Lord Valentine's Castle m-1 Read online

  But what was this? Workmen by the thousands, dismantling the enormous edifice! The work of demolition was well under way, and all the outer wings were taken apart, the place of buttresses and arches that Lord Voriax had built, and the grand trophy-room of Lord Malibor, and the great library that Tyeveras had added in his days as Coronal, and much else, all those rooms now mere piles of bricks laid in neat mounds on the slopes of the Mount, and they were working inward toward more ancient wings, to the garden-house of Lord Confalume and the armory of Lord Dekkeret and the archive-vault of Lord Prestimion, removing those places brick by brick by brick like locusts sweeping over the fields at harvest-time. "Wait!" Valentine cried. "No need to do this! I am back, I will take up my robes and crown once again!" But the work of destruction continued, and it was as if the castle were made of sand and the tides were sweeping in, and a gentle voice said, "Too late, too late, much too late," and the watchtower of Lord Arioc was gone and the parapets of Lord Thimin were gone and the observatory of Lord Kinniken was gone with all its star-watching apparatus, and Castle Mount itself was shuddering and swaying as the removal of the castle disrupted its equilibrium, and workmen now were running frantically with bricks in their hands, seeking flat places on which to stack them, and a dread eternal night had come and baleful stars swelled and writhed in the sky, and the machineries that held back the chill of space atop Castle Mount were failing, so that the warm mild air was flowing moonward, and there was sobbing in the depths of the planet and Valentine stood amid the scenes of disruption and gathering chaos, holding forth outstretched fingers to the darkness.

  The next thing he knew, morning light was in his eyes, and he blinked and sat up, confused, wondering what inn this was and what he had been doing the night before, for he lay naked on a thick woolly rug in a warm strange room, and there was an old woman moving about, brewing tea, perhaps—

  Yes. The dream-speaker Tisana, and this was Falkynkip, in the Street of Watermongers—

  His nakedness discomforted him. He rose and dressed quickly.

  Tisana said, "Drink this. I’ll put some breakfast up, now that you’re finally awake."

  He looked dubiously at the mug she handed him.

  "Tea," she said. "Nothing but tea. The time for dreaming is long past."

  Valentine sipped at it while she bustled around the small kitchen. There was a numbness in his spirit, as though he had caroused himself into insensibility and now had a reckoning to pay; and he knew there had been strange dreams, a whole night of them, but yet he felt none of the malaise of the soul that he had known upon awakening these past few mornings, only that numbness, a curious centered calmness, almost an emptiness. Was that the purpose of visiting a dream-speaker? He understood so little. He was like a child loose in this vast and complex world.

  They ate in silence. Tisana seemed to be studying Valentine intently across the table. Last night she had chattered much before the drug had had its effect, but now she seemed subdued, reflective, almost withdrawn, as if she needed to be apart from him while preparing to speak his dream.

  At length she cleared the dishes and said, "How do you feel?"

  "Quiet within."

  "Good. Good. That’s important. To go away from a dream-speaker in turmoil is a waste of money. I had no doubts, though. Your spirit is strong."

  "Is it?"

  "Stronger than you know. Reverses that would crush an ordinary person leave you untouched. You shrug off disaster and whistle in the face of danger."

  "You speak very generally," Valentine said.

  "I am an oracle, and oracles are never terribly specific," she replied lightly.

  "Are my dreams sendings? Will you tell me that, at least?"

  She was thoughtful a moment. "I am uncertain."

  "But you shared them! Aren’t you able to know at once if a dream comes from the Lady or the King?"

  "Peace, peace, this is not so simple," she said, waving a palm at him. "Your dreams are not sendings of the Lady, this I know."

  "Then if they are sendings, they are of the King."

  "Here is the uncertainty. They have an aura of the King about them in some way, yes, but not the aura of sendings. I know you find that hard to fathom: so do I. I do believe the King of Dreams watches your doings and is concerned with you, but it doesn’t seem to me that he’s been entering your sleep. It confounds me."

