Lord Prestimion Read online

  The Lady Therissa shook her head. “I made no attempt to rove as far from here as they must be by now.” And, to Dinitak: “I found your father so easily because he was wearing the helmet too. When I cast my mind forth to see what I could find, the first thing I felt was the mental broadcast coming from him. The one he has is more powerful than this, isn’t it, boy?”

  “It is, ma’am, yes. A later model. I didn’t dare try to take it: it never leaves his side.”

  “He’s employing it to spread the madness, just as we feared. I saw how easily that can be done. The spell of forgetfulness that you had the mages cast at the end of the war, Prestimion: just as you said, it created places of impairment in many minds, structural weaknesses, easily breached. Not much stress is needed to break through them. And if this man, using his helmet, simply touches such people—”

  A sound that seemed almost to be one of pain came from Prestimion. “Mother, this has to be stopped!”

  His anguish was profound. Dekkeret stared at him in horror.

  “That may not be so simple,” said Maundigand-Klimd somberly. “He is using the helmet to defend himself and his master against attack, is he not, Lady Therissa?”

  “Yes. You sensed that, didn’t you? He’s setting up some kind of shield that made it difficult for me to make contact with him. Even when I did at last penetrate it, I met with great murkiness. And could not tell you, within five hundred miles, where his camp is located.”

  “Of course you couldn’t,” Prestimion said. “There’s every likelihood that Barjazid’s using the helmet to keep Dantirya Sambail’s camp concealed from attackers. Akbalik spoke of that. ‘A cloud of unknowingness,’ he called it. He thought the Procurator might be using a magus to create it for him with some sort of incantation. But then, when I told him Dekkeret’s tale of his encounter with Barjazid and his helmet in Suvrael, Akbalik suggested that Dantirya Sambail’s constant disappearances were probably Barjazid’s work.”

  “You may be certain of it, my lord,” said Dinitak. “It is no difficult thing to use the helmet to cast this cloud of unknowingness, as you term it, over someone’s mind. I could do it myself. I could stand right here and you would think I had vanished before your eyes.”

  Prestimion turned toward the boy. “Do you think,” he said, “that one of these helmets could be used to counteract the power of another?”

  “That should be possible, my lord. It would not be an easy thing—my father is highly adept with these devices, and he is always a dangerous opponent—but yes, I think it can be done.”

  “Well, then. The answer to our problem’s obvious. We use the helmet we have here for a counterstrike. If all goes well for us, we remove Barjazid and his device from the equation, and the spreading of the madness is ended, and Septach Melayn and Gialaurys will be able to find and attack Dantirya Sambail. What do you say, mother? Is that something you think you could do?”

  The Lady Therissa met her son’s gaze levelly. And said in a flat calm tone without any warmth in it at all, “I’m accustomed to using my powers for healing, Prestimion. Not for making war. Not for launching attacks on people—even someone like this man Barjazid. Or Dantirya Sambail.”

  Her unexpected response obviously jarred Prestimion badly. His eyes flashed amazement and color flared in his cheeks. He regained his poise quickly, though, and said, “Oh, mother, you mustn’t think of it as an attack! Or at least try to see it simply as a counterattack. They are the aggressors. What would you be doing, if not defending innocent people against their attacks?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps.” But the Lady sounded unconvinced. A certain darkening of her brow revealed the depths of the conflict within her. “You also need to bear in mind, Prestimion, that I barely know how to use this thing. Before we can even think of using it as you suggest, I’d need to gain more skill with it—to master its subtleties, to get a deeper understanding of its power and range. All that will take time. Assuming that I agree to do such a thing at all. And I am by no means sure that I will.”

  The look of exasperation on Prestimion’s face intensified. “Time? We have no time! There are two armies of ours in that horrible jungle at this very moment. How long do you think I can keep them sitting there, mother? And the madness, spreading hour by hour at that man’s hands—no. No. We need to strike right away. You have to do it, mother!”

  The Lady did not reply. She enfolded herself in her regal grandeur and calmly regarded her son in silence—a silence that was itself an answer, Dekkeret thought. The temperature in the room seemed to approach the freezing point. A quarrel between the Coronal and the Lady of the Isle: what an extraordinary thing that was to find oneself witnessing!

