Lord Prestimion Read online

  Prestimion, for all Gialaurys’s grumbling, was not yet ready to abandon the quest for the Procurator. They began, now, all of them, to search purposefully for Dantirya Sambail in dreams. That was often a useful way to gain access to information that could not be had by other means.

  And indeed the method produced an immediate rich harvest of results. Too rich, in fact: for Abrigant, after commending himself to sleep and the mercy of his mother the Lady of the Isle, had a clear vision of the Procurator and his henchman encamped at a village of low, round, blue-tiled dwellings beside a swift stream, and awakened convinced that that place was no more than sixty miles north of their present position. But dreaming Gialaurys had seen the fugitives too, camped in that sweet meadowland to their rear where those flights of yellow-necked raptorial birds had passed overhead. The voice that spoke to Gialaurys in his dream told him quite explicitly that the expedition had gone unknowingly past its quarry in the night, weeks ago, and was already a thousand miles too far to the east. One of Prestimion’s captains, though, a man from the northwestern part of Alhanroel named Yeben Kattikawn, was just as positive that he had had a true vision of the Procurator moving rapidly ahead of them, traveling in a stolen floater; according to the dream of Yeben Kattikawn, Dantirya Sambail was almost to the shore of Lake Embolain of the silken-smooth water, which was the one place in eastern Alhanroel that everyone had heard of, though hardly anyone could tell you precisely where it was. And Prestimion himself, wrestling with the problem throughout an entire night of uneasy sleep, emerged with the conviction that Dantirya Sambail had bypassed them in the Dancing Hills, which Prestimion saw in the most vivid detail, quivering and swaying as the ground beneath them trembled, and the Procurator and his sinister companion riding steadily over their unstable crest, heading northward with the intent of turning at some point and making a great westerly loop back beyond Castle Mount to the other coast of the continent.

  This welter of contradictions gave no guidance at all. At midday, while they were camped beside a grove of tall gray-leaved tree-ferns whose trunks were hairy with scarlet fur, Prestimion drew Maundigand-Klimd aside and asked him for a clarifying opinion, telling him that their night’s dreaming had produced only confusion; and the Su-Suheris, who had not taken part in the dream-quest, for his people did not seek information in that way, replied that he suspected sorcery at work. “These are false trails that your enemy has planted in all your minds, I think. There are certain spells of dispersion that a fleeing man can cast, to deflect those who seek him from his proper route. And these dreams give every evidence that the Procurator has cast just such spells, or had them cast for him.”

  “And you? Where do you think he is?”

  Maundigand-Klimd disappeared at once into a trance, one head communing with the other, and for a long while stood swaying before Prestimion without speaking. Seemingly he was in some other realm. A soft sweet wind blew from the south, but it barely stirred the fronds of the gray ferns. The world was still and silent for an endless long time. Then the four eyes of the magus opened all in the same instant and he said, looking more somber even than he ordinarily did, “He is everywhere and nowhere at the same time.”

  “And the meaning of that,” Prestimion prompted patiently, when no better explanation was forthcoming, “is—?”

  “That we have let ourselves be badly deceived by him, my lord. That—just as I suspected—he, or some sorcerer in his pay, has spread confusion all over these empty provinces, so that the people we meet imagine him traveling this way or that, in a floater or upon mounts. The information they’ve given us is worthless. The same is true of what Abrigant has discovered in his dream, and Kattikawn also, I fear.”

  “Did your trance show you where he is, then?”

  “Alas, only where he is not,” said Maundigand-Klimd. “But I suspect the truth will prove to be closer to your dream and that of Gialaurys: Dantirya Sambail may never have come out this far at all. He may have only pretended to be heading east, allowing us to think he was going toward the Great Sea while actually traveling some other way entirely”

  Prestimion kicked angrily at the spongy golden turf. “Exactly as I thought he might from the beginning. Simply feinting a journey into these unknown eastern lands but actually doubling back after a short while toward the Mount, and then on to some western seaport and the voyage to Zimroel.”

  “It appears that that is what he has done, my lord.”

