Barjazid surrendered the helmet only too gladly.
Mandralisca held it cupped in both his hands for a moment, wondering whether this was really a good idea. It had been obvious all day that the pressures of this campaign had begun significantly to deplete his vitality. Using the helmet involved a great drain on one’s energies. A further expenditure of spirit at this time could well be damaging.
But it could be even more damaging to let Barjazid see how weary he was. And if he could manage, in one great stroke of mental force, to shatter the mind of the enemy who would otherwise soon be coming toward him out of Piliplok—
He put the helmet on. Closed his eyes. Entered the trance.
Sent his mind roving, southward, eastward, Piliplokward.
Dekkeret.
Surely that was he. A fiery red globe of power, like a second sun, out there by the coast.
Dekkeret. Dekkeret. Dekkeret.
And now—to strike—
Mandralisca summoned every bit of strength within him. This was the act from which he had held back so long, the direct attack on his primary foe, the outright onslaught against the single man who held the royal forces together. For reasons that had never been clear even to him—caution, strategy, perhaps even fear?—he had not struck at Prestimion when he was Coronal, and he had not struck at Dekkeret, either. He had sought to win his goals by more indirect means, gradually, rather than through one outrageous coup. It was, he supposed, his nature: silence, patience, cunning. But all those hesitations dropped away now. This was the moment to reach Dekkeret and destroy him—
The moment—
To—strike—
The moment—the moment—
He was striking, but nothing was happening. That fiery red globe was impossible to hit. It was not a matter of insufficient force, of that he was sure. But his angry lightning-bolts were glancing aside like feeble darts striking stone. Again, again, again he thrust; and each time he was rebuffed.
And then his last reservoir of energy was empty. He swept the helmet from his forehead and leaned forward against his desk, taut, quivering, resting his head on his arms.
After a moment he glanced up. The look on Khaymak Barjazid’s face was frightful. The little man was staring at him with eyes bulging with shock and horror.
“Your grace—are you all right, your grace?”
Mandralisca nodded. He was numb with exhaustion.
“What happened, your grace?”
“Shielded—just as you said. Impossible to get near him. Completely defended.” He pressed his fingertips to his aching eyes. “Can he be some kind of superman, do you think? I know this Dekkeret, this Coronal, only by repute—we have never met—but nothing I’ve ever heard about him would lead me to think he has any special powers of mind. And yet—the way he deflected me—the ease of it—”
Khaymak Barjazid shook his head. “I know of no power of the human mind that would let it fend off the thrust of the helmet. More likely they have come up with some new form of the device. My nephew Dinitak, you know, is with the Coronal’s party. He understands the helmets. And may have modified one in such a way that he can use it to protect his master.”
“Of course,” said Mandralisca. It was all completely clear now. “Dinitak, who sold his own father out to Prestimion by bringing him the helmets, and who has done it again these twenty years afterward. He has ever been a thorn in my side, that nephew of yours. Great is the mischief he’s done: and great will be his suffering, Khaymak, when I finally begin to pay him back for it!”
Thastain returned toward nightfall, rumpled and soiled from his day in the maze of tunnels and galleries and narrow arcades that was the Grand Bazaar of Ni-moya, and soaked through and through by the inexorable rain. Mandralisca could see at once that the boy must have failed in his mission, for he looked both glum and fearful, and he had returned alone, instead of bringing some Shapeshifter with him as Mandralisca had ordered. But he listened with a sort of weary patience to Thastain’s long recitation: his tour of the vast labyrinthine market, his conversations with this merchant and that one until finally he had won the cooperation of a certain Gaziri Venemm, a dealer in cheeses and oils, who after much hesitation and circumlocution agreed, upon payment of a purse full of royals, to arrange for Thastain to be conducted to one of his fellow merchants who was believed—believed—to be a Shapeshifter masquerading as a man of the city of Narabal.
And indeed, Thastain reported, the supposed man of Narabal did appear, from his shifty ways and uncertain accent, to be a Metamorph in disguise. But he would not, not for any price, agree to undertake a mission to the Danipiur.
