Valentine Pontifex Read online

  “And yet,” said Divvis, “Tunigorn also tells us that the Coronal has responded by shuffling into Piurifayne to convey his royal apologies to the Danipiur for all our unkindnesses to her subjects down through the ages. We are all very much aware that Valentine regards himself as a man of peace: his gentle treatment of those who overthrew him long ago showed us that. It is a noble trait. But I have argued here this afternoon, Hissune, that what Valentine has done now goes beyond pacifism into madness. I say the Coronal, if he is still alive at all, is insane. Thus we have a lunatic Pontifex and a lunatic Coronal, and this while a deadly enemy is at our throats. What are your views, Hissune?”

  “That you misinterpret the facts as Tunigorn provides them.”

  There was a flash of surprise and something like anger in Divvis’s eyes; but his voice was under taut control as he said, “Ah, do you think so?”

  Hissune tapped the sheet of paper. “Tunigorn says that the Coronal has gone into Piurifayne, and that a spy has been caught and made to confess. Nowhere can I find him saying that Lord Valentine went to Piurifayne after hearing of the spy’s confession. I think it can be argued that the truth is quite the opposite: that Lord Valentine chose to undertake a mission of conciliation, the wisdom of which we clearly might wish to debate, but which is well within his character as we know it, and while he was away on that enterprise this other information came to light. Perhaps because of the storm, it became impossible for Tunigorn to communicate with the Coronal, although one would think Deliamber would be able to find some way.” Glancing toward the great world-sphere of Majipoor against the far wall, Hissune said, “What information do we have of the Coronal’s present location, anyway?”

  “None,” Stasilaine murmured.

  Hissune’s eyes widened.

  The brilliant red light that indicated Lord Valentine’s movements had gone out.

  “The light is dark,” said Hissune. “What does that mean? That he is dead?”

  “It could mean that,” Stasilaine said. “Or merely that he has lost or damaged the transmitter that he carries on him to broadcast his position.” Hissune nodded. “And there was a great storm, that caused many casualties. Although it’s unclear from the message, I can easily believe that Lord Valentine himself was caught in the storm on his way into Piurifayne, which presumably he entered from Gihorna, leaving Tunigorn and some others behind—”

  “And either he perished in the storm or the transmitter was lost; we have no way of knowing which,” said Divvis.

  “Let us hope the Divine has spared young Valentine’s life,” the aged Prince Ghizmaile declared suddenly in a voice so shriveled and sere it seemed barely to be that of a living creature. “But there is an issue we must deal with whether he is alive or dead, and that is the choice of a new Coronal.”

  Hissune felt himself swept with amazement at the words this most senior of Castle lords had just uttered.

  He looked about the room. “Do I hear right? Are we discussing the overthrow of a king today?”

  “You put it too strongly,” Divvis answered smoothly. “All we discuss is whether it’s appropriate for Valentine to continue to serve as Coronal, in view of what we now know of the hostile intentions of the Shapeshifters and in view of what we have long known of Valentine’s methods of dealing with any sort of unpleasantness. If we are at war—and no one here any longer doubts that we are—then it’s reasonable to argue that Valentine is not the right man to lead us at this time, if in fact he still lives. But to replace him is not to overthrow him. There is a legitimate constitutional means of removing Valentine from the Confalume Throne without in any way embroiling Majipoor in conflict or manifesting a lack of love and respect for him.”

  “You mean, by allowing the Pontifex Tyeveras to die.”

  “Exactly. What say you to that, Hissune?”

  Hissune did not at once reply. Like Divvis and Ghizmaile and, probably, most of the others here, he had been coming uneasily and reluctantly this afternoon to the conclusion that Lord Valentine must be replaced by someone more decisive, more aggressive, more belligerent, even. Nor was today the first time he had had those thoughts, though he had kept them to himself. And certainly there was an easy enough way of accomplishing a transfer of power, simply by bringing about Valentine’s elevation, willing or not, to the Pontificate.

