“I think I know that man,” Prestimion said with a smile.
“As well you should, excellence,” Galbifond replied.
“And what am I doing in the Valmambra, then, wandering by myself? It’s an unkind place to go strolling in alone.”
“You have the look of a fugitive, I think,” said the Princess Therissa. “That desert is far to the north of here, on the other side of Castle Mount, and no one enters it willingly. You are fleeing, Prestimion.”
As he watched, the sky at the upper end of the bowl turned bloodred, and darkness began to fall, and great soaring birds of evil aspect came into view, coasting above him. The little man at the center of the image who was himself knelt down against some scraggly bush, as though settling in for the night. Then a second figure appeared, just a dot against the horizon, too small to make out clearly: but it seemed to Prestimion, from the lanky shape and attenuated limbs of him, that this might be Septach Melayn. He came closer, but just then the image went black, and Prestimion found himself staring at nothing at all, a bowl of blue-gray fluid rimmed round by a dull red glow, like that of a dying fire. And then even that was gone and he saw only gray.
“It’s a clever trick,” Prestimion said again. “I ask you once more, how are these pictures generated?”
Galbifond said, tapping the rim of the bowl, “I believe, excellence, that we behold you here traveling in the direction of Triggoin, which lies beyond the Valmambra. That city is where I learned the art of this bowl: you may learn it also, when you are in Triggoin.”
“I am supposed to inquire about how to go about gaining my lost crown too, when I am in Triggoin,” said Prestimion with a wry smile. “My friend Svor had that advice in a dream, that we should inquire into such matters in the city of Triggoin. So it seems from this vision and that one that I am surely bound for Triggoin, eh?”
“As a desperate fugitive,” said the Princess Therissa. “After some dreadful battle. This is the future that awaits you if you go to the Castle now. A wanderer in that miserable desert.”
“And if I don’t go? What future then for me, Galbifond?”
“Good prince, I can show you only what I can show you.”
“Indeed. This is the only future I have, is that it? Then I must follow along my path, I suppose.”
“Prestimion—”
“It's all set down here for me, Mother, by the prophecies of your very own magus. There’s trouble coming, it seems: but even so, it would appear that I’ll survive my visit to Korsibar’s court, at any rate, because here I am well beyond the Mount, making my way out through the Valmambra. Heigh-ho! It's settled, then. Off I go to the Castle, because I can be certain now that no harm will come to me there. One less thing to worry about. And afterward—afterward—” He looked toward his mother and smiled. “Well, afterward is afterward, eh? One thing at a time.”
3
THE LADY THISMET’S private apartments at the Castle were close by the ones where her brother had resided in his days as a prince: just across the Pinitor Court from the innermost sector, looking down from the Vildivar Balconies on the long, narrow reflecting pool that had been built in Lord Siminave’s time. Here, amidst all the little luxuries that she had gathered in her busy life of selfindulgences—her velvet hangings and her cushions and divans covered in rare furs, her cases of rings and necklaces set with all manner of precious gems, and her wardrobes of the most costly gowns and cloaks and bonnets—Thismet waited for the Lady Melithyrrh to return. She had sent her lady-of-honor an hour before to bring Sanibak-Thastimoon to her; and Melithyrrh had not yet come back.
Then Melithyrrh appeared, alone, with high color blazing in her pale fair cheeks and her cool blue eyes aflame with anger.
“He will be with you presently, my lady,” she said.
“Presently? An hour’s wait, and he says only ‘presently’?”
“I sat a long while in his antechamber. They said he was holding a meeting, could not be troubled now. I sent word in that it was the Coronal’s sister who wished to trouble him, and they made me wait another endless span. And brought back a message to me finally that the magus was deeply pained to cause any distress for the Lady Thismet, but that he was engaged in a conference of the high sorcerers of the realm, and certain conjurations were under way that could not for any reason be interrupted, and he would be at your service in the first moment of his availability thereafter.” The Lady Melithyrrh’s eyes flared again with fury, and her bosom heaved. “Whereupon,” she continued, “I sent one message more, and was so bold as to say that the Lady Thismet was unaccustomed to being left in delay, and would speak sharply with the Coronal Lord her brother if the delay were to become any greater.”
