Robert Silverberg - Majipoor - 07 - The King of Dreams

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The Majipoor Cycle
Book #07
The King of Dreams
by Robert Silverberg
And Lord Stiamot wept when he heard them singing the ballad of
his great victory at Weygan Head, because the Stiamot of which
they sang was not the Stiamot he knew. He was not himself any
more. He had been emptied into legend. He had been a man, and
now he was a fable.
-- AITHIN FURVAIN
The Book of Changes
ONE:
THE BOOK
OF WAITING
1
'That has to be what we're looking for,' said the Skandar, Sudvik Gorn,
standing
at the edge of the cliff and pointing down the steep hillside with harsh
jabbing
motions of his lower left arm. They had reached the crest of the ridge.
The
underlying rock had crumbled badly here, so that the trail they had
been
following terminated in a rough patch covered with sharp greenish gravel,
and
just beyond lay a sudden drop into a thickly vegetated valley. 'Vorthinar
Keep,
right there below us! What else could that building be, if not the rebel's
keep?
And easy enough for us to set it ablaze, this time of year.'
'Let me see,' young Thastain said. 'My eyes are better than yours.' Eagerly
he
reached for the spyglass that Sudvik Gorn held in his other lower arm.
It was a mistake. Sudvik Gorn enjoyed baiting the boy, and Thastain had
given
him yet another chance. The huge Skandar, better than two feet taller than
he
was, yanked the glass away, shifting it to an upper arm and waving it
with
ponderous playfulness high above Thastain's head. He grinned a
malicious
snaggletoothed grin. 'Jump for it, why don't you?'
Thastain felt his face growing hot with rage. 'Damn you! Just let me have
the
thing, you moronic four-armed bastard!'
'What was that? Bastard, am I? Bastard? Say it again?' The Skandar's shaggy
face
turned dark. He brandished the spyglass now as though the tube were a
weapon,
swinging it threateningly from side to side. 'Yes. Say it again, and then
I'll
knock you from here to Ni-moya.'
Thastain glared at him. 'Bastard! Bastard! Go ahead and knock me, if you
can.'
He was sixteen, a slender, fair-skinned boy who was swift enough afoot
to
outrace a bilantoon. This was his first important mission in the service of
the
Five Lords of Zimroel, and the Skandar had selected him, somehow, as his
special
enemy. Sudvik Corn's constant maddening ridicule was driving him to fury.
For
the past three days, almost from the beginning of their journey from the
domain
of the Five Lords, many miles to the southeast, up here into the
rebel-held
territory, Thastain had held it in, but now he could contain it no longer.
'You
have to catch me first, though, and I can run circles around you, and you
know
it. Eh, Sudvik Gorn, you great heap of flea-bitten fur!'
The Skandar growled and came rumbling forward. But instead of fleeing,
Thastain
leaped agilely back just a few yards and, whirling quickly, scooped up a
fat
handful of jagged pebbles. He drew back his arm as though he meant to hurl
them
in Sudvik Corn's face. Thastain gripped the stones so tightly that their
sharp
edges bit into the palm of his hand. You could blind a man with stones
like
that, he thought.
Sudvik Gom evidently thought so too. He halted in mid-stride, looking
baffled
and angry, and the two stood facing each other. It was a stalemate.
'Come on,' Thastain said beckoning to the Skandar and offering him a
mocking
look. 'One more step. Just one more.' He swung his arm in experimental
underhand
circles, gathering momentum for the throw.
The Skandar's red-tinged eyes flamed with ire. From his vast chest came a
low
throbbing sound like that of a volcano readying itself for eruption. His
four
mighty arms quivered with barely contained menace. But he did not advance.
By this time the other members of the scouting party had noticed what
was
happening. Out of the corner of his eye Thastain saw them coming together to
his
right and left, forming a loose circle along the ridge, watching,
chuckling.
None of them liked the Skandar, but Thastain doubted that many of the men
cared
for him very much either. He was too young, too raw, too green, too pretty.
