“I paid you well,” said Thismet coldly, “to give me certainties, not junctures of possibility.”
She peered down at him. There was a savage pounding behind her temples; her fingers and toes were cold, and the muscles of her lips and cheeks ached from all the scowling she had done of late. This had not been an easy time for her, these first weeks back at the Castle, when she had hoped only for triumph and joy.
Had it been a mistake, investing so much faith in this new wizard? He had not given much satisfaction to his previous employers, had he? And now she had fastened on him as though he and he alone held the key to all the mysteries of the universe.
“Lady, lady, lady,” the Vroon said, with a flurry of his ropy limbs. “All depends on you! Here is your moment! Seize it!” He pointed to the muddled left-hand side of the chart, where Thismet could make out nothing comprehensible. “Everything is made plain here. The issue must be joined, and no more time can be wasted. From the moment of your conceptions, your destiny has been irretrievably entwined with his, and so it is shown here to continue for you and for him to the end of your days—unless you fail to take proper action now. Inaction will separate the lines. —You have told me that what you most truly want is a place of power in the realm.”
“Yes. That is my hope and desire. Now tell me this, if you can: If my line is entwined with his, as you say—and Sanibak-Thastimoon said the same—then why is it that Korsibar is Coronal, and I—I am nothing at all?”
“You have no position just now perhaps. But are meant for great things, lady, if only you reach out to seize them.”
“Yes, and what things are those? High Counsellor, perhaps? That’ll be Farquanor, I suppose. Member of the Council? Korsibar hasn’t said a word about that to me. He looks pained whenever I come near him these days. He knows I want something from him, and he seems resolved not to give it to me. But why? Why? I made him king. Don’t I deserve a reward?”
Thalnap Zelifor said, “Have you made any specific request of him, milady?”
“How can I? What am I supposed to ask for? I told him of the dream I had, the one of the two thrones, he and I sitting facing each other in the throne-room. He laughed and said it was just a dream, that all sorts of wild fantasies come to us in dreams. Then I sent word to him again, by way of Sanibak-Thastimoon, that I hoped for a place in the government. No answer came.”
“And what place was it that you asked for?”
“Why, no particular one. One that carried with it some power, that was all.”
“There is your error, lady. And that is why the chart has entered this zone of uncertainty.”
“Tell me, then, what demand I should have made.”
“You dreamed, you said, of a throne-room with two identical thrones in it. There you have your answer.” The Vroon was looking triumphantly upward at her, his bulging golden eyes bright with vehement assertion. “A joint reign! You and your brother, who shared space within your mother’s belly, must share the power of the government as Coronals together! What other meaning could your dream have had?”
Thismet’s mouth drooped open in astonishment. “Are you serious?”
“Are you, my lady?”
“When I told that dream to Sanibak-Thastimoon, he cautioned me against interpreting any dream literally. Now you tell me to take it precisely at its face value.”
“Yes. That I do.”
“There’s never been a joint Coronalship. There’s never been a woman on the throne.”
“There’s never been a son succeeding his father either, as I do understand.”
She gaped at him. In all her fantasies of power it had never occurred to her to seek to make that dream of hers come true to the letter. It had been enough merely to dare to imagine her brother as king; for herself, the most she had ever hoped for was some key post in his government, not—despite what she had seen in that dream—a throne of her own. It was lunacy to want that. Thus far Korsibar had ignored even her mildest hints for some place of authority. And this—this—
“Look at the chart, lady!” cried Thalnap Zelifor. She looked. Nothing made sense. It was only meaningless zigzagging lines. “There it all is, lying before you like a path paved with the stars of heaven! This is no moment for timidity. Go to him. Tell him of your true ambitions. Insist on their fulfillment, my lady. He is not a strong man, your brother. He can resist only up to a point, and then, when a stronger force presses against him, he capitulates. You know that, my lady.”
“Yes. I do. And I am a stronger force.”
“That you are, indeed. So go to him.”
Why not? Why not?
Her head was reeling. Lights and color swirled before her. The chart that the Vroon had conjured up in the air opened out and widened until it filled all the sky. She had said to Melithyrrh not long before that she wanted to be queen; but what had she meant by that? The word had simply leaped to her lips. Queen? There were no queens on Majipoor. But Coronal Lords were kings, and a Coronal who was a woman would be a queen, was that not so? Coronal in her own right, yes! Royal daughter of her royal father, royal sister of her royal brother, occupant of that second throne that would be built for her in her father’s wondrous throne-room.
Why not?
Why not?
* * *
Korsibar said, “You may come in, sister.”
He spread his hands against the great desk of red palisander that had been his father’s, and Lord Prankipin’s before that, and one king’s and another’s ever since this splendid official suite had been constructed for the Coronal’s use in the reign of that great builder Lord Dizimaule, and watched as Thismet entered, making her way in swift businesslike fashion toward him across the huge room, over the inlays of semotan-wood and bannikop and ghazyn with which the floor was decorated.