“You did well,” Thismet said.
“This time I think I put some fear into him. At any rate, the person who was bearing these messages to and fro came back and said that I was to go inside, so I could see with my own eyes how serious a conjuration was under way. Which I did.”
“And was it a mighty working of spells, then?” Thismet asked.
“Of that, I have no knowledge to judge. But certainly it was a grand convocation. This was in Sanibak-Thasthnoon’s own rooms, where he has all the peculiar devices and machineries of his craft arrayed on level upon level two stories high; and the air in there, my lady, was so thick with blue smoke and the reek of incense that I thought I would choke on it, and I carry it still in every fold of my gown. And what a crowd was in there! Fifty sorcerers, or I miss my count. There were two more of the Su-Suheris kind, and a whole pack of Vroons, and human ones also, those ones of Tidias that wear the tall brass hats, and some great hairy beast of a man bigger even than the Count Farholt, and uglier, and others besides, not only conjurers and diviners who had been in Lord Confalume’s court, but new ones, ones I had never seen before and never want to see again, all of them gathered around Sanibak-Thastimoon and chanting some recitation with their hands clasped together about the circle, and loudly crying out sudden strange words. ‘Bythois!’ they cried, and ‘Remmer!’ and such as that. And Sanibak-Thastimoon gestured to me as though to say, ‘Do you see, Lady Melithyrrh? This is serious business we are involved in here.’ So I left. But I have his promise that he will be with you presently, and that as quickly as he is able.”
“Well,” said Thismet, made a little uneasy by all that she had heard. “He’s never been slow to come to me before. I think of him as my special ally, Melithyrrh, the sharer of my inmost secrets. Has something changed, I wonder, now that Korsibar is king?”
“Perhaps not. Perhaps the Su-Suheris loves you as much as before, but was genuinely enmeshed in his wizardries just then, and it would truly have been perilous to break off. I hope so, for his sake and especially yours. Certainly it was a great outpouring of smoke and chanting in there, enough to let loose fifty score frightful demons upon the land, or to bring plague and drought to a dozen continents the size of Alhanroel. —But I must tell you, lady, I have never liked your Su-Suheris, nor any of these chanting mages, in fact. They frighten me. And he in particular seems cold and dangerous.”
“Cold, yes. His kind are all like that. But dangerous? He’s a friend to me, Melithyrrh. He serves me faithfully and guides me well, so far as I know. I have great trust in him.” There came a knocking just then at the door. “Here he is, I think. You see? He came as quickly as he could.”
Indeed, it was Sanibak-Thastimoon, who overflowed with apologies for his tardiness and begged the Lady Thismet’s forgiveness in a manner altogether unlike him in its abjectness. That made Thismet uncomfortable all in itself. He had been engaged, he said, in casting the great prognosis for the new reign’s first year, the grand oracle by which the Coronal’s policies would be framed. The Coronal’s entire staff of geomancers and seers had been employed in the task; it could not have been interrupted even for the Coronal himself, or great harm would have come to the realm.
“Very well,” Thismet said. “So be it. I’m not to take priority over such ma
tters, I suppose. But are you free to talk awhile with me now, Sanibak-Thastimoon?”
“I am completely at your service, lady.”
“Tell me, then: do you remember the dream I had at the Labyrinth, of the two thrones in the throne room?”
“Of course.”
“The other day I saw Lord Korsibar go into that room—it was the first time he had been there, I think, since coming back to the Castle—and seat himself on the throne, as though to accustom himself to it. I went in after him. We spoke, for a bit, of his attaining the kingship, and what joy that was. Then I told him of my dream: the second throne, the one he had bade me ascend. He heard me out, but from his manner I saw he was hardly even pretending that my words had any importance. He made no comment at all, except to say that the dreaming mind dreams all sorts of things. I asked him, next, to let me sit on the throne myself; and he told me that was impossible, and we went out of the room. What do you make of this, Sanibak-Thastimoon?”
