“Perhaps. I am in no position to say,” replied Prestimion uncomfortably.
Indeed, even he had from all sides heard reports of inexplicable things, seeming miracles that might well be considered the work of mages. But he clung to the opinion that rational explanations could somehow be had, that these supposed miracles were achieved by the methods of science. Much scientific knowledge had been lost and forgotten in the course of Majipoor’s many thousands of years of history, and perhaps some of that had lately been recovered and put to use: the results might well look like magic to people ignorant of the technical means used to produce them.
Then, too, he was willing to concede that the Vroons and Su-Suheris might have certain special powers of mind, no more magical than eyesight or hearing were among other races, that allowed them to work some of their supposed wonders. But no more than that. And in general Prestimion preferred to reserve his judgment on all these questions.
And so he held up one hand when Gialaurys seemed eager to press the debate further.
“Let there be no more of this,” Prestimion said, with the most amiable smile he could muster. “There’s no need for us to debate the matter here and now, is there? Let me only say—begging your pardon for any offense to your beliefs, my friend—that I assure you it verged very close on sickening me to behold those parasites clustered around old Prankipin, and very happy I am to be out of that place.” He shook his head with vigor, as though to clear it of that stifling haze of incense. “Come: the games will be starting. We should be in the Arena now.”
* * *
Upward they went through the spiraling levels; and came in time to that huge open space which the Pontifex Dizimaule of ancient times had bestowed upon the Labyrinth, where the Pontifical Games were to be held.
No one knew why Dizimaule had caused this incomprehensible emptiness to be constructed in one of the middle levels of the Labyrinth. He had offered no reason, said the historians of the underground city: had coolly given orders for the clearing of whole acres of existing buildings, and in their place had built—nothing. One could stand in it and look across to the far side and not be able to see the opposite wall, so broad was its span. No interior columns supported its distant ceiling, a fact that had baffled generations of Majipoori architects. When you cupped your hand and shouted, it took half an eternity for the echoes to begin to return, though when they did they went on tumbling and crashing about you for a marvelously long time.
Ordinarily the Arena remained unoccupied and unused. By statute of Dizimaule Pontifex it was forbidden to build anything in it, and no succeeding Pontifex had cared to repeal that law; so there it sat, century after century, purposeless, mystifying. Only upon the death of a Pontifex did anything occur there, for there was no other site in the Labyrinth but the Arena where the traditional Pontifical funeral games could be held.
An enormous many-layered grandstand for the common citizens had sprung up in it virtually overnight, like some fungal growth in a moist forest, all along the Arena’s western wall. In the space before it were the structures of the games themselves, the chariot-racing track at the center, with the sandy track for footraces alongside it, and smaller arenas for boxing and wrestling and the games of special skill up toward the northern end, and an archery course to the south. On the eastern side was the special seating for the visitors from Castle Mount, with an ornate box for the Coronal and his family in the place of honor at the center. Overhead, somewhere midway between the floor and the dimly visible ceiling, clusters of high-powered glowlamps drifted freely, casting brilliant beams of red and golden illumination in this usually dim-lit place.
An usher in a purple robe trimmed with a collar of orange fur, with the little half-mask across his eyes and the bridge of his nose that was the quaint symbol of the Pontifical officials, showed Prestimion and his companions to their place, a booth just to the left of the Coronal’s box. Duke Svor was there already, and Prince Serithorn with some members of his staff. Just beyond them the Coronal was smiling and waving to the citizenry from his seat at the center, with Prince Korsibar on one side of him and the Lady Thismet on the other. The Lady Melithyrrh accompanied Thismet; the Su-Suheris mage Sanibak-Thastimoon sat just behind Korsibar.
On the other side of the royal box Duke Oljebbin of Stoienzar shared a booth with the Counts Farholt and Farquanor, Mandrykarn of Stee, Iram of Normork, and several others. The Procurator Dantirya Sambail arrived moments after Prestimion, very grandly arrayed in bejeweled orange robes more splendid even than Lord Confalume’s; he stood for a time studying the arrangements of the seating, and then found a place for himself in Duke Oljebbin’s box, along the side closest to Prince Korsibar’s seat in the box adjacent.