  Then the high, clear voice of Dinitak Barjazid broke through the frosty stillness: “I could do it, my lord, if the Lady won’t. I could. I know I could.”

  “You would strike out against your own father?” Dekkeret cried at once, amazed.

  The boy looked at him scornfully, as though Dekkeret had said something impossibly naive. “Oh, Prince Dekkeret, why not? If he chooses to make himself the enemy of all the world, surely he’s my enemy as well. Why did I bring this helmet here, if not to offer it for use against him? Why did I flee from him at all?” His eyes were shining. His whole face was aflame with youthful zeal. “I am here to serve, Prince Dekkeret. In any way that I can.”

  Prestimion was staring at him too, Dekkeret realized.

  He understood suddenly that young Barjazid had put him in a precarious position. He was the one who had brought the boy to Prestimion, after all. He was the one who had urged the Coronal to have faith in him. From the moment Dekkeret had wrested the dream-stealing helmet out of the elder Barjazid’s grasp in Suvrael, Dinitak had taken the position with his father that it would be wise for them to go with Dekkeret to Castle Mount and demonstrate the power of their device to Lord Prestimion.

  But suppose what was happening now was—as Prestimion had proposed at the time of Dinitak’s startling defection to his side in Stoien city—simply part of some intricately treacherous scheme of Dantirya Sambail’s? What if the boy, wearing the helmet that he claimed to have brought here for the sake of putting it at the Coronal’s service, were to join forces across these thousands of miles with his father in Stoienzar, who was wearing one of the others? Together they would create an invulnerable force.

  It was a rash gamble, Dekkeret thought. They were staking everything on a ragged youngster in whose veins ran the blood of a man for whom betrayal and deceit were as natural as breathing. Could they risk it?

  And yet—even so—

  “What do you say, Dekkeret?” the Coronal asked. “Shall we accept the boy’s offer?”

  Dekkeret looked past Prestimion toward the aloof and enigmatic figure of Maundigand-Klimd, who had remained on the periphery of the discussion throughout.

  Help me, he begged the Su-Suheris, speaking only with his eyes. I am beyond my depth here. Help me. Help me.

  Did Maundigand-Klimd understand?

  Yes. Yes. The four green eyes of the magus were looking directly into his own. From the left head came the slightest of nods. Then a second one, from the right. And then again, unmistakably, both heads nodding at once.

  I thank you, Maundigand-Klimd. With all my heart.

  In a bold voice Dekkeret said, “I told you when he first came here that we should trust him, my lord. I still believe that we should.”

  “So be it, then,” Prestimion said immediately. Plainly he had already made the same choice. He glanced toward young Barjazid. “We’ll meet again later today,” he told the boy, “to discuss how to go about making our counterstrike.” Then, to the Princess Therissa: “Mother, you are excused from attending. I won’t ask you to take part in this task, since you find it so disagreeable, though I still have other work for you.” And finally, speaking this time to Dekkeret and Dinitak and Maundigand-Klimd together: “You may go, now, all of you. I want to have a few minutes alone with my mother.”

  F
rom a cabinet below the window Prestimion took a flask of the wine of Muldemar, a rare vintage that he had brought with him to Stoien from the Castle, and poured it liberally for them. They saluted each other solemnly.

  “I ask your pardon, mother,” he said, when they had had a few sips and put their bowls down. “It pained me very much to put you into such a difficult position in front of the others.”

  “I took no offense. You are the Coronal Lord, Prestimion: you are responsible for the welfare of the world. These men threaten us all, and you need to take action against them. I’m willing to do all that I can to help you in that. But you asked something of me that I’m not capable of giving.”

  “For which I’m sorry. I should have seen that before I spoke. For you to employ your training and powers in order to commit an act of aggression—”

  “You understand it now,” she said, and smiled, and reached across to take his hand. She kissed it lightly, the merest brush of her lips against his skin. “But the attempt must be made, with or without me. Will the boy succeed in besting his father, I wonder? Just from my own brief contact with his mind, I can see how formidable he is. And how evil.”

