Valentine Pontifex Read online

  “By the Lady, that was good!”

  “It ought to have been. It cost five crowns.”

  “Five—”

  “I couldn’t help myself, Kris. Picking up the scent of them in the air—I was like a wild animal, getting on that line. I pushed, I shoved, I fought. I think I would have paid almost anything for one. Oh, Kris, I’m so sorry!”

  “Don’t apologize. What else is there to spend the money on, anyway? Besides, things will be changing soon. You’ve heard the news this morning?”

  “What news?”

  “About the new Coronal! He’ll be here any minute. Right here, coming across Khyntor Bridge.”

  Bewildered, she said, “Has Lord Valentine become Pontifex, then?”

  Kristofon shook his head. “Valentine no longer matters. They say he’s disappeared—carried off by the Metamorphs, or something. In any case it was proclaimed about an hour ago that Sempeturn is Coronal now.”

  “Sempeturn? The preacher?”

  “That one, yes. He arrived in Khyntor last night. The mayor has backed him, and I hear the duke has fled to Ni-moya.”

  “This is impossible, Kris! A man can’t just stand up and say he’s Coronal! He has to be chosen, he has to be anointed, he has to come from Castle Mount—”

  “We used to think so. But these are different times. Sempeturn’s a true man of the people. That’s the sort we need now. He’ll know how to win back the favor of the Divine.”

  She stared in disbelief. The sausage dangled, forgotten, in her hand. “It can’t be happening. It’s craziness. Lord Valentine is our anointed Coronal. He—”

  “Sempeturn says that he’s a fraud, that the whole story of his having switched bodies is nonsense, that we’re being punished with these plagues and famines because of his sins. That the only way we can save ourselves now is to depose the false Coronal and give the throne to someone who can lead us back to righteousness.”

  “And Sempeturn says he’s the man, and therefore we’re supposed to bow down and accept him and—”

  “He’s coming now!” Kristofon cried.

  His face was flushed, his eyes were strange. Millilain could not remember ever having seen her husband in such a state of high excitement. He was almost feverish. She felt feverish herself, confused, dazed. A new Coronal? That little red-faced rabble-rouser Sempeturn sitting on the Confalume Throne? She couldn’t grasp the idea. It was like being told that red was green, or that water henceforth would flow uphill.

  There was the sudden sound of strident music. A marching band in green-and-gold costumes that bore the Coronal’s starburst emblem came strutting across the bridge and down the esplanade. Then came the mayor and other city officials; and then, riding in a grand and ornately embellished open palanquin, smiling and accepting the plaudits of a vast crowd that was following him out of the town of Hot Khyntor on the far side of the bridge, a short florid-looking man with thick unruly dark hair.

  “Sempeturn!” the crowd roared. “Sempeturn! All hail Lord Sempeturn!”

  “All hail Lord Sempeturn!” Kristofon bellowed.

  This is a dream, Millilain thought. This is some dread sending that I do not understand.

  “Sempeturn! Lord Sempeturn!”

  Everyone on the esplanade was shouting it now. A kind of frenzy was spreading. Millilain numbly took the last bite of her sausage, swallowed it without tasting anything, let the skewer drop to the ground. The world seemed to be rippling beneath her feet. Kristofon still shouted, in a voice now growing hoarse, “Sempeturn! Lord Sempeturn!” The palanquin was going past them now: only twenty yards or so separated them from the new Coronal, if that was indeed what he was. He turned and looked straight into Millilain’s eyes. And with amazement and steadily gathering terror she heard herself yell, “Sempeturn! All hail Lord Sempeturn!” along with all the others.

  “HE’S GOING where?” Elidath said in astonishment.

  “Ilirivoyne,” said Tunigorn once more. “He set out three days ago.”

  Elidath shook his head. “I hear your words, and they make no sense to me. My mind will simply not accept them.”

  “By the Lady, neither will mine! But that doesn’t make it any the less true. He means to go before the Danipiur, and beg her forgiveness for all our sins against her people, or some such madness.”

