The King of Dreams

  And then, the invasion itself—the glint in Gialaurys’s eyes as he spoke of rough men of Piliplok knocking down the flimsy gates of Ni-moya brought no corresponding thrills of delight to Prestimion. Ni-moya was one of the wonders of the world. Was it worth putting that incomparable city to the torch merely for the sake of maintaining the world’s present system of laws and rulers?

  He would not let himself waver from his belief that it was necessary and inevitable to go to war. Mandralisca was a blight upon the world, a blight that could only spread and spread and spread if it were left unchecked. He could not be tolerated; he could not be appeased; he must be destroyed.

  But, Prestimion thought gloomily, would the people of future times ever forgive him for it? He had wanted his reign to be known as a golden age. He had bent every effort toward that goal. And yet, somehow, the years of his ascendance had been marked by catastrophe upon catastrophe—the Korsibar war, the plague of insanity that followed it, the rebellion of Dantirya Sambail—and now it seemed certain that the final achievement of his reign would be either the destruction of Ni-moya or else the partition of what had been a peaceful world into a pair of mutually hostile independent kingdoms.

  Both choices seemed equally hateful. But then Prestimion reminded himself of his brother Teotas, terror-stricken to the point of suicidal madness and scrambling about in a panicky haze atop some precarious parapet of the Castle. His little daughter Tuanelys, writhing in fear in her own bed. And how many other innocent people across the world, random victims of Mandralisca’s malevolence?

  No. The thing had to be done, no matter the cost. He forced himself to harden his soul around that thought.

  As for Gialaurys and Septach Melayn, they were already caught up in the anticipation of the glorious military campaign that they hoped would cap their years. And were, as usual, disagreeing: Prestimion heard Septach Melayn, his eyes agleam, saying, “Is utterly idiotic, my dear friend, the whole idea of landing at Piliplok. Don’t you think Mandralisca can figure out that that’s where we’d have to come ashore? Piliplok’s the easiest port in the world to defend. He’ll have half a million armed men waiting for us at the harbor, and the river behind them blockaded by a thousand ships. No, sweet Gialaurys, we’ll have to put our troops ashore well south of there. Gihorna’s the place, say I. Gihorna!”

  Gialaurys screwed his face into a mask of contempt. “Gihorna’s a wasteland, a dismal swamp, uninhabitable, altogether abominable. The Shapeshifters themselves won’t go near the place. Mandralisca won’t even need to fortify it. Our men will sink into the mud and vanish as soon as they step out of their landing-craft.”

  “On the contrary, my dear Gialaurys. It’s precisely because the Gihorna coast is so unappealing that Mandralisca is unlikely to think we’ll land there. But we can, and will. And then—”

  “—And then we march north for thousands of miles up the side of the continent to Piliplok, which according to you we should avoid doing because it is the easiest port in the world to defend and Mandralisca’s army will be waiting for us there, or else we have to turn west right into the dark jungles of the Shapeshifter reservation and head for Ni-moya that way. Do you really want that, Septach Melayn? To send the whole army into the perils of unknown Piurifayne on its way north? What kind of insanity is that? I’d rather take my chances on a straightforward Piliplok landing and fight whatever battle we have to fight there. If we follow the jungle route the filthy Metamorphs will pounce on us and—”

  “Stop it, both of you!” Prestimion said, in a tone of such vehement insistence that Septach Melayn and Gialaurys both turned toward him wide-eyed. “All this arguing is completely pointless. Dekkeret is the commanding general who will fight this war. Not you. Not me. These matters of strategy are for him to decide.”

  They continued to stare at him. They both looked shaken; and not only, Prestimion thought, on account of the harshness with which he had just spoken to them. It was his abdication of command, he suspected, that amazed them so. That was not at all like the Prestimion they had known all these years, to cut off this kind of debate by saying that such a matter of high policy was outside his jurisdiction. He was amazed at it himself.

  But Dekkeret was Coronal now, not Prestimion; Dekkeret was the one who would have to prosecute this war; it was up to Dekkeret to devise the best way to go about it. Prestimion, as the senior monarch, could offer advice, and would. But it was Dekkeret to whom the ultimate responsibility for the war’s success must fall, and the final word on strategy had to be his.

