Collected Short Fiction, page 1063
They dined at a private club on the outskirts of town, in a garden elegantly decorated with the famous creature-plants of Stoienzar and other flowering wonders that had Dekkeret calculating how much of Tolaghai’s modest water supply was diverted toward keeping this one spot flourishing. At other tables, widely separated, were Suvraelinu in handsome costume, and Golator Lasgia nodded to this one and that, but no one approached her, nor did they stare unduly at Dekkeret. From within the building blew a cool refreshing breeze, the first he had felt in weeks as though some miraculous machine of the ancients, some cousin to the ones that generated the delicious atmosphere of Castle Mount, were at work in there. Dinner was a magnificent affair of lightly fermented fruits and tender juicy slabs of a pale green-fleshed fish, accompanied by a fine dry wine of Amblemom, no less, the very fringes of Castle Mount. She drank freely, as did he; they grew bright-eyed and animated; the chilly formality of the interview in her office dropped away. He learned that she was nine years his senior, that she was a native of moist lush Narabal on the western continent, that she had entered the service of the Pontifex when still a girl, and had been stationed in Suvrael for the past ten years, rising upon Confalume’s accession to the Pontificate to her present high administrative post in Tolaghai.
“Do you like it here?” he asked.
She shrugged. “One gets accustomed to it.”
“I doubt that I would. To me Suvrael is kind of purgatory.”
Golator Lasgia nodded. “Exactly.”
There was a flash from her eyes to his. He did not dare ask for amplification; but something told him that they had much in common, that she had not been assigned to this wretched place but had requested service here for some dark secret reason of atonement.
He filled their glasses once again and permitted himself the perils of a calm, knowing smile.
She said, “Is it purgatory you seek here?”
“Yes.”
She indicated the lavish gardens, the empty wine-flasks, the costly dishes, the half-eaten delicacies. “You have made a poor start, then.”
“Milady, dinner with you was no part of my plan.”
“Nor mine. But the Divine provides, and we accept. Yes? Yes?” She leaned close. “What will you do now? The voyage to Natu Gorvinu?”
“It seems too heavy an enterprise.”
“Then do as I say. Stay in Tolaghai until you grow weary of it; then return and file your report. No one will be the wiser in Khyntor.”
“No. I must go inland.”
Her expression grew mocking. “Such dedication! But how will you do it? The roads from here are closed.”
“You mentioned the one by Khulag Pass, that had fallen into disuse. Mere disuse doesn’t seem as serious as deadly sandstorms, or Shapeshifter bandits. Perhaps I can hire a caravan leader to take me that way.”
“Into the desert?”
“If needs be.”
“The desert is haunted,” said Golator Lasgia casually. “You should forget that idea. Call the waiter over: we need more wine.”
“I think I’ve had enough, milady.”
“Come, then. We’ll go elsewhere.”
Stepping from the breeze-cooled garden to the dry hot night air of the street was a shock; but quickly they were in her floater, and not long after they were in a second garden, this one in the courtyard of her official residence, surrounding a pool. There were no weather-machines here to ease the heat, but the Archiregimand had another way, dropping her gown and going to the pool. Her lean, supple body gleamed a moment in the starlight; then she dived, sliding nearly without a splash beneath the surface. She beckoned to him and quickly he joined her.
Afterward they embraced on a bed of close-cropped thick-bladed grass. It was almost as much like wrestling as lovemaking, for she clasped him with her long muscular legs, tried to pinion his arms, rolled over and over with him, laughing, and he was amazed at the strength of her, the playful ferocity of her movements. But when they were through testing one another they moved with more harmony, and it was a night of little sleep and much exertion.
Dawn was an amazement: without warning, the sun was in the sky like a trumpet-blast, roasting the surrounding hills with shafts of hot light.
They lay limp, exhausted. Dekkeret turned to her—by cruel morning light she looked less girlish than she had under the stars—and said abruptly, “Tell me about this haunted desert. What spirits will I meet there?”
