It was no more than fifty yards across a broad cobbled plaza from the doorway of the customs-house where Akbalik maintained his office to the gateway of the piers. Akbalik moved slowly, carefully, holding the head of his cane with a tight grip. Today the distance felt like fifty miles.
Midway to his goal he became aware of the greasy tang of smoke in the air. He looked off to the north, saw the curling black strand climbing into the spotless sky, then the little red tongue higher up, licking out of a smallish building that stood atop a brick pedestal at least sixty feet high. Now he heard the sirens, too. So the crazies were at it again, Akbalik thought—first fire in three or four days, wasn’t it? And today of all days, with the Coronal’s ship landing at this very moment!
A line of Hjort customs-men stood across the entrance to the wharf, blocking access. Akbalik, not bothering to produce his identification, simply scowled at them and waved them out of his path with a sharp backhanded sweep of his hand. Moving past them without a glance, he went limping out toward Pier 44, the royal pier, draped for the occasion today in green and gold bunting.
Three ships, yes, the big cruiser Lord Hostirin and two escorts. The Coronal’s honor guard had come down the gangplank and was lining up along the pier. A little gaggle of Mayor Bannikap’s people was stationed just beyond them as a welcoming committee, with Bannikap himself visible in the midst of the crowd. “Prestimion!” they were crying. “Prestimion! Lord Prestimion! Long life to Lord Prestimion!” The usual chant. How tired he must be of it!
And there he was, now, at the rail, with Varaile beside him and the Lady Therissa a short distance to their left, half hidden behind her son. To their rear, rising up out of the shadows, Akbalik saw the lofty figure of Prestimion’s two-headed magus Maundigand-Klimd. How ironic, Akbalik thought, that Prestimion, who once had no belief in sorcery at all, never seemed to go anywhere any more without that Su-Suheris magus at his side.
There in the group too—Akbalik was startled to see him—was young Dekkeret, hovering at the Lady Varaile’s elbow. That was a surprise. What was Dekkeret doing aboard a ship coming in from the Isle? Shouldn’t he still be off in Suvrael, seeking in the discomfort of the desert heat the Divine’s pardon for letting that guide-woman die—or else, what was more likely, have gone back to the Castle by this time?
But maybe Suvrael hadn’t supplied him with a sufficiently gratifying degree of the atonement, the penance, that he had so desperately seemed to want when Akbalik last saw him in Zimroel, and that strange spiritual hunger of his had led the boy to go from the bleak southern continent to the sanctuary of the gentle Lady for further repairs to his soul. Where Prestimion had encountered him during the course of his own visit to the Lady, and now was bringing him back. Yes, Akbalik thought. That must be it.
He hurried forward, wincing again and again as the stress of hurried movement brought him fresh pain. Shouldering his way into the midst of the scene, he took up a position right in front of the honor guard. This was Bannikap’s city, yes, but it was at Akbalik’s request that Lord Prestimion was here, and Akbalik wanted to cut through the official folderol as quickly as possible. He had hardly any patience at all left any more, not with that fiery pain gnawing at his left leg all the time.
“Lordship!” he called. “Lordship!”
The Coronal saw him and waved. Akbalik offered him a starburst. And then, as the Lady came into clearer view, he gave her her special sign of respect too. They began their descent to the pier. Mayor Bannikap came forward, his jaws already moving in the preamble to his speech of welcome, but Akbalik cut him off with a stinging glance and went to the Coronal’s side first.
Prestimion held out his arms for an embrace. Akbalik, not knowing what to do with his cane, tucked it under his arm and clasped it awkwardly to his side as he returned the Coronal’s greeting.
“What’s this thing?” Prestimion asked.
Akbalik tried to seem casual about it. “A minor leg injury, my lord. Annoying, but not particularly serious. There are many more important matters than this for us to discuss.”
“Yes,” Prestimion said. “As soon as I can get the stupid formalities out of the way.” He indicated Mayor Bannikap with a quick toss of his head and winked.
Akbalik turned from him and offered his homage to the Lady, and to the Lady Varaile. Dekkeret gave him a shy, uncomfortable grin. He was still keeping to the background.
