Legends Read online

  “Majesty? Majesty?” Magadone Sambisa called. “Tell us what you see! Tell us, please!”

  But Valentine did not reply. It was as though Magadone Sambisa had not spoken. He was deep in memory, traveling back eight years to the climactic hour of the War of the Rebellion.

  He had, in that hour, held in his hand a daggerlike thing much like these two, and had felt the strange coolness of it, a coolness that gave a hint of a fiery core within, and had heard a complex far-off music emanating from it into his mind, a turbulent rush of dizzying sound.

  It had been the tooth of a sea-dragon that he had been grasping then. Some mystery within that tooth had placed his mind in communion with the mind of the mighty water-king Maazmoorn, a dragon of the distant Inner Sea. And with the aid of the mind of Maazmoorn had Valentine Pontifex reached across the world to strike down the unrepentent rebel Faraataa and bring that sorry uprising to an end.

  Whose teeth were these, now?

  He thought he knew. This was the Shrine of the Downfall, the Place of the Defilement. Not far from here, long ago, two water-kings had been brought from the sea to be sacrificed on platforms of blue stone. That was no myth. It had actually happened. Valentine had no doubt of that, for the sea-dragon Maazmoorn had shown it to him with the full communion of his mind, in a manner that admitted of no question. He knew their names, even: one was the water-king Niznorn and the other the water-king Domsitor. Was this tooth here Niznorn’s, and this one Domsitor’s?

  Twenty thousand years.

  “Majesty? Majesty?”

  “One moment,” Valentine said, speaking as though from halfway around the world.

  He picked up the left-hand tooth. Grasped it tightly. Hissed as its fiery chill stung the palm of his hand. Closed his eyes, allowed his mind to be pervaded by its magic. Felt his spirit beginning to soar outward and outward and outward, toward some waiting dragon of the sea—Maazmoorn again, for all he could know, or perhaps some other one of the giants who swam in those waters out there—while all the time he heard the sounding bells, the tolling music of that sea-dragon’s mind.

  And was granted a vision of the ancient sacrifice of the two water-kings, the event known as the Defilement.

  He already knew, from Maazmoorn in that meeting of minds years ago, that that traditional name was a misnomer. There had been no defilement whatever. It had been a voluntary sacrifice; it had been the formal acceptance by the sea-dragons of the power of That Which Is, which is the highest of all the forces of the universe.

  The water-kings had given themselves gladly to those Piurivars of long-ago Velalisier to be slain. The slayers themselves had understood what they were doing, perhaps, but the simple Piurivars of the outlying provinces had not; and so those simpler Piurivars had called it a Defilement, and had put the Final King of Velalisier to death and smashed the Seventh Pyramid and then had wrecked all the rest of this great capital, and had laid a curse on the city forever. But the shrine of these teeth they had not dared to touch.

  Valentine, holding the tooth, beheld the sacrifice once more. Not with the bound sea-dragons writhing in fury as they were brought to the knife, the way he had seen it in his nightmare of the previous night. No. He saw it now as a serene and holy ceremony, a benign yielding up of the living flesh. And as the knives flashed, as the great seacreatures died, as their dark flesh was carried to the pyres for burning, a resounding wave of triumphant harmony went rolling out to the boundaries of the universe.

  He put the tooth down and picked up the other one. Grasped. Felt. Surrendered himself to its power.

  This time the music was more discordant. The vision that came to him was that of some unknown man of middle years, garbed in a rich costume of antique design, clothing befitting to a Pontifex. He was moving cautiously by the smoky light of a flickering torch down the very passageway outside this room where Magadone Sambisa and her archaeologists now clustered. Valentine watched that Pontifex of long ago approaching the white unsullied wall of the shrine. Saw him press the flat of his hand against it, pushing as though he hoped to penetrate it by his own strength alone. Turning from it, then, beckoning to workmen with picks and spades, indicating that they should start hacking their way through it.

  And a figure uncoiling out of the darkness, a Shapeshifter, long and lean and grim-faced, taking one great step forward and in a swift unstoppable lunge driving a knife upward and inward beneath the heart of the man in the brocaded Pontifical robes—

  Majesty, I beg you!”