  "Has anything like this been known to you before?"

  The dream-speaker shook her head. "Not at all."

  "Is this my speaking, then? Only more mysteries and unanswered questions?"

  "You haven’t had the speaking yet," Tisana answered.

  "Forgive my impatience."

  "No forgiveness is needed. Come, give me your hands, and I’ll make a speaking for you." She reached for him across the table, and grasped and held him, and after a long while said, "You have fallen from a high place, and now you must begin to climb back to it."

  He grinned. "A high place?"

  "The highest."

  "The highest place on Majipoor," he said lightly, "is the summit of Castle Mount. Is that where you would have me climb?"

  "There, yes."

  "A very steep ascent you lay upon me. I could spend my entire life reaching and climbing that place."

  "Nevertheless, Lord Valentine, that ascent awaits you, and it is not I who lays it on you."

  He gasped at her use of the royal title to him, and then burst out laughing at the grossness of it, the tastelessness of her joke. "Lord Valentine! Lord Valentine? No, you do me far too much honor, Madame Tlsana. Not Lord Valentine. Only Valentine, Valentine the juggler, is all, the newest of the troupe of Zalzan Kavol the Skandar."

  Her gaze rested steadily on him. Quietly she said, "I beg your pardon. I meant no offense."

  "How could it offend me? But put no royal titles on me, please. A juggler’s life is royal enough for me, even if my dreams may sometimes be high-flown ones."

  Her eyes did not waver. "Will you have more tea?" she asked.

  "I promised the Skandar I’d be ready for departure early in the morning, and so I must leave soon. What else does the speaking hold for me?"

  "The speaking is over," said Tisana.

  Valentine had not expected that. He was awaiting interpretations, analysis, exegesis, counsel. And all he had had from her—

  "I have fallen and I must climb back on high. That’s all you tell me for a royal?"

  "Fees for everything grow larger nowadays," she said without rancor. "Do you feel cheated?"

  "Not at all. This has been valuable for me, in its fashion."

  "Politely said, but false. Nevertheless you have received value here. Time will make that clear to you." She got to her feet, and Valentine rose with her. There was about her an aura of confidence and strength. "I wish you a good journey," she said, "and a safe ascent."

  —13—

  AUTIFON DELIAMBER WAS the first to greet him when he returned from the dream-speaking. In the quiet of dawn the little Vroon was practicing a sort of juggling near the wagon, with shards of some glittering icy-bright crystalline substance: but this was wizard-juggling, for Deliamber only pretended to throw and catch, and appeared actually to be moving the shards by power of mind alone. He stood beneath the brilliant cascade and the shimmering slivers coursed through the air in a circle above him like a wreath of bright light, remaining aloft although Deliamber never touched them.

  As Valentine approached, the Vroon gave a twitch of his tentacle-tips and the glassy shards fell instantly inward to form a close-packed bundle that Deliamber snatched deftly from the air. He held them forth to Valentine. "Pieces of a temple building from the Ghayrog city of Dulorn, that lies a few days’ journey east of here. A place of magical beauty, it is. Have you been there?"

  The enigmas of the dream-speaking night still lay heavy on Valentine, and he had no taste for Deliamber’s flamboyant spirit this early in the morning. Shrugging, he said, "I don’t remember."

  "You’d remember, if
you had. A city of light, a city of frozen poetry!" The Vroon’s beak clacked: a Vroonish sort of smile. "Or perhaps you wouldn’t remember. I suppose not: so much is lost to you. But you’ll be there again soon enough."

  "Again? I never was there."

  "If you were there once, you’ll be there again when we get there. If not, not. However it may be for you, Dulorn is our next stop, so says our beloved Skandar." Deliamber’s mischievous eyes probed Valentine’s. "I see you learned a great deal at Tisana’s."

  "Let me be, Deliamber."

  "She’s a marvel, isn’t she?"

