“Possible, yes. Difficult, but possible.” The Prefect traced a line across the map with the tip of one long, bony finger. “Here is Kajith Kabulon. The only good road that comes out of the rain-forest is the one going due south, which brought you here. But there are some country roads, badly maintained and not easy to use, that might have more appeal for a man trying to escape justice. This one, for instance, which leaves Kajith Kabulon at its southwest corner and passes through north-central Aruachosia heading west toward the peninsula. If he managed things successfully, the Procurator would have been able to reach any one of a dozen ports on the peninsula’s Gulf side. And from there things would be much easier for him.”
“I see,” said Prestimion, with a sinking feeling within. He stared at the map. The Stoienzar peninsula, Duke Oljebbin’s domain, came thrusting westward out of the lower part of Alhanroel like a gigantic thumb, reaching far out into the ocean. South of the peninsula was the main body of the Inner Sea, leading to Suvrael. On the north side of the peninsula lay the calm, tropical waters of the Gulf of Stoien; and Stoienzar’s Gulf coast was one of Majipoor’s most heavily populated regions, with a major city every hundred miles and a string of resort towns and agricultural centers and fishing villages occupying nearly all the open territory between them. If Dantirya Sambail had succeeded in reaching any part of the Gulf coast, he might well have been able to find some rogue mariner who would transport him to Stoien city, the most important port along that coast, from which ships traveled constantly back and forth between Zimroel and Alhanroel.
They had, of course, placed an interdiction on Stoien, and on all the other ports of that part of the continent that engaged in intercontinental shipping. But how reliable would that interdiction be? These easygoing tropical cities had always been notorious hotbeds of official corruption. Prestimion, in his years of training at the Castle, had studied the lively case histories. The governor Gan Othiang, who had flourished in the peninsula port of Khuif in the reign before Prankipin’s, had been in the habit of imposing a personal levy as well as the regular harbor taxes on all merchants whose ships called there; at his death, his private coffers, laden with ivory, pearls, and shells, held more wealth than the municipal treasury. Up the way at Yarnik, the mayor, one Plusiper Pailiap, had been in the habit of confiscating the property of deceased merchants whose heirs did not file a claim within three weeks. Duke Saturis, Oljebbin’s grandfather, had several times been accused of draining off a percentage of all customs revenues for his own benefit, though the governmental inquiries that followed had always been quashed for reasons that no longer were clear. A prefect of Sippulgar about a thousand years ago had covertly maintained his own fleet of pirate ships to raid local shipping. And so on. It was as if there was something in the sultry air down here that eroded rectitude and piety.
Prestimion shoved the map aside. To Kameni Poteva he said, “How long, do you think, would it have taken Dantirya Sambail, traveling by floater, to reach the port of Stoien from—”
The Prefect’s demeanor, though, had suddenly become exceedingly peculiar. Kameni Poteva was a tightly wound man at his best—that had been obvious from the start—but the inner tension that must perpetually have gripped him appeared now to have heightened to a degree that was very close to the breaking point. His lean, sharp-featured face, from which the tropic sun seemed to have burned away all superfluous flesh, was drawn so tight that the skin looked to be in danger of cracking. A muscle was leaping about in his left cheek and his thin lips were twitching, and his eyes stood out fiercely, a pair of huge, bulging white orbs, below his dark forehead. Kameni Poteva’s hands were clenched into taut fists; he held them pressed together, knuckle tight against knuckle, over the two rohillas on the breast of his robe.
“Kameni Poteva?” Prestimion said, in alarm.
From the Prefect came a hoarse gasp: “Forgive me, my lord—forgive me—”
“What is it?”
Kameni Poteva’s only reply was a shake of his head, more like a shudder than anything else. His whole body was trembling. He seemed to be fighting desperately for control over it.
“Tell me, man! Do you want some wine?”
“My lord—oh, my lord—your head, my lord—?”
“What about my head?”
“Oh—I’m sorry—so sorry—”
Prestimion glanced about at Septach Melayn and Gialaurys. Was this the madness, striking right at the Coronal’s own elbow? Yes. Yes. Surely it was.