At a quick glance it seemed to Akbalik that the Lady Varaile was with child. Her manner of dress indicated that. She had that radiant maternal look already as well. That was interesting, the thought of Prestimion as a father so soon after taking on the tasks of the crown. And in these troubled times, too. But he should have expected it. This was a new Prestimion, deepened by responsibility, plainly eager for greater stability in his life, continuity, the ripeness that was maturity.
The Lady Therissa looked magnificent: serene, graceful, steady of soul. All the things that Akbalik himself had been before his ill-fated expedition into the depths of the Stoienzar. He felt better simply from being this near to her.
“Is that smoke I smell?” Prestimion asked.
“A building’s on fire up the street a little way. There’s been a lot of that lately.” Akbalik lowered his voice. “Crazy people carrying bales of straw up to rooftops and setting fire to them. A very popular pastime, suddenly. The mayor will be able to give you more information.”
The mayor, a portly red-faced man related in some remote way to Duke Oljebbin and every bit as self-important, was already asserting his place anyway, coming forward to loom over Prestimion’s slight figure in a fashion that the Coronal was highly unlikely to enjoy. But protocol was protocol, and this was Bannikap’s moment. Akbalik deferred to him. He told Prestimion, who was staring pensively at that black curl of smoke spreading across the sky, that he would attend him later at his suite at the Crystal Pavilion, and made his limping exit.
A wall of continuous windows two hundred feet long gave the Crystal Pavilion its name. It was a relatively young building, put up by Duke Oljebbin during Prankipin’s time as Coronal, that stood in a magnificently solitary position in central Stoien atop a colossal pedestal of whitewashed brick. From Lord Prestimion’s splendid three-level suite atop the pavilion the view took in the entire city, which unfortunately made it all too easy today to see the pillars of smoke arising from the nine or ten fires that were burning in the downtown area.
“This happens every day, these fires?” Prestimion asked.
Akbalik and the Coronal sat before platters of small cubes of smoked sea-dragon meat. Lady Varaile, weary after the hasty and sometimes turbulent voyage, had retreated to her bedchamber. The Lady Therissa was in a suite four levels down from Prestimion’s, resting also. Akbalik had no idea where Dekkeret and the Su-Suheris had gone.
“More or less. It’s a little unusual to have this many going at once.”
“The madness, is it?”
“The madness, yes. This is the dry season: there’s a lot of fuel sitting around. Those pretty vines that flower all summer long turn to immense mounds of straw. As I told you, the crazies gather up bundles of it and go up on rooftops to set it afire. I don’t know why. I suppose there are more fires today than usual because they heard the Coronal and the Lady were coming, and that excited them.”
“Bannikap tried to tell me that the damage is generally pretty minimal.”
“Generally it is. Not always. There’s been a big effort, the past two weeks, to demolish and clear away the really seriously ruined buildings, so you won’t have to look at them while you’re here. Wherever you see a little park about big enough to have held a single building, with freshly planted flowering shrubs, you’re looking at a place where they had a bad fire.—May I have more wine, my lord?”
“Yes, of course.” Prestimion pushed the flask across. “Tell me what you did to your leg.”
“We should discuss Dantirya Sambail, sir.”
“We will. What about the leg?”
br /> “I hurt it while I was out hunting for Dantirya Sambail. The Procurator’s been moving around very freely within that hell-hole where he’s been making camp, pulling up stakes every few days, going up and down through the jungle as it pleases him. He’s become very good, lately, at covering his tracks. We’re never quite sure where he is on any given day. Using a magus, I suppose, to cast a cloud of unknowingness all around himself. Last month I took a few hundred men and went looking for him, just a reconnaissance mission, to make sure he wasn’t going to slip out of our reach altogether. I saw the place where he had been. But he had moved along, a day or two before.”
“He’s definitely aware that we’re on to him?”
“He must be, by now. How could he not? And if we lose him in there for more than a day or two at a time, finding him again will be the old needle in a haystack problem. He’s been amazingly tricky about staying beyond our reach. Anyway, about the leg—”
“The leg, yes.”