In
all probability they thought that he needed to be knocked around a
little
- roughed up by life as they had been before him.
'Well, boy?' It was the hard-edged voice of Gambrund, the round-cheeked
Piliplok
man with the bright purple scar that cut a vivid track across the whole
left
side of his face. Some said that Count Mandralisca had done that to him
for
spoiling his aim during a gihorna hunt, others that it had been the
Lord
Gavinius in a drunken moment, as diough the Lord Gavinius ever had any
other
kind. 'Don't just stand there! Throw them! Throw them in his hairy face!'
'Right, throw them,' someone else called. 'Show the big ape a thing or two!
Put
his filthy eyes out!'
This was very stupid, Thastain thought. If he threw the stones he had better
be
sure to blind Sudvik Gorn with them on the first cast, or else the Skandar
very
likely would kill him. But if he blinded Sudvik Gorn the Count would punish
him
severely for it - quite possibly would have him blinded himself. And if
he
simply tossed the stones away he'd have to run for it, and run very well, for
if
Sudvik Gorn caught him he would hammer him with those great fists of his
until
he was smashed to pulp; but if he fled then everyone would call him a coward
for
fleeing. It was impossible any way whichever. How had he contrived to
get
himself into this? And how was he going to get himself out?
He wished most profoundly that someone would rescue him. Which was what
happened
a moment later.
'All right, stop it, you two,' said a new voice from a few feet behind
Thastain.
Criscanto Vaz, it was. He was a wiry, broad-shouldered gray -bearded man, a
Ni
-moyan: the oldest of the group, a year or two past forty. He was one of the
few
here who had taken a liking of sorts to Thastain. It was Criscanto Vaz who
had
chosen him to be a member of this party, back at Horvenar on the Zimr,
where
this expedition had begun. He stepped forward now, placing himself
between
Thastain and the Skandar. There was a sour look on his face, as of one who
wades
in a pool of filth. He gestured brusquely to Thastain. 'Drop diose stones,
boy.'
Instantly Thastain opened his fist and let them fall. 'The Count
Mandralisca
would have you both nailed to a tree and Hayed if he could see what's going
on.
You're wasting precious time. Have you forgotten that we're here to do a
job,
you idiots?'
'I simply asked him for the spyglass,' said Thastain sullenly. 'How does
that
make me an idiot?'
'Give it to him,' Criscanto Vaz told Sudvik Gom. 'These games are
foolishness,
and dangerous foolishness at that. Don't you think the Vorthinar lord
has
sentries aplenty roving these hills? We stand at risk up here, every
single
moment.'
Grimacing, the gigantic Skandar handed the glass over. He glowered at
Thastain
in a way that unmistakably said that he meant to finish this some other time.
Thastain tried to pay no attention to that. Turning his back on Sudvik Gorn,
he
went to the very rim of the precipice, dug his boots into the gravel, and
leaned
out as far as he dared go. He put the glass to his eye. The hillside before
him
and the valley below sprang out in sudden rich detail.
It was autumn here, a day of strong, sultry heat. The lengthy dry season
that
was the summer of this part of central Zimroel had not yet ended, and the
hill
was covered with a dense coat of tall tawny grass, a sort of grass that had
a
bright glassy sheen as though it were artificial, as if some master
craftsman
had fashioned it for the sake of decorating the slope. The long gleaming
blades
were heavy with seed-crests, so that the force of the warm south wind bent
them
easily, causing them to ripple like a river of bright gold, running down
and
down and down the slope.
The hillside, which descended rapidly in a series of swooping declines,
was
nearly featureless except where it was broken, here and there, by great
jagged
black boulders that rose out of it like dragons' teeth. Thastain could make
out
a sleek short-legged helgibor creeping purposefully through the grass a
hundred
yards below him, its furry green head lifted for the strike, its arching
fangs
already bared. A plump unsuspecting blue vrimmet, the helgibor's prey,
was
grazing serenely not far away. The vrimmet would be in big trouble in
another
moment or two. But of the castle of the rebellious lordling, Thastain was
able
to see nothing at all at first, despite the keenness of his vision and the
aid
that the spyglass provided.