“I mentioned your name, your grace. He was indifferent. I mentioned the name of Viitheysp Uuvitheysp Aavitheysp. He tried to pretend that he had never heard that name before. I showed him a purse of royals. It was all no use.”
“And is he the only Shapeshifter in the bazaar?” asked Mandralisca.
“I spoke with four more of them all told,” said Thastain, and from the look of distaste on his face Mandralisca knew that it was true, and that it had not been a pleasant task. “They will not do it. Two denied, very indignant, that they were Metamorphs at all; and I could see that they were lying, and that they knew I knew they were lying, and that they did not care. A third pleaded poor health. A fourth simply refused, before I had spoken six words. I can go back to the bazaar tomorrow, excellence, and perhaps then I can find—”
“No,” Mandralisca said. “There’s no point in that. Something has happened. The Danipiur’s ambassador has decided not to help us, and has returned to Piurifayne to tell her that. I’m certain of it.” He was surprised at his own composure. Perhaps he had passed beyond the whirlwind zone, now. “Get me Halefice,” he said.
When the aide-de-camp arrived Mandralisca said at once, “There are some new difficulties, Jacomin.”
“Other than the arrival of Dekkeret and the disappearance of the Metamorph, excellence?”
“Other than those, yes.” Mandralisca provided a crisp summary of his own thwarted attempts against Dekkeret with the helmet and Thastain’s fruitless search in the bazaar for a cooperative Metamorph. “Very soon, I suppose, the Coronal will be marching this way. The Shapeshifter aid I had counted on will evidently not materialize. As for the military forces we’ve been able to raise ourselves, they are sufficient to defend Ni-moya, I suppose, but not to permit us to go beyond the perimeter of the lands we already hold.”
There was a stricken look on Halefice’s face. “Then what will we do, your grace?”
“I have a new plan.” Mandralisca looked from Halefice to Barjazid, from Barjazid to Thastain, letting his gaze linger on each of them, assaying them carefully, seeking to measure their trustworthiness. “You three are the first to hear it, and you will also be the last. The scheme is this: the Lord Gaviral will invite Dekkeret to a parley at a place midway between Piliplok and Ni-moya, telling him that we want to arrive at a peaceful solution to our disputes, a compromise that will treat the grievances of Zimroel without damaging the structure of the imperial government. I know that that will appeal to him. We’ll sit down at a table together and try to work things out. We’ll offer our terms. We’ll listen to his.”
“And then?” Halefice asked.
“And then,” said Mandralisca, “just when the talks are going as smoothly as can be, Jacomin, we’ll kill him.”
17
“A parley,” Dekkeret said, fascinated by the strangeness of the idea. “We are asked to a parley!”
“First he tries to strike at you with his helmet, and then he asks you to a parley?” Septach Melayn said, laughing. “I see that the man will try anything. You will refuse, of course.”
“I think not,” said Dekkeret. “He has been testing us. And now that we’ve shown him that Dinitak can beat back his attacks, I think he’s found out what we are made of, and wants to change his tune for a new and sweeter one. We should listen to it, and see what it sounds like, eh?”
&nbs
p; “But a parley? A parley? My lord, the Coronal does not negotiate peace terms with those who deny his sacred authority,” said Gialaurys in his deepest, most sternly ponderous tone. “He simply destroys them. He sweeps them aside like gnats. He does not enter into discussions with them concerning the concessions he is being asked to make, the territory he is expected to yield, or anything else. A Coronal can concede nothing at all, ever, to any such creatures as these.”
“Nor will I,” said Dekkeret, smiling a little at the old Grand Admiral’s staunch and earnest rigor. “But to refuse outright to hear the virtuous Count Mandralisca’s proposals—or, rather, those of the great and mighty Pontifex Gaviral, since I see that it’s Gaviral who invites us to this meeting—no, I think it would be wrong to take that position. We should listen, at least. This parley will draw them out of Ni-moya, which will spare us the need to lay siege to that city, and perhaps to do harm to it. We will talk with them; and then, if we must, we will fight; but all the advantage lies on our side.”