Prince Gonivaul, as Master of the Games, had a place all to himself, high above everything and set at an angle to the grandstand. He stood looking calmly this way and that, awaiting the proper moment for the start of the games. Then he lifted a silken scarf of dazzling crimson and green and waved it briskly three times over his head.
There was an answering flourish of trumpets and drums and horns and pipes, and from some entranceway in a far-off corner of the Arena came the competitors for the first day’s events, riding toward the center of the stadium in a little fleet of floaters. The footraces would be the opening contest, and then the dueling with batons, both of these being pastimes mainly for the youngest princelings of the Castle.
But as the contestants emerged from their floaters and arranged themselves in parallel lines along the field, kneeling and rising and stretching and dancing in place to ready themselves for their races, other figures appeared and came forward on the field before the Coronal’s box. “Look,” Prestimion said, giving Septach Melayn a sharp nudge in the ribs. “Even here, the sorcerers!”
Indeed. They were ubiquitous. There was no escaping the reach of the mages any more, not anywhere in the world.
Prestimion watched in deep disgust as brazen tripods were set up, as colored powders were poured and ignited, as seven long-legged figures clad in the impressive costume of the geomancers who flourished in the High City of Tidias on Castle Mount—the shining robe of golden brocade that was the kalautikoi, the richly woven cloak called the lagustri-more, the towering brass helmet known as the miirthella—struck their stately poses and loudly and resonantly uttered their mystic spells.
“Bythois… Sigei… Remmer… Proiarchis…”
“What are they saying?” Prestimion whispered.
Septach Melayn laughed. “How would I know?”
“These are wizards of Tidias, I think, and you are a man of that very city, as I recall.”
“I spent no time carousing with wizards when I lived there, nor learning their dark arts,” said Septach Melayn. “Gialaurys is your man if you want a translation.”
Prestimion nodded. But he could see big Gialaurys down on his knees, muttering devoutly along with the geomancers as they intoned their incantation. Out of love of Gialaurys, Prestimion forced himself to curb his irritation with the lengthy rite that was going on before them.
In any case it was a waste of breath for him to rail against wizardry with anyone other than Septach Melayn. It had begun to seem to Prestimion that he and Septach Melayn were the last two men of Majipoor who had not yielded to the spells of the enchanters. And even the two of them, Prestimion was coming to see, might find it politic to start being more tactful about their distaste for such things. It was wise, he realized, for a Coronal not to place himself too openly in opposition to the temper of the times.
He looked toward the field. The sorcerers and their equipment were gone now, and the footraces were under way: the sprints first, over almost as soon as they had begun, and then the longer races, up and and around the track and back, one lap, two laps, six laps, ten.
Prestimion recognized very few of the contestants. A great many young knights and guardsmen had come down from Castle Mount as escorts to the royal family and the dukes and lords, and it was from their ra
nks that most of the footracers had come; but he knew only a handful of them by name. His attention quickly wandered. Off to the left he could see them getting ready for the baton-dueling. That sport was more to his taste than the running; he had been a capable hand with the batons himself when he was a boy.
Duke Svor, at Prestimion’s side, touched his sleeve. In a low and oddly throaty voice he said, “Did you sleep well last night, prince?”
“About as usual, I suppose.”
“Not I. I dreamed a very troublesome dream.”
“Ah,” said Prestimion, without much interest. “It’s known to happen, I suppose. I’m sorry to hear it.” He pointed toward the gathering group of baton-wielders. “Do you see that one on the far side, Svor, in the green? And you, Septach Melayn? Notice how he stands, as though there are coiled springs in his feet. And watch the movements of his wrists. In his mind he’s already at work with his baton, and the signal not even given.—I’ll put my wager on him, I think. Who’ll say five crowns on the first match, and I take the one in the green?”
Gialaurys said doubtfully, “Is it respectful to wager on these games, prince?”
“Why not? Respectful to whom, Gialaurys? The Pontifex? I hardly think he’d care just now. Five crowns on the green!”