  It was only an hour since Elidath’s ship had docked in Piliplok. He had sped at once to the great hall of the city hoping still to find Valentine there, or, at the worst, just embarking on his way toward Ni-Moya. But no one of the royal party was at the hall save Tunigorn, whom he found morosely shuffling papers in a small dusty office. And this tale that Tunigorn had to tell—the grand processional abandoned, the Coronal venturing into the wild jungles where the Shapeshifters lived—no, no, it was too much, it was beyond all reason!

  Fatigue and despair pressed against Elidath’s spirit like monstrous boulders, and he felt himself succumbing to that crushing weight.

  Hollowly he said, “I chased him halfway around the world to prevent something like this from happening. Do you know what my journey was like, Tunigorn? Night and day by floater to the coast, without ever halting a moment. And then racing across a sea full of angry dragons, that three times came so close to our cruiser I thought they were going to sink us. And finally to reach Piliplok half dead with exhaustion, only to hear that I’ve missed him by three days, that he’s gone off on this absurd and perilous adventure, when perhaps if I had moved only a little more swiftly, if I had set out a few days sooner—”

  “You couldn’t have changed his mind, Elidath. No one could. Sleet couldn’t, Deliamber couldn’t, Carabella couldn’t—”

  “Not even Carabella?”

  “Not even Carabella,” said Tunigorn.

  Elidath’s despair deepened. He fought it fiercely, refusing to let himself be overwhelmed by fear and doubt. After a time he said, “Nevertheless, Valentine will listen to me, and I’ll be able to sway him. Of that much I’m certain.”

  “I think you deceive yourself, old friend,” Tunigorn said sadly.

  “Why did you summon me, then, for a task you thought was impossible?”

  “When I summoned you,” Tunigorn said, “I had no idea what Valentine had in mind. I knew only that he was in an agitated state and was considering some rash and strange course of action. It seemed to me that if you were with him on the processional you might be able to calm him and divert him from whatever he planned. By the time he let us know his intentions, and made us see that nothing could swerve him from them, you were long since on your way west. Your journey has been wasted, and I have only my regrets to offer you.”

  “I’ll go to him, all the same.”

  “You’ll accomplish nothing, I’m afraid.”

  Elidath shrugged. “I’ve followed him this far: how can I abandon the quest now? Maybe there’s some way I can bring him to his senses after all. You say you’re planning to set out after him tomorrow?”

  “At midday, yes. As soon as I’ve dealt with the last of the dispatches and decrees that I stayed behind to handle.”

  Elidath leaned forward eagerly. “Take them with you. We need to go tonight!”

  “That wouldn’t be wise. You told me yourself that your voyage had exhausted you, and I see the weariness in your face. Rest here in Piliplok this evening, eat well, sleep well, dream well, and tomorrow—”

  “No!” Elidath cried. “Tonight, Tunigorn! Every hour we waste here brings him that much closer to Shapeshifter territory! Can’t you see the risks?” He stared coolly at Tunigorn. “I’ll leave without you, if I have to.”

  “I would not permit that.” Elidath lifted his eyebrows. “Is my travel subject to your permission, then?”

  “You know what I’m saying. I can’t let you head off into nowhere by yourself.”

  “Then come with me tonight.”

  “Wait only until tomorrow?”

  “No!”

  Tunigorn closed his eyes a moment. After a time he said quietly, �
��All right. So be it. Tonight.”

  Elidath nodded. “We’ll hire a small, fast vessel, and with luck we’ll overtake him before he gets to Ni-moya.”

  Tunigorn said bleakly, “He isn’t traveling toward Ni-moya, Elidath.”

  “I don’t understand. The only way from here to Ilirivoyne that I know is up the river past Ni-moya to Verf, is it not, and southward from Verf to Piurifayne Gate.”

  “I only wish he had gone that way.”

  “Why, what other route is there?” Elidath asked, surprised.

  “None that makes any sense. But he devised it himself: southward into Gihorna, and then across the Steiche into Metamorph country.”

  Elidath stared. “How can that be? Gihorna’s an empty wasteland. The Steiche is an impassable river. He knows that, and if he doesn’t, his little Vroon certainly does.”

