Lord Valentine's Castle: Book One of the Majipoor Cycle Read online

  They went in. The place smelled of salt air and mildew. Just within, a fat grayish-faced Hjort sat like an enormous toad at a desk, arranging playing-cards in patterns. The rough-skinned creature barely looked up. Shanamir laid the coins before him and the Hjort signaled with an almost imperceptible flicker of its head. Onward, to a long narrow windowless room, lit by three widely spaced glowfloats that yielded a hazy reddish light. A row of mattresses spanned the length of the room, one close by the next on the floor, and nearly all of them were occupied. “Here,” Shanamir said, nudging one with the tip of his boot. He stripped off his outer clothes and lay down, leaving room for Valentine. “Dream well,” the boy said.

  “Dream well,” said Valentine, and kicked off his boots and shed his top-garments, and dropped down beside him. Distant shouts echoed in his ears, or perhaps in his mind. It astonished him how weary he was. There might be dreams tonight, yes, and he would watch carefully for them so that he could sift them for meaning, but first there would be deep sleep, the sleep of the utterly exhausted. And in the morning? A new day. Anything might befall. Anything.

  4

  There was a dream, of course, somewhere toward the depth of the night. Valentine placed himself at a distance from it and watched it unfold, as he had been taught from childhood. Dreams held great significance; they were messages from the Powers that ruled the world, by which one was to guide one’s life; they were ignored only at one’s peril, for they were manifestations of the deepest truth. Valentine saw himself crossing a vast purple plain under a baleful purple sky and a swollen amber sun. He was alone and his face was drawn, his eyes were tense and strained. As he marched, ugly fissures opened in the ground, gaping cracks that were bright orange within, and things popped forth like children’s toys popping from a box, laughing shrilly at him and swiftly retreating into the fissures as they closed.

  That was all. Not a full dream, then, for it had no story, no pattern of conflicts and resolution. It was only an image, a bizarre scene, a slice from some larger canvas not yet revealed to him. He could not even tell whether it was a sending from the Lady, the blessed Lady of the Isle of Sleep, or from the malevolent King of Dreams. He lay half awake, pondering it awhile, and decided at last to give it no deeper consideration. He felt oddly adrift, cut free from his own inner self: it was as though he had not even existed the day before yesterday. And even the wisdom of dreams was concealed from him now.

  He slept again, a sleep unbroken except when a light patter of rain fell briefly but noisily, and he was unaware of further dreams. Early light woke him: warm golden-green light pouring in through the far end of the long narrow hall. The door stood open. Shanamir was nowhere about. Valentine was alone, except for a couple of snorers deeper into the room.

  Valentine rose, stretched, flexed his arms and legs, dressed. He washed at a basin against the wall, and stepped out into the courtyard, feeling alert, energetic, ready for whatever this day might bring. The morning air was thick with moisture, but warm and bright, and last night’s fog had altogether burned off; out of a clear sky came the throbbing heat of the summer sun. In the courtyard grew three great vines, one along each wall, with gnarled woody trunks broader than a man’s waist, and shovel-shaped glossy leaves of a deep bronze hue, the new growth bright red. The vine was abloom with showy yellow blossoms like little trumpets, but also it bore ripened fruit, heavy blue-white berries glistening with beads of wetness. Valentine plucked one boldly and ate it: sweet, tart as well, with the headiness of very young wine. He had another, then reached for a third and thought better of it.

  Circling the courtyard, he peered into the stables and saw Shanamir’s mounts munching quietly on bits of straw, but no Shanamir. Off on business, perhaps. Onward now around a bend, and the odor of grilled fish came to him and made him tingle with sudden hunger. He pushed open a rickety door and found himself in a kitchen where a small weary-looking man was cooking breakfast for half a dozen lodgers of several races. The cook looked at Valentine without interest.

  “Am I too late to eat?” Valentine asked softly.

  “Take a seat. Fish and beer, thirty weights.”

  He found a half-crown piece and laid it on the stove. The cook pushed a few coppers back at him and threw another fillet onto his griddle. Valentine took a seat against the wall. Several of the diners got up to depart, and one, a slender, lithe young woman with close-clipped black hair, paused near him. “The beer’s in that pitcher,” she said. “You help yourself around here.”