“How persistent you are!”
“Tell me.”
“There are ghosts there that can enter your dreams and steal them. They rob your soul of joy and leave fears in its place. By day they sing in the distance, confusing you, leading you from the path with their clatter and their music.”
“Am I supposed to believe this?”
“In recent years many who have entered that desert have perished there.”
“Of dream-stealing ghosts.”
“So it is said.”
“It will make a good tale to tell when I return to Castle Mount, then.”
“If you return,” she said.
“You say that not everyone who has gone into that desert has died of it. Obviously not, for someone has come out to tell the tale. Then I will hire a guide, and take my chances among the ghosts.”
“No one will accompany you.”
“Then I’ll go alone.”
“And certainly die.” She stroked his powerful arms and made a little purring sound. “Are you so interested in dying, so soon? Dying has no value. It confers no benefits. Whatever peace you seek, the peace of the grave is not it. Forget the desert journey. Stay here with me.”
“We’ll go together.”
She laughed. “I think not.”
It was, Dekkeret realized, madness. He had doubts of her tales of ghosts and dream-stealers, unless what went on in that desert was some trickery of the rebellious aborigines of the planet, the Shapeshifters or Metamorphs, and even then he doubted it. Perhaps all her tales of danger were only ruses to keep him longer in Tolaghai. Flattering if true, but of no help in his quest. And she was right about death being a useless form of purgation. If his adventures in Suvrael were to have meaning, he must succeed in surviving them.
Golator Lasgia drew him to his feet. They bathed briefly in the pool; then she led him within, to the most handsomely appointed dwelling he had seen this side of Castle Mount, and gave him a meal of fruits and dried fish.
Suddenly in mid-morning she said, “Must you go into the interior?”
“An inner need drives me in that direction.”
“Very well, we have in Tolaghai a certain scoundrel who often ventures inland by way of Khulag Pass, or so he claims, and seems to survive it. For a purse full of royals he’ll no doubt guide you there. His name is Barjazid; and if you insist, I’ll summon him and ask him to assist you.”
4.
Scoundrel seemed the proper word for Barjazid. He was a lean and disreputable-looking little man, shabbily dressed in an old brown robe and worn leather sandals, with an ancient necklace of mismatched sea-dragon bones at his throat. His lips were thin, his eyes had a feverish glaze, his skin was burned almost black by the desert sun. He stared at Dekkeret as though weighing the contents of his purse.
“If I take you,” said Barjazid in a voice altogether lacking in resonance but yet not weak, “you will first sign a quitclaim absolving me of any responsibility to your heirs, in the event of your death.”
“I have no heirs,” Dekkeret replied.
“Kinfolks, then. I won’t be hauled into the Pontifical courts by your father or your elder sister because you’ve perished in the desert.”
“Have you perished in the desert yet?”
Barjazid looked baffled. “An absurd question.”
“You go into that desert,” Dekkeret persisted, “and you return alive. Yes? Well then, if you know your trade, you’ll come out alive again this time, and so will I. I’ll do what you do and go where you go. If you live, I live. If I perish, you’ll have perished too, and my family will have no lien.”
“I can withstand the power of the stealers of dreams,” said Barjazid. “This I know from ample tests. How do you know you’ll prevail over them as readily?”
Dekkeret helped himself to a new serving of Barjazid’s tea, a rich infusion brewed from some potent shrub of the sandhills. The two men squatted on mounds of haigus-hide blankets in the musty back room of a shop belonging to Barjazid’s brother’s son: it was evidently a large clan. Dekkeret sipped the sharp, bitter tea reflectively and said, after a moment, “Who are these dream-stealers?”
“I cannot say.”
“Shapeshifters, perhaps?”
Barjazid shrugged. “They have not bothered to tell me their pedigree. Shapeshifters, Ghayrogs, Vroons, ordinary humans—how would I know? In dreams all voices are alike. Certainly there are tribes of Shapeshifters loose in the desert, and some of them are angry folk given to mischief, and perhaps they have the skill of touching minds along with the skill of altering their bodies. Or perhaps not.”