  Valentine attempted to go past. "I learned nothing there," he said tightly. "I wasted an evening."

  "Oh, no, no, no! Time is never wasted. Give me your hand, Valentine." The Vroon’s dry, rubbery tentacle slipped around Valentine’s reluctant fingers. Solemnly Deliamber said, "Know this, and know it well: time is never wasted. Wherever we go, whatever we do, everything is an aspect of education. Even when we don’t immediately grasp the lesson."

  "Tisana told me approximately the same thing as I was leaving," Valentine murmured sullenly. "I think you two are in conspiracy. But what did I learn? I dreamed again of Coronals and Pontifexes. I climbed up and down mountain trails. The dream-speaker made a silly, tiresome joke on my name. I rid myself of a royal better spent on wine and feasting. No, I achieved nothing." He attempted to withdraw his hand from Deliamber’s grip, but the Vroon held him with unexpected strength. Valentine felt an odd sensation, as of a chord of somber music rolling through his mind, and somewhere beneath the surface of his consciousness an image glimmered and flashed, like some sea-dragon stirring and sounding in the depths, but he was unable to perceive it clearly: the core of the meaning eluded him. Just as well. He feared to know what was stirring down there. An obscure and incomprehensible anguish flooded his soul. For an instant it seemed to him that the dragon in the depths of his being was rising, was swimming upward through the murk of his clouded memory toward the levels of awareness. That frightened him. Knowledge, terrifying and menacing knowledge, was hidden within him, and now was threatening to break loose. He resisted. He fought. He saw little Deliamber staring at him with terrible intensity, as if trying to lend him the strength he needed to accept that dark knowledge, but Valentine would not have it. He pulled his hand free with sudden violent force and went lurching and stumbling toward the Skandar wagon. His heart was pounding fiercely, his temples throbbed, he felt weak and dizzy. After a few uncertain steps he turned and said angrily, "What did you do to me?"

  "I merely touched my hand to yours."

  "And gave me great pain!"

  "I may have given you access to your own pain," said Deliamber quietly. "Nothing more than that. The pain is carried within you. You have been unable to feel it. But it’s struggling to awaken within you, Valentine. There’s no preventing it."

  "I mean to prevent it."

  "You have no choice but to heed the voices from within. The struggle has already begun."

  Valentine shook his aching head. "I want no pain and no struggles. I’ve been a happy man, this last week."

  "Are you happy when you dream?"

  "These dreams will pass from me soon. They must be sendings intended for someone else."

  "Do you believe that, Valentine?"

  Valentine was silent. After a moment he said, "I want only to be allowed to be what I want to be."

  "And that is?"

  "A wandering juggler. A free man. Why do you torment me this way, Deliamber?"

  "I would gladly have you be a juggler," the Vroon said gently. "I mean you no sorrow. But what one wants often has little connection with what may be marked out for one on the great scroll."

  "I will be a master juggler," said Valentine, "and nothing more than that, and nothing less."

  "I wish you well," Deliamber said courteously, and walked away.

  Slowly Valentine let his breath escape. His entire body was tense and stiff, and he squatted and put his head down, stretching out first his arms and then his legs, trying to rid himself of these strange knots that had begun to invade him. Gradually he relaxed a little, but some residue of uneasiness remained, and the tension would not leave him. These tortured dreams, these squirming dragons in his soul, these portents and omens—

  Carabella emerged from the wagon and stood above him as he stretched and twisted. "Let me help," she said, crouching down beside him. She pushed him forward until he lay sprawled flat, and her powerful fingers dug into the taut muscles of his neck and back. Under her ministrations he grew somewhat less tense, yet his mood remained dark and troubled.

  "The speaking didn’t help you?" she asked softly.

  "No."

  "Can you talk about it?"

  "I’d rather not," he said.

  "Whatever you prefer." But she waited expectantly, her eyes alert, shining with warmth and compassion.