  “If at the very least Dinitak can hamper his father somewhat, that will help. An unexpected jab that weakens his guard—a distraction—a diversion—” Prestimion shrugged. “Well, we’ll see soon enough.” He picked up the Lady’s silver circlet, lying where she had left it on the table. The tingling sensation that heralded its power immediately manifested itself to him. “You need to give me further training in this,” he said. “And I’ll want to learn how to use the Barjazid helmet also. If I’m required to sit here far behind the battle lines, as everyone seems to insist, I want to be able to take whatever part in the struggle I possibly can, even at this distance.”

  “I can help you with that.”

  “Will you? The Barjazid device too?”

  “Mastering it won’t be easy for you. To use it is to ride the lightning. But yes, Prestimion—yes—I’ll give you all the assistance I can. Which means I must learn to master the thing myself, I suppose. What wine is this? It’s splendid stuff.”

  He laughed. “You don’t recognize it? It comes from our own cellars, mother!”

  She drank again, savoring the wine more closely this time, and asked him to fill her bowl once more.

  “Gladly,” he said. And then, after a little while: “Take up your circlet once again, if you will, mother. Cast your mind far afield for me. There are things I need to know. Tell me how my army fares in the Stoienzar jungles, and find Varaile for me as she travels eastward, and my poor suffering Akbalik.”

  “Yes. Of course.” She donned the slender silver band and closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again Prestimion saw that she had slipped into the trance-state through which the wearer of the circlet was able to rove freely through the world. She seemed unaware of his presence entirely. He scarcely dared breathe. She was gone a long time; and then that far look, that look of absence, went from her eyes and she was herself again.

  But she was silent. “Well?” Prestimion said, when he could wait no longer. “What did you see, mother?”

  “It was Septach Melayn I encountered first. What a dear man he is, ever charming, ever elegant and graceful! And so deeply devoted to you.”

  “How does he fare, then?”

  “I found him restless and troubled. He moves on and on through the jungle. But the enemy is nowhere to be found. His scouts come back again and again with reports of the Procurator’s camp, but when the full army goes to the place, there is no one there. And apparently never was.”

  “The cloud of unknowingness,” Prestimion said. “With young Barjazid’s aid we’ll help him overcome that.—And Varaile, and Akbalik?”

  “They are far from here by now, are they not, well beyond the midpoint of the continent?”

  “I certainly hope so. But crossing such a distance is no great task for you, is it?”

  “No,” she said, and returned to her trance. This time, when she emerged from it, her jaw was tightly set and her eyes looked alarmingly grim. Again she was maddeningly slow to speak. Evidently it took her some time to collect herself after these voyages.

  “Is something the matter?” he burst out finally. “With Varaile? The baby?”

  “No,” she said. “All is well with your wife and the child she carries.—Your friend Akbalik, though—”

  “His condition’s grown worse, has it?”

  She paused just a moment. “His suffering is over, Prestimion.”

  The quiet words hit with savage impact. For an instant Prestimion was almost stunned by them. Then, gradually recovering, he said quietly, “I sent him to his death when I let him go into that jungle. Not the first good man whose life was shortened on my account. Not the last, I fear.—I thought he might be Coronal after me, mother. That was how much regard I had for him.”

  “I know you loved him. I regret bringing you such tidings.”

  “I asked for them, mother.”

  She nodded. “There is more trouble, I think, in another quarter. I had only the barest suggestion of it as I cast my mind outward. Let me look again.”

  A third time she entered trance. Prestimion drained his wine-bowl and waited. This time when she came forth he threw no impatient questions at her.

  “Yes,” she said. “So I thought. There is a great fleet gathered on the coast of Zimroel, Prestimion. An armada, in truth. Scores of ships, perhaps more than a hundred, waiting at sea off Piliplok for Dantirya Sambail to give them the order to sail.”

  “So that’s it! He’s quietly been assembling an invasion force all this time, and now it’s on the way! But how strange, mother, that it was able to come together unobserved, unreported—”

  “I had the greatest difficulty in detecting it. It moves as though under cover of perpetual night, even in daytime.”