Then he nudged the glass just a little to the west, and there the keep
was,
snugly nestling in a deep fold of the valley: a long low gray curving
thing,
like a dark scar against the tawny grassland. It seemed to him that
the
bottommost part of the structure was fashioned of stone, perhaps to the
height
of a man's thigh, but everything above that was of wood, rising to a
sloping
thatched roof.
'There's the keep, all right,' Thastain said, without relinquishing
the
spyglass.
Sudvik Gorn was right. In this dry season, it would be no great
challenge
whatever to set the place on fire. Three or four firebrands hurled from
above
and the roof would go up, and sparks would leap to the parched unmown grass
that
came right up to the foundations of the building, and the gnarled
oily-looking
shrubs nearby would catch. There would be a roaring holocaust all around.
Within
ten minutes the Vorthinar lord and all his men would be roasted alive.
'Do you see sentinels?' Criscanto Vaz asked.
'No. Nobody. Everybody must be inside. No - wait - yes, someone's there!'
A strange figure, very thin and unusually elongated, coming into view around
the
side of the building. The man paused a moment and looked upward - straight
at
Thastain, so it seemed. Thastain dropped hastily to his belly and signalled
with
a furious sweep of his left hand for the men behind him to move back from
the
ridge. Then he peered over the edge once more. Cautiously he extended the
glass.
The man was continuing on his path, now. Perhaps he hadn't noticed
anything
after all.
There was something exceedingly odd about the way he was moving. That
swinging
gait, that curious flexibility of movement. That strange face, like no
face
Thastain had ever seen before. The man looked weirdly loose-jointed,
somehow
rubbery, one might say. Almost as though he were - could it be -?
Thastain closed one eye and stared as intensely as he knew how with the other.
Yes. A chill ran down Thastain's spine. A Metamorph, it was. Definitely
a
Metamorph. That was a new sight for him. He had spent his whole short
lifetime
up here in northern Zimroel, where Metamorphs were rarely if ever
encountered
- were, indeed, practically legendary creatures.
He took a good look now. Thastain fined the focus of the glass and was able
to
make out plainly the greenish tint of the man's skin, the slitted lips,
the
prominent cheekbones, the tiny bump of a nose. And the longbow the creature
wore
slung across his back was surely one of Shapeshifter design, a flimsy,
highly
flexible-looking thing of light wickerwork, the kind of weapon most suitable
for
a being whose skeletonic structure was pliant enough to bend easily, to
undergo
almost any sort of vast transformation.
Unthinkable. It was like seeing a demon walking patrol before the keep. But
who,
even someone who was in rebellion against his own liege lords, would dare
ally
himself with the Metamorphs? It was against the law to have any traffic with
the
mysterious aboriginal folk. But, thought Thastain, it was more than illegal.
It
was monstrous.
'There's a Shapeshifter down there,' Thastain said in a rough whisper over
his
shoulder. 'I can see him walking right past the front of the house. So the
story
we heard must be true. The Vorthinar lord's in league with them!'
'You think he saw you?' said Griscanto Vaz.
'I doubt it.'
'All right. Get yourself back from the edge before he does.'
Thastain wriggled backward without rising and scrambled to his feet when he
was
far enough away from the brink. As he lifted his head he became aware of
Sudvik
Gorn's glowering gaze still fixed on him in cold hatred, but Sudvik Gom and
his
malevolence hardly mattered to him now. There was a task to be done.
2
Morning in the Castle. Bright golden-green sunlight entered the grand suite
atop
LordThraym's Tower that was the official residence of the Coronal and
his
consort. It came flooding in a brilliant stream into the splendid great
bedroom,
walled with great blocks of smooth warm-hued granite hung with fine
tapestries
of cloth of gold, where the Lady Varaile was awakening.