  Magadone Sambisa’s voice, ripe with anguish.

  “Yes,” said Valentine, in the distant tone of one who has been lost in a dream. “I’m coming.”

  He had had enough visions, for the moment. He set the torch down on the floor, aiming it toward the opening in the wall to light his way. Carefully he picked up the two dragon teeth—letting them rest easily on the palms of his hands, taking care not to touch them so tightly as to activate their powers, for he did not want now to open his mind to them—and made his way back out of the shrine.

  Magadone Sambisa stared at him in horror. “I asked you, your majesty, not to touch the objects in the vault, not to cause any disturbance to—”

  “Yes. I know that. You will pardon me for what I have done.”

  It was not a request.

  The archaeologists melted back out of his way as he strode through their midst, heading for the exit to the upper world. Every eye was turned to the things that rested on Valentine’s upturned hands.

  “Bring the khivanivod to me here,” he said quietly to Aarisiim. The light of day was nearly gone now, and the ruins were taking on the greater mysteriousness that came over them by night, when moonlight’s cool gleam danced across the shattered city’s ancient stones.

  The Shapeshifter went rushing away. Valentine had not wanted the khivanivod anywhere near the shrine while the opening of the wall was taking place; and so, over his violent objections, Torkkinuuminaad had been bundled off to the archaeologists’ headquarters in the custody of some of Valentine’s security people. The two immense woolly Skandars brought him forth now, holding him by the arms.

  Anger and hatred were bubbling up from the shaman like black gas rising from a churning marsh. And, staring into that jagged green wedge of a face, Valentine had a powerful sense of the ancient magic of this world, of mysteries reaching toward him out of the timeless misty Majipoor dawn, when Shapeshifters had moved alone and unhindered through this great planet of marvels and splendors.

  The Pontifex held the two sea-dragon teeth aloft.

  “Do you know what these are, Torkkinuuminaad?”

  The rubbery eye-folds drew back. The narrow eyes were yellow with rage. “You have committed the most terrible of all sacrileges, and you will die in the most terrible of agonies.”

  “So you do know what they are, eh?”

  “They are the holiest of holies! You must return them to the shrine at once!”

  “Why did you have Dr. Huukaminaan killed, Torkkinuuminaad?”

  The khivanivod’s only answer was an even more furiously defiant glare.

  He would kill me with his magic, if he could, thought Valentine. And why not? I know what I represent to Torkkinuuminaad. For I am Majipoor’s emperor and therefore I am Majipoor itself, and if one thrust would send us all to our doom he would strike that thrust.

  Yes. Valentine was in his own person the embodiment of the Enemy: of those who had come out of the sky and taken the world away from the Piurivars, who had built their own gigantic sprawling cities over virgin forests and glades, had intruded themselves by the billions into the fragile fabric of the Piurivars’ trembling web of life. And so Torkkinuuminaad would kill him, if he could, and by killing the Pontifex kill, by the symbolism of magic, all of human-dominated Majipoor.

  But magic can be fought with magic, Valentine thought.

  “Yes, look at me,” he told the shaman. “Look right into my eyes, Torkkinuuminaad.”

  And let his fingers close tightly
about the two talismans he had taken from the shrine.

  The double force of the teeth struck into Valentine with a staggering impact as he closed the mental circuit. He felt the full range of the sensations all at once, not simply doubled, but multiplied many times over. He held himself upright nevertheless; he focused his concentration with the keenest intensity; he aimed his mind directly at that of the khivanivod.

  Looked. Entered. Penetrated the khivanivod’s memories and quickly found what he was seeking.

  Midnight darkness. A sliver of moonlight. The sky ablaze with stars. The billowing tent of the archaeologists. Someone coming out of it, a Piurivar, very thin, moving with the caution of age.

  Dr. Huukaminaan, surely.

  A slender figure stands in the road, waiting: another Metamorph, also old, just as gaunt, raggedly and strangely dressed.

  The khivanivod, that one is. Viewing himself in his own mind’s eye.