  But Hissune’s loyalty to Lord Valentine—his guide, his mentor, the architect of his career—was intense and deep-rooted. And he knew, perhaps better than any of these other men, the horror Valentine felt of being forced into the Labyrinth, which the Coronal saw not as an elevation but as a descent into the darkest depths. And to thrust that upon him behind his back, while he was in the midst of some valiant if misguided attempt to restore peace to the world without resorting to arms—why, it was cruelty, it was most monstrous cruelty indeed.

  Yet reasons of state demanded it. Was there ever a time when reasons of state might countenance cruelty? Hissune knew what Lord Valentine would reply to such a question. But he was not wholly certain of his own answer.

  He said after a time, “It may be so that Valentine is not the right Coronal for this time: I am of two minds on that score, and I would prefer to know more before I make an answer. I do tell you that I would not care to see him forcibly removed from office—has such a thing ever happened on Majipoor? I think not—but fortunately it would not be necessary to handle things that way, as we all recognize. However, I think we can leave the entire issue of Valentine’s adequacy in this time of crisis to discuss another time. What we should be examining, regardless of all these other matters, is the line of succession.”

  There was a sudden tense stirring in the Council Room. Divvis’s eyes sought Hissune’s as though he were trying to penetrate the secrets of his soul. The Duke of Halanx reddened; the Prince of Banglecode sat stiffly upright; the Duke of Chorg leaned intently forward; only the two oldest men, Cantalis and Ghizmaile, remained still, as if the actual matter of choosing a particular person to be Coronal was beyond the concern of those who knew they had only a short while to live.

  Hissune went on, “In this discussion we have chosen to ignore one gigantic aspect of Tunigorn’s message: that Elidath, who has so long been considered the heir to Lord Valentine, is dead.”

  “Elidath did not want to be Coronal,” said Stasilaine in a voice almost too soft to be heard.

  “That may be so,” Hissune replied. “Certainly he gave no sign of hungering for the throne once he had a taste of the regency. But my point is only that the tragic loss of Elidath removes the man to whom the crown would surely have been offered if Lord Valentine were no longer Coronal. With him gone we have no clear plan of succession; and we may learn tomorrow that Lord Valentine is dead, or that Tyeveras himself is finally dead, or that events require us to engineer the removal of Valentine from his present office. We should be prepared for any of those eventualities. We are the ones who will choose the next Coronal: do we know who that will be?”

  “Are you asking us to vote on an order of succession right now?” Prince Manganot of Banglecode demanded.

  “It seems clear enough already,” said Mirigant. “The Coronal appointed a Regent when he went off on the grand processional, and the Regent appointed three more—I assume with Lord Valentine’s approval—when he too left the Castle. Those three have governed us for some months. If we must find a new Coronal, shall we not find it among those three?”

  Stasilaine said, “You frighten me, Mirigant. Once I thought it would be a grand thing to be Coronal, as I suppose most of you also thought, when you were boys. I am a boy no longer, and I saw how Elidath changed, and not for the better, when the full weight of power descended upon him. Let me be the first to fall down in homage before the new Coronal. But let him be someone other than Stasilaine!”

  “The Coronal,” said the Duke of Chorg, “should never be a man who hungers too deeply for the crown. But I think he ought not to be one who dreads it, either.”

  “I thank you, El
zandir,” said Stasilaine. “I am not a candidate, is it understood?”

  “Divvis? Hissune?” Mirigant said.

  Hissune felt a muscle leaping about in one of his cheeks, and a strange numbness in his arms and shoulders. He looked toward Divvis. The older man smiled and shrugged, and said nothing. There was a roaring in Hissune’s ears, a throbbing at his temples. Should he speak? What was he to say? Now that it had come down to it at last, could he stand before these princes and blithely announce that he was willing to be Coronal? He felt that Divvis was engaged in some maneuver far beyond his comprehension; and for the first time since he had entered the Council Chamber this afternoon he had no idea of the direction to follow. The silence seemed unending.

  Then he heard his own voice—calm, even, measured—-saying, “I think we need not carry the proceedings beyond this point. Two candidates have emerged: consideration of their qualifications seems now in order. Not here. Not today. For the moment we have done enough. What do you say, Divvis?”

  “You speak wisely and with deep understanding, Hissune. As always.”