  “Thank you,” said Valentine, but she was already out the door.

  He poured a mugful—it was heavy, tangy stuff, thick against his tongue. In a minute he had his fish, crisply cooked and sweet. He ate it swiftly. “Another?” he said to the cook, who eyed him sourly but complied.

  As he ate, Valentine became aware that a lodger at the next table—a Hjort, thick-bodied and puffy-faced, with pebble-textured ashen skin and big bulging eyes—was peering intently at him. The strange surveillance made Valentine uncomfortable. After a time he glanced directly back at the Hjort, who blinked and looked quickly away.

  Some moments later the Hjort turned to Valentine again and said, “Just got here, did you?”

  “Last night.”

  “Staying long?”

  “Through the festival, at least,” Valentine said.

  Definitely there was something about the Hjort that he instinctively disliked. Perhaps it was merely his looks, for Valentine found Hjorts unattractive, coarse and bloated creatures. But that was unkind, he knew. Hjorts bore no responsibility for the way they looked, and they probably found humans equally disagreeable, pale scrawny things with disgustingly smooth skins.

  Or possibly it was the intrusion on his privacy that bothered him, the staring, the questions. Or maybe just the way the Hjort was decorated with fleshy daubs of orange pigment. Whatever it was, it made him feel queasy and bothered.

  But he felt mild guilt for such prejudices and he had no wish to be unsociable. By way of atoning he offered a lukewarm smile and said, “My name is Valentine. I’m from Ni-moya.”

  “Long way to come,” said the Hjort, chewing noisily.

  “You live near here?”

  “Little way south of Pidruid. Name’s Vinorkis. Dealer in haigus hides.” The Hjort sliced fussily at his food. After a moment he returned his attention to Valentine, letting his great fishy eyes rest fixedly on him. “You traveling with that boy?”

  “Not really. I met him on my way into Pidruid.”

  The Hjort nodded. “Going back to Ni-moya after the festival?”

  The flow of questions was becoming an annoyance. But Valentine still hesitated to be impolite even in the face of this impoliteness. “I’m not sure yet,” he said.

  “Thinking of staying here, then?”

  Valentine shrugged. “I really have no plans at all.”

  “Mmm,” the Hjort said. “Fine way to live.”

  It was impossible to tell from the Hjort’s flat nasal inflection whether that was meant as praise or sarcastic condemnation. But Valentine hardly cared. He had sufficiently met his social responsibilities, he decided, and fell silent. The Hjort likewise seemed to have no more to say. He finished his breakfast, pushed back his chair with a screech, and in his ungainly Hjortish way lurched toward the door, saying, “Off to the marketplace now. See you around.”

  Eventually Valentine wandered out into the courtyard, where now an odd game was in progress. Eight figures stood near the far wall, throwing daggers back and forth to one another. Six of them were Skandars, big rough shaggy beings with four arms and coarse gray pelts, and the other two were human. Valentine recognized those two as having been breakfasting when he entered the kitchen—the sleek, slim dark-haired woman and a lean, hard-eyed man with eerie white skin and long white hair. The daggers flew with astonishing speed, glittering as they flashed in the morning sun, and there was grim concentration on everyone’s face. No one dropped a blade, no one ever seemed to catch one by the sharp
side, and Valentine could not even count the number of daggers passing back and forth; everyone appeared constantly to be throwing and catching, all hands full and more weapons traveling through the air. Jugglers, he thought, practicing their trade, getting ready to perform at the festival. The Skandars, four-armed and powerfully built, performed prodigies of coordination, but the man and the woman held their own in the patterns, juggling as deftly as the others. Valentine stood at a safe distance, watching in fascination as the daggers flew.

  Then one of the Skandars grunted a “Hup!” and the pattern changed: the six aliens began to direct their weapons only at one another, doubling and redoubling the intensity with which they passed, and the two humans moved a short way apart. The girl grinned at Valentine. “Hoy, come join us!”

  “What?”

