Collected Short Fiction, page 1052
In the main concourse Valentine found Deliamber, watching the action with a look of bemused fascination. Telling the Vroon of the conflicting reports, he asked, “Can he be in all three places?”
“None, more likely,” the wizard replied. “Unless there are three of him. Which I doubt, though I feel his presence in this place, dark and strong.”
“In any particular area?”
“Hard to tell. Your enemy’s vitality is such that he radiates himself from every stone of the Castle, and the echoes confuse me. But I will not be confused much longer, I think.”
“Lord Valentine?”
A new messenger—and a familiar face, deep coarse brows meeting in the center, a jutting chin, an easy confident smile. Another unit of the vanished past fitting itself back into place, for this man was Tunigom, second closest of all Valentine’s boyhood friends, now one of the high ministers of the realm, and now looking at the stranger before him with bright penetrating eyes, as if trying to find the Valentine behind the strangeness. Shanamir was with him.
“Tunigom!” Valentine cried.
“My lord! Elidath said you were altered, but I had no idea—”
“Am I too strange to you with this face?”
Tunigom smiled. “It will take some getting used to, my lord. But that can come in time. I bring you good news.”
“Seeing you again is good news enough.”
“But I bring you better. The traitor has been found.”
“So I have been told already three times in half an hour, that he is in three different places.”
“I know nothing of those reports. We have him.”
“Where?”
“Barricaded in the inner chambers. The last to see him was his valet, old Kanzimar, loyal to the end, who finally saw him gibbering with terror and understood at last that this was no Coronal before him. He has locked off the entire suite, from the throne-room to the robing-halls, and is alone in there.”
“Good news indeed!” To Deliamber, Valentine said, “Do your wizardries confirm any of this?”
Deliamber’s tentacles stirred. “I feel a sour, malign presence in that lofty building.”
“The imperial chambers,” said Valentine. “Good.” He turned to Shanamir and said, “Send out the word to Sleet, Carabella, Zalzan Gibor, Lisamon Hultin. I want them with me as we close in.”
“Yes, my lord!” The boy’s eyes gleamed with excitement.
Tunigom said, “Who are those people you named?”
“Companions of my wanderings, old friend. In my time of exile they became very dear to me.”
“Then they will be dear to me as well, my lord. Whoever they may be, those who love you are those I love.” Tunigom drew his cloak close about him. “But what of this chill? When will it begin to lift? I heard from Elidath that the weather-machines—”
“Yes.”
“And can they be repaired?”
“Elidath has gone to them. Who knows what damage the Barjazid has done? But have faith in Elidath.” Valentine looked toward the inner palace high above him, narrowing his eyes as though he could in that manner see through the noble stone walls to the frightened shameless creature hiding behind them. “This coldness gives me great grief, Tunigom,” he said somberly. “But curing it now is in the hands of the Divine—and Elidath. Come. Let’s see if we can pluck that insect from its nest.”
14.
The moment of final reckoning with Dominin Barjazid was close at hand, now. Valentine moved swiftly, onward and inward and upward through all the familiar wonderful places.
That great vaulted building was the archive of Lord Prestimion, where that great Coronal had assembled a museum of the history of Majipoor. Valentine smiled at the thought of installing his juggling clubs alongside the sword of Lord Stiamot and the jewel-studded cape of Lord Confalume. There, rising in amazing swoops, was the slender, fragile-looking watch-tower built by Lord Arioc, a strange construction indeed, giving indication perhaps of the greater strangeness that Arioc would perpetrate when he moved on to the Pontificate. That, a double atrium with an elevated pool in its center, was the chapel of Lord Kinniken, adjoining the lovely white-tiled hall that was the residence of the Lady whenever she came to visit her son. And there, sloping glass roofs gleaming in the starlight, was Lord Confalume’s garden-house, the cherished private indulgence of that grandeur-loving pompous monarch, a place where tender plants of every part of Majipoor had been collected. Valentine prayed they would survive this night of wintry blasts, for he longed to go among them soon, and revisit the wonders he had seen in the forests of Zimroel and on the Stoienzar shores.
