“Yes,” Prestimion said. “Very ingenious.”
He did not trouble to tell Navigorn that this was his third visit to the tunnels, not his second; that only two years before, in fact, he had been a prisoner in these chambers, the first such captive in centuries, sent here by order of the Coronal Lord Korsibar, as Korsibar then was pleased to style himself. And had hung by his wrists and ankles from the wall of a stone chamber whose every square inch emitted great sweeping blasts of brilliant red color, visible even when he closed his eyes. That inexorable outpouring of light had pounded and throbbed against his brain in a way that had come close to driving him mad.
Prestimion had no idea how long Korsibar had kept him imprisoned. Three or four weeks, at least, though it had felt like months to him. Years, even. He had emerged from the tunnels feeble and shaken, and had been a long while recovering.
Navigorn, though, lacked any awareness of that. Prestimion’s stay in the Sangamor tunnels was another thing that had been expunged from everyone’s remembrance. Everyone’s, that is, but his own. If only he could forget it, too! But the memory of that terrible time would stay with him forever.
But he was here now as Coronal, not as a prisoner. Navigorn led him inward through the tunnel vestibule, chattering like a tour guide. Prestimion was amused to see how well Navigorn had taken to the jailer’s role.
“The walls, you see, are faced with a substance much like stone, though it’s actually of an artificial nature. It is the special quality of that substance, my lord, that it unceasingly gives off great quantities of colored light. A scientific secret of the ancients which, alas, we have lost in modern times.”
“One of many,” said Prestimion. “Though I confess I don’t see much utility to this one.”
“There’s great beauty in these colors, my lord.”
“Up to a point. I imagine they could become infuriating after a while, those tremendous pulsing jolts of light that can’t be turned off.”
“Perhaps so. But over a short period of time—”
Well, when he had been imprisoned here by Korsibar it had not been for any short period of time, not short at all, and the cumulative impact of his cell’s interminable pulsing jolts of ruby light had seemed well-nigh lethal as the long days dragged on. Prestimion had not found it within himself to do to Dantirya Sambail what Korsibar had done to him; and so, although the tunnels were the most secure prison that the Castle had, and there had been no choice but to put the Procurator away in them, Prestimion had seen to it that Dantirya Sambail was placed in one of the more comfortable chambers.
The rumor was loose in the Castle, Prestimion knew, that Dantirya Sambail lay chained day and night in some dismal desolate hole where he suffered the worst torments that the tunnel walls could hurl at him. That was not so. Instead of being manacled to the walls as Prestimion had been, the Procurator had a good-sized room with plenty of space in it for him to roam freely about, and a bed, and a couch, and his own table and desk. Nor was the emanation from this cell’s wall of the kind that battered your mind and stunned your very soul; it was a gentle lime-green, where Prestimion had had to endure those constant unrelenting pounding waves of brilliant red.
Prestimion had not bothered to contradict the rumors, though. Let them believe what they liked. He would discuss the status of Dantirya Sambail with no one. It was not a bad thing for a new Coronal to arouse a little uneasiness in those around him in the Castle.
He and Navigorn passed through a zone where a dull, throbbing jade-colored light, heavy as the waters at the bottom of the sea, came pulsating forth, and beyond it a place of a sizzling pink as keen as knifeblades, and then one of somber, overwhelming ochre with the force of steady muffled drumbeats. Upward now they went, spiraling around the flank of the upthrust stone dagger that was Sangamor Peak, and Prestimion had a glimpse, quick but sickening, of the crushing rubyred light of the cell that once had been his own. Adjacent to it was one with the stinging brightness of newly smelted copper. Then the colors became more mellow: cinnamon, hyacinth blue, aquamarine, mauve.
And at last a soft chartreuse, and Prestimion found himself at the threshold of the place where the Procurator of Ni-moya was being detained.
Prestimion had put this visit off as long as possible, but it could be avoided no longer, he knew. At some point it was necessary to confront the fact that Dantirya Sambail was held prisoner for high crimes and misdemeanors of which the Procurator had no knowledge at all. Prestimion was still unsure of the way to deal with the paradoxes inherent in that situation. But he understood that they must now at last be addressed.
“Well, cousin!” cried Dantirya Sambail with implausible heartiness, when Navigorn had gone through the lengthy series of intricate procedures that opened the door of the Procurator’s chamber. “They told me you’d be coming to pay me a visit today; but I thought it was only out of playfulness or mischief that they said it. What a delight it is to behold your handsome young face again, Prestimion!—But I should call you ‘Lord Prestimion,’ should I not? For I understand that your coronation day has come and gone already, although through some misunderstanding I was not invited to the ceremony.”
And the Procurator, smiling, held out both his hands, which were girded together at the wrists by a metal band, and waggled his fingers comically in a jovial semblance of the starburst gesture.
Prestimion had been aware that he might expect almost anything from Dantirya Sambail when they first came face to face, but a show of joviality was not high on the list. Which was why he had ordered the Procurator’s wrists to be manacled before his arrival; for Dantirya Sambail was a man of bull-like strength, who might well be so furious over his incarceration that he would launch himself at Prestimion in a murderous frenzy the moment that the Coronal entered his cell.
But no. Dantirya Sambail was all smiles and twinkles, as if this were some charming inn where he had taken up lodging, and Lord Prestimion were his guest this day.
To Navigorn Prestimion said, “Unlock his shackles.”
After a moment’s hesitation Navigorn obeyed. Prestimion held himself poised and ready in case Dantirya Sambail’s joviality should turn instantly to wrath once his bonds were taken from him. But the Procurator remained where he was on the other side of the room, standing between the long, low couch and a desk of curving contours on which half a dozen books were casually stacked. He seemed utterly at ease. Prestimion knew only too well, though, what roiling fires roared through his kinsman’s soul.
The calm, unflickering pale-green glow flowed steadily from the walls. It swathed and enfolded everything in a cool benign presence. “I’m pleased to see that your chamber is a pleasant one, cousin. There are worse accommodations to be had in these tunnels, I think.”
“Are there, Prestimion? I wouldn’t know about that.—But yes, yes, quite pleasant. The delicate viridescence that comes from the walls. This fine furniture; these charming flagstone floors across which I stroll during my daily walks from that side of the room to this. You could have been far less kind.”
The voice was a purr; but there was no mistaking the rage that lay just beneath.
Prestimion studied Dantirya Sambail with care. He had not looked upon the Procurator’s face since that horrific day at Thegomar Edge, when, with Korsibar already beaten and very likely dead, Dantirya Sambail had presented himself before him with a sword in one hand and a farmer’s hatchet in the other, and challenged him to single combat with the throne as the prize. And had come close to striking him down before Prestimion, although bruised by a flat-sided blow in the ribs, prevailed with a sudden quick thrust of his rapier that cut the tendon of the arm holding the axe, and another that sliced a bloody line across the Procurator’s sword-arm. There were signs that Dantirya Sambail was wearing poultices on those wounds beneath his loose, billowing blouse of golden silk even now, though they must be nearly healed.