  “Deliamber did his best to discourage the idea. Valentine wouldn’t listen. He pointed out that if he went by way of Ni-moya and Verf, he’d be obliged to halt at every city along the way for the usual ceremonies of the grand processional, and he doesn’t want to delay his pilgrimage to the Metamorphs that long.” Elidath felt himself engulfed by dismay and alarm. “And so he means to wander through the sandstorms and miseries of Gihorna—and then find a way across a river that has already once nearly drowned him—”

  “Yes, and all so he can pay a call on the people who successfully managed to push him off his throne ten years ago—”

  “Madness!”

  “Madness indeed,” Tunigorn said.

  “You agree? We set out tonight?”

  “Tonight, yes.”

  Tunigorn put forth his hand, and Elidath took it and clasped it tight, and they stood in silence a moment.

  Then Elidath said, “Answer me one question, will you, Tunigorn?”

  “Ask it.”

  “You used the word ‘madness’ more than once, in speaking of this venture of Valentine’s, and so did I. And so it is. But I have not seen him in a year or more, and you have been with him ever since he left the Mount. Tell me this: do you think he has truly gone mad?”

  “Mad? No, I think not.”

  “Appointing young Hissune to the principate? Making pilgrimages to the Metamorphs?”

  Tunigorn said, after a time, “Those are not things you or I would have done, Elidath. But I think they are signs not of Valentine’s madness, but of something else in him, a goodness, a sweetness, a kind of holiness, that such as you and I are not fully able to understand. We have always known this about Valentine, that he is different from us in certain ways.”

  Frowning, Elidath said, “Better holy than mad, I suppose. But this goodness, this holiness: do you think those are the qualities that Majipoor most needs in its Coronal, as this time of strife and bewilderment unfolds?”

  “I have no answer to that, old friend.”

  “Nor I. But I have certain fears.”

  “As do I,” said Tunigorn. “As do I.”

  IN THE DARKNESS Y-Uulisaan lay awake and tense, listening to the wind as it roared across the waste-lands of Gihorna: a thin, cutting wind from the east that scoured up a swirl of damp sand and hurled it insistently against the sides of the tent.

  The royal caravan with which he had been traveling so long was camped now many hundreds of miles southwest of Piliplok. The River Steiche lay no more than another few days’ journey ahead, and beyond it was Piurifayne. Y-Uulisaan longed desperately to cross the river at last and breathe the air of his native province once more, and the closer the caravan came to it the more acute that longing grew. To be home again among his own, free of the strain of this unending masquerade—

  Soon—soon—

  But first he must warn Faraataa, somehow, of Lord Valentine’s plans.

  It was six days now since Faraataa last had made contact with Y-Uulisaan, and six days ago Y-Uulisaan had not known that the Coronal intended to undertake a pilgrimage into Piurivar country. Surely Faraataa had to have that information. But Y-Uulisaan had no reliable means of reaching him, whether through conventional channels, which were virtually nonexistent in this dreary and all but uninhabited place, or via the water-king communion. It took many minds to gain a water-king’s attention, and Y-Uulisaan was alone on this mission.

  All the same, he could try. As he had done on each of the last three nights he focused the energies of his mind and hurled them forth, straining to initiate some sort of contact across the thousand miles or so that separated him from the leader of the rebellion.

  —Faraataa? Faraataa?

  Hopeless. Without the aid of a water-king as an intermediary, transmission of this sort was all but impossible. Y-Uulisaan knew that. Yet he went on attempting to call. Perhaps—so he compelled himself to believe—there might be some slight chance that a passing water-king would pick up the transmission and amplify it. A slight chance, a negligible chance, but one he dared not fail to assay.

  —Faraataa?

  Y-Uulisaan’s shape wavered slightly under the effort. His legs lengthened, his nose diminished in size. Grimly he checked the change before it could become perceptible to any of the others in the tent, and compelled himself back to the human form. Since first assuming it in Alhanroel he had not dared to relax his shape even for a moment, lest they discover him for the Piurivar spy he was. Which created a pressure within him that by this time had become well-nigh intolerable; but he held himself to his chosen form.