Upward—
Through a seemingly endless maze of hallways and staircases and galleries and tunnels and outbuildings, onward, onward. “We will die of old age, not cold, before we reach the Barjazid!” Valentine muttered.
“It will not be long now, my lord,” Shanamir said.
“Not soon enough to please me.”
“How will you punish him, my lord?”
Valentine glanced at the boy. “Punish? Punish? What punishment can there be, for what he’s done? A whipping? Three days on stajja-crusts? Might as well punish the Steiche, for having jostled us on the rocks.”
Shanamir looked puzzled. “No punishment at all?”
“Not as you understand punishment, no.”
“Turn him loose to do more mischief?”
“Not that either,” said Valentine. “But first we must catch him, and then we can talk about what to do with him.”
Half an hour more—it seemed forever—and Valentine stood before the core of the Castle, the walled imperial chambers, not nearly the oldest but by far the most sacrosanct of all its precincts. Early Coronals had had their governing-halls here, but they had long since been replaced by the finer and more awesome rooms of the great rulers of the past thousand years, which now constituted a glittering palatial seat of power, apart from all the other tangled intricacies of the Castle. The highest ceremonies of state took place in those high-vaulted splendid chambers; but now one single miserable being lurked in there, behind the ancient massive doors, protected by heavy ornate bolts of enormous size and weighty symbolic significance.
“Poison gas,” Lisamon Hultin said. “Pump one canister of gas through the walls and drop him wherever he is.”
Zalzan Gibor nodded vehemently. “Yes! Yes! See, a thin pipe slipped through these cracks—there is a gas they use in Piliplok for killing fish, that would do the job in—”
“No,” Valentine said. “He will be brought out alive.”
“Can it be done, my lord?” Carabella asked.
“We could smash the doors,” rumbled Zalzan Gibor.
“Ruin Lord Prestimion’s doors, that were thirty years making, to fetch one rascal out of hiding?” Tunigom asked. “My lord, this talk of a poison gas does not seem so foolish to me. We should not waste time—”
Valentine said, “We must take care not to act like barbarians. There will be no poisonings here.” He caught Carabella’s hand, and Sleet’s, and raised them. “You are jugglers, with quick fingers. And you, Zalzan Gibor. Have you no experience at using those fingers for other things?”
“Picking locks, my lord?” Sleet asked.
“And things of that order, yes. There are many entrances to these chambers, and perhaps not all are secured by bolts. Go, try to find a way past the barriers. And while you do that, I’ll seek another way.”
He stepped forward to the giant gilded door, twice the height of the tallest of Skandars, carved over every square inch with images in high relief of the reign of Lord Prestimion and his celebrated predecessor Lord Confalume. He put his hands to the heavy bronze handles as though he meant to open the door with a single hearty heave.
For a long moment Valentine stood that way, putting from his mind all awareness of the tension that swirled about him. He attempted to move to the quiet place at the center of his soul. But a powerful obstacle blocked him:
His mind was filled suddenly with overwhelming hatred for Dominin Barjazid.
Behind that great door was the man who had thrust him from his throne, who had sent him forth as a hapless wanderer, who had ruled rashly and unjustly in his name, and—worst of all, wholly monstrous and unforgivable—who had chosen to destroy a billion blameless and unsuspecting people when his own schemes began to falter.
Valentine loathed him for that. For that, Valentine ached to destroy Dominin Barjazid.
As he stood clinging to the handles of the door, fierce violent images assailed his mind. He saw Dominin Barjazid flayed alive, cloaked in his own blood, screaming screams that could be heard from here to Pidruid. He saw Dominin Barjazid nailed to a tree with barbed arrows. He saw Dominin Barjazid crushed beneath a hail of stones. He saw—
Valentine trembled with the force of his own terrible rage.