  Prestimion told himself that he was content with that. The system of government to which he was dedicated, the age-old system that had worked so well since Dvorn the Pontifex had devised it, required it of him. So long as Dekkeret, his chosen successor as Coronal, conducted the war bravely and effectively, it was right and proper for Prestimion himself, as Pontifex, to retire to a secondary role in the conflict. And Prestimion had no doubt that Dekkeret would.

  In a quieter tone he said, “A little more wine, gentlemen?”

  Someone was knocking at the door, though. Septach Melayn went to open it.

  It was the Lady Varaile, who had gone off for a time to be with the children. Tuanelys was still troubled by dreams; and Varaile herself looked careworn and weary, suddenly older than her years. Merely to see her in this condition was enough to inflame Prestimion’s wrath all over again: he would kill Mandralisca with his own hands, if ever he had the chance.

  She was holding a slip of paper. “There’s been a message from Dekkeret,” she said. “He’s in Klai, less than a day’s journey away. And hopes to be here tomorrow.”

  “Good,” Prestimion said. “Excellent. Did he have anything else to say?”

  “Only that he sends the Pontifex his love and respect, and looks forward to his reunion with him.”

  “As do I,” said Prestimion warmly.

  He realized, suddenly, how very tired he was of the responsibilities of great power, and how much he had come to depend on Dekkeret’s youthful vigor and strength. It would be good to see him, yes. And especially good to discover how he, Dekkeret, planned to cope with this crisis. For that is not my task but his, thought Prestimion, and how glad I am of that!

  A time will come when you’ll be eager to be Pontifex, Confalume had told him once, in the old Pontifex’s rooms in the Labyrinth just a few days before his death. Yes. And now it had. For the first time Prestimion understood to the depths of his spirit what the old man had been talking about that day.

  12

  The last time Dekkeret had been in Stoien city had been in the second or third year of Prestimion’s reign as Coronal, a time when he was merely an earnest young newcomer to the inner circles of Castle Mount without the faintest expectation of becoming Coronal himself. Stoien awakened old memories for him, and not all of them were fond ones.

  The eerie, unforgettable beauty of the city, matchlessly situated along a hundred miles of lovely white beaches here on the rim of the Stoienzar Peninsula: that had remained fresh in his mind all these years. Nor had Stoien changed in any way. Its skies were still cloudless. Its curious buildings, rising from the peninsula’s flat terrain on artificial platforms anywhere from ten feet in height to hundreds, still dazzled the eye as they had before; its lush vegetation, the omnipresent denseness of bushes with leaves brilliant with irregular bursts of indigo and topaz and sapphire, of cobalt and claret and vermilion, still set the soul ablaze with delight. Such damage as had been done by the fires that madmen had set during the chaos of the insanity plague had long since been repaired.

  But it was in Stoien that Dekkeret had taken leave for the last time of his dear friend and mentor Akbalik of Samivole, Akbalik who had been his guide in his earliest years in Prestimion’s service at the Castle. Akbalik whom Dekkeret had loved more than any other man, even Prestimion—Akbalik who in all probability would be Coronal now, if he had lived—it was here to Stoien that Akbalik had come, limping and in pain from the swamp-crab bite that he
had suffered while hunting for the fugitive Dantirya Sambail in the steaming jungles east of the city, and which would kill him not long afterward. “The wound is nothing,” Akbalik told Dekkeret when Dekkeret arrived in Stoien after a voyage to the Isle, to which he had gone bearing urgent messages for Lord Prestimion. “The wound will heal.”

  But perhaps Akbalik had already known that it would not, for he had also exacted from Dekkeret an oath promising that he would speak out against anything that Lord Prestimion might want to do that would put his life at risk, such as chasing after Dantirya Sambail into the same jungles where Akbalik had been bitten: “No matter how angry you make him, no matter what risks to your own career you run, you must keep him from doing anything so rash.” Which Dekkeret had sworn, though inwardly he felt it should be Akbalik’s task, not his, to say such things to the Coronal; and then Akbalik had set out eastward from Stoien across Alhanroel, escorting the Lady Varaile—pregnant then with the future Prince Taradath—back to Castle Mount. But he made it no farther than Sisivondal on the inland plateau before the poison in his wound killed him.