  “Play the game with us!” Her eyes sparkled mischievously.

  “A very dangerous game, I’d say.”

  “All the best games are dangerous. Here!” Without warning, she flipped a dagger toward him. “What’s your name, fellow?”

  “Valentine,” he said in a sort of gasp, and desperately nipped the dagger by its haft as it went shooting past his ear.

  “Nicely caught,” said the white-haired man. “Try this!”

  He tossed a blade too. Valentine laughed and caught it, a little less awkwardly, and stood there with one in each hand. The aliens, wholly ignoring the byplay, continued methodically to send cascades of weapons flashing back and forth.

  “Return the throw,” the girl called.

  Valentine frowned. He tossed it too carefully, absurdly fearful of skewering her, and the dagger described a limp arc and landed at her feet.

  “You can do better,” she said scornfully.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  He threw the other one with more vigor. She plucked it calmly, and took another from the white-haired man, and sent first one, then the other, toward Valentine. There was no time to think. Snap and snap and he caught them both. Sweat broke out on his forehead, but he was getting into the rhythm of it.

  “Here,” he called. He gave one to her and took another from the white-haired one, and sent a third through the air, and found one coming at him and then another, and he wished that these were play daggers, blunt of blade, but he knew that they were not and he stopped fretting about it. The thing to do was to make oneself into a kind of automaton, keeping the body centered and aware, looking always toward the incoming dagger and letting the outgoing one fly of its own accord. He moved steadily, catching, throwing, catching, throwing, always one blade coming toward him and one departing. Valentine realized that a true juggler would be using both hands at once, but he was no juggler and it was all he could manage to coordinate catching and throwing. Yet he was doing well. He wondered how soon it would be before the inevitable blunder came and he was cut. The jugglers laughed as the tempo increased. He laughed with them, easily, and went on catching and throwing for a good two or three minutes before he felt his reflexes blurring from the strain. This was the moment to stop. He caught and deliberately dropped each of the blades in turn, until all three lay at his feet, and he bent over, chuckling, slapping his thighs, breathing hard.

  The two human jugglers applauded. The Skandars had not ceased their formidable whirling of blades, but now one cried another “Hup,” and the sextet of aliens reeled in their daggers and moved off without a further word, disappearing in the direction of the sleeping-quarters.

  The young woman danced over to Valentine.

  “I’m Carabella,” she said. She was no taller than Shanamir, and could not have been more than a few years out of girlhood. There was an irrepressible vitality bubbling within her small, muscular frame. She wore a light green doublet of close weave and a triple strand of polished quanna-shells at her throat, and her eyes were as dark as her hair. Her smile was warm and inviting. “Where have you juggled before, fellow?” she asked.

  “Never,” said Valentine. He dabbed at his sweaty forehead. “A tricky sport. I don’t know why I wasn’t cut.”

  “Never?” cried the white-haired one. “Never juggled before? That was a show of natural skill and nothing else?”

  “I suppose it has to be called that,” Valentine said with a shrug.

  “Can we believe that?” the white-haired man asked.

  “I think so,” Carabella said. “He was good, Sleet, but he had no form. Did you see how his hands moved after the daggers, out to here, across to here, a little nervous, a little eager, never waiting for the hafts to come to the proper place? And his throws, how hurried, how wild? No one who has been trained in the art could easily have pretended to such clumsiness, and why should he? This Valentine’s eye is good, Sleet, but he tells the truth. He’s never thrown.”

  “His eye is more than good,” Sleet muttered. “He has a quickness I envy greatly. He has a gift.”

  “Where are you from?” Carabella asked.

  “The east,” said Valentine obliquely.

  “I thought so. Your speech is somewhat odd. You come from Velathys? Khyntor, maybe?”

  “From that direction, yes.”

  Valentine’s lack of specificity was not lost on Carabella, nor on Sleet; they exchanged quick glances. Valentine wondered if they could be father and daughter. Probably not. Sleet, Valentine saw, was not nearly as old as he had seemed at first. Of middle years, yes, but hardly old; the bleached look of his skin and of his hair exaggerated his age. He was a compact, taut man with thin lips and a short, pointed white beard. A scar, pale now but once no doubt quite vivid, ran across one cheek from ear to chin.

