But there was little overt opposition, at first, to Prestimion’s advance into that province. For one thing, he had Farholt’s corps of mollitors with him. It hardly seemed prudent to let the terrifying war-beasts go roaming loose along the banks of the Jhelum when he could make use of them himself. So he had them all rounded up, and impressed Farholt’s surviving mollitor-drivers into his own army.
The villagers of the Salinakk, seeing this formidable army approach, gave Prestimion a cordial enough welcome. At a place called Theiga they hailed him with seeming sincerity as Coronal, and showed him an easier route through the Salinakk than he had planned to take, via Hurkgoz and Diskhema and past the dreary salt-flats of Lake Guurduur.
There was only one engagement of any note along this way: at the hilltop fort of Magalissa, where a garrison of army troops was stationed. Prestimion sent word to them that as Coronal he claimed their services, to which they replied with a defiant shower of arrows.
“We should not tolerate such behavior,” said Septach Melayn pleasantly, and went out with five hundred men to deal with them. It was a tricky task—an uphill charge against an entrenched position, and with no cavalry support, the hill being too rough and steep for mounts to ascend—but the Magalissa garrison turned out to have little real longing for battle and its surrender came quickly.
After that the rebel force moved quickly northward over the sandy plateau, through a region of small streams cutting across bare tawny soil, and tiny villages screened by stands of narrow upright vribin-trees closely planted side by side. In time they came to Lake Guurduur, a grim dead lake covered by a whitish scum of salt. Baleful red-eyed salt-creatures with jointed legs and scorpion tails held high crawled slowly about there, defying them with clicking jaws to intrude on their domain; but Prestimion had no wish to be Coronal of the salt-creatures, and let them be. And in five days more he came to the crossroads town of Kelenissa, which guarded the approach to Kenna Kortu Province and the main road to Duke Keftia’s city farther to the north.
Two rivers began here, the Quarintis and the Quariotis, one flowing east and the other west and both of them emerging from the same huge limestone cavern that sat like a gaping white mouth against the sandy soil. Above it on the hillside where Kelenissa town was situated, all was green and lush and blooming, a welcome sight after the mud of the Jhelum Valley and the barrenness of the Salinakk plateau.
They found here an ancient stone palace of some Coronal earlier even than Stiamot, all in ruins, and a forest where strange wild animals wandered freely. A man of Kelenissa who was hunting there told Prestimion that the Coronal who had built the palace, whose name he did not know, had had a great park full of such beasts here. The park had been maintained for thousands of years after his time as a zoological preserve, but now the animals lived on their own, for the walls of the park had crumbled away.
The same man pointed to Septach Melayn, who was standing to one side carefully adjusting the hang of his sword in its baldrick in that finicky way of his, and said to Prestimion, “That very tall man there, with the fancy golden ringlets and the little pointed beard: can he be Prince Prestimion, who claims to be Coronal? For there’s something I should tell him, if that’s the case.”
Prestimion laughed. “He looks to be a kingly man, does he not? And in truth he’s Prestimion’s other self, or one of them, for that is Prestimion too over there, that dark little man with the beard so tightly curled, and that one there also, the great-shouldered one whose hair is cut so short. But in fact I am the one who was born to the name, so tell me whatever it is that you think Prince Prestimion needs to know.”
The Kelenissa man, bewildered by Prestimion’s airy and fanciful response, looked frowning from Septach Melayn to Svor to Gialaurys and then to Prestimion again; and then he said, “Well, whichever of you is indeed the prince, let it be known to him that two great armies of the other Coronal Lord whose name is Korsibar are marching at this moment toward this city to take him captive and return him to Castle Mount for trial as a rebel, and that we here have received orders from this Lord Korsibar instructing us to give all assistance to them when they arrive, and no help to the rebel Prestimion. Tell that to Prince Prestimion, if you will.” And the man turned and trudged away, leaving Prestimion sorry he had been so flippant and playful with him.