“The scouts said that they thought the Procurator’s current location was about two hundred miles inland from the town of Karasat, which is on the southern coast between Maximin and Gunduba, if those names mean anything to you. So I sailed over from Stoien to have a look.—You know, my lord, people speak of the Suvrael desert as being the most unpleasant place in the world, with the Valmambra a distant second. But no, no, we’ve got the prize-winner right here in lower Alhanroel. I’ve never been to Suvrael, or the Valmambra either, but I tell you, sir, they can’t possibly be a patch on the southern Stoienzar for sheer nastiness. It’s full of creatures that must have migrated over from Suvrael looking for an even more horrible place to live. I know. I had an encounter with one.”
“Something bit you, you mean?”
“A swamp-crab, yes. Not one of the big ones—you should see the size of those monsters, my lord—” Akbalik spread his arms in a broad gesture. “No, it was a little one, a mere baby, lying in wait, clipped me with its nipper, snap, just like that. The worst pain I ever hope to feel. Some kind of acid venom, they say, in the bite. Leg swelled up five times normal size. It’s not so bad now, I think.”
Prestimion, frowning, leaned forward for a better look. “What are you doing for it?”
“I have a Vroon secretary, name of Kestivaunt, very capable. He’s looking after it. Puts medicine on it, does a little Vroonish hocus-pocus also—if the spells don’t cure it, the herbal ointment ought to.” A fresh spasm of blazing pain traveled up Akbalik’s side. He clenched his teeth and turned away, determined not to let Prestimion see how much anguish he was in. A change of subject seemed the best idea.—“My lord, tell me what Dekkeret was doing with you on the Isle, if you will. I would have assumed that he’d have finished up his business in Suvrael—you know, his expiation, his redemption, after that affair in the Khyntor Marches—and returned to the Castle a long time ago.”
“He did return,” said Prestimion. “Late last summer, it was. Bringing someone with him who he had had a little run-in with in Suvrael. Do you remember a certain Venghenar Barjazid, Akbalik?”
“Knavish-looking little fellow who used to do odd jobs for Duke Svor?”
“The very same. When I sent that troublesome Vroon Thalnap Zelifor into exile in Suvrael, I picked this Barjazid to go with him and make sure he got there. One of the infinite number of mistakes that I’ve made, Akbalik, since I took it into my head that I was qualified to be Coronal.”
Akbalik listened in growing concern as Prestimion sketched the tale for him: Barjazid doing away with the Vroon and appropriating his mind-controlling devices for his own purposes; the episodes of predatory experimentation on hapless travelers with those devices in Suvrael’s Desert of Stolen Dreams; then Dekkeret’s own encounter with Barjazid in that desert, his capture of Barjazid, his bringing of Barjazid and his machines to the Castle.
“He lost no time asking for an audience,” Prestimion said. “I didn’t happen to be at the Castle that day, so he met with Varaile, and very carefully explained the power of these devices, and the danger in them, to her. When I returned she tried to tell me the story, but I confess I paid very little attention. One more black mark on my record, Akbalik. Well, now Barjazid has slipped out of the Castle somehow and made his way down to the Stoienzar to put his machines to work on behalf of Dantirya Sambail. Which is what Dekkeret came running out to the Isle to tell me, and why I’ve come over to Stoien so quickly myself. If Barjazid and Dantirya Sambail manage to join forces—”
“I’m sure they already have, my lord.”
“How do you know that?”
“I said that the Procurator has become very good at eluding our scouts. A magus, I said, who’s casting a cloud of unknowingness around him. But what if it’s not a magus at all? What if it’s this Barjazid? If these devices of his are as powerful as Dekkeret says they are—” Once again Akbalik felt fire in his leg, and hid his shudder of pain from Prestimion. “A lucky thing for us all that the boy did go to Suvrael, eh? And I tried so hard to discourage him. What is your plan, my lord?”
“I’ve already told you, I think, that Septach Melayn and Gialaurys are leading a force of troops down to the Stoienzar from Castle Mount. They’ll go after Dantirya Sambail from the western end of the peninsula. I mean to assemble a second army here in Stoien city that will enter the Stoienzar from the other side. My mother will guide our movements: she thinks she knows a way of employing the arts of the Isle to search him out. Meanwhile, to keep him from escaping from the area as we go toward him, we blockade the ports everywhere along the peninsula, north and south—”
“May I ask you, my lord, who will command the army out of Stoien city?”