“Only the Coronal may sit on the Coronal’s throne, lady. That is a long-standing custom.”
“No one would have known but he and me. Korsibar and I are of one flesh, Sanibak-Thaslimoon. We lived in our mother’s belly together, wrapped for nine months in each other’s arms. Surely he could have allowed—”
“It would have been a blasphemy. No doubt he would have liked to let you mount it, but he feared doing it, and for sufficient reason.”
“Yes. He did say it was blasphemous. Let that part of it pass, then. But what about his ignoring my dream of the second throne?”
“What about it, my lady?”
“Am I to have no power in the realm? Nothing’s been said to me about that, not a syllable, since our return from the Labyrinth. I am still the Lady Thismet, with no other rank or title; the difference simply is that I who was the Coronal’s daughter am now the next Coronal’s sister. But I am nothing and no one in my own right. Nor does the Coronal even seek my advice on matters of state these days, though he did so many times in the first few days after his ascent.”
“Perhaps he will again.”
“No. He turns only to his men now. You told me long ago that I was marked for greatness, Sanibak-Thaslimoon. You told me that again when you spoke my dream for me in the Labyrinth. What did that second throne in my dream mean, if not that some high post would be set aside for me?”
The Su-Suheris regarded her gravely, in that unreadable, emotionless way of all his race. “When I spoke your dream in the Labyrinth, lady, I cautioned you not to interpret it too literally. I said there is greatness involved in the making of a king, as well as in the being of one. Your brother would not be Coronal today but for your role in urging him onward. You and I both know that.”
“And that’s all I’m going to have? The knowledge that I’ve helped to put Korsibar on the throne, and nothing more? No power in my own hands? No post in the government? A life of continued idleness, only?”
“We discussed this in the Labyrinth, my lady. And you acted; and Korsibar is king.” The Su-Suheris looked at her blandly, almost indifferently. “I hardly know what to say, lady, more than that.”
“You, at a loss for words!”
Sanibak-Thastimoon offered her a double smile that seemed freighted with irony, but nothing else.
“Help me, Sanibak-Thastimoon. I have a good mind; I have a powerful will; I am something other than a mere ornament. I feel that I deserve a place in this government. Help me make that come about.”
From him, now, the Su-Suheris shrug: the drawing of the slim forked neck downward upon the chest, the hooking of the six-fingered hands inward on the wrists. His eyes were four gleaming emeralds, as impenetrable as ever. “It is Korsibar that is king, not I, lady. He makes the appointments. What you ask is a radical departure from all custom and tradition.”
“Of course it is. But so is Korsibar’s coming to the throne. Speak to him. Tell him what I want. Advise him to grant it. You can do that, and he’ll listen. You and I are the people he listens to more than anyone in the world; but this is something that I can’t ask for myself, not directly. Do it for me. Will you do that, Sanibak-Thastimoon?”
“He is the Coronal Lord, my lady. I can ask, but I can’t promise that he will agree.”
“Ask, at least,” she said. “Ask.”
He went out.
To Melithyrrh, Thismet said, “You heard it all. What do you think? Will he help me?”
“This is your special ally, you said? The sharer of your inmost secrets? He shares your secrets, yes: he knows everyone’s secrets. But an ally? I think not, lady.”
“He said he would speak with Korsibar for me.”
“He said he would tell Lord Korsibar what you wanted, that I concede. But I heard no pledge that he would advise Lord Korsibar to grant your request, or that he would do anything at all to bring it about.”
“He promised exactly that!”
“No, lady,” Melithyrrh said. “You wanted to hear him promise that, but I was listening also, and I heard nothing of that kind. He said he would ask. That was all: that he would ask. He also declared that what you desire goes against all custom and tradition. He’ll do nothing to help you, this ally of yours. Trust me on that.”
Thismet was silent a long while, replaying in her mind her conversation with the Su-Suheris, searching and failing to find the assurances that in fact she understood now were not there.
Then at last she said, beginning to pace now around the room, “What should I do, Melithyrrh?”