But one did not flay one’s enemies alive in a civilized society, and one did not freely vent one’s anger in violence—not even upon a Dominin Barjazid. How, Valentine wondered, can I claim the right to rule a world, when I can’t even rule my own emotions? So long as this rage roiled his soul he was as unfit to govern, he knew, as Dominin Barjazid himself. He must do battle with it. That pounding in the temples, that rush of blood, that savage hunger for vengeance—all must be purged before he made any move toward Dominin Barjazid.
Valentine struggled. He let the clenched muscles of his back and shoulders relax, and filled his lungs with the sharp chill air, and moment by moment allowed the tension to drain from his body. He searched his soul where the hot fiery vengeance-lust had so suddenly flared in it, and swept it clean. And then he was able to move at last to the quiet place at the center of his soul and hold himself there, so that he felt himself alone in the Castle but for Dominin Barjazid somewhere on the far side of the door, only the two of them and a single barrier between. Conquest over self was the finest of victories: all else must follow, Valentine knew.
He yielded himself up to the power of the silver circlet of the Lady his mother, and entered into the dream-state, and sent forth the strength of his mind toward his enemy.
It was no dream of vengeance and punishment that Valentine sent. That would be too obvious, too cheap, too easy. He sent a gentle dream, a dream of love and friendship, of sadness for what had befallen. Dominin Barjazid could only be astounded by such a message. Valentine showed Dominin Barjazid the dazzling glittering pleasure-city of High Morpin, and the two of them walking side by side down the Avenue of Clouds, talking amiably, smiling, discussing the differences that separated them, trying to resolve frictions and apprehensions. It was a risky way to begin these dealings, for it exposed him to derision and contempt, if Dominin Barjazid chose to misunderstand Valentine’s motives. Yet there was no hope of defeating him through threats and rage; perhaps a softer way might win. It was a dream that took vast reserves of spirit, for it was naive to expect Barjazid to be seduced by guile, and unless the love that radiated from Valentine was genuine, and made itself felt to be genuine, the dream was a foolishness. Valentine had not known he could find love in him for this man who worked so much harm. But he found it; he spun it forth; he sent it through the great door.
When he had done, he clung to the door handles, recouping his strength, and waited for some sign from within.
Unexpectedly what came was a sending: a powerful blast of mental energy, startling and overwhelming, that roared out of the imperial chambers like the fury of a hot Suvrael wind. Valentine felt the searing blast of Dominin Barjazid’s mocking rejection. Barjazid wanted no love, no friendship. He sent defiance, hatred, anger, contempt, belligerence: a declaration of perpetual war.
The impact was intense. How did it come to pass, Valentine wondered, that the Barjazid was capable of sendings? Some machine of his father, no doubt, some witchery of the King of Dreams. He realized that he should have anticipated something like that. But no matter. Valentine stood fast in the withering force of the dream-energy Dominin Barjazid hurled at him.
And afterward sent back another dream, as easy and trusting as Dominin Barjazid’s had been harsh and hostile. He sent a dream of pardon, of total forgiveness. He showed Dominin Barjazid a harbor, a fleet of Suvraelu ships waiting to return him to his father’s land, and even a grand parade, Valentine and Barjazid side by side in a chairot, riding down to the waterfront for the ceremonies of departure, standing together on the quay, laughing as they exchanged their farewells, two good enemies who had had at each other with all the power at their command and now were parting pleasantly.
From Dominin Barjazid came an answering dream of death and destruction, of loathing, of abomination, of scorn.
Valentine shook his head slowly, heavily, trying to clear it of the muck of poison coming toward him. A third time he gathered his strength and readied a sending for his foe. Still he would not descend to Barjazid’s level; still he hoped to overwhelm him with warmth and kindness, though another might say it was folly even to make the attempt. Valentine shut his eyes and centered his consciousness in the silver circlet.
“My lord?”
A woman’s voice, cutting through his concentration just as he was slipping into trance.
The interruption was jarring and painful. Valentine spun around, ablaze with unaccustomed fury, so shaken by surprise that it was a moment before he could recognize the woman as Carabella, and she drew back from him, gasping, momentarily afraid.
“My lord—” she said in a tiny voice. “I didn’t know—”
He struggled to control himself. “What is it?”