Prestimion seemed surprised at that. “Why, I will.”
“I beg you, sir, no.”
“No?”
“You must not go into the Stoienzar jungle. You have no idea how awful a place it is. I don’t just mean the heat and the humidity, or the insects half as long as your arm that buzz in your face all day long. I mean the dangers, my lord, the terrible perils that lie everywhere around. Do you wonder why there are no settlements there? It is one vast sticky marsh, where your boots sink ankle-deep at every step. Beneath you lurk hidden venomous monsters, the swamp-crabs, whose bite is death, unless you’re lucky enough to be bitten by a very small one, as I was. The trees themselves are your enemies: there is one whose seed-pods explode as they ripen, sending long fragments in every direction that strike deep into a man’s flesh like flying daggers. There is another tree, the manganoza palm, it is, whose leaves are as sharp as—”
“I know all this, Akbalik. Nevertheless, the task of leading the troops falls to me, and what of it? Do you think I’m afraid of a little discomfort?”
“Many men will die while marching through those swamps. I’ve seen it happen. I came close to dying there myself. I say that you have no right to risk your life there, my lord.”
Anger flared in Prestimion’s eyes. “No right? No right? You overreach yourself, Akbalik. Not even Prince Serithorn’s nephew should venture to instruct the Coronal in what he ought or ought not to do.”
Prestimion’s rebuke struck Akbalik with almost physical force. His face went red; he muttered an apology and offered a hasty starburst. To steady himself he took a long draught of the wine. Some different sort of approach was required. After a moment he said in a low voice, “Can your mother really use her arts to help you in this war, my lord?”
“She believes that she can. She may even be able to counteract the mental powers that Barjazid wields.”
“And so—forgive me again, Lord Prestimion—you mean to take her with you, do you, into the Stoienzar jungles? The Lady of the Isle is to ride at your side as you make your way through those deadly swamps? Do you really intend to place her in that sort of jeopardy?”
He saw at once that he had scored a point. Prestimion looked stunned. Plainly had not been expecting a thrust from that direction. “I need her close beside me as matters unfold. She will have a cl
earer view than anyone of the Procurator’s movements.”
Akbalik said, “The Lady’s powers work at any distance, do they not? There’s no need to bring her so close. She can stay safe in Stoien while the jungle campaign is mounted. And so can you. You and she can devise strategy together and your wishes can be relayed easily enough to the battlefront.” And quickly added, as Prestimion began to reply: “My lord, I plead with you to listen to me. Perhaps Lord Stiamot may have led his army into battle seven thousand years ago, but such risks on the part of a Coronal are unacceptable today. Remain here in Stoien city and supervise the conflict from a distance with the Lady’s help. Let me lead the imperial troops against the Procurator. You are not expendable. I am. And I’ve already had some experience in dealing with the conditions that the Stoienzar presents. Let me be the one to go.”
“You? No. Never, Akbalik.”
“But my lord—”
“You think you’ve been fooling me, with that leg of yours? I can see how you’re suffering. You’re barely able to walk, let alone go back into that jungle on a new mission. And how can you tell that the infection won’t get worse than it is right now before you start to heal? No, Akbalik. You may be right that it isn’t wise for me to go in there, but you certainly aren’t going to.”
There was a steely note in the Coronal’s voice that told Akbalik it was useless to object. He sat in silence, massaging his throbbing leg just above the wound.
Prestimion went on: “I’ll attempt to direct operations from here, as you suggest, and we’ll see how that works out. But as for you, I relieve you right now from active service. The Lady Varaile is going to leave for the Castle in a few days—she’s pregnant, do you know that, Akbalik?—and I’m assigning you the job of escorting her back to the Mount.”
“My congratulations, sir. But with all respect, my lord, let Dekkeret take her. I should stay here in Stoien city with you and assist you in the campaign. My understanding of the nature of that jungle—”