So their respite was over. Quickly Prestimion consulted Thalnap Zelifor, who did indeed seem to have some skill at casting his mind out into distant places and spying out knowledge. The Vroon gestured busily with his tentades, bringing a dim bluish glow into the air before him, and after a few moments of intent concentration reported that two armies in fact were converging on them once more, forces even larger than the one Farholt had led. Mandrykarn and Farholt were the generals of the southern force, marching up through such places as Castinga and Nyaas and Purmande, while Navigorn was coming at them once more from the north.
“And which is closest to us now?” Prestimion asked.
“Navigorn. His is the greater army as well.”
“We’ll carry the war to him, without waiting for him to get here,” said Prestimion at once, for the victory at the Jhelum still coursed hot in his veins. “He hurt us once at Arkilon, but we’ll take him this time. And afterward deal with Mandrykarn and Farholt.” Septach Melayn and Gialaurys were in agreement strike quickly, before the two advancing armies could unite. The brothers Gaviad and Gaviundar were less eager for it. “It’s too soon to fight again,” said Gaviad, who even here at this morning hour had already been at his wine, or so it seemed from the thick-tonguedness of him. “Our brother the Procurator will come to us before long with additional men.”
“Wait, yes,” said Gaviundar. “He is a great wondrous asset to our cause, our brother is.”
“And have you any date for his arrival among us?” asked Septach Melayn a little testily. “He seems somewhat overdue already, would you not agree?”
“Be patient, lad, patient!” said Gaviad, peering up at Septach Melayn out of reddened bleary eyes and pulling at the wiry tufts of his mustache. “Dantirya Sambail won’t be much longer now: my oath upon it.” And he drew forth a new flask of wine and set to work.
Nor did the argument for immediate attack find favor with Svor. “We feel strong and high-spirited now, after the river-battle and this easy march north. But are we strong enough, Prestimion? Would it not be wiser to draw back into the west, perhaps as far as the coast, even, and build ourselves a bigger army yet, before we take them on?”
“Which would give them opportunity, also, to build their own forces,” said Gialaurys. “No. I say hit them now, flatten them with our mollitors, send them slinking back to Korsibar in tatters as we did with Farholt’s army. Two such defeats running and the people will begin to tell each other that the hand of the Divine is against the usurper. Wait, and it’ll only give him more time to make himself look like a legitimate king.”
There was a silence then; and into it, in a low voice edged with melancholy, Svor said, “Legitimate—illegitimate—ah, my good lords, how much blood do we intend to shed over these words? How many wounds, how many deaths? If only Majipoor were not saddled with this devilish thing of a monarchy at all!”
“Saddled, Svor?” said Septach Melayn. “And devilish? A strange choice of words. What are you saying?”
“Let us suppose,” Svor replied, “that we had no lifelong kings here at all, but only a Coronal who served by the choice of the high lords and princes, perhaps for a term of six years, or perhaps eight. And then he would step down from the throne and another be chosen in his place. With such a system, we would tolerate Korsibar’s holding of the throne, irregular though it may be, with the agreement that after his six years, or eight, he would go his way, and Prestimion could have the crown. And after Prestimion, someone else, six or eight years farther on. If that were so, we would not have this war, and fine men dying on muddy fields, and before long cities burning as well, I think.”
“What you say is lunacy,” retorte
d Gialaurys. “A recipe for chaos and nothing else. Kingship should be embodied in one great man, and that man hold the throne so long as he lives, and then go to the Labyrinth and have the higher throne to the end of his life. It is the only way, if we are to have a stable government in the world.”
“And also,” said Septach Melayn, “consider this: under your scheme the Coronal would lose all power in the last year or two of his reign, as everyone came to see that he was soon no longer to be king; for why fear him, with his time almost up? And another thing: we would always have men jostling for the succession, hardly one Coronal on the throne but five or six others already angling to take his place after his term of office. Gialaurys is right, Svor: a crazy system. Let us hear no more of the idea.”
Prestimion called upon them then to return to the theme of their meeting, whether or not to launch an attack on Navigorn’s army. It was so resolved, though the brothers Gaviad and Gaviundar remained cool to it, and scouts were sent out in several directions. Soon Prestimion had word from them confirming the essence of Thalnap Zelifor’s spell-casting. Navigorn was five days’ march north and east of them, at a flat dry place called Stymphinor. He had with him an army of dismaying size, and, said the scouts, an entire large corps of wizards and mages as well.