“If the Shapeshifters have closed two of the three routes out of Tolaghai, the Coronal’s forces have work to do here.”
“This is no affair of mine.”
“The Shapeshifters are a subjugated race. They must not be allowed to disrupt the daily flow of life on Majipoor.”
“It was you who suggested that the dream-stealers were Shapeshifters,” Barjazid pointed out acidly. “I myself have no such theory. And who the dream-stealers are is not important. What is important is that they make the lands beyond Khulag Pass dangerous for travelers.”
“Why do you go there, then?”
“I am not likely ever to answer a question that begins with why,” said Barjazid. “I go there because I have reason to go there. Unlike others, I seem to return alive.”
“Does everyone else who crosses the pass die?”
“I doubt it. I have no idea. Beyond question many have perished since the dream-stealers first were heard from. At the best of times that desert has been perilous.” Barjazid stirred his tea. He began to appear restless. “If you accompany me, I’ll protect you as best I can. But I make no guarantees for your safety. Which is why I demand that you give me legal absolution from responsibility.”
Dekkeret said, “If I sign such a paper it would be signing a death warrant. What would keep you from murdering me ten miles beyond the pass, robbing my corpse, and blaming it all on the dream-stealers?”
“By the Lady, I am no murderer! I am not even a thief.”
“But to give you a paper saying that if I die on the journey you are not to be blamed—might that not tempt even an honest man beyond all limits?”
Barjazid’s eyes blazed with fury. He gestured as though to bring the interview to an end. “What goes beyond limits is your audacity,” he said, rising and tossing his cup aside. “Find another guide, if you fear me so much.”
Dekkeret, remaining seated, said quietly, “I regret the suggestion. I ask you only to see my position: a stranger and a young man in a remote and difficult land, forced to. seek the aid of those he does not know to take him into places where improbable things happen. I must be cautious.”
“Be even more cautious, then. Take the next ship for Stoien and return to the easy life of Castle Mount.”
“I ask you again to guide me. For a good price, and nothing more about signing a quitclaim to my life. How much is your fee?”
“Thirty royals,” Barjazid said.
Dekkeret grunted as though he had been struck below the ribs. It had cost him less than that to sail from Piliplok to Tolaghai. Thirty royals was a year’s wage for someone like Barjazid; to pay it would require Dekkeret to draw on an expensive letter of credit. His impulse was to respond with knightly scorn, and offer ten; but he realized that he had forfeited his bargaining strength by objecting to the quitclaim. If he haggled now over the price as well, Barjazid would simply terminate the negotiations.
He said at length, “So be it. But no quitclaim.”
Barjazid gave him a sour look. “Very well. No quitclaim, as you insist.”
“How is the money to be paid?”
“Half now, half on the morning of departure.”
“Ten now,” said Dekkeret, “and ten on the morning of departure, and ten on the day of my return to Tolaghai.”
“That makes a third of my fee conditional on your surviving the trip. Remember that I make no guarantee of that.”
“Perhaps my survival becomes more likely if I hold back a third of the fee until the end.”
“One expects a certain haughtiness from one of the Coronal’s knights, and one learns to ignore it as a mere mannerism, up to point. But I think you have passed the point.” Once again Barjazid made a gesture of dismissal. “There is too little trust between us. It would be a poor idea for us to travel together.”
“I meant no disrespect,” said Dekkeret.
“But you ask me to leave myself to the mercies of your kinfolk if you perish, and you seem to regard me as an ordinary cutthroat or at best a brigand, and you feel it necessary to arrange my fee so that I will have less motivation to murder you.” Barjazid spat. “The other face of haughtiness is courtesy, young knight. A Skandar dragon-hunter would have shown me more courtesy. I did not seek your employ, bear in mind. I will not humiliate myself to aid you. If you please—”
“Wait.”
“I have other business this morning.”
“Fifteen royals now,” said Dekkeret, “and fifteen when we set forth, as you say. Yes?”
