Sorcerers of Majipoor by Robert Silverberg
Farquanor’s idea of what constituted an eyesore and what was a decent-looking thing, it seemed, was somewhat different from Korsibar’s. So there was a considerable coming and going of furnishings in those first few days, and that took up time.
Then, too, there was the job of becoming familiar with the Coronal’s official suite, not as his father’s occasional visitor but as the man who actually sat behind the splendid palisander desk with the starburstlike grain in it and did whatever work was supposed to be done at that desk.
There had not yet been time, of course, for any legislation to be reaching him. The Council had been in suspension all during the period of Prankipin’s slow decline, and would remain in abeyance until Korsibar had had time to reconfirm the members that he was holding over and to appoint the new ones that he meant to select. All he had done thus far was to tell Oljebbin that he could go on being High Counsellor. Sooner or later he would need to ask Oljebbin to step down, and replace him, he supposed, with Farquanor, but there was time for that later.
Still, even if there were no new laws yet for him to read and approve, there were other matters requiring his attention, trivial things, appointments of provincial administrators to confirm, routine proclamations of various local holidays—there were a hundred different holidays a day all over the world, it seemed, this festival in Narabal and this one in Bailemoona and that one in Gorbidit and something else in Ganiboon, and the Coronal had to scribble his name on a piece of paper to make each one official. He did some of that. He received delegations from the mayors of haIf a dozen of the Inner Cities too—it was too soon for the delegations from more distant cities to get to the Castle—and listened solemnly as they expressed their confidence in the benefits and wonders that his reign would bring forth.
And also there were the coronation festivities to plan, the games and feasts and such. All that had been given over to Mandrykarn and Venta and Count Iram, but they kept running in constantly to consult him about this matter or that, unwilling so early in the new regime to risk employing their own judgment.
And so on, and so on. Would it be like this all the time, or was this simply the combined effect of the old Coronal’s having been away from the Castle for so many months, and the new one needing to perform all manner of new Coronal tasks?
But at last on the fifth day there came a few open hours; and it occurred to Korsibar that this might be a good opportunity to investigate the throne. To try it out for size, so to speak.
He went alone. He knew the way well; he had been present at the building of this place as a boy, had looked on day by day as it took form. A clutter of little rooms that went back to early times at the Castle led up to it, a robing-room of Lord Vildivar’s time, a judgment-hall that was said to go back to Lord Haspar. Lord Confalume had planned eventually to replace them with chambers that were more fitting accompaniment for the throne room beyond. Perhaps I will do that, Korsibar thought. The Coronal always does some reconstruction hereabouts.
Down a shadowy stone-arched passageway, turn left, across a chapel of some sort, turn right, and there it was: the great gold-sheathed ceiling beams, the glowing floor of yellow gurna-wood, the inlaid gems, the tapestries. Everything was shining with an inner light, even in the near-darkness of the vast empty room. And there, against the far wall, rose the Confalume Throne in solitary grandeur, that giant block of ruby-streaked black opal atop the stepped pedestal of dark mahogany. Korsibar stood a time in wonder before it, letting his hand rest lightly on one of the silver pillars that upheld the golden canopy above it. Then he took a step, and another, and another. His legs were quivering a little from his knees to his ankles.
Up.
Turn. Face the hall.
Sit.
That was all it took. Climb up, sit down. He placed his arms on the two satin-smooth rests and looked across the way, through the dimness, toward the tapestry of Lord Stiamot accepting the submission of the Metamorphs that hung on the opposite wall.
“Stiamot!” he said. His voice carried easily, echoing in the empty hail. “Dizimaule! Kryphon!” Coronals, ancient ones, great ones.
Then, saying it slowly, enjoying the majestic sound the rolling syllables of his father’s name made as they came from his tongue, “Confalume. Con-fa-lume.” And then, loudly, resonantly: “Korsibar! Lord Korsibar, Coronal of Majipoor.”
“Long live Lord Korsibar!” came an answering voice out of the shadows somewhere to his left, astonishing him so much he nearly bolted from the throne.