  Shadowy figures moving about behind him, five, six, seven of them. Shapeshifters all. Villagers, from the looks of them. The old archaeologist does not appear to see them. He speaks with the khivanivod; the shaman gestures, points. There is a discussion of some sort. Dr. Huukaminaan shakes his head. More pointing. More discussion. Gestures of agreement. Everything seems to be resolved.

  As Valentine watches, the khivanivod and Huukaminaan start off together down the road that leads to the heart of the ruins.

  The villagers, now, emerging from the shadows that have concealed them. Surrounding the old man; seizing him; covering his mouth to keep him from crying out. The khivanivod approaches him.

  The khivanivod has a knife.

  Valentine did not need to see the rest of the scene. Did not want to see that monstrous ceremony of dismemberment at the stone platform, nor the weird ritual afterward in the excavation leading to the Shrine of the Downfall, the placing of the dead man’s head in that alcove.

  He released his grasp on the two sea-dragon teeth and set them down with great care beside him on the ground.

  “Now,” he said to the khivanivod, whose expression had changed from one of barely controllable wrath to one that might almost have been resignation. “There’s no need for further pretending here, I think. Why did you kill Dr. Huukaminaan?”

  “Because he would have opened the shrine.” The khivanivod’s tone was completely flat, no emotion in it at all.

  “Yes. Of course. But Magadone Sambisa also was in favor of opening it. Why not kill her instead?”

  “He was one of us, and a traitor,” said Torkkinuuminaad. “She did not matter. And he was more dangerous to our cause. We know that she might have been prevented from opening the shrine, if we objected strongly enough. But nothing would stop him.”

  “The shrine was opened anyway, though,” Valentine said.

  “Yes, but only because you came here. Otherwise the excavations would have been closed down. The outcry over Huukaminaan’s death would demonstrate to the whole world that the curse of this place still had power. You came, and you opened the shrine; but the curse will strike you just as it struck the Pontifex Ghorban long ago.”

  “There is no curse,” Valentine said calmly. “This is a city that has seen much tragedy, but there is no curse, only misunderstanding piled on misunderstanding.”

  “The Defilement—”

  “There was no Defilement either, only a sacrifice. The destruction of the city by the people of the provinces was a vast mistake.”

  “So you understand our history better than we do, Pontifex?”

  “Yes,” said Valentine. “Yes. I do.” He turned away from the shaman and said, glancing toward the village foreman, “Vathiimeraak, there are murderers living in your settlement. I know who they are. Go to the village now and announce to everyone that if the guilty ones will come forward and confess their crime, they’ll be pardoned after they undergo a full cleansing of their souls.”

  Turning next to Lisamon Hultin, he said, “As for the khivanivod, I want him handed over to the Danipiur’s officials to be tried in her own courts. This falls within her area of responsibility. And then—”

  “Majesty!” someone called. “Beware!”

  Valentine swung around. The Skandar guards had stepped back from the khivanivod and were staring at their own trembling hands as though they had been burned in a fiery furnace. Torkkinuuminaad, freed of their grasp, thrust his face up into Valentine’s. His expression was one of diabolical intensity.

  “Pontifex!” he whispered. “Look at me, Pontifex! Look at me!”

  Taken by surprise, Valentine had no way of defending himself. Already a strange numbness had come over him. The dragon teeth went tumbling from his helpless hands. Torkkinuuminaad was shifting shape, now, running through a series of grotesque changes at a frenzied rate, so that he appeared to have a dozen arms and legs at once, and half a dozen bodies; and he was casting some sort of spell. Valentine was caught in it like a moth in a spider’s cunningly woven strands. The air seemed thick and blurred before him, and a wind had come up out of nowhere. Valentine stood perplexed, trying to force his gaze away from the khivanivod’s fiery eyes, but he could not. Nor could he find the strength to reach down and seize hold of the two dragon teeth that lay at his feet. He stood as though frozen, muddled, dazed, tottering. There was a burning sensation in his breast and it was a struggle simply to draw breath.

  There seemed to be phantoms all around him.