“His name is Mandralisca,” said Septach Melayn. “He’s one of your cousin’s men. A nasty piece of work, like most of those that your cousin likes to have about him.”
“The Procurator, you mean? A very remote cousin, that one.”
“But your cousin all the same, as I understand it. This Mandralisca is his poison-taster, I’m told.”
“His what?”
“Stands beside him, sips his drink to make sure that it’s safe. I saw him doing it only the other day.”
“Indeed. Well, then, I put five crowns on Dantirya Sambail’s poison-taster! Mandralisca, you said his name was?”
“I’ll readily put five against him, out of sheer loathing for the man,” said Septach Melayn, holding forth a bright coin. “This Mandralisca, I hear, would just as soon stab a man as move aside for him in the road. My money’s on the boy in scarlet.”
“Concerning this dream of mine, Prestimion,” Svor continued, in the low tense voice he had used before. “If I may—”
Prestimion glanced toward him impatiently. “Was it such a dreadful one, then, that you need to spill it forth right this instant? Well then, Svor, go ahead. Go ahead! Tell it to me, and let there be an end on it.”
The little man knotted his fingers into the tight curls of his short black beard and screwed his face into the most sour of expressions, so that his thick heavy brows met at the middle in a single dark line. “I dreamed,” he said after a bit, “that the old Pontifex had finally died, and Lord Confalume had come forth in the Court of Thrones and named you to be Coronal before us all, and had removed the starburst crown from his head and was holding it out to you in his hand.”
“This is not very dreadful so far,” said Prestimion.
On the field four pairs of batonsmen were facing one another in perfect stillness, tautly awaiting the signal, gripping the thin pliant wands of nightflower wood that were their weapons.
“Challenge!” called the referee. “Post! Entry!” Prestimion sat forward as the contests began, his upper body weaving about in his seat as he became attuned to the lively rhythms of the swiftly flashing batons. This was a sport that required quickness of movement and sight, and deftness of wrist, rather than any special degree of strength. The wooden batons were so light that they could be moved back and forth faster than the lightest rapier. It was necessary to anticipate one’s opponent’s moves almost as though reading his mind, if one were to have any hope of parrying his thrusts.
Svor, speaking very softly with his head close beside Prestimion’s, said, “Prince Korsibar was standing opposite you in the hall, and his hands were raised in readiness to make the starburst sign at you the moment that Lord Confalume had placed the crown upon your brow. But before that could be done, the dead Pontifex Prankipin entered the hall.”
“How very unusual,” said Prestimion, listening now with only half an ear. “But of course it was a dream.” Turning away from Svor, he tapped Septach Melayn with his elbow and grinned. “Do you see how the poison-taster whips that baton around now? Your boy in scarlet’s a lost cause. And so are your five crowns, I’m afraid.”
In a harsh insistent voice that was all rough edges, Svor said, “What I saw, prince, was that the old Pontifex came to Lord Confalume and took the Coronal’s crown lightly out of his hand. And went not to you but to Prince Korsibar, and gave the crown to him, putting it right in his upraised hands, so that all Korsibar need do was bring the crown toward his forehead and place it there. Which Korsibar proceeded without hesitation to do, and we all stood stunned at the sight of it, but he was wearing the crown, and he who wears the crown is king, and so there was nothing else for us then but to bow down to him and hail him with the old cry, ‘Korsibar! Lord Korsibar! Long life to Lord Korsibar!’ And suddenly the hall was alight with a glow the color of flame—no, the color of blood, it was, bright fresh blood—and I awoke, sweating from head to foot. But after a time I slept again, and dreamed, and it was the same dream again. The very same.”
Scowling, Prestimion said, “Lord Korsibar indeed. In dreams anything is possible, Svor.”
On his other side Septach Melayn was shouting, “Scarlet! Yes, Scarlet! Go it, Scarlet!” And then a groan and a curse as the poison-taster suddenly executed a deft double-feint that left his scarlet-clad opponent caught out of position and pivoting on the wrong leg, and sent him down beneath a dizzying barrage of lightning-fast strokes of his baton. “By the Divine, you have it, Prestimion!” said Septach Melayn. With a rueful smile he flipped the five-crown piece into Prestimion’s hand.