“Even though you think I’ll murder you in the desert?”
“I became too suspicious because I didn’t want to appear too innocent,” said Dekkeret. “It was tactless for me to have said the things I said. I ask you to hire yourself to me on the terms agreed.”
Barjazid was silent.
From his purse Dekkeret drew three five-royal coins. Two were pieces of the old coinage, showing the Pontifex Prankipin with Lord Confalume. The third was a brilliant newly-minted one, bearing Confalume as Pontifex and the image of Lord Prestimion on the reverse. He extended them toward Barjazid, who selected the new coin and examined it with great curiosity.
“I have not seen one of these before,” he said. “Shall we call in my brother’s son for an opinion of its authenticity?”
It was too much. “Do you take me for a passer of false money?” Dekkeret roared, leaping to his feet and looming ferociously over the small man. Rage throbbed in him; he came close to striking Barjazid.
But he perceived that the other was altogether fearless and unmoving in the face of his wrath. Barjazid actually smiled, and took the other two coins from Dekkeret’s trembling hand.
“So you too have little liking for groundless accusations, eh, young knight?” Barjazid laughed. “Let us have a treaty, then. You’ll not expect me to assassinate you beyond Khulag Pass, and I’ll not send your coins out to the money-changer’s for an appraisal, eh? Well? Is it agreed?”
Dekkeret nodded wearily.
“Nevertheless this is a risky journey,” said Barjazid, “and I would not have you too confident of a safe return. Much depends on your own strength when the time of testing comes.”
“So be it. When do we leave?”
“Fiveday, at the sunset hour. We depart the city from Pinitor Gate. Is that place known to you?”
“I’ll find it,” Dekkeret said. “Till Fiveday, at sunset.”
He offered the little man his hand.
5.
Fiveday was three days hence. Dekkeret did not regret the delay, for that gave him three more nights with the Archiregimand Golator Lasgia; or so he thought, but in fact it happened otherwise. She was not at her office by the waterfront on the evening of Dekkeret’s meeting with Barjazid, nor would her aides transmit a message to her. He wandered the torrid city disconsolately until long after dark, finding no companionship at all, and ultimately ate a drab and gritty meal at his hotel, still hoping that Golator Lasgia would miraculously appear and whisk him away. She did not, and he slept fitfully and uneasily, his mind obsessed by the memories of her smooth flanks, her small firm breasts, her hungry, aggressive mouth. Toward dawn came a dream, vague and unreadable, in which she and Barjazid and some Hjorts and Vroons performed a complex dance in a roofless sand-swept stone ruin, and afterward he fell into a sound sleep, not awakening until midday on Seaday. The entire city appeared to be in hiding then, but when the cooler hours came he went round to the Archiregimand’s office once again, once again not seeing her, and then spent the evening in the same purposeless fashion as the night before. As he gave himself up to sleep he prayed fervently to the Lady of the Isle to send Golator Lasgia to him. But it was not the function of the Lady to do such things, and all that did reach him in the night was a bland and cheering dream, perhaps a gift of the blessed Lady but probably not, in which he dwelled in a thatched hut on the shores of the Great Sea by Til-omon and nibbled on sweet purplish fruits that squirted juice to stain his cheeks. When he awakened he found a Hjort of the Archiregimand’s staff waiting outside his room, to summon him to the presence of Golator Lasgia.
That evening they dined together late, and went to her villa again, for a night of lovemaking that made their other one seem like a month of chastity. Dekkeret did not ask her at any time why she had refused him these two nights past, but as they breakfasted on spiced gihoma-skin and golden wine, both he and she vigorous and fresh after having had no sleep whatever, she said, “I wish I had had more time with you this week, but at least we were able to share your final night. Now you’ll go to the Desert of Stolen Dreams with my taste on your lips. Have I made you forget all other women?”
“You know the answer.”
“Good. Good. You may never embrace a woman again; but the last was the best, and few are so lucky as that.”