In this moment of mounting strangeness Maundigand-Klimd stepped forward quickly and extended his hands so that they rested on the Prefect’s shoulders; inclining both his heads until they were no more than inches from Kameni Poteva’s forehead, the Su-Suheris uttered a few quiet words, unintelligible to Prestimion. A spell, no doubt. Prestimion imagined that he saw a white mist appear in the air between the two men.
A few seconds passed without apparent change in Kameni Poteva’s state. Then a low hissing sound came from the Prefect’s lips, as though he were a balloon that had been inflated almost to the breaking point, and there was a perceptible easing of his posture. The crisis seemed to be ending. Kameni Poteva looked up for an instant at Prestimion, eyes wild, face livid with shame and shock, and then looked away again.
After a moment he said, in a hollow, barely audible voice, “My lord, this is unbearably humiliating—I humbly ask your pardon, my lord—”
“But what was it? What happened?—Something about my head, you said.”
A long anguished pause. “I was hallucinating.” The Prefect groped for the wine-flask. Quickly Septach Melayn refilled his bowl for him. Kameni Poteva drank greedily. “These things come, two, three times a week, now. There is no escaping them. I prayed that there would be none while I was with you, but it happened anyway. Your head, sire—it was monstrous, swollen, about to explode, I thought. And the High Counsellor—” He looked at Septach Melayn and shuddered. “His arms, his legs, they were like those of some giant spider!” He closed his eyes. “I must be dismissed from office. I am no longer qualified to serve.”
“Nonsense,” said Prestimion. “You need a little rest, that’s all. By all reports you’ve been doing a fine job.—Are they something new, these hallucinations?”
“A month and a half. Two months.” The man was in misery. He was unable now to look directly at Prestimion at all, but sat with his head bowed and shoulders hunched, staring at his feet. “It is like a fit that comes over me. I see the most dreadful things. Nightmare visions, monstrosities, one after another for five, ten, sometimes fifteen minutes. Then they go away, and each time I pray that it will be the last. But there is always another time.”
“Look at me,” said Prestimion.
“My lord—”
“No. Look at me. Tell me this, Kameni Poteva. You aren’t the only one in Sippulgar who’s been suffering these disturbances, have you?”
“No. I am not.” A very small voice. “I thought so. Has there been very much of it recently? Normally stable people breaking down, behaving oddly?”
“Some of that, yes. A great deal, I would have to say.”
“Deaths?”
“Some, yes. And destruction of property. My lord, I must have sinned very grievously, to have brought this thing upon—”
“Listen to me, Kameni Poteva. Whatever’s going on, it isn’t your fault, do you understand me? You mustn’t take it personally, and you mustn’t regard it as a disgrace that the attack happened to hit you in my presence. Just as you’re not the only one in town experiencing hallucinations, Sippulgar is not the only city where it’s happening. It’s everywhere, Kameni Poteva. Bit by bit, it seems, the whole world is going crazy. I want you to know that.”
The Prefect, calmer now, actually managed a smile.
“If you mean to comfort me with such a statement, my lord, I must tell you that you are not succeeding.”
“No. I suppose not. But I felt you should know. It’s an epidemic, a universal phenomenon. At the moment we aren
’t sure what’s causing it. But we are very much aware of the problem and we’re working on it, and we intend to solve it.”
Prestimion heard a faint forced cough from Septach Melayn. He glared sharply at him to let Septach Melayn know that this was no moment for his usual brand of mockery.
At least some of what he had just said was true, after all. Some. They were aware of the problem. They did intend to solve it. But how, or when, or by what means—well, Prestimion thought, one thing at a time. Lord Stiamot himself could do no more than that.
There seemed no purpose any longer in continuing the hunt for the escaped Procurator. Prestimion knew that he could run and run, on and on, farther and farther, but he was unlikely to find Dantirya Sambail, nor would he ever escape the demons that were writhing within his own soul by wandering this way and that across the world. It was time to get back to the Castle.
Kameni Poteva, the next day, turned over to Prestimion the file of all the information about the fugitive that he had been able to glean from his fellow administrators in the provinces of Aruachosia and Stoien. The whole thing amounted to nothing whatever: sketchy guesses, untrustworthy rumors, and a good many firm denials that Dantirya Sambail had been anywhere in the vicinity of the domain of the official in question.