“I could see his skill at once, from the way he moved even before the contest started. He would be three steps ahead of the other boy at every moment, that I knew.” And, leaning again to Svor, Prestimion said, “Forget this miserable dream of yours, and watch the batons, Svor! Who’ll give me ten crowns on the poison-taster’s next match?”
“One moment more, if you would, Prestimion—” Svor said in that same low conspiratorial tone.
Prestimion was beginning to find Svor’s nagging persistence exasperating. “If I would what?”
“Matters are more precarious than you understand, I think. Attend me: your future and mine are darkened by the shadow of this dream. Go to the Coronal, I beg you. You must force his hand, or we’re surely all lost. Tell him that you fear treachery; ask him to declare you to be Coronal-designate before another day goes by. And if he refuses, stay by his side until he yields to you. Give him no peace so long as he continues to delay. If need be, tell him that you’ll openly proclaim yourself his heir without waiting for him if he won’t do it.”
“This is unthinkable, Svor. I’ll do no such thing.”
“You must, Prestimion.” Svor’s voice was shredded to a hoarse whisper.
“I find your advice unacceptable and unworthy. Force the Coronal’s hand? Harass him on my own behalf? Threaten to declare myself the heir, which would be an infamous thing, against all law and precedent? Why? Simply because you ate too many eels last night and had a bad dream? What are you saying, man?”
“And if Korsibar were to seize his father’s crown in the moment of Prankipin’s death, what then?”
“What’s this? Seize the crown?” Prestimion’s eyes were wide with amazement. “That’s a thing he’d never do!—You make him out most perfidious, Svor. There’s nothing of that in him at all. Besides, his father’s crown doesn’t interest him. Never has. Never will.”
“I know Prince Korsibar very well,” Svor said. “I was of his company for years, have you forgotten? Perfidious he is not, I agree; but he flutters easily in any breeze. Flattery quickly sways his mind. There are those with grand ambitions of their own who think he should be Coronal, and perhaps already have been at
work telling him so. And if he has such things poured in his ear often enough—”
“No!” Prestimion cried. “That will never happen!” Angrily, he swept the air before his face with both his outspread hands. “First that Vroon brought me these omens, and now you. No. I’ll not be driven by omens, like some credulous peasant. Let me be, Svor. I love you with all the warmth of my soul, but I tell you that you bother me very greatly just now.”
“There was virtue in that dream, prince, I promise you that. ”
“And if you refuse to put this insufferable dream of yours away this instant,” said Prestimion, fuming now, as his wrath began to spill over in him, “I’ll take you by that beard of yours and swing you through the air and pitch you clear over the side of this box. I promise you that most sincerely, Svor. An end on it now. Do you hear me? An end on it!” He glared furiously at Svor, then turned his back on him and looked toward the field.
But Svor’s words still rattled in his head. That was, he thought, no fitting advice for the little duke to have given him: inciting him to treasonous insurrection on no evidence other than the urgings of a dream. It was a coward’s advice—a traitor’s advice, ignoble and bizarre. And foolish besides; for no one forced a Coronal’s hand, and the formidable Confalume would surely destroy him if he were to attempt it. No, it was a sorry thing, for Svor to have advocated such rashness—such wild impudence—merely on account of a dream—
Prestimion struggled to cleanse his mind of it.
8
The hurdle-racing and the hoop-jumping and the hammer-throw and other such minor sports were the features of the second day, and the third, and the fourth, of the Pontifical Games. Each day, the visiting lords and some thousands of the citizens of the Labyrinth assembled in the Arena for that day’s diversions. And each day, too, the bulletins from the imperial bedchamber were the same, his majesty the Pontifex’s condition remaining unchanged. It was as though his majesty’s condition, like the weather in the Labyrinth, was inherently incapable of change, and would vary not in the slightest from here to the end of time.
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