Lord Valentine's Castle

by Robert Silverberg

  She said, “A long time since your last speaking?”

  “Very long, I’m afraid.”

  “Evidently. This is the moment when you give me my fee, you know. You’ll find the price somewhat higher than you remember.”

  Valentine reached for his purse. “It’s been so long—”

  “—that you don’t remember. I ask ten crowns now. There are new taxes, and other bothers. In Lord Voriax’s time it was five, and when I first took up speaking, in the reign of Lord Malibor, I got two or two and a half. Is ten a burden for you?”

  It was a week’s pay for him from Zalzan Kavol, above his room and board; but he had arrived in Pidruid with plenty of money in his purse—he knew not how or why—close on sixty royals, and much of that remained. He gave the dream-speaker a royal and she dropped the coin negligently into a green porcelain bowl on the table. He yawned. She was watching him closely. He drank again; she did also, and refilled; his mind was growing cloudy. Though it was still early at night, he would soon be sleepy.

  “Come now to the dream-rug,” she said, blowing out two of the three candles.

  She pulled off her smock and was naked before him.

  That was unexpected. Did dream-speaking involve some sort of sexual contact? With this old woman? Not that she seemed so old now: her body looked a good twenty years younger than her face, not a girl’s body by any means, but still firm-fleshed, plump but unwrinkled, with heavy breasts and strong smooth thighs. Perhaps these speakers were some sort of holy prostitutes, Valentine thought. She beckoned to him to undress, and he cast his clothes aside. They lay down together on the thick woolen rug in the half-darkness, and she drew him into her arms, but there was nothing at all erotic about the embrace—more maternal, if anything, an all-enfolding engulfment. He relaxed. His head was against her soft warm bosom and it was hard for him to stay awake. The scent of her was strong in his nostrils, a sharp pleasant aroma like that of the gnarled and ageless needle-trees that grew on the high peaks of the north just below the snow-line, an odor that was crisp and pungent and clean. She said softly, “In the kingdom of dreams the only language spoken is that of truth. Be without fear as we embark together.”

  Valentine closed his eyes.

  High peaks, yes, just below the snow-line. A brisk wind blew across the crags, but he was not at all cold, though his feet were bare against the dry stony soil. A trail lay before him, a steeply sloping path in which broad gray flagstones had been laid to form a gigantic staircase leading into a mist-wrapped valley, and without hesitation Valentine started the descent. He understood that these images were not yet those of his dream, only of the prelude, that he had only begun his night’s journey and was still merely on the threshold of sleep. But as he went downward he passed others, making the ascent, figures familiar to him from recent nights, the Pontifex Tyeveras with parchment skin and withered face, laboring up the steps in a feeble, quavering manner, and Lord Valentine the Coronal clambering with bold assertive strides, and dead Lord Voriax floating serenely just above the steps, and the great warrior-Coronal Lord Stiamot out of eight thousand years past, brandishing some mighty staff around the tip of which furious storms swirled, and was this not the Pontifex Arioc who had resigned the Labyrinth six thousand years before to proclaim himself a woman, and become Lady of the Isle of Sleep instead? And this the great ruler Lord Confalume, and the equally great Lord Prestimion who had succeeded him, under whose two long reigns Majipoor had attained its peak of wealth and power? And then came Zalzan Kavol with the wizard Deliamber on his back, and Carabella, naked and nut-brown, sprinting with unfailing vigor, and Vinorkis, goggling and gaping, and Sleet, juggling balls of fire as he climbed, and Shanamir, and a Liiman selling sizzling sausages, and the gentle sweet-eyed Lady of the Isle, and the old Pontifex again, and the Coronal, and a platoon of musicians, and twenty Hjorts bearing the King of Dreams, terrible old Simonan Barjazid, in a golden litter. The mists were thicker down here, the air more dank, and Valentine found his breath coming in short painful bursts, as though instead of descending from the heights he had been climbing all the time, working his way by awful struggle above the line of needle-trees, into the bare granite shields of the high mountains, barefoot on burning strands of snow, swaddled in gray blankets of cloud that concealed all of Majipoor from him.