  “We’ll find him, then, wherever he is. We have a hundred sorcerers to his one.—You’re sure he’s not somewhere out there ahead of us?”

  “I’m sure of nothing, my lord. But the probabilities are against it. The eastward route holds no benefit for him. My own intuitions, which I trust, tell me that he’s behind us, and getting further from us every day.”

  “Yes. While we head the wrong way. This has all been nothing but a wild gihorna chase, I see.” And no justification whatever remained now for proceeding on the journey, other than his hunger to explore new lands. That was not sufficient. He clapped his hands together.—“Gialaurys! Abrigant!”

  They came running at Prestimion’s call. Quickly he set forth for them all that Maundigand-Klimd had just told him.

  “Good,” said Gialaurys immediately, with a fierce grin of satisfaction. “I’ll send word down the line that we’re starting back to the Mount.”

  Abrigant still argued valiantly for his village of blue-tiled cottages sixty miles away. But Prestimion knew that it would be foolish to go searching after what was surely yet another phantom; and—not without some sadness at the thought of giving up the venture here—he gave permission for Gialaurys to sound the order for retreat.

  That night they camped in a wooded place where purple mists seeped from the moist ground, so that the gray clouds that moved in at sunset quickly turned deep violet and the sun, as it dropped toward the west, lit the shining leaves of the forest trees to a magical translucent red. Prestimion stood for a long while looking westward into this strange light, until at last the sun disappeared behind the far-off bulk of Castle Mount and darkness came gliding over him out of the east, out of that remote land by the shores of the Great Sea whose immensity, he knew, he would never in this life behold.

  Behold it he did, though, just a few hours later, in a dream of exquisite vividness that came to him almost as soon as he had closed his eyes in sleep. In that dream they had not given up the eastward trek, but somehow had ventured on, and on and on and on, past the last outpost of explored territory, the place called Kekkinork, where the blue seaspar with which Lord Pinitor of ancient times had bedecked the walls of Bombifale city was mined. Just beyond Kekkinork lay the Great Sea itself, shielded behind great cliffs that stretched off parallel to the shore as far to north and south as anyone could see, a formidable and seemingly endless barrier of gleaming black stone shot through with dazzling veins of white quartz. But there was a single opening in that unending cliff, a narrow sliver through which the glint of the new day’s sunlight came, and in his dream Prestimion went running toward that opening and through it, and onward, down to the waiting sea, and waded out into the gentle pink surf of the ocean that occupied close to half of the planet.

  Dreaming, he stood at the brink of the world.

  The western coast of Zimroel lay somewhere out there before him, inconceivably far away, lost from view beyond the curve of the horizon. As he stared outward he tried without success to fathom the immensity of the span that lay between him and the other shore. But no mind could encompass it. He saw only water, a soft pink here at the sandy shore, then a pale green, then turquoise and rich deep blue farther on, and beyond that only a realm of unchanging azure gray that blended imperceptibly with the sky.

  It was impossible for him to believe that there could be any end to that tremendous ocean, although he knew in some rational corner of his mind that there had to be—far away, so far that the ship had never been built that could survive the journey. The continent of Zimroel was out there so
mewhere in front of him, and beyond that lay the Inner Sea, which had seemed so huge to him when he had journeyed from Alaisor to Piliplok long ago, but which was only a puddle compared with this one; and far off in the east on the opposite shore of the Inner Sea was Alhanroel, with its thousand cities and its Labyrinth and its Castle; and here he stood at Alhanroel’s other edge, looking off toward Zimroel and unable to comprehend the distance between here and there.

  “Prestimion?” a soft voice called.

  Thismet, it was.

  He turned and saw her coming out of that narrow gateway in the black cliff, running toward him across the sand, smiling, extending her arms to him. She was dressed as she had been that day in his tent in the quiet Vale of Gloyn, just before the final battle of the civil war, when she had come to him to confess her error in pushing her brother toward his taking of the crown, and to offer herself to him as his bride: a sheer white gown, was all, and nothing beneath it but her sleek and beautiful self. A dazzling sun-halo glistened about her. “We could swim to Zimroel, Prestimion,” she said. “Would you like to? Come. Come.” And the gown was gone, and in the bright light of morning her slender dusky-skinned body gleamed in its miraculous nakedness like burnished bronze. He stared at her taut, trim form in a transport of delight, his gaze sweeping downward in wonder to take in the slim shoulders and the high, rounded little breasts and the flat belly that flared outward so startlingly at her hips and the lean, sinewy legs below; and then, with trembling hands, he reached for her.