Then she stood before him, tiny and dangerous. She was always potentially explosive. His other half, his female self, his companion in the womb, beautiful, forceful, full of unfocused energies. She frightened him. She was a constant threat to him, now and ever. He was so very tired, after these hectic weeks and this nightmarish blundered thing of Septach Melayn and the magus, this terrible miscalculation, just the other day on the jousting field. And by the hard glitter of her dark eyes, the way she held her shoulders now, the jutting angle of her chin, he knew she had not come here simply to pass the time of day.
She had pushed him into becoming Coronal. What would she push him into now?
“You look awful, brother,” was how she began.
“Do I? Are you surprised? That ghastly mess? The killing right under our noses?”
“Why haven’t you had Septach Melayn arrested, then?”
“He was drunk. It was all an accident.”
“So he claimed, yes.”
“I believe him,” said Korsibar steadfastly. “What do you want, Thismet? In ten minutes Farquanor will be here with more papers for me to sign.”
“Ten minutes for your sister, is that all? Well, perhaps I can tell you what I have to tell you in that.” She gave him a look that he knew all too well, and said, after a pause that was only too eloquent, “The horoscope that Sanibak-Thastimoon cast for you, the one that said you would shake the world: were you aware that he cast a similar one for me, Korsibar?”
“Well, and why should it not be similar? We were born in the same hour. Nearly the same moment. The stars were in identical configuration when we were conceived. And you have shaken the world, sister. Your destiny is fulfilled in me.”
“In you.” Said very flatly.
He glanced at the crown, which lay next to him on the desk. He wore it less and less often these days. “I sit upon the Coronal’s throne, and it was your doing that put me there. But for your urging, your shrewd counsel, your confidence in the chances of my success, I would never have attempted it.”
“This fulfills your destiny, not mine. The runes of my future show me following your path.”
“And so you have. I am Coronal, you stand along
side me now as I take the governance of the world upon my shoulders.”
“Alongside you? A little distance behind you, I would say, Korsibar.”
He had feared something like this. But the exact direction of her drift was still uncertain.
“I pray you, Thismet, come to your point. I’ve already told you that Farquanor will be here any moment, and bringing a host of documents that must be—”
“I could deal with those documents,” she said.
“The Coronal’s sister has no authority to do such a thing.”
“My point exactly. You are king; I am nothing that I was not before.” Thismet leaned forward, resting her closed fists on the desk, thrusting her face aggressively toward his. “Thalnap Zelifor has cast my horoscope anew. It confirms the findings of Sanibak-Thastimoon. We follow identical trajectories, you and I. I was born for greatness in my own right, and this is my hour.” She paused a moment, and then astounding words burst from her: “Make me Coronal in joint reign with you, Korsibar.”
The blunt incredible request hit him with the force of a mace striking against his midsection.
This was worse than he had expected: worse even than he could have imagined. He felt her words with actual physical pain. “Can you be serious, Thismet?” he said, when he had regained his breath.
“You know that I am.”
“Yes,” he said leadenly. “Yes, I think I do.”
He stared at her, unable to find words.
A knock came at the door. The voice of his majordomo sounded from without. “My lord, it is my lord Farquanor for you!”
“Tell him to wait a moment!” Korsibar returned in a voice hoarse and strangled with perplexity and rage. Thismet waited motionless for his reply. Her eyes, implacable, gleamed like polished stone.
Slowly, holding himself tightly in check, he said after a time, “What you ask is no small request, sister. There’s no historical precedent for any such sharing of the throne.”
“I understand that. Many things have happened lately that have no historical precedent.”
“Yes. Yes. But for a prince to succeed his father as king is not wholly unnatural. For a woman to occupy the Coronal’s throne, though—”
“To share the Coronal’s throne.”
“Put it however you wish. It has never happened before.”
“I ask you to consider it. Would you do that?”
He was utterly amazed. Diplomatically, he said, “I would need a chance to explore the constitutional issues that may be involved, do you see? And to consult with grayer heads than mine or yours, and have their opinion concerning what sort of consequences in the world in general we could anticipate if we undertook such a move. The people have peacefully accepted my irregular coming to the throne, I think. But if I ask them now to go another step, and accept you also—”
“A very daring step, yes,” she said, and he was unable to tell whether there was irony in her tone.
“Let me have a little time, is all I ask. Time to study your request. To obtain wise advice.”
She gave him a long, cool, skeptical look.
He knew her well enough to realize that she was prepared to make a great nuisance of herself over this, or something worse than a nuisance, until she had her way. She knew him well enough, he suspected, to understand that his request for a reflective delay was very likely his way of refusing her. But for the moment it would be a standoff: he was sure of that.
“How much time, do you think, will you require for your constitutional researches?”
A shrug. “I don’t have any precise idea. This comes with great suddenness, Thismet, at a moment when I have Prestimion on my hands here with his situation unresolved, and also, I remind you, our mother and father both, and am still new to my crown besides, with all the challenges that that poses. But you have my word: I understand your need and I’ll give it the most careful consideration.”
There was a knocking again from the hallway—impatient now.
“A moment!” Korsibar bellowed, glaring at the door. “I am with the Lady Thismet.”