Korsibar’s face flamed scarlet in embarrassment at being overheard in his puerile self-congratulation. He squinted and stared.
“Who—Thismet? Is that you?”
“I saw you go in, and I followed after you.” She stepped out into plainer view. “Taking the measure of it, are you? How does it feel, sitting there?”
“Strange. Very strange. But quite acceptable.”
“Yes. I would imagine so. Get up and let me try it.”
“You know I can’t do that. The throne—this is a consecrated seat, Thismet!”
“Yes. Of course it is. Sit up straighter, Korsibar. You’ve got your right shoulder lower than your left. That’s better. You’re the king now. You have to sit straight. A decent show of majesty, that’s what’s necessary. —Do you know, I dreamed one night while we were still at the Labyrinth that I came sleepwalking into the throne room and found you sitting just like this, all by yourself in the darkness?”
“Did you, now?” Korsibar said, making no great show of interest. She was always dreaming things, Thismet was.
“Yes. Only it was so dark that I didn’t recognize you at first. I stood right here, where I am now. And there was a second throne identical to this one, a twin throne, Korsibar, behind me against the far wall where the Stiamot tapestry is now. I made the starburst sign to you; and you pointed across the room to the other throne and said that that was my seat over there and asked me why I didn’t go to it. So I sat down on it and a great light began to shine down from the ceiling, and then finally I could see that it was you on this throne, wearing the Coronal’s crown. And that was when I first understood that you were going to be Coronal.”
“A very prophetic dream.”
“Yes. And a second throne, Korsibar, one for me! Wasn’t that an interesting feature?”
“Dreams, yes, they show us all sorts of unusual things,” he said in an offhanded way. He stroked the armrests again. “This was something that I never dreamed of, sister. I wouldn’t have dared to! But how good it feels to be sitting here. Coronal! The Coronal Lord Korsibar! Imagine it!”
“Let me try it, Korsibar.”
“It isn’t possible. It would be blasphemous.”
“There was a second throne in my dream, and you told me to sit on that.”
“In your dream, yes,” Korsibar said.
2
SVOR SAID, fingering the elaborately embellished invitation that Count Iram had brought, “Then you really mean to go, Prestimion? You’ll actually do this thing?”
“There’s no other path I can take,” said Prestimion. They were gathered, the four of them, in Prestimion’s shooting-range on the stable side of Muldemar House, where he had been at targets since the departure of Korsibar’s envoy two hours before.
Septach Melayn said to Svor, “The Coronal of Majipoor invites the Prince of Muldemar to attend the festivities at the Castle. Forget which Coronal, forget which prince. To refuse such an invitation would be unpardonable at any time. But to refuse it now would be virtually an act of war.”
“And are we not already at war?” asked Gialaurys. “Were we not driven away from the Castle by armed men when we sought peacefully to enter it?”
Prestimion said, “That was before Korsibar had possession. He was unsure of himself then, and of our intentions. Now he’s firmly in control. He invites the princes of the Mount to attend him. I have to go.”
“And bend the knee before him?” Gialaurys cried. “What a humiliation, princ
“It’s humiliating, yes. But no more so than having to slink away from the Labyrinth by ourselves, when all the rest accompanied the new Coronal on his glorious journey up the Glayge.” Prestimion, smiling bleakly, ran one finger two or three times along the string of his bow. “The throne has gone to Korsibar. That is the true humiliation. All else dangles down from that as amulets dangle from a chain.”
Svor said, “As you surely know, I have some little skill at geomancy, Prestimion. I’ve drawn the runes for this adventure you propose. Would you hear my findings?”
“Hear, yes. Give credence to, probably not.”
Svor smiled patiently. “As you choose. The chart,” he said, “shows that we would be putting ourselves into peril by going to the Castle at this time.”
“Putting ourselves into peril!” cried Septach Melayn with a great burst of high-pitched laughter. “Four men riding into a castle held by a whole army of our enemies, and you need to draw charts to tell us that the trip’s dangerous? Ah, Svor, Svor, what a keen-eyed seer you are! But it’s a peril I think can be faced.”