No definite sightings of the Procurator had been reported since the one that had come by way of Prince Serithorn from his estate manager Haigin Hartha, many long months ago, just outside Bailemoona; and that had been a second-hand report, at that. Aside from that, very little: just Haigin Hartha’s own encounter with someone who very likely was Mandralisca, about the same time, and that second sighting of Mandralisca some months later, far to the south, in Ketheron. After that the trail gave out.
“There are just two possibilities,” said Septach Melayn. “The first is that they slipped through Arvyanda and Kajith Kabulon without being noticed at all, found a western road to Stoienzar as the Prefect suggested, got themselves aboard a ship heading for Zimroel, and are somewhere on the high seas between Stoien city and Piliplok at this very minute. The other, since they obviously didn’t come by way of Sippulgar and aren’t likely to have taken any route that goes east of Sippulgar, is that they wandered into some quicksand bog in the rain-forest, were swallowed up, and will never be seen in this world again.”
“The Divine would not be so kind to us,” Prestimion said.
“You overlook a third alternative,” said Gialaurys, giving Septach Melayn a look of glowering irritation. “Which is that they emerged safely from the Kajith Kabulon jungles, entered Stoienzar, discovered the embargo in the ports, and went into hiding in some pleasant little town on the peninsula, patiently awaiting the arrival of a rescue armada that they have summoned by swift courier from Zimroel.”
“There’s some sense to that notion, I think,” said Abrigant.
“It would be like him, yes,” Prestimion said. “He’s capable of great patience indeed in pursuing his ends. But we can hardly conduct a village-to-village search from here to Stoien city.”
“We could have the Pontifex’s officials do it for us, though,” suggested Septach Melayn.
“We could, yes. And will. My own feelings, I should add, lean toward the first theory: that he’s slipped through our net and is already on the way to Zimroel. In which case, we should hear sooner or later that he’s arrived there. Dantirya Sambail’s not one to remain silent for long on his own turf. Either way, we should return without further delay to the Castle, where there’s much for us to do, I suspect.”
Abrigant said, “By your leave, brother, if I may speak to another subject, I wish to raise the question of Skakkenoir once again. You told me that when we were finished in Sippulgar, I could go in search of it.”
“Skakkenoir?” Gialaurys said.
“A place said to be somewhere in Vrist, or even farther east,” said Septach Melayn with a faint but unmistakable note of scorn in his voice, “where the soil is full of iron and copper that the plants themselves pull up from the ground, atom by atom, so that it can be recovered by burning their branches and leaves. The only problem is that nobody’s ever succeeded in finding it, because it doesn’t exist.”
“It does!” cried Abrigant hotly. “It does! Lord Guadeloom himself sent an expedition to look for it!”
“And failed to find it, I believe, nor has anyone else even bothered to look in the last few thousands of years. You’d do as well trying to fetch iron ore back from your dreams, Abrigant.”
“By the Divine, I’ll—”
Prestimion raised his hand. “Silence! You two will be coming to blows next!” To Abrigant he said, “Your soul will have no rest until you make this journey, is that not so, brother?”
“So I do feel.”
“Well, if you must, then, take two floaters and a dozen men and go in search of the iron of Skakkenoir. Perhaps the Prefect Kameni Poteva has some useful maps for you.”
“You jeer at me too, do you, Prestimion?”
“Peace, brother, I meant nothing by it. It was a serious suggestion. For all we know there’s information about this place buried in the Sippulgar archives. Ask him, at any rate. And then go. But I put one commandment on you, Abrigant.”
“And that is?”
“That if you haven’t found Skakkenoir and its metal sands within six months, you turn about and return to the Castle.”
“Even if I’m within two days’ journey of my goal?”
“How will you know that? Six months, Abrigant. Not an hour more. Swear me that.”
“If I have definite information that Skakkenoir lies a day or two before me, definite information, and—”
“Six months exactly. Swear.”
“Prestimion—”
“Six months.”
