“Yes, my lord. It is not a pleasant journey, my lord. But it was one that I had to make.—Shall I show it to him now, Prince Dekkeret?” he asked, looking aside.
“Show it, yes.”
The boy reached down and scooped up the burlap sack, which had been lying at his feet all this while. He drew from it an intricate circular object fashioned of rods and wires of several different metals delicately woven together, gold and silver and copper and perhaps one or two more, with a series of glittering inlaid stones and crystals, sapphire and serpentine and emerald and what looked like hematite, affixed along its inner surface within an ivory frame. It had something of the look of a royal crown, or perhaps some talismanic instrument of magery, on the order of a rohilla, though much larger. But what it actually was, Prestimion saw, was a mechanism of some sort.
“This,” the boy said proudly, holding the thing forth for Prestimion’s inspection, “is one of the three working models of the dream-machine. I took it from my father’s tent in the jungle and brought it safely here. And I am willing to show you how to use it in your war against the rebels.”
The coolly delivered statement struck Prestimion like a bolt from on high.
“May I see it?” he asked, when he had regained a little of his steadiness.
“Of course, my lord.”
He placed it in Prestimion’s hands. It was a beautiful gleaming thing of complex and elegant design, scarcely heavier than a feather, that seemed almost to be throbbing with the force of the power locked up within it.
Prestimion realized that this was not the first time he had seen something like this. During the civil war, when they were camped in the Marraitis meadowlands west of the Jhelum River on the eve of the great battle that soon would be fought there, he had gone into the tent of the Vroon Thalnap Zelifor and observed him working over an object of somewhat similar design. It was, the Vroon had explained, a device that would enable him when it was perfected to amplify the waves coming from the minds of others, and read their inmost thoughts, and place thoughts of his own into their heads. In time he had indeed perfected it, and eventually it had fallen into the hands of Venghenar Barjazid, and now—now—
Abruptly Prestimion lifted the instrument toward his own forehead.
“My lord, no!” the young Barjazid cried.
“No? Why is that?”
“You must have the training, first. There is tremendous strength in the instrument that you hold. You’ll injure yourself, my lord, if you simply put it to your head like that.”
“Ah. Perhaps so.” He handed the thing back to the boy as though it were about to explode.
Could it be, he wondered, that this youngster had actually brought him the one weapon that might give him hope of countering the uprising that confronted him?
To Dekkeret he said, “What do we have here, do you think? Is this boy to be trusted? Or is it all some new plot of Dantirya Sambail’s to send him here among us?”
“Trust him, my lord,” Dekkeret said. “Oh, I beg you, Lord Prestimion: trust him!”
12
Travelers returning to Castle Mount from Stoien began their eastward journey by going up along the coast to Treymone, where they could take a boat up the River Trey as far as it was navigable. Then it was necessary to swing to the north to avoid the grim desert that surrounded the ruins of the ancient Metamorph capital of Velalisier. The route led up into the broad, fertile valley of the River Iyann, which they would traverse as far as Three Rivers, where the Iyann took off on its northward journey. There one turned slightly to the south again, entering the grassy plain known as the Vale of Gloyn, and crossed west-central Alhanroel to the midlands mercantile center of Sisivondal, where the main highway to the Mount could be found. From there it was a straight path across the heart of the continent to the foothills of the mighty peak.
Prestimion had provided Varaile and Akbalik with a floater of the most capacious sort for their homeward journey to the capital. They rode in cushioned comfort while platoons of tireless Skandar drivers guided the big swift vehicles as they hovered just above the bed of the highway. An armed escort of Skandar troops occupying half a dozen armor-shelled military floaters accompanied them, three vehicles preceding theirs and three traveling aft, as safeguards against any disturbances that the convoy might encounter. Not that any sane man would dare to lift his hand against the Coronal’s consort, but sanity was beginning to be a commodity in short supply in these districts, and Prestimion intended to take no chances. Again and again, as the floaters halted briefly for supplies in some town or village along the way, Varaile saw wild, distorted faces peering at her from the roadside, and heard the harsh cackling cries of the demented. The Skandars, though, kept all these troubled folk at a safe distance.
They were beyond Gloyn now, moving along through a series of unfamiliar places with such names as Drone, Hun-zimar, Gannamunda. So far Varaile had had a fairly easy time of the journey. She had expected much more discomfort, especially as the passing days brought her ever closer to the hour when the new Prince Taradath would enter the world. But aside from the growing heaviness of her body, the sagging weight of her swelling belly, the occasional throbbings in her legs, the pregnancy had little effect on her well-being. Varaile had never given much thought to motherhood—she had not even had any lovers, before Prestimion had come like a whirlwind into her life and swept her away—but she was tall and strong and young, and she could see now that she was going to withstand whatever stresses were involved in childbirth without serious challenge.
Akbalik, though—it was clear to Varaile that he was finding the trip east very much of an ordeal.
His infected leg seemed to be getting worse. He said nothing about it to her, of course, not a word of complaint. But his forehead glistened with sweat much of the time, now, and his face was flushed as though he suffered from a constant fever. Now and again she would catch him biting his lower lip to hold back pain, or he would turn away from her and let a stifled groan escape his lips while she pretended not to notice. It was important to Akbalik, Varaile saw, to maintain a pose of good health, or at least of steady recovery. But it was easy enough to tell that all that was a mere facade.
How sick was he, really? Could his life be in danger, perhaps?
Varaile knew what high regard Prestimion had for Akbalik. He was a bulwark of the throne. It was possible, even, that Prestimion saw Akbalik as a likely choice for Coronal in case anything should happen to old Confalume and it became necessary for Prestimion to move along to the senior throne. “A Coronal has to keep the succession in mind all the time,” Prestimion had said to her more than once. “At any moment he can find himself transformed into a Pontifex—and it’ll go badly for the world if there’s no one ready to take over for him at the Castle.”
If Prestimion had already selected the man he would call upon in such an eventuality, he had never said a thing about it to her. Coronals did not like to talk about such matters, apparently—not even with their wives. But she saw already that Septach Melayn, though Prestimion loved him more than any other man in the world, was too whimsical a person to entrust with the throne, and Gialaurys, Prestimion’s other dear great friend, was too credulous and slow.
Who, then? Navigorn? A strong man, but troubled greatly by what looked very much like the onset of the madness. There was Dekkeret, of course: full of promise and ability and fervor. But he was ten years too young for a Coronal’s high responsibilities. Very likely he would be horrified if Prestimion were to turn to him tomorrow and offer him the starburst crown.