  She folded his hand into hers. But instead of coming to him she pulled him toward her, pulled with a strength that he could not have resisted had he wanted to, and led him onward into the sea. The water, enveloping him easily, was warm and soothing. Surely the womb itself could not have been more comforting than this. With swift, strong strokes they swam eastward, Thismet just a little way ahead of him, her black lustrous hair glinting in the new day’s light; and for hours they went on that way, heading ever toward the continent on the far shore, she turning now and then to smile and wave and beckon him on.

  He felt no fatigue whatever. He knew he could swim for days like this. For weeks. Months.

  But then, after a while, he looked toward Thismet and became aware that he could not see her anywhere, and indeed realized that it was some time since he had, that he could not actually remember when she had last been there ahead of him. “Thismet?” he called. “Thismet, where are you?” But there was no answer, only the gentle lapping of the waves, and after a time he knew himself to be entirely alone in the vastness of that great ocean.

  In the morning Prestimion said nothing to anyone, simply washed his face by a limpid little stream that ran alongside their campsite and dressed and found some cold meat from last night’s meal for his breakfast; and a little while afterward they broke camp and began their long trek back to the Castle, no one speaking of the dreams that had come in the night, or of the failure of the quest for Dantirya Sambail.

  3

  It was only mid-morning, but already at least ten assassins with drawn swords had come bursting into the Coronal’s official suite so far that day, and Septach Melayn had despatched them all with his usual efficiency. Usually they arrived in groups of two or three, but the most recent bunch had been a foursome. That had been half an hour ago. He had given them a very fine lesson in swordsmanship indeed.

  Now, slumped in a gloomy slouch behind Prestimion’s desk with the latest thick stack of governmental documents in front of him awaiting his signature, he felt a most powerful urge to get up and wipe out a few more. It was not just a matter of keeping his reflexes sharp, though that was important enough, but of preserving his sanity. Septach Melayn had sworn long ago that he would serve Prestimion in all tasks that were required of him, yes. But he hadn’t bargained on being cooped up here in Prestimion’s office at the Castle for weeks on end, handling all the dreary tasks that a Coronal was required to deal with, while the real Coronal was off roaming about in the mysterious east-country, not merely hunting for Dantirya Sambail but also encountering excitements of all kinds along the way, a whole great host of strange monsters and marvels.

  Let someone else be regent the next time Prestimion feels like going on a trip, Septach Melayn thought. Gialaurys, or Navigorn, or Duke Miaule of Hither Miaule, or anyone else at all—Akbalik, Maundigand-Klimd, even that new boy Dekkeret. Anyone. Just not me, he thought. I have had more than a sufficiency of this. I am a man for action, not desks and papers. You have been unfair to me, Prestimion.

  He turned to the top document on the stack.

  Resolution No. 1278, Year 1 Pont. Confalume Cor. Lord Prestimion. Inasmuch as the municipal council of the City of Low Morpin has demonstrated conclusively that a need exists for renovation of the municipal sewage line that runs from Havilbove Way in central Low Morpin to the boundary of the Siminave district in the adjacent city of Frangior, and the municipal council of Frangior is in agreement that the aforesaid renovations are not objectionable to it, be it herewith resolved that—

  Yes. Be it resolved. Whatever they were resolving, let it herewith be resolved: the dumping of both cities’ sewage into the central plaza of Sipermit, for all Septach Melayn cared at this point. What business was it of his? Why should it even be the Coronal’s affair, for that matter? His eyes were beginning to glaze with boredom and fatigue. Quickly he scrawled his signature on the resolution without reading the rest of it and shoved it aside.

  Next: Resolution No. 1279, Year 1 Pont. Confalume—

  He could bear it no longer. Half an hour of this at a time was all he could take. His soul rebelled.