“Does it?” Dinitak asked. “We have an army, yes. But I remind you, Dekkeret, we are on enemy soil, very far from home. If Mandralisca has been able to collect forces anywhere near the size of our own—”
“Enemy soil?” Gialaurys cried. “No! No! What are you saying? We are in Zimroel, where his majesty the Pontifex’s coinage still is legal tender, and I mean the Pontifex Prestimion, not this foolish puppet of Mandralisca’s. The imperial writ is law here still, Dinitak. Lord Dekkeret here is king of this land. And also I was born here, no more than fifty miles from this spot that you call enemy soil. How can you even speak such words? How—”
“Peace, good Gialaurys,” said Dekkeret, close to laughter now. “There’s a certain truth to what Dinitak says. This may not be enemy soil right here, but we don’t know how far upriver we can go before that changes. Ni-moya has proclaimed its independence: by the Lady, has named its own Pontifex! Has begun striking its own coins with Gaviral’s silly face on them, for all we know. Until we have put things to rights, we need to think of Ni-moya as an enemy city, and the lands surrounding it as hostile territory.”
They were camped on the northern bank of the Zimr, not far inland from Piliplok, in a pleasant, unspectacular countryside of rolling hills and well-tended farms. The air was warm here, a dry wind blowing from the south, and from the tawny look of the vegetation it was clear that in this district the rains of spring and early summer had long since ended. A host of small thriving cities lined both sides of the river in this district, and in each of them, so far, Dekkeret had been greeted with pleasure and excitement by the populace. Of whatever strange thing was going on in Ni-moya, the local officials seemed to have only the faintest idea, and they spoke of it to Dekkeret with obvious embarrassment and uneasiness. Ni-moya was thousands of miles away, in another province; Ni-moya, to these country people, was sophisticated to the point of decadence; if Ni-moya had decided to involve itself in some sort of peculiar political upheaval, that was a matter between Ni-moya and the Coronal, and no doubt the Coronal would very quickly take steps to restore the natural order of things there.
Septach Melayn said, “Read me the Sambailid lord’s demands again, will you, my lord?”
Dekkeret riffled through the elegantly lettered parchment sheets. “Mmmm…here it is. Not demands, exactly. Proposals. The Lord Gaviral—an interesting title; who ever made him lord of anything?—deplores the possibility that armed conflict might break out between the forces of the people of Zimroel and those of the Coronal Lord Dekkeret of Alhanroel—notice, I am Coronal of Alhanroel, here, not of Majipoor—and calls for peaceful negotiations to resolve the conflict between the legitimate aspirations of the people of Zimroel and the equally legitimate authority of the imperial government of Alhanroel.”
“At least he concedes that it’s a legitimate government,” said Septach Melayn. “Even if he does keep talking about it as Alhanroel’s government, and not Majipoor’s.”
“Be that as it may,” Dekkeret said, with a shrug. “He’s taking the approach that this is to be a discussion between powers of equal standing, and that, of course, we can’t allow. But let me go on: he wants—ah—here, yes—the primary thing that he wants to discuss at our meeting is the restoration of the title of Procurator of Zimroel, hereditary to his family. Hopes we can come to a peaceful agreement concerning the powers of said Procurator. Implies that his current title of Pontifex of Zimroel is merely provisional, and that he would be willing to abandon all claim to a separate Pontificate, in return for a constitutional compromise granting greater autonomy to Zimroel in general and the province of Ni-moya in particular, all of this under a Sambailid procuratorship.”
“Well, then,” Septach Melayn said, “is somewhat less fuss here than at first report. Sounds to me as though he’d be willing simply to settle for the name of Procurator and political control over Ni-moya and its surroundings. Which is more or less what Dantirya Sambail had.”
“A title which Prestimion stripped him of,” said Gialaurys. “And vowed there would never be Procurators in Zimroel again.” The Grand Admiral’s jowly face reddened, and growling sounds came from somewhere deep within him. He had the look, Dekkeret thought, of some great volcano preparing to erupt. “Are we to hand to the worthless nephew that which Prestimion took from the uncle, just on the nephew’s say-so? Dantirya Sambail, at least, was a great man in his way. This one’s a stupid pig and nothing more.”
“Dantirya Sambail a great man?” Dinitak said, startled. “From all I heard, he was a monster of monsters!”