“Give me one good man with a sword and another with a spear,” said Prestimion scornfully, “and they can handle a dozen wizards apiece. These men in brazen hats hold no terror for me.”
Let Navigorn use such things if he wished, he declared. He himself would depend on more conventional tactics: good sturdy weapons of bright sharp steel, and not such things as ammatelapalas and veralistias and rohillas and other such magical devices of the ignorant and credulous. “We’ll attack at once,” he said. “In surprise lies our best hope.” And they straightaway got themselves ready for battle.
They set out then to the east, following the course of the Quarmntis as long as they could, then going up a little way into the hills north of the river that led into Stymphinor, where Navigorn lay encamped.
On the eve of the battle Thalnap Zelifor came to Prestimion, who sat going over the plan of attack in his tent with Septach Melayn, and asked the prince whether he wished him to cast a spell favorable to their cause that night. “No,” Prestimion replied. “Have you not heard me say again and again that such things are for Navigorn, perhaps, but not for me?”
“I had come to think that you were beginning in recent weeks to see merit in our art,” said the Vroon.
“I tolerate a little conjuring around me, yes,” Prestimion said, “but only because others whom I love wished me to permit it. I am far from a convert to your magic, Thalnap Zelifor. Military skill and plain good luck are worth more to me than a whole legion of demons and spirits and other such invisible and nonexistent forces.”
But to his surprise Septach Melayn took a different position. “Ah, let the spells be cast, Prestimion,” he said. “There’s no harm in it, is there? What will it cost us to have this Vroon wriggle his tentacles a bit, and make the air glow blue, and mutter some words that might help us on the field?”
Prestimion gave him a strange look. Never before had he heard Septach Melayn say a word in favor of sorcery. But Septach Melayn was right to the extent that such witchery cost nothing but a little effort on the part of the Vroon; and so Prestimion gave his permission. Thalnap Zelifor went off to his quarters to cast the spell; and Prestimion and Septach Melayn began once more to study their plan of battle.
An hour later the Vroon reappeared. His big yellow eyes seemed more than usually solemn and earnest, as though he had labored long and hard at his task.
“Well?” Prestimion said. “Is it done? Are all the demons properly invoked?”
“The runes are cast, yes,” said Thalnap Zelifor. “And now I come to you about another matter entirely.”
“Go on,” said Prestimion. “Speak, then.”
“I told you, my lord, that I had left the incomplete model of my thought-perceiving device at the Castle, and many another mechanism that could be of use to you in the struggle ahead. I ask your permission to return immediately to the Castle—setting out this very night if you will allow it—and fetch those things.”
Septach Melayn laughed. “You’ll be hanging by chains in the Sangamor tunnels again five minutes after you get there. And that’s if you’re lucky. Korsibar knows you’re with us; he’ll charge you with treason the moment he sees you.”
“Not if I claim to be defecting to his side,” said the Vroon.
“Defecting?” said Prestimion, startled.
“In pretense only, I assure you,” the Vroon said hastily. “I announce to him that I can see no merit in your claim to be Coronal, and offer him my services. Perhaps I’ll share with him, also, some purported strategic plans of yours—which I have invented myself. He won’t harm me then. And then I’ll go into my room and gather up all my devices and mechanisms, and when the time is right I’ll slip away again and come back to you with them. That will give you—after I’ve completed the last step or two of my research, of course—the power through me of looking into Korsibar’s mind, or Navigorn’s, or the mind of anyone you please, and seeing the innermost secrets hidden there.”
Prestimion looked uneasily toward Septach Melayn. “This is all too devious for me. Pretending to defect? Will Korsibar be so innocent as to believe that? And then managing to leave the Castle under his very nose, and coming back here with these magicky machines of yours?”
“I have explained,” said Thalnap Zelifor with dignity, “that there is no magic to them, but only science.”
“Let him go, if he thinks he can do it,” Septach Melayn said. “We have other things to deal with tonight, Prestimion.”