The Castle.
Everyone in the world knew which castle was meant, when you said 'The
Castle':
it could only be Lord Prestimion's Castle, as the people of Majipoor had
called
it these twenty years past. Before that it had been called Lord
Confalume's
Castle, and before that Lord Prankipin's, and so on and so on back into
the
vague mists of time - Lord Guadeloom's Castle, Lord Pinitor's Castle,
Lord
Kryphon's Castle, Lord Thraym's Castle, Lord Dizimaule's Castle, Coronal
after
Coronal across the endlessly flowing centuries of Majipoor's long history,
the
great ones and the mediocre ones and the ones whose names and achievements
had
become totally obscure, king after king all the way back to the
semi-mythical
builder himself, Lord Stiamot of seven hundred centuries before, each
monarch
giving his name to the building for the duration of his reign. But now it
was
the Castle of the Coronal Lord Prestimion and his wife, the Lady Varaile.
Reigns end. One of these days, almost certainly, this place would be
Lord
Dekkeret's Castle, Varaile knew.
But let that day not come soon, she prayed.
She loved the Castle. She had lived in that unfathomably complex array of
thirty
thousand rooms, perched here atop the astounding thirty-mile-high splendor
of
Castle Mount that jutted up like a colossal spike out of the immense curve
of
the planet, for half her life. It was her home. She had no desire to leave
it,
as leave it she knew she must on the day that Lord Prestimion ascended to
the
title of Pontifex and Dekkeret replaced him as Coronal.
This morning, with Prestimion off somewhere in one of the downslope
cities
dedicating a dam or presiding over the installation of a new duke or
performing
one of the myriad other functions that were required of a Coronal - she
was
unable to remember what the pretext for this journey had been - the Lady
Varaile
awoke alone in the great bed of the royal suite, as she did all too
often
nowadays. She could not follow the Coronal about the world on his
unending
peregrinations. His boiling restlessness kept him always on the move.
He would have had her accompany him on his trips, if she could; but that,
as
both of them realized, was usually impossible. Long ago, when they were
newly
wed, she had gone everywhere at Prestimion's side, but then had come
the
children and her own heavy royal responsibilities besides, the ceremonies
and
social functions and public audiences, to keep her close to the Castle. It
was
rare now for the Coronal and his lady to travel together.
However necessary these separations were, Varaile had never reconciled
herself
to their frequency. She loved Prestimion no less, after sixteen years as
his
wife, than she had at the beginning. Automatically, as the first dazzling
shafts
of daylight came through the great crystal window of the royal bedroom,
she
looked across to see that golden-green light strike the yellow hair
of
Prestimion on the pillow beside hers.
But she was alone in the bed. As always, it took her a moment to
comprehend
that, to remember that Prestimion had gone off, four or five days ago,
to
where? Bombifale, was it? Hoikmar? Deepenhow Vale? She had forgotten that
too.
Somewhere, one of the Slope Cities, perhaps, or perhaps someplace in
the
Guardian ring. There were fifty cities along the flanks of the Mount.
The
Coronal was in ever-constant motion; Varaile no longer bothered to keep track
of
his itinerary, only of the date of his longed-for return.
'Fiorinda?' she called.
The warm contralto reply from the next room was immediate: 'Coming, my lady!'
Varaile rose, stretched, saluted herself in the mirror on the far wall.
She
still slept naked, as though she were a girl; and, though she was past forty
now
and had borne the Coronal three sons and a daughter, she allowed herself the
one
petty vanity of taking pleasure in her ability to fend off the inroads of
aging.
No sorcerer's spells did she employ for that: Prestimion had once expressed
his
loathing for such subterfuges, and in any case Varaile felt they
were
unnecessary, at least so far. She was a tall woman, long-thighed and lithe,
and
though she was strongly built, with full breasts and some considerable
breadth
at the waist, she had not grown at all fleshy with age. Her skin was smooth
and
taut; her hair remained jet-black and lustrous.