  “What?” he bellowed, looking up. “More murderers? Ha! Is there no respect for high office in the world any more?”

  There were five of them this time, lean sharp-nosed men with the sun-darkened skin of southerners. Septach Melayn leaped to his feet. His rapier, which remained just beside him at the desk at all times, was in his hand and already in motion. “Look at you,” he said, with a disdainful edge to his voice. “Those dirty boots! Those ragged leather jerkins! Spots of grease all over them! Don’t you know how to dress when you come calling at the Castle?” They had arrayed themselves in a semicircle from one side of the big room to the other. I will start at the end closest to the window, thought Septach Melayn, and work my way across.

  And then he stopped thinking and became pure motion, a mere machine of death, dancing on the tips of his toes in perfect balance, his long right arm extending, thrusting, withdrawing, extending again, parrying, thrusting, withdrawing. His blade moved with the speed of light.

  Let them keep pace with him if they could. They would be the first who had ever managed it.

  “Ha!” he cried. “Yes!” So, so, so: with a little grunting sound of delight he skewered the scar-faced one by the window through the throat, then whirled neatly and put the tip of his blade deep into the belly of the one next to him with the red bandanna, who was kind enough to topple heavily athwart the third, the stunningly ugly one, thus forcing him to turn his back on Septach Melayn just sufficiently long for Septach Melayn to take him in the heart from the side. “Ah! There! So!” One, two, three. This was mere dancing; this was good simple play. The two surviving killers now attempted to charge Septach Melayn at the same time, but he was much too fast for them: a hard lunge to the right carried his blade all the way through the midsection of the first, and by lowering his left shoulder and flexing his left knee he was able to dodge under the thrust that came from the other attacker while simultaneously pulling his sword from the body of the first, and then with a triumphant cry of “Ha! Ha!” he pivoted sharply and—

  A knock at the door. A voice from the hallway. “My lord Septach Melayn! My lord, is everything all right with you in there?”

  Damn. It was doddering old Nilgir Sumanand, Prestimion’s aide-de-camp and major-domo. “Of course everything’s all right!” Septach Melayn told him. “What do you think?” Hastily he returned to the desk and tucked his sword out of
sight by his feet. He brushed a vagrant lock of his hair back into place. Reaching for Resolution No. 1279, he made a devout pretense at studying it intently.

  Nilgir Sumanand peered in. “I thought I heard you speaking to someone, though I knew no one was there,” he said. “And there were some outcries, or so it seemed to me; and other sounds. Footsteps, as if someone was moving quickly about the room. A scuffle, perhaps?—But there’s no one here except yourself, I see. The grace of the Divine be on you, my lord Septach Melayn! I must have been imagining things.”

  No: I was, thought Septach Melayn wryly, glancing about the empty room. He could still see the bloody heaps of dead assailants, although he knew the other man could not.

  “What you heard,” he said, “was the regent of the realm at his exercise. I’m not used to such a sedentary kind of life. I get up from this desk every hour or so and indulge in some calisthenics, do you follow? To keep myself from rusting away. A quick bit of feint and slash, a little tuning-up of wrist and arm and eye.—What is it you want, Nilgir Sumanand?”

  “Your noontime appointment is at hand.”

  “And what appointment is that?”

  Nilgir Sumanand looked a little taken aback. “Why, the transmuter of metals, my lord. You sent word three days past that you would meet with him here today at noon.”

  “Ah. So I did. I do recall it now.”

  Damn. Damn damn damn.

  It was the alchemist, the man who claimed to be able to manufacture iron from charcoal. Another bit of infernal bother, Septach Melayn thought, scowling. This was Abrigant’s project, not Prestimion’s. It wasn’t sufficient to be doing the Coronal’s job; they wanted him to handle Abrigant’s business as well. Abrigant too was off in the east with Prestimion, though. Since no one knew when they were going to return, all manner of strange things were falling to Septach Melayn in their absence. And this one seemed the wildest fantasy, this conjuring of valuable metal out of useless charcoal. But he had promised to give the man a little of his time.