  Carabella said, “We are from the south, I from Til-omon, Sleet from Narabal.”

  “Here to perform at the Coronal’s festival?”

  “Indeed. Newly hired by the troupe of Zalzan Kavol the Skandar, to help them fulfill the Coronal’s recent decree concerning employment of humans. And you? What has brought you to Pidruid?”

  “The festival,” said Valentine.

  “To do business?”

  “Merely to see the games and parades.”

  Sleet laughed knowingly. “No need to be coy with us, friend. Hardly a disgrace to be selling mounts in the market. We saw you come in with the boy last night.”

  “No,” Valentine said. “I met the young herdsman only yesterday, as I was approaching the city. The animals are his. I merely accompanied him to the inn, because I was a stranger here. I have no trade of my own.”

  One of the Skandars reappeared in a doorway. He was of giant size, half again as tall as Valentine, a formidable hulking creature, heavy-jawed and fierce, with narrow yellow eyes. His four arms hung well below his knees and terminated in hands like great baskets. “Come inside!” he called brusquely.

  Sleet saluted and trotted off. Carabella lingered a moment, grinning at Valentine.

  “You are very peculiar,” she said. “You speak no lies, yet nothing you say sounds right. I think you yourself have little knowledge of your own soul. But I like you. You give off a glow, do you know that, Valentine? A glow of innocence, of simplicity, of warmth, or—of something else. I don’t know.” Almost shyly she touched two fingers to the side of his arm. “I do like you. Perhaps we’ll juggle again.”

  And she was gone, scampering off after Sleet.

  5

  He was alone, and there was no sign of Shanamir, and although he found himself wishing mightily he could spend the day with the jugglers, with Carabella, there was no way he could do that. And the morning was still young. He was without plan, and that troubled him, but not excessively. There was all of Pidruid for him to explore.

  Out he went, down winding streets heavy with foliage. Lush vines and trees with thick weeping limbs sprouted everywhere, thriving in the moist warm salt air. From far away came band music, a gay if somewhat strident wheezing and pumping melody, maybe a rehearsal for the grand parade. A small river of foaming water rushed along the gutter, and the wildlings of Pidruid frolicked in it, mintuns and mangy dogs and littl
e prickly-nosed droles. Busy, busy, busy, a teeming city where everyone and everything, even the stray animals, had something important to do and were doing it in a hurry. All but Valentine, who strolled aimlessly, following no particular route. He paused now to peer into some dark shop festooned with bolts and swatches of fabric, now into some musty repository of spices, now into some choice and elegant garden of rich-hued blossoms sandwiched between two tall narrow buildings. Occasionally people glanced at him as though marveling that he could allow himself the luxury of sauntering.

  In one street he stopped to watch children playing a game, a sort of pantomime, one little boy with a strip of golden cloth tied as a circlet around his forehead making menacing gestures in the center of a ring, and the others dancing around him, pretending to be terrified, singing:

  The old King of Dreams

  Sits on his throne.

  He’s never asleep,

  He’s never alone.

  The old King of Dreams

  Comes in the night.

  If you’ve been bad

  He’ll give you a fright.

  The old King of Dreams

  Has a heart made of stone.

  He’s never asleep

  He’s never alone.

  But when the children realized that Valentine was watching, they turned and made grotesque gestures at him, grimacing, crooking their arms, pointing. He laughed and moved on.

  By mid-morning he was at the waterfront. Long elbow-angled piers thrust far out into the harbor, and every one seemed a place of mad activity. Longshoremen of four or five races were unloading cargo vessels that bore the arms of twenty ports on all three continents; they used floaters to bring the bales of goods down to dockside and convey them to the warehouses, but there was plenty of shouting and angry maneuvering as the immensely heavy bundles were jockeyed this way and that. As Valentine watched from the shadow of the wharf, he felt a rough thump between his shoulders, and whirled to find a puffy-faced choleric Hjort pointing and waving arms. “Over there,” the Hjort said. “We need six more to work the Suvrael ship!”