Prestimion held out his right hand, the hand on which he wore the ring of kingship. Abrigant looked at it in amazement for a moment or two. Even now he appeared to be of a rebellious mind. But then, as if remembering that he and Prestimion were no longer just brother and brother but also subject and king, he nodded and lowered his head and touched his lips to the ring.
“Six months,” he said. “Not an hour more, Prestimion. I’ll bring you two floaters full of iron ore when I return.”
12
Homeward the royal party sped, taking only the straightest and swiftest routes, pausing not at all. Couriers preceding them cleared the roads for their passage north. There were no conferences this time with local dukes or mayors, no official banquets, no tours of scenic wonders: just day after day of hard travel through the southern provinces of Alhanroel, past the Labyrinth, up the Glayge valley toward Castle Mount. But to Prestimion the journey seemed to take an eternity and a half. His mind raced with thoughts of all that awaited him once he was at the Castle again.
And then, at last: the Mount filling the sky before him, and the commencement of the familiar ascent by way of Amblemorn of the Slope Cities. The quick eastern road up the mountain by way of Morvole and Dekkeret’s Normork, past Bibiroon Sweep and Tolingar Barrier and the wonderful self-maintaining garden that Lord Havilbove had laid out three thousand years ago, past the Free Cities ring to Ertsud Grand, where the upward slope steepened and the Mount became a gray granite shield pointing toward the clouds that lay just below the summit; Minimool; Hoikmar; the cloud zone, cool and moist, of the Inner Cities. Passing the sparkling burnt-orange spires of Bombifale, then, and moving on into the realm of eternal sunlight above, with the High Cities just beyond. They were two dozen miles up into the sky by that time, with the thousands of miles of sprawling lowlands of Alhanroel spread out behind them like a map on which the most gigantic cities became mere dots. Here, now, was the summit road, paved with bright-red flagstones, to carry them from Bombifale to High Morpin, with the Castle itself in view above them, finally; and round and round the vast mountain’s diminishing tip they went, the ten miles of the Grand Calintane Highway, brightened by the splendor of the myriads of flowers that bloomed every day of the year amidst the
gnarled and fantastic spear-like peaks of the summit.
A great crowd was waiting for him at the Dizimaule Plaza, an immense reception party gathered on the green porcelain cobblestones, with the Castle in all its bewildering bulk of thirty thousand rooms as the backdrop. Navigorn, who had served as regent in Prestimion’s absence, was the first to embrace him. Prestimion’s brother Teotas was waiting also, and Serithorn, and the counsellors Belditan and Dembitave and Yegan and the rest of his inner circle of government, and such members of Lord Confalume’s regime as still remained at the Castle. But one person was not there.
Prestimion said quietly to Navigorn, as they proceeded through the Dizimaule Arch toward Vildivar Close and the Inner Castle buildings that lay beyond it, “And the lady Varaile, Navigorn? How has she fared in my absence? And why was she not at the gate to greet me now?”
“She is quite well, my lord. As for her not being at the gate today, let her give you her reasons herself. I can only tell you that she was invited, and chose not to come.”
“Chose not to come? What does that mean, Navigorn?”
But Navigorn would only say again that the lady Varaile would have to explain that herself.
Which could not be done immediately, much to Prestimion’s displeasure. There were rites that had to be performed to mark a Coronal’s return to the Castle after a long absence, and then it behooved him to go to his office to receive the most urgent of the accumulated memoranda of state, and after that he had his own report to make to the Council. Only then, then, would he be free to pursue private inquiries.
He hastened through the ritual of return in so casual and cursory a way that even Serithorn looked a little shocked. The memoranda of state—abstracts of the host of piled-up reports from every region of the world—were not so easy to dismiss, but Prestimion cut corners by devoting most of his immediate attention to the summaries that had been prepared by the office of the Pontifex, abstracts of the abstracts: presumably those had been filtered for their significance before being forwarded to the Castle. What he saw there was dismaying, tales of mounting insanity in any number of provinces, bands of addled saints drifting about the land and plenty of addled sinners too, riots and other kinds of civil disturbance, fires, crime, a nightmare of ever-expanding chaos. It was precisely as he had said, in an unguarded moment, to the Prefect Kameni Poteva. Bit by bit, it seems, the whole world is going crazy.