“We—we have found a way to open a door.”
Valentine closed his eyes and felt his rigid body going slack with relief. He smiled and drew her to him, and held her a moment, trembling as tension discharged itself in him. Then he said, “Take me there!”
Carabella led him down corridors rich with antique draperies and thick well-worn carpets. She moved with a sureness of direction surprising in one who had never walked these halls before. They came to a part of the imperial chambers that Valentine did not remember having seen before, a service access somewhere beyond the throne-room, a simple and humble place. Sleet, riding on Zalzan Gibor’s shoulders, had the upper half of his body poked deep within some transome, and was reaching down to perform delicate manipulations on the inner side of a plain door. Carabella said, “We’ve opened three doors this way and now Sleet’s infiltrating the fourth. In another moment—”
Sleet pulled his head out and looked around, dusty, grimy, wondrously pleased with himself.
“It’s open, my lord.”
“Well done!”
“We’ll go in and get him,” Zalzan Gibor growled. “Do you want him in three pieces or five, my lord?”
“No,” Valentine said. “I’ll go in. alone.”
“You, my lord?” Zalzan Gibor asked in an incredulous tone.
“Alone?” said Carabella.
Sleet, looking outraged, cried, “My lord, I forbid you—” and stopped, bewildered by the sacrilege of his own words.
Mildly Valentine said, “Have no fears for me. This is something I must do without help. Sleet, step aside. Zalzan Gibor—Carabella—stand back. I order you not to enter until you’re summoned.”
They stared at one another in confusion. Carabella began to say something, faltered, closed her mouth. Sleet’s scar throbbed and blazed. Zalzan Gibor made odd rumbling sounds and swung his four arms impotently.
Valentine pulled open the door and strode through.
He was in a vestibule of some kind, perhaps a kitchen passageway, nothing a Coronal was likely to be familiar with. He walked warily through it and emerged into a richly brocaded hall, which after a moment’s disorientation he recognized as the robing-room; beyond it was the Dekkeret Chapel, and that led to the judgment-hall of Lord Prestimion, a grand vaulted chamber with splendid windows of frosted glass and magnificent chandeliers manufactured by the finest craftsmen of Nimoya. And beyond that was the throne-room, with the Confalume Throne of supreme grandeur dominating everything. Somewhere in that suite Valentine would find Dominin Barjazid.
He moved forward into the robing-room. It was empty, and looked as though no one had made use of it for months. The stone archway of the Dekkeret Chapel was uncurtained; Valentine peered through it, saw no one there, and continued through the short curving passage, decorated with brilliant mosaic ornaments in green and gold, that connected with the judgment-room.
He drew in his breath deeply and laid hands on the judgment-room door and flung it open.
At first he thought that that vast space also was empty. Only one of the great chandeliers was lit, and that one at the far end, casting but a dim glow. Valentine looked to left and right, down the rows of polished wooden benches, past the curtained alcoves in which dukes and princes were permitted to conceal themselves while judgment was passed upon them, toward the high seat of the Coronal—
And saw a figure in imperial robes standing in the shadows at the council-table below the high seat.
15.
Of all the strangenesses of his time of exile, this was the most strange of all, to stand less than a hundred feet from one who wore what once had been his own visage. Twice before, Valentine had seen the false Coronal, on that day of festival in Pidruid, and he had felt soiled and drained of energy when he had looked upon him, without knowing why. But that was before he had regained his memory. Now, in the dimness, he beheld a tall, strong man, fierce-eyed black-bearded, the Lord Valentine of old, princely in bearing, not at all cowering or gibbering or terrified, confronting him with cold calm menace. Was that how I looked, Valentine wondered? So bleak, so icy, so forbidding? He supposed that during all these months when Dominin Barjazid had been in possession of his body, the darkness of the usurper’s soul had leaked out through the face, and changed the Coronal’s cast of features to this morbid hateful expression. Valentine had grown used to his own amiable sunny new face, and now, seeing the one he had worn so many years, he felt no wish to have it back.