  All that was long ago. Now the winds of fortune had made Dekkeret Coronal. Prince Akbalik of Samivole was remembered only by middle-aged folk. The only Prince Akbalik of whom most people were aware was Prestimion’s second son, named in the other Akbalik’s honor. But the sight of Stoien’s strange and wondrous myriad of towers brought that first Akbalik, that calm, wise, gray-eyed man who had meant so much to Dekkeret, vividly back to life in his memory, and a great sadness came over him at the recollection.

  To make it even worse, Prestimion and his family were settled in the very same lodgings they had had on that earlier occasion, the royal suite of the Crystal Pavilion, and they had put Dekkeret and his companions up there also. Nothing could have been better designed to force him to relive the final exhausting moments of the war against Dantirya Sambail, when Prestimion, making use of the Barjazid helmet, had struck against the Procurator from this very building, aided wherever possible by Dinitak and Maundigand-Klimd and the Lady Therissa and Dekkeret himself.

  But there was no other choice, really. The Crystal Pavilion was Stoien’s premier building, the only place in the city suitable to house a visiting monarch.—Or, in this case, a pair of monarchs: for here were Coronal and Pontifex both in Stoien at the same time, a thing that never had happened before, and that had, so Dekkeret learned before he had been in Stoien more than ten minutes, thrown the city administration into such a state of panicky confusion that they would need the rest of their lives to recover from it.

  It was fairly late in the evening when Dekkeret and his party arrived. He was caught a little off balance by the discovery that Prestimion wanted to meet with him at once. Dekkeret had had a hectic journey down the coast from Alaisor—he had not anticipated that Prestimion would come so quickly from the Isle to the mainland—and he begged an hour’s respite, or two, to rest and cleanse himself from the dust of the road before seeing the Pontifex.

  Fulkari wondered why it was necessary to have such an immediate conference. “Is it really so urgent? Can’t we be allowed some time for dinner first, and a night’s sleep?”

  “Perhaps there have been developments in Zimroel that I don’t know about,” Dekkeret said. “But I think not. This is simply his nature, love. Everything is urgent to Prestimion. He is the most impatient man alive.”

  She accepted that grudgingly, and when he had bathed he went upstairs to Prestimion’s rooms. Septach Melayn and Gialaurys were there with him, which Dekkeret had not expected.

  Nor did he expect the swiftness with which the Pontifex swept him toward the point of the meeting. Prestimion embraced him warmly, as a father might embrace a long-lost son, but almost at once they were deep into a discussion of the matter of Zimroel. Prestimion cared hardly at all to hear about Dekkeret’s journey across the continent, his odd adventures in Shabikant and Thilambaluc and the other obscure stops along his westward route. Two or three brusque questions, followed by quick interruptions of Dekkeret’s replies, and then they were talking of Mandralisca and the Five Lords, and how Prestimion believed the crisis in Zimroel must be resolved.

  Which was, Dekkeret rapidly learned, by sending a great army across the sea—an army led in person by the Coronal Lord Dekkeret—to set things to rights there by force, if need be.

  “At long last we must break this Mandralisca, and break him so that he can never recover from it,” said Prestimion. As he uttered those words his features underwent an extraordinary transformation, his intense sea-green eyes now strangely aflame with a cold fury that Dekkeret had never seen in them before, his thin lips tightening into a taut grimace, his nostrils flaring with an astonishing vindictive rage. “Let there be no mistake about it: we have to destroy him, regardless of the cost, and all those who follow his banner as well. There is no hope of peace in the world so long as that man continues to breathe.”

  Prestimion’s tone was an extraordinarily belligerent one, uncompromising, fierce. Dekkeret was taken aback by that, though he did his best to hide his surprise and dismay from the Pontifex. Surely Prestimion knew, better than any man alive, what it meant for there to be civil war on Majipoor. Yet here he was, trembling with barely contained wrath, instructing his Coronal to set all of Zimroel ablaze, if necessary, for the sake of ending the Sambailid rebellion!

  Perhaps I am misunderstanding him, Dekkeret thought, hoping against all probability.