  There was noble austere music in the heavens now, awesome choirs of brass playing solemn and somber melodies suitable for the robing-ceremony of a Coronal. And, indeed, they were robing him, a dozen crouching servants placing on him the cloak of office and the starburst crown, but he shook his head lightly and brushed them away, and with his own hands he removed the crown and handed it to his brother of the menacing saber, and shrugged off his fine robes and distributed them in strips to the poor, who used them to make bindings for their feet, and word went out to all the provinces of Majipoor that he had resigned his high office and given up all power, and once more he found himself on the flagstone steps, descending the mountain trail, seeking that valley of mists that lay in the unattainable beyond.

  “But why do you go downward?” asked Carabella, blocking his path, and he had no answer to that, so that when little Deliamber pointed upward, he shrugged meekly and began a new ascent, through fields of brilliant red and blue flowers, through a place of golden grass and lofty green cedars. He perceived that this was no ordinary peak he had been climbing and descending and climbing anew, but rather Castle Mount itself, that jutted thirty miles into the heavens, and his goal was that bewildering all-encompassing, ever-expanding structure at its summit, the place where the Coronal dwelled, the castle that was called Lord Valentine’s Castle but that had, not long before, been Lord Voriax’s Castle and before that Lord Malibor’s Castle, and other names before that, names of all those mighty princes who had ruled from Castle Mount, each putting his imprint on the growing castle and giving his name to it while he lived there, all the way back to Lord Stiamot the conqueror of the Metamorphs, he who was the first to dwell on Castle Mount and built the modest keep out of which all the rest had sprouted. I will regain the Castle, Valentine told himself, and I will take up residence.

  But what was this? Workmen by the thousands, dismantling the enormous edifice! The work of demolition was well under way, and all the outer wings were taken apart, the place of buttresses and arches that Lord Voriax had built, and the grand trophy-room of Lord Malibor, and the great library that Tyeveras had added in his days as Coronal, and much else, all those rooms now mere piles of bricks laid in neat mounds on the slopes of the Mount, and they were working inward toward more ancient wings, to the garden-house of Lord Confalume and the armory of Lord Dekkeret and the archive-vault of Lord Prestimion, removing those places brick by brick like locusts sweeping over the fields at harvest-time. “Wait!” Valentine cried. “No need to do this! I am back, I will take up my robes and crown once again!” But the work of destruction continued, and it was as if the castle were made of sand and the tides were sweeping in, and a gentle voice said, “Too late, too late, much too late,” and the watchtower of Lord Arioc was gone and the parapets of Lord Thimin were gone and the observatory of Lord Kinniken was gone with all its star-watching apparatus, and Castle Mount itself was shuddering and swaying as the removal of the castle disrupted its equilibrium, and workmen now were running frantically with bricks in their hands, seeking flat places on which to stack them, and a dread eternal night had come and baleful stars swelled and writhed in the sky, and the machineries that held back the chill of space atop Castle Mount were failing, so that the warm mild air was flowing moonward, and there was sobbing in the depths of the planet and Valentine stood amid the scenes of disruption and gathering chaos, holding forth outstretched fingers to the darkness.

  The next thing he knew, morning light was in his eyes, and he blinked and sat up, confused, wondering what inn this was and what he had been doing the night before, for he lay naked on a thick woolly rug in a warm strange room, and there was an old woman moving about, brewing tea
, perhaps—

  Yes. The dream-speaker Tisana, and this was Falkynkip, in the Street of Watermongers—

  His nakedness discomforted him. He rose and dressed quickly.

  Tisana said, “Drink this. I’ll put some breakfast up, now that you’re finally awake.”

  He looked dubiously at the mug she handed him.

  “Tea,” she said. “Nothing but tea. The time for dreaming is long past.”

  Valentine sipped at it while she bustled around the small kitchen. There was a numbness in his spirit, as though he had caroused himself into insensibility and now had a reckoning to pay; and he knew there had been strange dreams, a whole night of them, but yet he felt none of the malaise of the soul that he had known upon awakening these past few mornings, only that numbness, a curious centered calmness, almost an emptiness. Was that the purpose of visiting a dream-speaker? He understood so little. He was like a child loose in this vast and complex world.