  He continued to pump his soul’s force outward into the night.

  —Faraataa? Faraataa?

  Nothing. Silence. Solitude. The usual.

  After a while he abandoned the attempt and tried to sleep. Morning was still distant. He lay back and closed his throbbing eyes.

  But sleep would not come for him. Sleep rarely did, in this journey. At best he could manage only a shallow fitful doze. There were too many distractions: the harshness of the wind, the sound of wind-driven sand pelting against canvas, the rough snuffling breathing of the members of the Coronal’s entourage who shared this tent with him. And above all the ever-present numbing pain of his isolation among these hostile alien folk. Taut, strung tight, he waited for the coming of dawn.

  Then somewhere between the Hour of the Jackal and the Hour of the Scorpion he felt the sound of a droning, insinuating music brush lightly against his mind. So taut was he that the startling intrusion robbed him for an instant of his shape-stability: he went fluttering uncontrollably through a range of forms, mimicking two of the sleeping humans nearby, then tumbling into the Piurivar form for a fraction of a second before regaining mastery of himself. He sat up, heart thundering, breath ragged, and searched for that music again.

  Yes. There. A dry, whining tone, sliding strangely between the intervals of the scale. He recognized it now as the mind song of a water-king, unmistakable in its quality and timbre even though he had never heard the song of this particular water-king before. He opened his mind to contact, and an instant later, with enormous relief, he heard the mind-voice of Faraataa:

  —Y-Uulisaan?

  —At last, Faraataa! How long I’ve waited for this call!

  —It comes at the appointed time, Y-Uulisaan.

  —Yes, that I know. But I have had urgent news for you. I’ve called out to you night after night, trying to make contact before this. You heard nothing?

  —I heard nothing. This is the regular call.

  —Ah.

  —Where are you, Y-Uulisaan, and what is your news?

  —I am somewhere in Gihorna, far down the coast from Piliplok and well inland, almost at the Steiche. I travel still with the Coronal’s party.

  —And can it be that the grand processional has taken him into Gihorna?

  —He has given over the processional, Faraataa. He journeys now toward Ilirivoyne, to hold conference with the Danipiur.

  In response came silence, a silence so crisp and hard that it crackled like the lightning energies, with a sizzling hissing sound beneath it. Y-Uulisaan wondered after a time if
contact had been lost altogether. But finally Faraataa said:

  —The Danipiur? What would he want from her?

  —Forgiveness.

  —Forgiveness for what, Y-Uulisaan?

  —All of the crimes of his people against ours.

  —He has gone mad, then?

  —Some of his followers do think that. Others say that it is only Valentine’s way, to meet hatred with love.

  There was another long silence.

  —He must not speak with her, Y-Uulisaan.

  —So I believe also.

  —This is not a time for forgiveness. This is a time for strife, or we will have no victory. I will keep him from her. He must not meet with her. He may attempt to arrive at a compromise with her, and there must be no compromises!

  —I understand.

  —Victory is almost ours. The government is collapsing. The rule of order is breaking up. Do you know, Y-Uulisaan, that three false Coronals have arisen? One has proclaimed himself in Khyntor, and another in Ni-moya, and one in Dulorn.

  —Is it true?

  —Most certainly it is. You know nothing of it?

  —Nothing. And I think Valentine knows nothing of it either. We are very far from civilization here. Three false Coronals! It is the beginning of the end for them, Faraataa!

  —So we believe. All moves well for us. The plagues continue to spread. With your help, Y-Uulisaan, we have been able to find ways of countering the government’s countermeasures, and making matters ever worse. Zimroel is in chaos. The first serious troubles have begun to arise in Alhanroel. Victory is ours!

  —Victory is ours, Faraataa!

  —But we must intercept the Coronal as he moves toward Ilirivoyne. Tell me your precise location, if you can.

  —We have gone by floater southwest from Piliplok toward the Steiche for three days. 1 heard someone this evening say that the river is no more than two days’ journey from us, perhaps less. Yesterday the Coronal himself and a few of his followers set out for it ahead of the main body of the caravan. They must be nearly there by this time.