  “Of course. The cloud of unknowingness again! Which has hidden not just the Procurator from us, but an entire navy!” Prestimion rose. To his great surprise he felt a curious kind of tranquility stealing over him. The news was bad, most of it, but at least he had heard the worst of it now. “So be it,” he said. “We know what kind of enemy we face, at any rate. We’d better get down to the job of dealing with him, eh, mother?”

  “Darkness is coming on,” Navigorn said. “Shall we make camp here, do you think?”

  “Why not?” said Septach Melayn. “It’s as bad a place as any, isn’t it?”

  And worse than some, he thought. It was a pity that young Dekkeret was not along on this expedition: if he still had the taste for penitence and punishment that had driven him to undertake his journey to Suvrael, he would find these jungles ideal for additional self-flagellation purposes. There could be few regions in the world less hospitable than the southern Stoienzar.

  They had seen an endless procession of hideosities in their westward journey through the peninsula. Trees that sprouted and grew and died all in one day—springing out of the ground at dawn, rising to a height of thirty feet by noon, unfolding ugly black flowers then that gave off pungent noxious fumes, within another hour producing swollen ripe fruit of the most intensely lethal sort, and finally perishing of their own miserable poisonous nature by sunset. Purple crabs as big as houses that came rumbling up out their hiding-places in the sandy ground right under your nose, clacking murderous claws sharp as scimitars. Black snails that spit red acid at your ankles. And the damnable vile saw-palms everywhere, the foul manganozas, gleefully waving their savage fronds at you as though daring you to come near their impenetrable and impassable thickets.

  This campsite of Navigorn’s, now: a broad, dusty gray beach of sharp-edged gravel along the banks of a dry gravelly river. That was perfect, thought Septach Melayn. A river that seemed to be altogether without water, that offered the eye nothing but a long barren expanse of small broken stones. There had to be water somewhere beneath its rocky bed, though, for if one stood and watched for a time
one could see that the pebbles were in steady slow movement, as though they were being dragged sluggishly along the river’s course by the force of an underground stream flowing deep down below. To while away the time, he thought, you could stand beside it and fish for precious stones, trying to spy the occasional emerald or ruby or whatever, borne along like a brightly glittering fish through all the dreary slow-moving debris. But he suspected you could wait here for fifty thousand years before you found anything worth finding. Or forever, perhaps.

  Gialaurys stepped from his floater and came toward them. “Are we going to make our camp in this place?”

  “Have you seen any better site?”

  “There’s no water here.”

  “But also no manganozas and no swamp-crabs,” Navigorn said. “I could do with a night’s respite from those. And in the morning we can go straight on toward the Procurator’s camp.”

  Gialaurys laughed harshly and spat.

  “No,” said Navigorn. “This time we’re actually going to find it. I have a feeling that we will.”

  “Yes,” Septach Melayn said. “Of course we will.”

  He sauntered away from them and found a seat on a saddle-shaped boulder by the river’s edge. Scaly many-legged things the size of his hand were rummaging for provender through the topmost level of the gravel, burrowing down to seize smaller creatures lurking below, then coming up to feed at the surface: bugs of some sort, he thought, or crustaceans, or maybe they were the air-breathing fishes of this dry river. Fishes with legs would fit well with a river that had no water. One of them clambered up atop the gravel and peered at him out of half a dozen bright, beady eyes as though it might be contemplating making a run at his ankle to sample his flavor. Everything wanted to bite you in the Stoienzar, even the plants. Septach Melayn shied a rock at the thing, not making any serious attempt to hit it, and it scrabbled out of sight.

  For all the buoyancy of his resilient nature, this place was a severe test even for him. As for the others, they must be suffering intensely. The unremittingly hostile nature of the peninsula was so excessive that it was almost funny; but one could find amusement only so long in the challenges of a district where every moment brought some new discomfort or danger. And they were swiftly growing weary of the entire adventure. It was beginning to seem to everyone that they had been chasing after Dantirya Sambail all their lives: first in the east-country, then in Ketheron and Arvyanda and Sippulgar, and now on this interminable trek through the Stoienzar.