  They ate in silence. Tisana seemed to be studying Valentine intently across the table. Last night she had chattered much before the drug had taken its effect, but now she seemed subdued, reflective, almost withdrawn, as if she needed to be apart from him while preparing to speak his dream.

  At length she cleared the dishes and said, “How do you feel?”

  “Quiet within.”

  “Good. Good. That’s important. To go away from a dream-speaker in turmoil is a waste of money. I had no doubts, though. Your spirit is strong.”

  “Is it?”

  “Stronger than you know. Reverses that would crush an ordinary person leave you untouched. You shrug off disaster and whistle in the face of danger.”

  “You speak very generally,” Valentine said.

  “I am an oracle, and oracles are never terribly specific,” she replied lightly.

  “Are my dreams sendings? Will you tell me that, at least?”

  She was thoughtful a moment. “I am uncertain.”

  “But you shared them! Aren’t you able to know at once if a dream comes from the Lady or the King?”

  “Peace, peace, this is not so simple,” she said, waving a palm at him. “Your dreams are not sendings of the Lady; this I know.”

  “Then if they are sendings, they are of the King.”

  “Here is the uncertainty. They have an aura of the King about them in some way, yes, but not the aura of sendings. I know you find that hard to fathom: so do I. I do believe the King of Dreams watches your doings and is concerned with you, but it doesn’t seem to me that he’s been entering your sleep. It confounds me.”

  “Has anything like this been known to you before?”

  The dream-speaker shook her head. “Not at all.”

  “Is this my speaking, then? Only more mysteries and unanswered questions?”

  “You haven’t had the speaking yet,” Tisana answered.

  “Forgive my impatience.”

  “No forgiveness is needed. Come, give me your hands, and I’ll make a speaking for you.” She reached for him across the table, and grasped and held him, and after a long while said, “You have fallen from a high place, and now you must begin to climb back to it.”

  He grinned. “A high place?”

  “The highest.”

  “The highest place on Majipoor,” he said lightly, “is the summit of Castle Mount. Is that where you would have me climb?”

  “There, yes.”

  “A very steep ascent you lay upon me. I could spend my entire life reaching and climbing that place.”

  “Nevertheless, Lord Valentine, that ascent awaits you, and it is not I who lays it on you.”

  He gasped at her use of the royal title to him, and then burst out laughing at the grossness of it, the tastelessness of her joke. “Lord Valentine! Lord Valentine? No, you do me far too much honor, Madame Tisana. Not Lord Valentine. Only Valentine, Valentine the juggler, is all, the newest of the troupe of Zalzan Kavol the Skandar.”

  Her gaze rested steadily on him. Quietly she said, “I beg your pardon. I meant no offense.”

  “How could it offend me? But put no royal titles on me, please. A juggler’s life is royal enough for me, even if my dreams may sometimes be high-flown ones.”

  Her eyes did not waver. “Will you have more tea?” she asked.

  “I promised the Skandar I’d be ready for departure early in the morning, and so I must leave soon. What else does the speaking hold for me?”

  “The speaking is over,” said Tisana.

  Valentine had not expected that. He was awaiting interpretations, analysis, exegesis, counsel. And all he had had from her—

  “I have fallen and I must climb back on high. That’s all you tell me for a royal?”

  “Fees for everything grow larger nowadays,” she said without rancor. “Do you feel cheated?”

  “Not at all. This has been valuable for me, in its fashion.”

  “Politely said, but false. Nevertheless you have received value here. Time will make that clear to you.” She got to her feet, and Valentine rose with her. There was about her an aura of confidence and strength. “I wish you a good journey,” she said, “and a safe ascent.”