“And if he takes hold of us straightaway, and strikes off our heads?” Svor asked.
“Such things are not done,” said Prestimion. “But even if they were, Korsibar is not of that sort. Is that what your chart foretells for us, that we lose our heads?”
“Not explicitly. Only great peril.”
“We know already that that’s so,” Prestimion said. “Be that as it may: I must go, Svor. Septach Melayn has said he’ll accompany me; and I hope you and Gialaurys will also, despite the gloomy forecasts of your charts. This trip to the Castle may yet prove a death-trap for us, but I think not. And to ignore the invitation is open defiance. The time’s not yet come for such a breach with Korsibar.”
Gialaurys said, “Oh, defy him, Prestimion, defy him outright, and let there be an end to this pussy-footing! The Procurator promises you troops. Let us get ourselves out of here, and form a battle line somewhere out in a safe part of Alhanroel, in the plains beyond the Trikkala Mountains or even farther, along the Alaisor coast if that’s the best place, and have Dantirya Sambail send us his army there, and we’ll march on the Castle and take it, and that will be that.”
Prestimion said, laughing, “As simply as that? No, Gialaurys. I don’t want to bring war into the world unless there’s no other way. This new government has no legitimacy: it’ll fall of its own failings. Give Korsibar enough rope, I say, and let him tie the noose around his throat himself. I’ve waited this long for the throne; I can wait a little while longer, rather than plunging us all into a war that will surely harm winners nearly as much as losers.”
“If you are bound on this course,” Svor said, his eyes suddenly brightening, “then I have a suggestion.”
“Let me hear it, then.”
“Korsibar took the crown in the Court of Thrones by having his wizard Sanibak-Thastimoon cast a spell that clouded minds, and when all was clear again, the crown had passed to him and there was no gainsaying it. Septach Melayn was there: his mind was one of those clouded. Very well. What is gained by sorcery can be lost by sorcery. I have a spell taught me by one who knows such things, will reduce Korsibar to a babbling idiot. We go to him at the Castle; stand before him as he sits upon the throne; I say the words and make the movements, and all his capacity is lost, such as it is. When they perceive what has happened—”
“No,” said Prestimion.
“There’ll be no option but to make you king in his stead.”
“No, Svor. No. Even if I believed that such a spell would do the task, do I want it to be said, a thousand years after, that one thief stole the crown from another? If the throne’s to be mine, it’ll come to me the way it came to Confalume and Prankipin and all those who went before them. Not by witchery, not by fraud.”
“Prince, I beg you—”
“A third time, no. And no again.” Prestimion lifted his bow, put an arrow in place, and sent it straight to the heart of the target. And another, and a third after that to split the shaft. Then he said, “I pray you, friends, make yourselves ready now for the trip to the Castle, if you plan to come with me. And if you will not go, well, that should not be cause for woe between us. But one way or the other, I must leave you now: I have word that my mother would speak with me before I go.”
The Princess Therissa was in her reading-gallery on the third floor of the great house, a little library apart from the formal one downstairs. This was a quiet nook lined on all walls with shelves of dark wood crowded with her favorite books, and furnished with banquettes covered in soft red leather where she was fond of spending long hours during the season of mists, reading by herself or to any of her children who happened to be with her. It was a place much beloved by Prestimion himself.
But when he entered it now his eye took in two immediate strangenesses.
For one, there were some big leatherbound books with iron clasps stacked on the old table in the middle of the room, books that he had not seen in here before but which looked very much like those texts of sorcery and incantation that he had seen so copiously strewn about beside the deathbed of the Pontifex Prankipin. That was a dark sign, that his mother should have given herself over so thoroughly to these writings. For another, the Princess Therissa was not alone. The lank and stoop-shouldered figure of a haggard old white-haired man stood beside her. It was this man who had been pointed out to Prestimion soon after his arrival: Galbifond, his mother’s newly hired diviner, he who had been taken on to give advice on the likelihood of rainfall in the vineyard and the proper time for gathering the harvest.