  “Then I call for adjournment,” said Mirigant, “while we consider these matters and wait for the arrival of further news of the Coronal.”

  Hissune held up a hand. “One other thing, first.”

  He waited for their attention.

  Then he said, “I have for some time wished to travel to the Labyrinth, to visit my family, to see certain friends. I believe also it would be useful for one of us to confer with the officials of the Pontifex, and get first-hand knowledge of the state of Tyeveras’s health; for it may be that we will have to choose a Pontifex and a Coronal both, in the months just ahead, and we should be ready for such a unique event if it comes upon us. So I propose the designation of an official embassy from Castle Mount to the Labyrinth, and I offer myself as the ambassador.”

  “Seconded,” said Divvis at once.

  There was a business of discussing and voting, and once that was done there was a vote for adjournment, and then the meeting dissolved into a swirl of smaller groups. Hissune stood by himself, wondering when he would awaken from all this. He became aware after a moment of tall fair-haired Stasilaine looming over him, frowning and smiling both at the same time.

  Quietly Stasilaine said, “Perhaps it is a mistake to leave the Castle at such a time, Hissune.”

  “Perhaps. It seemed the right thing for me to do, though. I’ll risk it.”

  “Then proclaim yourself Coronal before you go!”

  “Are you serious, Stasilaine? What if Valentine still lives?”

  “If he lives, you know how to arrange for his becoming Pontifex. If he is dead, Hissune, you must seize his place while you can.”

  “I will do no such thing.”

  “You must! Otherwise you may find Divvis on the throne when you return!”

  Hissune grinned. “Easily enough dealt with. If Valentine is dead and Divvis has replaced him, I will see to it that Tyeveras at last is allowed to rest. Divvis immediately becomes Pontifex and must go to the Labyrinth, and still another new Coronal is required, with only one candidate available.”

  “By the Lady, you are astonishing!”

  “Am I? It seems an obvious enough move to me.” Hissune took the older man’s hand firmly in his. “I thank you for your support, Stasilaine. And I tell you that all will be well, at the end. If I must be Coronal to Divvis’s Pontifex, so be it: we can work together, he and I, I do think. But for now let us pray for Lord Valentine’s safety and success, and leave off all these speculations. Yes?”

  “By all means,” said Stasilaine.

  They embraced briefly, and Hissune went from the council chamber. In the hallway outside, all was in the same confusion as before, though now perhaps a hundred or more of the lesser lords were gathered, and the looks that he received from them when he appeared were extraordinary. But Hissune said nothing to any of them, nor did he as much as let his eyes meet any of theirs as he moved through the throng. He found Alsimir at the edge of the crowd, gaping at him in a preposterous slack-jawed wide-eyed way. Hissune beckoned to him and told him to make ready for a journey to the Labyrinth.

  The young knight looked at Hissune in total awe and said, “I should tell you, my lord, that a tale came through this crowd some minutes ago that you are to be made Coronal. Will you tell me if there is truth to that?”

  “Lord Valentine is our Coronal,” said Hissune brusquely. “Now go and prepare yourself for departure. I mean to set out for the Labyrinth at dawn.”

  WHEN SHE WAS still a dozen blocks from home, Millilain began to hear the rhythmic shouting in the streets ahead of her: “Yah-tah, yah-tah, yah-tah, voom,” or something like that, nonsensical sounds, gibberish, pounded out at full-throated volume again and again and again by what sounded like a thousand madmen. She came to a halt and pressed herself fearfully against an old crumbling stone wall, feeling trapped. Behind her, in the square, a bunch of drunken March-men were roistering about, smashing windows and molesting passersby. Somewhere off to the east the Knights of Dekkeret were holding a rally in honor of Lord Sempeturn. And now this new craziness. Yah-tah, yah-tah, yah-tah, voom. There was no place to turn. There was no place to hide. All she wanted to do was to reach her house safely and bolt the door. The world had gone crazy. Yah-tah, yah-tah, yah-tah, voom.

  It was like a sending of the King of Dreams, except that it went on hour after hour, day after day, month after month. Even the worst of sendings, though it might leave you shaken to the roots of your soul, lasted only a short while. But this never ended. And it grew worse and worse.