  Perhaps he is not advocating actual warfare at all, but only a grand show of imperial pomp and force, under cover of which Mandralisca can be peacefully encircled and removed.

  It was Dekkeret himself who had first suggested, some months earlier, that it might be necessary for him to go to Zimroel and make an end to such unrest as was brewing there. And Prestimion had agreed that that might be a good idea. But it was Dekkeret’s impression that they had both been thinking of something along the lines of a grand processional: the Coronal making a formal state visit to the western continent, with all the pageantry that a visit of that sort entailed, and thereby reminding the people of Zimroel of the ancient covenant under which all regions of the world lived together in peace. During that visit Dekkeret would be able to determine the strength of Mandralisca’s insurrection and, through the power and authority of his mere presence, take steps—political steps, diplomatic steps—to bring it to a halt.

  But Prestimion had spoken just now of sending an army—a great army—to Zimroel to deal with Mandralisca.

  There had never been any talk, so far as Dekkeret recalled, of his undertaking the Zimroel journey at the head of any sort of military force. When had Prestimion’s thinking shifted from the use of peaceful means against the rebels to one of all-out war? Dekkeret wondered what had turned the Pontifex so suddenly into such a fire-breather. No one had greater reason to hate war than Prestimion, and yet—yet—that look in his eyes—the angry crackle of his voice—could there be any doubt of his meaning? There must be war, was the essence of what Prestimion was saying. And you are the one who will wage it for us. It sounded very much like an order: a direct command from the senior monarch.

  Dekkeret wondered how he was going to cope with that.

  Certainly Mandralisca had to be removed: no question of that. But was war really the only way? Suddenly Dekkeret found his mind aswirl with a torrent of roiling conflicts. War was as repugnant a concept to him as it was to any sensible being. It had never occurred to him that his reign might begin, as Prestimion’s had, on the battlefield.

  He glanced quickly about for guidance toward Septach Melayn, toward Gialaurys. But Gialaurys’s jowly face was rigidly set, a bleak, stony mask of icy determination, and even the flippant and sportive Septach Melayn had a strange look of seriousness about him just now. They were both of them resolved on war, Dekkeret realized. Perhaps these two, Prestimion’s oldest friends, were the very ones who had turned the Pontifex onto that course.

  Cautiously Dekkeret said, hoping Prestimion would not no
tice the ambiguity of his phrasing, “I give you my pledge, your majesty, that I will do whatever must be done to restore the rule of law in Zimroel.”

  Prestimion nodded. He looked calmer now, his face less flushed than it had been a moment before, some of the tension gone from it. “I’m confident that you will, Dekkeret. And so far as a specific plan of action goes—?”

  “As soon as possible, majesty.” More ambiguity, but Prestimion did not appear to find that troublesome. “It would be unwise for me to rush toward decisions just now. Your brother’s death deprived me of my High Counsellor, and I’ve had no opportunity to choose another. And therefore, your majesty—”

  “You are being very formal with me today, Dekkeret.”

  “If I am, it is because we are discussing great matters of war and peace. You have been my friend for many years; but you are also my Pontifex, Prestimion. And”—he gestured toward Septach Melayn—“we are in the presence of your High Spokesman as well.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course. This is serious business, and calls for a serious tone.—By all means, Dekkeret, take a few days to think things over.” Prestimion smiled for the first time in the course of the meeting. “Just so long as the path that you choose is one that will rid me of Mandralisca.”

  Fulkari must have seen at once, when Dekkeret returned to their rooms on the floor just below Prestimion’s, what an effect his meeting with the Pontifex had had on him. Quickly she drew a bowl of wine for him and waited without speaking while he drank it down.

  Then she said, “There’s trouble, isn’t there?”

  “Apparently so.”

  He could barely bring himself to speak. He felt a little dizzy from weariness, from hunger, from the strain of the strange, tense encounter.

  “In Zimroel?”

  “In Zimroel, yes.”

  Fulkari was staring at him oddly. He had never seen such a look of profound concern in those lovely gray eyes of hers. Dekkeret knew that he must be a terrible sight. His whole body felt clenched. A throbbing had begun behind his eyes. His jaw muscles were aching: too much insincere smiling, he supposed. He accepted a second bowl of wine from her and drank it nearly as swiftly as he had the first.