'Did milady rest well?' Fiorinda asked, entering.
'As well as could be expected, considering that I was sleeping alone.'
Fiorinda grinned. She was the wife of Teotas, Prestimion's youngest brother,
and
each morning at dawn left her own marital bed so that she could be at
the
service of the Lady Varaile when Varaile awoke. But she seemed not to
begrudge
that, and Varaile was grateful for it. Fiorinda was like a sister to her, not
a
mere sister-in-law; and Varaile, who had had no sisters of her own nor
brothers
either, cherished their friendship.
They bathed together, as they did every morning in the great marble tub,
big
enough for six or eight people, that some past Coronal's wife had
found
desirable to install in the royal chamber. After-ward Fiorinda, a small,
trim
woman with radiant auburn hair and an irreverent smile, threw a simple
robe
about herself so that she could help Varaile with her own costuming for
the
morning. 'The pink sieronal, I think,' said Varaile, 'and the golden difina
from
Alaisor.' Fiorinda fetched the trousers for her and the delicately
embroidered
blouse, and, without needing to be asked, brought also the vivid yellow
sfifa
that Varaile liked to drape down her bosom with that ensemble, and the wide
red
and-tan belt of fine Makroposopos weave that was its companion. When Varaile
was
dressed Fiorinda resumed her own garments of the day, a turquoise vest and
soft
orange pantaloons.
'Is there news?' Varaile asked.
'Of the Coronal, milady?'
'Of anyone, anything!'
'Very little,' said Fiorinda. The pack of sea-dragons that were seen last
week
off the Stoien coast are moving northward, toward Treymone.'
'Very odd, sea-dragons in those waters at this time of year. An omen, do
you
think?'
'I must tell you I am no believer in omens, milady.'
'Nor I, really. Nor is Presdmion. But what are the things doing
there,
Fiorinda?'
'Ah, how can we ever understand the minds of the sea-dragons, lady? -
To
continue: a delegation from Sisivondal arrived at the Castle late last night,
to
present some gifts for the Coronal's museum.'
Varaile shuddered. 'I was in Sisivondal once, long ago. A ghastly place, and
I
have ghastly memories of it. It was where the first Prince Akbalik died of
the
poisoned swamp-crab bite he had had in the Stoienzar jungle. I'll let
someone
else deal with the Sisivondal folk and their gifts. - Do you remember
Prince
Akbalik, Fiorinda? What a splendid man he was, calm, wise, very dear
to
Prestimion. I think he would have been Coronal someday, if he had lived. It
was
in the time of the campaign against the Procurator that he died.'
'I was only a child then, milady.'
'Yes. Of course. How foolish of me.' She shook her head. Time was
flowing
fiercely past them all. Here was Fiorinda, a grown woman, nearly thirty
years
old; and how little she knew of the troublesome commencement of
Lord
Prestimion's reign, the rebellion of the Procurator Dantirya Sambail, and
the
plague of madness that had swept the world at the same time, and all the
rest.
Nor, of course, did she have any inkling of the tremendous civil war that
had
preceded those things, the struggle between Prestimion and the usurper
Korsibar.
No one knew of that tumultuous event except a chosen few members of
the
Coronal's inner circle. All memory of it had been eradicated from everyone
else
by Presdmion's master sorcerers, and just as well that it had. To
Fiorinda,
though, even the infamous Dantirya Sambail was simply someone out of the
story
books. He was a thing of fable to her, only.
As we all will be one day, thought Varaile with sudden gloom: mere things
of
fable.
摘要：

TheMajipoorCycleBook#07TheKingofDreamsbyRobertSilverbergAndLordStiamotweptwhenheheardthemsingingtheballadofhisgreatvictoryatWeyganHead,becausetheStiamotofwhichtheysangwasnottheStiamotheknew.Hewasnothimselfanymore.Hehadbeenemptiedintolegend.Hehadbeenaman,andnowhewasafable.--AITHINFURVAINTheBookofChan...

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