  Riots and lootings all the time. No food but scraps and crusts, or occasionally a bit of meat that you might be able to buy from the March-men. They came down out of their mountains with animals they had killed, and sold you the meat for a ruinous price, if you had anything left to pay for it with, and then they drank up their profits and ran amok in the streets before they went home. And new troubles constantly springing up. The sea-dragons, so it was said, were sinking any vessel that ventured out to sea, and commerce between the continents was virtually at an end. Lord Valentine was rumored to be dead. And not one new Coronal in Khyntor now but two, Sempeturn and that Hjort who called himself Lord Stiamot. And each with his own little army to march up and down shouting slogans and making trouble: Sempeturn with the Knights of Dekkeret, the other one with the Order of the Triple Sword, or some such name. Kristofon was a Knight of Dekkeret now. She hadn’t seen him in two weeks. Another Coronal in Ni-moya, and a couple of Pontifexes roaming around also. Now this. Yah-tah yah-tah yah-tah voom.

  Whatever that was, she didn’t want to get any closer to it. Most likely it was one more new Coronal with one more mob of hysterical followers. Millilain looked about warily, wondering if she dared go down Dizimaule Street and cut through the back alleyway to Malamola Road, which would run into her street a few blocks below the Voriax Causeway. The problem was that alleyway—she had heard some strange stories about what had been going on in there lately—

  Night was coming on. A light rain, little more than a heavy mist, began to fall. She felt lightheaded and dizzy from hunger, though she was becoming accustomed to that. Out of the south, from the suburb of Hot Khyntor where all the geothermal formations were, came the sullen booming of Confalume Geyser, punctual as ever, marking the hour. Automatically Millilain looked toward it and saw its great column of steam rising heavenward, with a broad sulphurous mantle of yellow smoke surrounding it and seeming to fill half the sky. She had been looking at the geysers of Hot Khyntor all her life, taking them completely for granted, but somehow tonight the eruption frightened her as never before, and she made the sign of the Lady again and again until it began to subside.

  The Lady. Did she still watch over Majipoor? What had become of her kindly sendings that gave such good counsel and warm comfort? For that matter, where was the King of Dreams? Once, in quieter times, those two Powers had kept everyone’s life in balance, advising, admoni
shing, if necessary punishing. Perhaps they still reigned, Millilain thought: but the situation was so far out of hand that neither King nor Lady could possibly cope with it, though they might labor from dawn to dawn to bring matters back under control. It was a system designed to work beautifully in a world where most people gladly obeyed the law anyway. But now hardly anyone obeyed the law. There was no law.

  Yah-tah yah-tah yah-tah voom.

  And from the other side:

  “Sempeturn! Lord Sempeturn! Hail, hail, hail, Lord Sempeturn!” The rain was coming down harder, now. Get moving, she told herself. March-men in the square, and the Divine only knows what madness ahead of you, and the Knights of Dekkeret cavorting behind you—trouble, any way at all. And even if Kristofon was among the Knights, she didn’t want to see him, eyes glassy with devotion, hands upraised in the new form of the starburst salute. She began to run. Across Malibor to Dizimaule, down Dizimaule toward that little alleyway connecting with Malamola—did she dare?

  Yah-tah yah-tah yah-tah voom.

  A line of paraders coming up Dizimaule Street toward her, suddenly! Walking like some sort of soulless machines, nine or ten abreast, arms swinging stiffly up and down, right left right left, and that chant bursting from them in an endless insistent jabbing rhythm. They would parade right over her and never see her. She made a quick turn into the alleyway, only to find a horde of men and women with green-and-gold armbands clogging the far end and screaming in praise of the new Lord Stiamot.

  Trapped! All the lunatics were out at once tonight!

  Desperately glancing about, Millilain saw a door half ajar on the left-hand side of the alleyway and ducked quickly into it. She found herself in a dark corridor, with faint, chanting and the sharp scent of a strange incense coming from a room at the tar end of it. A shrine of some sort. One of the new cults, maybe. But at least they were unlikely to hurt her, here. She might be able to stay until all the various demented mobs outside had moved along to another part of town.