  A dozen Shapeshifters—a hundred, a thousand—

  Grimacing faces. Glowering eyes. Teeth; claws; knives. A horde of wildly cavorting assassins surrounded him, dancing, bobbing, gyrating, hissing, mocking him, calling his name derisively—

  He was lost in a whirlwind of ancient sorceries.

  “Lisamon?” Valentine cried, baffled. “Deliamber? Help me—help—” But he was not sure that the words had actually escaped his lips.

  Then he saw that his guardians had indeed perceived his danger. Deliamber, the first to react, came rushing forward, flinging his own many tentacles up hastily in a counterspell, a set of gesticulations and thrusts of mental force intended to neutralize whatever was emanating from Torkkinuuminaad. And then, as the little Vroon began to wrap the Piurivar shaman in his web of Vroonish wizardry, Vathiimeraak advanced on Torkkinuuminaad from the opposite side, boldly seizing the shaman in complete indifference to his spells, forcing him down to the ground, bending him until his forehead was pressing against the soil at Valentine’s feet.

  Valentine felt the grip of the shaman’s wizardry beginning to ebb, then easing further, finally losing its last remaining hold on his soul. The contact between Torkkinuuminaad’s mind and his gave way with an almost audible snap.

  Vathiimeraak released the khivanivod and stepped back. Lisamon Hultin now came to the shaman’s side and stood menacingly over him. But the episode was over. The shaman remained where he was, absolutely still now, staring at the ground, scowling bitterly in defeat.

  “Thank you,” Valentine said simply to Deliamber and Vathiimeraak. And, with a dismissive gesture: “Take him away.”

  Lisamon Hultin threw Torkkinuuminaad over her shoulder like a sack of calimbots and went striding off down the road.

  A long stunned silence followed. Magadone Sambisa broke it, finally. In a hushed voice she said, “Your majesty, are you all right?”

  He answered only with a nod.

  “And the excavations,” she said anxiously, after another moment. “What will happen to them? Will they continue?”

  “Why not?” Valentine replied. “There’s still much work to be done.” He took a step or two away from her. He touched his hands to his chest, to his throat. He could still almost feel the pressure of those relentless invisible hands.

  Magadone Sambisa was not finished with him, though.

  “And these?” she asked, indicating the sea-dragon teeth. She spoke more aggressively now, taking charge of things once again, beginning to recover her vigor and poise. “If I may have them now, majesty—”

&nbs
p; Angrily Valentine said, “Take them, yes. But put them back in the shrine. And then seal up the hole you made today.”

  The archaeologist stared at him as though he had turned into a Piurivar himself. With a note of undisguised asperity in her voice she said, “What, your majesty? What? Dr. Huukaminaan died for those teeth! Finding that shrine was the pinnacle of his work. If we seal it up now—”

  “Dr. Huukaminaan was the perfect scientist,” Valentine said, not troubling to conceal his great weariness now. “His love of the truth cost him his life. Your own love of truth, I think, is less than perfect, and therefore you will obey me in this.”

  “I beg you, majesty—”

  “No. Enough begging. I don’t pretend to be a scientist at all, but I understand my own responsibilities. Some things should remain buried. These teeth are not things for us to handle and study and put on display at a museum. The shrine is a holy place to the Piurivars, even if they don’t understand its own holiness. It’s a sad business for us all that it ever was uncovered. The dig itself can continue, in other parts of the city. But put these back. Seal that shrine and stay away from it. Understood?”

  She looked at him numbly, and nodded.

  “Good. Good.”

  The full descent of darkness was settling upon the desert now. Valentine could feel the myriad ghosts of Velalisier hovering around him. It seemed that bony fingers were plucking at his tunic, that eerie whispering voices were murmuring perilous magics in his ears.

  Most heartily he yearned to be quit of these ruins. He had had all he cared to have of them for one lifetime.

  To Tunigorn he said, “Come, old friend, give the orders, make things ready for our immediate departure.”

  “Now, Valentine? At this late hour?”

  “Now, Tunigorn. Now.” He smiled. “Do you know, this place has made the Labyrinth seem almost appealing to me! I feel a great desire to return to its familiar comforts. Come: get everything organized for leaving. We’ve been here quite long enough.”