That was all. The moment passed. The Lady was gone. Septach Melayn opened his eyes, blinked, realized that he had been dreaming.
Before him stood half a dozen of the little scaly things of the river. They had clambered up out of the gravel and were arrayed in a semicircle before him, no more than ten inches from the tips of his boots, standing in that odd semi-erect posture of theirs. He watched them weaving their forelegs about, in much the same way as the first one had. It was almost as though they were entangling him in some spell. Do we have a conclave of tiny sorcerers here? he wondered. Were they planning a concerted assault? Did they mean to rush forward in another moment and sink their little nippers into his flesh?
Apparently not. They were just sitting there, watching him. Fascinated, perhaps, by the sight of a long-legged human being dozing on a boulder. He did not feel himself in any danger. The sight of them, arranged as they were in an earnest little congregation, seemed amusing and nothing more.
So far as he could recall, these were the first inhabitants of the Stoienzar he had encountered who did not seem inherently pernicious.
A good omen, he thought. Perhaps things will be changing for the better, now.
Perhaps.
14
“Now,” Prestimion said. “IF you’re ready, let it begin!”
They were gathered about him, the four of them, in the room that he had made his battle headquarters at the royal suite of Stoien city’s Crystal Pavilion: Dinitak, Dekkeret, Maundigand-Klimd, and the Lady of the Isle. It was just before dawn. They had been preparing for this moment with the most single-minded concentration for the past ten days.
Dinitak wore the dream-helmet. He would spearhead the attack. The Lady, using the silver circlet of her power, would monitor all aspects of the struggle as it developed and report on them to Prestimion.
“Yes, my lord, I’m ready,” young Barjazid said, giving Prestimion an impudent wink.
The boy closed his eyes. Adjusted something on the rim of the helmet. Hurled his mind upward and outward toward the camp of Dantirya Sambail.
An eternally long moment crawled by. Then Dinitak’s left cheek quivered and he drew the side of his mouth back sharply in an ugly grimace; he lifted his left hand and spread its fingers wide, and they began to tremble like leaves fluttering in a hard wind.
“He is focusing the energy of the helmet against his father,” Princess Therissa murmured. “Locating him. Making contact.”
The boy was trembling. Trembling. Trembling. Trembling.
Dekkeret turned to Maundigand-Klimd. “Are we right to do this?” he asked in a low voice. “I know what the father is like. He’ll kill the boy if he can.”
“Be calm. The Lady will protect him,” the Su-Suheris replied.
“Do you really think she—”
Angrily Prestimion waved them both to silence. To his mother he said, “Are you in contact with Septach Melayn also?”
She answered with a nod.
“Where is he? How far from Dantirya Sambail?”
“Very, very close. But he’s unaware that he is. The cloud of unknowingness still screens the Procurator’s camp.”
From Dinitak Barjazid came now a sharp grunting sound, almost a yelp. He did not appear to be aware that he had uttered it. His eyes were still shut; both his hands were fiercely clenched into tight fists; convulsive tremors now ran up and down both sides of his face, so that his features were twisted and distorted into constantly changing patterns of disarray.
“He has made contact with his father,” the Princess Therissa said. “Their minds are touching.”
“And? And?”
But the Lady’s eyes were closed now, too.
Prestimion waited. It was maddening to be fighting a battle by proxy like this, across a distance of—what?—two thousand miles, was it? He chafed at his own inactivity. Somewhere out there was Dantirya Sambail, with the hel-meted Venghenar Barjazid at his side. Somewhere not far to the east of the Procurator’s camp were Septach Melayn, Gialaurys, Navigorn, and the army that had followed them through the Stoienzar. A second army, a regiment of Pontifical forces led by an officer named Guyan Daood, was closing in from the other side. Meanwhile the Coronal Lord of Majipoor stood idly by in this luxurious room far from the scene of battle, a mere observer, depending on an untried and virtually unknown boy from Suvrael to open the way for his armies and on his own mother to tell him what was going on.
“The father knows he is under attack,” the Lady said, speaking as though in trance. “But he has not yet discovered its source. When he does—ah—ah—”
She pointed a stabbing finger across the room. Prestimion saw Dinitak go jerking backward as though a hot blade had touched his flesh. He staggered, lurched, nearly fell. Dekkeret, moving swiftly toward him, caught him and steadied him. But the boy did not want to be steadied. Brushing Dekkeret aside as though he were a mere buzzing fly, he planted his feet far apart, threw his head and shoulders back, let his arms dangle at his sides. His whole body was trembling. His hands coiled and uncoiled, now forming fists, now spreading wide with the fingers rigid.
A new sound came from Dinitak’s lips, stranger than before. It was harsh and low, a bestial throbbing sound, not quite a growl, not quite a whine. It seemed to Prestimion that he had heard a sound like that before, but where? When? Then he remembered: it was the krokkotas, the caged man-killing beast of the midnight market of Bombifale, all jaws and teeth and claws, that had uttered the same hideous droning noise. And later it had come from Dantirya Sambail as well, that day in the Sangamor tunnels, the krokkotas growl again, a frightful cry of throttled rage and hatred and threat.
And now it was coming from Dinitak. “The father speaks through the boy’s throat,” whispered the Lady. “Crying out his rage at this betrayal.”
Prestimion saw Dekkeret’s face go pale with fear. He knew at once what the young man must be thinking: that Venghenar Barjazid must surely have the upper hand in this encounter, that his superior skill with the thought device, his wily unscrupulous nature, his savage determination to prevail, would inevitably prove to be too much for Dinitak. They might well see the boy destroyed before their eyes.
But Dinitak had told them over and over that he was confident of success; and in any case they had no choice but to go forward now. This was the path they had chosen; no other was available to them.
And Dinitak Barjazid appeared to be withstanding his father’s counterthrusts.
That terrifying growling had ceased. So had much of the trembling. Dinitak stood firmly braced as before, deep in his trance, nostrils flaring, eyes open now but unseeing, his teeth bared and his jaws agape. His whole aspect was a strange one, but strangely calm as well. It was as though he had passed through a zone of terrible storms into some unknown tranquil realm beyond.
Prestimion leaned forward eagerly. “Tell me what’s happening, mother!”
“Yes. Yes.” She seemed very far away herself. Her words came with great difficulty. “They are—contending for power. Neither one—is able to budge—the other. It is—a stalemate—a stalemate, Prestimion—”
“If only I could help, somehow—”
“No. No need. He is holding his father at bay—preventing him—preventing him from—”
“From what, mother?”
“From sustaining—sustaining—” Prestimion waited.
“Yes?” he said, when he could wait no longer. “From sustaining the cloud of unknowingness,” said the Princess Therissa. For a moment she returned from her trance and her eyes focused squarely on Prestimion’s. “The father is unable to do both things at the same time, to fend off his son’s attack and also to keep the cloud of unknowingness in place around the Procurator’s camp. And so the cloud is lifting. The way is clear for Septach Melayn.”