“That too,” said Dekkeret. “But a shrewd and brilliant leader. He was no small instrument in the bringing of Zimroel into the modern world, in the days when Prankipin and Confalume ruled, and this continent was a patchwork of little principalities. He worked well with Castle and Labyrinth for forty years, until the time came when he took it into his head to be the one who named the new Coronal, and after that nothing was ever the same.” And, to Gialaurys: “You know better than to think that we’d actually be handing power to this Gaviral anyway, my lord Admiral. This letter’s Mandralisca’s work. Is Mandralisca who’d be the real Procurator, if ever we let the title come back into being.”
“And nevertheless you intend to parley, my lord, knowing you are in fact parleying with the serpent Mandralisca, who has tried once already to take your life?” Gialaurys asked.
Septach Melayn stroked his little curling beard and laughed. “Do you remember, Gialaurys, when we were all of us drawn up at Thegomar Edge just before the final battle of the Korsibar war, and a herald under a white flag came out from Prince Gonivaul, who was Grand Admiral then, saying that Lord Korsibar still had hope of a peaceful resolution of all disputes and was calling for a parley?”
“Yes, and suggested that Duke Svor should be the one we send out to discuss terms with him?” said Gialaurys, grinning at the memory.
To Dinitak Septach Melayn said, “Svor was the least warlike of us all, and the trickiest. And had been a good friend of Korsibar’s before the factions divided. We saw no purpose in the parley, but Prestimion said, ‘It does no harm to listen,’ just as Dekkeret has said here today. And so Svor rode forth and met with Gonivaul in the middle of the open field, and Gonivaul made his proposal, which was that Svor wait until the battle had begun and at that time go among Prestimion’s captains to say that Lord Korsibar would make them all dukes and princes if they would abandon Prestimion in mid-struggle and defect to the usurper. And also he offered little Svor Korsibar’s own sister, the beautiful Thismet, to be his wife, as the fee for his treason. That was Korsibar’s idea of a parley.”
“And what did Svor do?” Dekkeret asked.
“Rode back to our camp and told us what had been offered, and we all had a good laugh, and then the battle began. In which Svor died bravely, as it happened, fighting well on Prestimion’s behalf, though the sly little man had never been much known for his valor before that day.”
“And will we all have a good lau
gh also,” said Dinitak, “when we find out what Mandralisca’s idea of a parley is?”
“That do I hope,” said Dekkeret.
“So you are resolved to go through with this thing?” Gialaurys asked.
“Indeed I am,” Dekkeret said. “Where’s the herald from the Lord Gaviral? Tell him I accept the invitation. We will set out at once for the appointed place.”
The appointed place was three thousand miles up the Zimr near a town called Salvamot, where in the old days the Procurator Dantirya Sambail had maintained a country retreat, Mereminene Hall by name. The domain had remained in the family after the Procurator’s downfall, and was now, apparently, the property of the Sambailid who called himself the Lord Gavahaud.
“Which one is that?” Dekkeret asked Septach Melayn. “Their names all sound alike to me. Is he the big drunken one?”
“That is Gavinius, my lord. Gavahaud is the popinjay, the pompous paragon of style and taste, a veritable Castle Mount of vanity and foolish arrogance. I look forward to taking instruction from him in the niceties of fashion.”
Dekkeret chuckled. “We all have much to learn from these people, I think.”
“And they will learn a little from us, my lord,” said Gialaurys.
It was not a usual thing for seagoing vessels to engage in river travel, but there would not have been riverboats enough to carry all of Dekkeret’s force, and the Zimr was so deep and wide it could handle the larger ships of the Coronal’s maritime fleet without difficulty. The only problem had to do with the regular commercial shipping on the Zimr, which was unprepared to find such a host of huge ocean-craft taking up the preponderance of the channel. They scattered this way and that as the great phalanx of Lord Dekkeret’s armada moved northward.
It was virtually a changeless landscape here, a broad riparian plain, low rolling hills beyond, and a succession of little bustling agricultural towns strung along both banks, with day after day of bright skies and warm sunlight. There were reports of heavy rains in Ni-moya, unseasonal downpours, but Ni-moya was far away, and here in the Zimr’s lower valley there was only dry weather and unending warmth.