  13

  Autifon Deliamber was the first to greet him when he returned from the dream-speaking. In the quiet of dawn the little Vroon was practicing a sort of juggling near the wagon, with shards of some glittering ice-bright crystalline substance: but this was wizard-juggling, for Deliamber only pretended to throw and catch, and appeared actually to be moving the shards by power of mind alone. He stood beneath the brilliant cascade and the shimmering slivers coursed through the air in a circle above him like a wreath of bright light, remaining aloft although Deliamber never touched them.

  As Valentine approached, the Vroon gave a twitch of his tentacle-tips and the glassy shards fell instantly inward to form a close-packed bundle that Deliamber snatched deftly from the air. He held them forth to Valentine. “Pieces of a temple building from the Ghayrog city of Dulorn, which lies a few days’ journey east of here. A place of magical beauty, it is. Have you been there?”

  The enigmas of the dream-speaking night still lay heavy on Valentine, and he had no taste for Deliamber’s flamboyant spirit this early in the morning. Shrugging, he said, “I don’t remember.”

  “You’d remember, if you had. A city of light, a city of frozen poetry!” The Vroon’s beak clacked: a Vroonish sort of smile. “Or perhaps you wouldn’t remember. I suppose not: so much is lost to you. But you’ll be there again soon enough.”

  “Again? I never was there.”

  “If you were there once, you’ll be there again when we get there. If not, not. However it may be for you, Dulorn is our next stop, so says our beloved Skandar.” Deliamber’s mischievous eyes probed Valentine’s. “I see you learned a great deal at Tisana’s.”

  “Let me be, Deliamber.”

  “She’s a marvel, isn’t she?”

  Valentine attempted to go past. “I learned nothing there,” he said tightly. “I wasted an evening.”

  “Oh, no, no, no! Time is never wasted. Give me your hand, Valentine.” The Vroon’s dry, rubbery tentacle slipped around Valentine’s reluctant fingers. Solemnly Deliamber said, “Know this, and know it well: time is never wasted. Wherever we go, whatever we do, everything is an aspect of education. Even when we don’t immediately grasp the lesson.”

  “Tisana told me approximately the same thing as I was leaving,” Valentine murmured sullenly. “I think you two are in conspiracy. But what did I learn? I dreamed again of Coronals and Pontifexes. I climbed up and down mountain trails. The dream-speaker made a silly, tiresome joke on my name. I rid myself of a royal better spent on wine and feasting. No, I achieved nothing.” He attempted to withdraw his hand from Deliamber’s grip, but the Vroon held him with unexpected strength. Valentine felt an odd sensation, as of a chord of somber music rolling through his mind, and somewhere beneath the surface of his consciousness an image glimmered and flashed, like some sea-dragon stirring and sounding i
n the depths, but he was unable to perceive it clearly: the core of the meaning eluded him. Just as well. He feared to know what was stirring down there. An obscure and incomprehensible anguish flooded his soul. For an instant it seemed to him that the dragon in the depths of his being was rising, was swimming upward through the murk of his clouded memory toward the levels of awareness. That frightened him. Knowledge, terrifying and menacing knowledge, was hidden within him, and now was threatening to break loose. He resisted. He fought. He saw little Deliamber staring at him with terrible intensity, as if trying to lend him the strength he needed to accept that dark knowledge, but Valentine would not have it. He pulled his hand free with sudden violent force and went lurching and stumbling toward the Skandar wagon. His heart was pounding fiercely; his temples throbbed; he felt weak and dizzy. After a few uncertain steps he turned and said angrily, “What did you do to me?”

  “I merely touched my hand to yours.”

  “And gave me great pain!”

  “I may have given you access to your own pain,” said Deliamber quietly. “Nothing more than that. The pain is carried within you. You have been unable to feel it. But it’s struggling to awaken within you, Valentine. There’s no preventing it.”

  “I mean to prevent it.”

  “You have no choice but to heed the voices from within. The struggle has already begun.”

  Valentine shook his aching head. “I want no pain and no struggles. I’ve been a happy man, this last week.”

  “Are you happy when you dream?”

  “These dreams will pass from me soon. They must be sendings intended for someone else.”

  “Do you believe that, Valentine?”

  Valentine was silent. After a moment he said, “I want only to be allowed to be what I want to be.”