  He said, "I barely understood the things the woman was telling me. And what I understood I can’t accept. But I don’t want to talk about it."

  "Whenever you do, Valentine, I’m here. Whenever you feel the need to tell someone—"

  "Not right now. Perhaps never." He sensed her reaching toward him, eager to heal the pain in his soul as she had grappled with the tensions in his body. He could feel the love flooding from her to him. Valentine hesitated. He did battle within himself. Haltingly he said, "The things the speaker told me—"

  "Yes."

  No. To talk of these things was to give them reality, and they had no reality, they were absurdities, they were fantasies, they were foolish vapors.

  " — were nonsense," Valentine said. "What she said isn’t worth discussing."

  Carabella’s eyes reproached him. He looked away from her.

  "Can you accept that?" he asked roughly. "She was a crazy old woman and she told me a lot of nonsense, and I don’t want to discuss it, not with you, not with anyone. It was my speaking. I don’t have to share it. I—" He saw the shock on her face. In another moment he would be babbling. He said in an entirely different tone of voice, "Get the juggling balls, Carabella."

  "Now?"

  "Right now."

  "But—"

  "I want you to teach me the exchange between jugglers, the passing of the balls. Please."

  "We’re due to leave in half an hour!"

  "Please," he said urgently.

  She nodded and sprinted up the steps of the wagon, returning a moment later with the balls. They moved apart, to an open place where they would have room, and Carabella flipped three of the balls to him. She was frowning.

  "What’s wrong?" he asked.

  "Learning new techniques when the mind is troubled is never a good idea."

  "It might calm me," he said. "Let’s try."

  "As you wish." She began to juggle the three balls she held, by way of warming up. Valentine imitated her, but his hands were cold, his fingers unresponsive, and he had trouble doing this simplest of all routines, dropping the balls several times. Carabella said nothing. She continued to juggle while he launched one abortive cascade after another. His temper grew edgy. She would not tell him again that this was the wrong moment for attempting such things, but her silence, her look, even her stance, all said it more forcefully than words. Valentine desperately sought to strike a rhythm. You have fallen from a high place, he heard the dream-speaker saying, and now you must begin to climb back to it. He bit his lip. How could he concentrate, with such things intruding? Hand and eye, he thought, hand and eye, forget all else. Hand and eye. Nevertheless, Lord Valentine, that ascent awaits you, and it is not I who lays it on you. No. No. No. No. His hands shook. His fingers were rods of ice. He made a false move and the balls went scattering.

  "Please, Valentine," Carabella said mildly.

  "Get the clubs."

  "It’ll be even worse with them. Do you want to break a finger?"

  "The clubs," he said.

  Shrugging, she gathered up the balls and went into the wagon. Sleet emerged
, yawned, nodded a casual greeting to Valentine. The morning was beginning. One of the Skandars appeared and crawled under the wagon to adjust something. Carabella came out bearing six clubs. Behind her was Shanamir, who gave Valentine a quick salute and went to feed the mounts. Valentine took the clubs. Conscious of Sleet’s cool eyes on him, he put himself into the juggling position, threw one club high, and botched the catch. No one spoke. Valentine tried again. He managed to get the three clubs into sequence, but for no more than thirty seconds; then they spilled, one landing unpleasantly on his toe. Valentine caught sight of Autifon Deliamber watching the scene from a distance. He picked up the clubs again. Carabella, facing him, patiently juggled her three, studiously ignoring him. Valentine threw the clubs, got them started, dropped one, started again, dropped two, started yet again, made a faulty grab and bent his left thumb badly out of place.

  He tried to pretend that nothing had gone wrong. Once more he picked up the clubs, but this time Sleet came over and took Valentine lightly by both wrists.

  "Not now," he said. "Give me the clubs."

  "I want to practice."

  "Juggling isn’t therapy. You’re upset about something, and it’s ruining your timing. If you keep this up you can do damage to your rhythms that will take you weeks to undo."