“Yes. Yes. All right, you can go to the Castle, Thalnap Zelifor.” Impatiently Prestimion waved the Vroon away. “Do you want an escort?” he asked as Thalnap Zelifor backed from the tent. “I can spare you two men of Muldemar who were wounded at the Jhelum and won’t be fighting tomorrow anyway. Speak to Taradath about them. And get you back here with your machines as quickly as you can.” Thalnap Zelifor made a reverent starburst and departed.
The engagement began at sunrise: a bright clear sky, a brilliant hot sun. The whole formidable corps of mollitors was at the ready in the fore of the rebel force, each great beast with its rider perched above, ready to send the animal careering forward at the signal from Prestimion. The two armies were facing one another on a wide, flat, open field broken only by a few spindly bushes and occasional outcroppings of rock: a perfect place, thought Prestimion, for charging mollitors. He himself stood off to the left with his archers, set back a short distance from the line of battle; his spearsmen and slingers were in the center, led by Gialaurys and Septach Melayn, and they likewise were set back a little way. The cavalry, under Duke Miaule, waited hidden in a defile well over to the right.
It was Prestimion’s plan to be quick and economical about the battle, because they were so greatly outnumbered. Therefore he meant to strike the enemy not at his weakest but at his strongest point, in the very center.
An oblique advance was what he proposed: the center and left held back in the early moments, the mollitors coming on first to put Navigorn’s front line into disarray, and then, when a gap had developed there, to bring the cavalry in from the right for the decisive charge, with the other two wings pouncing in their wake. Overwhelming force at the decisive point that would be their strategy. Once more the army from Zimroel under the command of the brothers of the Procurator would be kept in the rear to provide the final overwhelming assault and to do the mopping-up as Navigorn’s routed men retreated.
Prestimion could see Navigorn across the way, standing at the head of his forces: an imposing dark-haired figure very much like Korsibar himself in appearance, bold and swaggering, grinning with confidence, with green-cloaked shoulders thrown back, deep chest swelling proudly beneath armor of gleaming silver scales, eyes even from so far away visibly bright with
the joy of battle and an eagerness to be moving forward. A worthy enemy, Prestimion thought. A pity that they must be enemies, though.
He gave the order for the charge. The mollitors moved forward. Their heavy hooves made a sound as of a thousand hammers striking a thousand anvils.
Then a dozen or more of Navigorn’s brazen-hatted sorcerers, impressively garbed in golden kalautikois and scarlet and green lagustrimores, came suddenly into view. Prestimion saw them standing side by side on one of the rocky ledges above the battlefield. They were holding in their left hands great coiling bronze horns of an unfamiliar kind; and as the mollitors began their charge, the mages put the mouthpieces of those horns to their lips and brought forth such a devilish screech that Prestimion thought the heavens would crack apart from it. It was as though some witchery were at work to amplify the noise of those horns beyond the capacity of human lungs to create. That sound—again, again, again—wailed all about them like the crack of doom.
And the mollitors, some of them, at least, were flung into confusion.
Those at the frontmost of the charge halted abruptly when that terrible blast of sound hit them, turning away from it and running wildly in any direction that would not take them closer to the evil screeching. Some ran to the left, bursting into the midst of Prestimion’s archers, who scattered before them. Some ran to the right, vanishing amidst clouds of dust into the gully where Prestimion’s cavalry lay concealed, which surely would drive the mounts into a panic of their own. And some, perhaps braver or simply more stupid than the others, went plunging on toward Navigorn’s front line; but the royalist army simply stepped aside, creating aisles through which the oncoming mollitors could pass and letting them go rampaging harmlessly on and on into the open fields beyond.
For an instant Prestimion stood stupefied by the utter failure of the charge. Then he lifted his bow and with the mightiest shot of his life, stretching the bow almost to its breaking point, struck one of Navigorn’s mages off his rock, the arrow making its way easily into the rich brocade of his kalautikoi and the shaft emerging a foot through on the other side. The man tumbled and fell without uttering a word and his horn of burnished bronze went clattering down beside him.