated somewhat during these months of their working together on the Council of Regency, that Divvis had at last come to have some respect for his capabilities; but yet this was the first time Divvis had gone this far, actually showing what looked like a sincere desire to know Hissune’s point of view—in front of the other high lords, even.
Carefully he said, “The first thing to recognize is that we are confronted not merely by a vast natural calamity, but by an insurrection. Tunigorn tells us that the Metamorph Y-Uulisaan has confessed, under interrogation by Deliamber and Tisana, that the responsibility for the plagues lies with the Metamorphs. I think we can have faith in Deliamber’s methods, and we all know that Tisana can see into souls, even Metamorph souls. So the situation is precisely as I heard Sleet express it to the Coronal, when they were at the Labyrinth at the beginning of the grand processional—and which I heard the Coronal refuse to accept: that the Shapeshifters are making war upon us.”
“And yet,” said Divvis, “Tunigorn also tells us that the Coronal has responded by shuffling into Piurifayne to convey his royal apologies to the Danipiur for all our unkindnesses to her subjects down through the ages. We are all very much aware that Valentine regards himself as a man of peace: his gentle treatment of those who overthrew him long ago showed us that. It is a noble trait. But I have argued here this afternoon, Hissune, that what Valentine has done now goes beyond pacifism into madness. I say the Coronal, if he is still alive at all, is insane. Thus we have a lunatic Pontifex and a lunatic Coronal, and this while a deadly enemy is at our throats. What are your views, Hissune?”
“That you misinterpret the facts as Tunigorn provides them.”
There was a flash of surprise and something like anger in Divvis’s eyes; but his voice was under taut control as he said, “Ah, do you think so?”
Hissune tapped the sheet of paper. “Tunigorn says that the Coronal has gone into Piurifayne, and that a spy has been caught and made to confess. Nowhere can I find him saying that Lord Valentine went to Piurifayne after hearing of the spy’s confession. I think it can be argued that the truth is quite the opposite: that Lord Valentine chose to undertake a mission of conciliation, the wisdom of which we clearly might wish to debate, but which is well within his character as we know it, and while he was away on that enterprise this other information came to light. Perhaps because of the storm, it became impossible for Tunigorn to communicate with the Coronal, although one would think Deliamber would be able to find some way.” Glancing toward the great world-sphere of Majipoor against the far wall, Hissune said, “What information do we have of the Coronal’s present location, anyway?”
“None,” Stasilaine murmured.
Hissune’s eyes widened.
The brilliant red light that indicated Lord Valentine’s movements had gone out.
“The light is dark,” said Hissune. “What does that mean? That he is dead?”
“It could mean that,” Stasilaine said. “Or merely that he has lost or damaged the transmitter that he carries on him to broadcast his position.”
Hissune nodded. “And there was a great storm, that caused many casualties. Although it’s
unclear from the message, I can easily believe that Lord Valentine himself was caught in the storm on his way into Piurifayne, which presumably he entered from Gihorna, leaving Tunigorn and some others behind—”
“And either he perished in the storm or the transmitter was lost, we have no way of knowing which,” said Divvis.
“Let us hope the Divine has spared young Valentine’s life,” the aged Prince Ghizmaile declared suddenly in a voice so shriveled and sere it seemed barely to be that of a living creature. “But there is an issue we must deal with whether he is alive or dead, and that is the choice of a new Coronal.”
Hissune felt himself swept with amazement at the words this most senior of Castle lords had just uttered.
He looked about the room. “Do I hear right? Are we discussing the overthrow of a king today?”
“You put it too strongly,” Divvis answered smoothly. “All we discuss is whether it’s appropriate for Valentine to continue to serve as Coronal, in view of what we now know of the hostile intentions of the Shapeshifters and in view of what we have long known of Valentine’s methods of dealing with any sort of unpleasantness. If we are at war—and no one here any longer doubts that we are—then it’s reasonable to argue that Valentine is not the right man to lead us at this time, if in fact he still lives. But to replace him is not to overthrow him. There is a legitimate constitutional means of removing Valentine from the Confalume Throne without in any way embroiling Majipoor in conflict or manifesting a lack of love and respect for him.”
“You mean, by allowing the Pontifex Tyeveras to die.”
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