He looked toward her again. He still could hardly believe she had made this request of him. It seemed to him now that behind the beautiful mask of her face there lurked a demon’s intensity.
“We’ll talk further of this before long,” he promised her soothingly, summoning a warm smile from some deep reservoir of his soul. And added, at her frown: “We’ll do it soon. Very soon, Thismet. You have my word.”
“Yes,” she said. “So I do.”
She skewered him with one last penetrating look. Then she whirled about and quickly crossed the long room and was gone, nearly colliding with Farquanor as he entered. The little man carried a chin-high stack of papers so unwieldy that it was all he could do to manage a one-handed starburst over the top of them. “My lord—” he began.
“Put them down there,” said Korsibar. He closed his eyes for a moment and drew three deep breaths. Then he said, “The Vroon wizard, Thalnap Zelnifor—you know which one I mean, Farquanor?”
“Gonivaul’s man, I think.”
“Gonivaul’s no longer. He’s in my sister’s employ, and filling her ears with grotesque nonsense, of a sort which does neither her nor me any kind of good service. Have him arrested and detained. And take care of it quickly and quietly.”
“On what grounds, my lord?”
“A complaint has been filed against him, let us say, of practicing dark arts against innocent victims. No need to name the accuser. Just get him and lock him up in in the lower vaults and leave him there until I’ve had time to speak with him, and to explain to him how he can best correct his attitudes. Do it now, Farquanor. We can look at these papers afterward. Go. Now.”
6
ANGER AND FEAR and a rush of wild excitement coursed through Thismet as she made her way swiftly from her brother’s office.
For better, for worse, she had made her throw of the dice. And now she must live with the consequences of her act.
No peace would be possible between Korsibar and her, she knew, until the issue was settled. That much was certain. The request, once made, could neither be withdrawn nor forgotten, only accepted or refused. He was aware that she was serious; the look of dismay and dread that had come over him as she voiced her demand had told her that much. He already understood what sort of adversary she could be.
But, she wondered, had she taken his new kingship too lightly into account? All her life and his, she had known how to have her way with Korsibar, for he could never refuse her anything indeed, could rarely refuse anything to anyone who asked him sweetly enough, or firmly enough. Now, though, he was not simply her handsome but pliant brother Korsibar, but Coronal Lord of Majipoor.
The crown, Thismet had read, sometimes ennobled and exalted its wearer. There were old tales of what a lazy wastrel Prince Kanaba had been, until the Pontifex Havilbove picked him to be his Coronal and he instantly put aside his roistering ways and adopted the gravity of a king. And then there was Lord Siminave: also, supposedly, a drunkard and a gambler until the crown came to him, and then he was as stern and righteous as a monk forever after. Or Lord Kryphon, who was said to have been a weakling totally under the sway of his sinister friend Ferithrain until the day after his coronation, when without warning he exiled Ferithrain forever to Suvrael. Would Korsibar, too, find sudden unexpected strength of character now that he was king?
Pondering all these things, asking herself over and again whether she had damaged herself irreparably by launching this bold and maybe overbold assault on Korsibar’s sole possession of the royal authority, Thismet rushed in an agitated way through the Inner Castle, from Pinitor Court to silly Lord Arioc’s silly tower to her father’s garden-house, and from there downward along the Guadeloom Parapet to Vildivar Close, and up the Ninety-Nine Steps again and into the inner structure once more, past chapels and armories and courtyards and parade-grounds, until she found herself in front of one of the entrances to the enormous brick-walled
library founded by Lord Stiamot that ran like a long coiling serpent back and forth through the core of the Castle from one side to the other and around and around again.
Any book that had ever been published on any civilized world was kept here; so they said. Shriveled old librarians who were little more than huge brains with dry sticks of withered limbs attached shuffled around all day long in there, dusting and arranging and pausing now and then to peer appreciatively at some choice obscure item of their own near-infinite collections.
The sign over the entrance proclaimed that this was the history section. Thismet had not set foot in any part of the library for years. Impulsively she rushed inside now, not knowing why, thinking perhaps to find an ancient chronicler’s neglected book of annals in which she would discover an account of a Coronal’s sister, thousands of years before, who had in some strange way come to be given a crown of her own. So hastily did she sweep through the doorway that she went crashing with a force that took her breath away into a short, sturdily built man who was leaving the building just as rapidly.
The impact, which she received against her shoulder and left breast, was severe enough to send her spinning around. A strong hand caught hold of her just as she was about to strike the vestibule wall, and steadied her.
She reached one hand toward the wall to help herself regain her balance. “Forgive me,” she said, still a little dazed. “I’m terribly sorry. I should have been paying attention to where I—”
Prestimion, it was. Trim and tidy in a well-cut close jacket of some soft white leather and pale green leggings trimmed with swirling strips of orange velour.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Just—a bit shaken—” she said.
He stood before her smiling pleasantly. The collision did not seem to have harmed him. Three books were clasped under his left arm and several more lay at his feet. Thismet offered him a brief uneasy smile of courtesy. Her breast ached where it had struck against him, and she wanted to rub it, but not in front of him. She began to go around him, but he held up one hand to stay her.