“There are other sorcerers. I think this one is lost to you: I think he is entirely Korsibar’s creature now that Korsibar is Coronal.”
“This is painful, if it’s so. I’ve thought of Sanibak-Thaslimoon as being as loyal to me as he is to my brother.”
“That may have been the case once. But no longer, I think. His loyalty is with the Coronal. He’ll serve you also, yes, but not against Korsibar’s interests.” Melithyrrh was deep in thought a moment. “Do you know the Vroon, Thalnap Zellfor?”
“Prince Gonivaul’s wizard, you mean?”
“He’s been in Gonivaul’s service, yes. But the Grand Admiral is famed for his niggardly way with money. Thalnap Zelifor’s been sniffing about the Castle for a new patron for along while now. Came to one of Korsibar’s people, Count Venta, I think; but was turned away, out of Venta’s dislike of Vroons. Came to me afterward, to ask if you’d hire him. But I sent him away also.”
“You never told me that.”
“Was of no importance, my lady. At that time you were deep in love with the wizardry of Sanibak-Thaslimoon: why hire another? But now the case is altered. The Su-Suheris is merely a conduit, passing your secrets on to your brother: do you see that, lady?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps.” She picked up a handful of her rings, put them down, picked them up again. Her fingers closed tight about them.
Melithyrrh said, “In any conflict between the Coronal and the Coronal’s sister, Sanibak-Thaslimoon will inevitably take the Coronal’s side. There is no other way for him. No appeal will sway him; no bribery will buy him. You need a wizard of your own, one who owes no loyalty elsewhere.”
“And you think this Vroon is the right one?”
“His abilities in the art are second to none, so it’s said. It isn’t only spells: who can say what value the casting of spells really has? But there’s more to sorcery than spells. The Vroons have powers of mind that exceed all others. They say he’s even built a sort of machine that allows him to see right into people’s souls. And apart from that, he knows everyone, has his nose everywhere.”
“Vroons have no noses,” said Thismet, laughing. “Only those horrible beaks.”
“You understand my meaning. I’ll go to him, if I may. Set forth your cause to him. Enlist him in your service, and offer him good enough pay so that he won’t be tempted to sell what he learns from you to Lord Korsibar. May I do that, lady?”
Thismet nodded. “Do it, yes. Hire him for me. Bring him to me straighta
way. Oh, Melithyrrh, Melithyrrh, I want so much to be a queen!”
4
AND NOW ATOP Castle Mount it was the third day of the joyous coronation festival. Feasting and celebration and the pleasures of the gaming-fields were the tasks of the moment for the knights and lords of the Castle.
The spirit of these games was entirely different from those that had lately been held in the Labyrinth while the old Pontifex was dying. Those games had taken place in the strange and dark and mysterious subterranean enclosure that was Pontifex Dizimaule’s Arena, at a time of worldwide tension and uneasiness but these games of Lord Korsibar’s coronation were being staged on the broad sunny greensward of Vildivar Close, just below the Ninety-Nine Steps, where there was a splendid view of the topmost reaches of the Castle and the great, arching brilliant blue-green vault of the open sky beyond. And this was meant as a happy festival, a brave celebration of new beginnings instead of the marking of an end, with drums and trumpets and jugglers and tumblers and fireworks by night, and laughter and delight and good hot sunshine by day, and plenty of strong wine flowing all the while, both day and night.
A towering grandstand had been erected along three sides of the Close, with a splendid high seat for the Coronal Lord Korsibar in the front row at the center of everything, an imitation in lustrous gamandrus-wood of the Confalume Throne within. On the opposite side of the courtyard, facing it directly, was a second thronelike structure of equal height and grandeur for the use of the Pontifex Confalume, who had come to the Castle the day before from the Labyrinth to attend the coronation of his own son, as no Pontifex had ever done before him. And on the third side, the one to the left of the Coronal’s throne, was yet a third great seat, this one belonging to the newly installed Lady of the Isle of Dreams, the Coronal’s mother Roxivail, who had this very morning arrived from her tropical retreat on the isle of Shambettirantil in the Gulf of Stoien.