Prestimion now remembered him from time past. He was a one-time field hand who had left their employ a few years back and gone off to Stee or Vilimong or some such place. Where he had learned the craft of magery, Prestimion supposed; all very fine, if that was what he desired for himself—but what was he doing here, in his mother’s little reading-gallery, for this private meeting between mother and son?
The Princess Therissa said, as he came in, “Prestimion, this is Galbifond. I told you of him: our magus, who is so helpful to us these days.”
“I recall him from olden times. He was a picker of grapes then, I think.”
Galbifond bowed gravely. “The prince’s recollection is extremely acute. That is indeed what I was.”
“And now moved up somewhat higher in the world. Well, good for you: a man should strive to improve his place.” Prestimion glanced toward his mother. “I see you’re even more deeply given to sorcerous matters than I supposed. These great books here are full of spells, are they? The late Pontifex collected such texts also. They lay all around him in his final bedroom.”
The princess said, “You would find them instructive reading, Prestimion, if only you took the trouble to look into them. But we can discuss that another time. Tell me: you are determined to go to the Castle, is that correct?”
“Yes, Mother, I am determined.”
“Do you see no risk in it?”
“There’s risk in sauntering down a pretty garden path beneath a sambon-tree that’s laden with ripe cones ready to drop. But that doesn’t make us go helmeted through the garden. Svor opposes going to the Castle on the grounds that we’ll be walking into a trap, and Svor’s often right about such things, but nevertheless I mean to overrule him here. I do mean to go, Mother. It seems the politic thing to do, to be cordial to Korsibar and not snap my fingers in his face. Do you disagree? Does this wizard of yours have further discouragement for me?”
“See for yourself, and interpret it as you will,” said the Princess Therissa.
She nodded to the magus, who produced a broad plain white bowl and poured into it a pale fluid, a watery sort of stuff with a faint pink sheen. He put his hands to the rim of the bowl and said five short words in a language unknown to Prestimion, and then Prestimion’s own name, inflected in an archaic grammatical mode that made it sound unfamiliar even to Prestimion; and then he sprinkled a handful of
“If you would look into it, excellence,” said the magus Galbifond.
Prestimion stared down into the smooth impenetrable surface. There was a stirring in it, and then a clearing; and suddenly he had a view, as though in a painting hanging on a wall, of a narrow valley, a sizable lake at its center, and armies running to and fro along its shores in great confusion, with the figures of dead and dying men lying scattered all about like so much litter. Everything was in wild disorder; it was impossible for him to make out details, to tell who was fighting against whom, or where the scene was taking place. But it was plainly a scene of terrible slaughter and murderous chaos.
Then the battlefield image faded and there appeared on the smooth surface of the fluid in the bowl aview of a bleak and forbidding gray landscape, empty, gritty, and drab, with distant hills standing far apart from one another, like isolated jagged teeth rising against the pale sky. That was all, gray against gray. There were no figures in view, no structures, only that awful desolate tract, delineated with marvelous sharpness of detail.
“Quite an impressive trick,” Prestimion said. “How do you do it?”
“Look closer, excellence. If you would.”
The focus had refined itself to dwell on a narrower segment of the same scene. The hills on the horizon were smaller now, farther away. He saw a sharper depiction of that barren land: reddish soil, a scattering of eroded wedge-shaped boulders like the skeletal remnants of a ruined city, a single lone tree with bare twisted limbs jutting away from the trunk in lunatic angles, as though they had been stuck on at random. A szambra-tree, it was. Trees of that sort, Prestimion knew, grew mainly in the Valmambra Desert of the north, a place where rain scarcely ever fell.
He looked closer yet, and saw a tiny figure trudging across that wasteland toward that single tree: a man nearly spent with fatigue, from the looks of him, one who was forcing himself onward in utter exhaustion, with a supreme effort. His face was not visible; but from the rear he seemed square-shouldered and sturdy, built somewhat low to the ground. His hair was golden and cut short. He wore a ragged jerkin and bedraggled leather leggings, and carried a pack on his back and a bow slung beside it.