“Does he? Can that be so?”
“Yes, and makes it seem so mathematical and pure that even Prestimion is impressed, skeptical of mind though the Coronal is, beneath all his pretended acceptance of sorcery. I, too, as a matter of fact, must admit that I—”
“A Su-Suheris in the inner circle,” Gialaurys said, grumbling. “I like this very little, Septach Melayn.”
“Meet the man, first, and judge him afterward. You’ll sing a different tune.” But then Septach Melayn frowned and said, taking his sword from its sheath and drawing its tip in a thoughtful way across the earthen floor of the old stable, making idle patterns that were something like the mystic symbols of the geomancers of his native city of Tidias, “There is, I must say, one bit of advice he’s given Prestimion already that makes me a trifle uneasy. They were speaking yesterday, Prestimion and Maundigand-Klimd, of the problem of Dantirya Sambail; and the magus came forth with the idea of restoring the Procurator’s memories of the war.”
Gialaurys started at that.
“To which,” continued Septach Melayn, sweeping serenely onward, “the Coronal responded quite favorably, saying, yes, yes, that might very likely be the right thing to do.”
“By the Lady!” Gialaurys howled, throwing up his hands and making half a dozen holy signs in one feverish blur of incantation. “I leave the Castle for just a few weeks, and madness instantly takes root in it!—Restore the Procurator’s memories? Prestimion’s gone unhinged! This wizard must have sprung him entirely free of his wits!”
“Do you think so, now?” came the Coronal’s voice just then, echoing across the huge stables toward them from the rear of the room. Prestimion stood by the entrance, beckoning. “Well, Gialaurys, come close, and look me in the eye! Do you see any vestige of lunacy lurking in my gaze? Come, Gialaurys! Come, let me embrace you and welcome you back to the Castle, and tell me whether you still think I’ve gone mad.”
Gialaurys went toward him. He saw now the Su-Suheris, looming behind the Coronaclass="underline" a towering formidable figure in the richly brocaded purple robes, shot through with bright golden threads, of a magus of the court. His long, forking white neck and the two hairless elongated heads that it bore rose above his heavy, jewel-encrusted collar like an eerily carved column of ice. Gialaurys, with a quick hostile glance at the alien, opened his arms to Prestimion, and held the smaller man tightly for a long moment.
“Well?” Prestimion said, stepping back. “What do you say? Am I a madman, do you think, or is this the Prestimion you knew before you went off to Kharax?”
“You speak of restoring Dantirya Sambail’s memories of the war, I hear,” Gialaurys said. “That seems very like madness to me, Prestimion.” And glanced sullenly, again, at the Su-Suheris.
“Seems like madness, perhaps, but whether it is is yet to be determined, I think,” said Prestimion. The Coronal paused and sniffed and made a face.—"What a fetid offensive stench this place has! It’s these pretty animals of yours, I suppose. You must show them to me in a moment or two.” Then his face took on an easier look. “But introductions are in order, first.” The Coronal indicated his companion. “This is our newly appointed magus of the court, Gialaurys. Maundigand-Klimd’s his name. I assure you he’s made himself more than useful already.” And to the Su-Suheris he said, “And this is our famous Grand Admiral, Gialaurys of Piliplok. Though surely you must know that already, Maundigand-Klimd.”
The Su-Suheris smiled with the left head, nodded with the right one. “In truth I did, lordship.”
Prestimion said, “We’ll talk of Dantirya Sambail later, Gialaurys. But the simple essence of the thing, I tell you now, is the issue we’ve discussed before amongst us—our inability to put a man on trial for crimes that he can’t remember, that indeed no one in the world knows anything about save us. Who is to stand up in court as his accuser? And how, once accused, can he plead his cause? Even a murderer’s entitled to defend himself. Then, how can he repent, once we find him guilty? There’s no repentance when there’s no cognizance of guilt.”
“We already know of these problems, Prestimion,” said Gialaurys.
“So we do. But we’ve found no solution to them. Now Maundigand-Klimd proposes that we put a counterspell on him that undoes the obliteration, so that we can try him while he’s in full consciousness of his deeds. And then, afterward, wipe his memory clean again.—But, as I say, we’ll talk of all that later. Show me your precious lovely creatures, now.”
“Yes,” Gialaurys said. “Yes, I will,” but made no move toward the cages. Something else had belatedly occurred to him. After a little pause he said, in the bleak, ponderous way by which he communicated high displeasure, “It seems evident from what you tell me, my lord, that your new magus has been made privy to knowledge of the obliteration. Which, as I understood our compact, was not to be made known to anyone, not to anyone at all.”
Now it was Prestimion’s turn to be silent for a time.
Plainly he was abashed. A touch of ruddiness came to his face, and uneasiness to his eyes. He replied, finally, “Maundigand-Klimd had already worked out the secret for himself, Gialaurys. I merely confirmed that which he suspected. Technically it was, I agree, a violation of our oath. But in fact—”
“Are we to have no secrets from this man, then?” Gialaurys demanded, with some heat in his tone.
Prestimion held up one hand in a soothing gesture. “Peace, Gialaurys, peace! He is a great magus, is Maundigand-Klimd. You understand much more of the arts of the magus than I do, friend. Surely you know that keeping secrets from a true adept is no simple matter. Which is why I thought it wisest to bring him into my service, eh?—I tell you, Gialaurys, we’ll speak of all this afterward. Let me see what you’ve brought back for me from Kharax.”
Gruffly Gialaurys led Prestimion to the front of the cages and showed the Coronal his prizes, drawing forth his tattered slip of paper and reading off the monsters’ names, explaining to Prestimion which the malorn was, and which the min-mollitor, and which the zytoon. Prestimion said very little. But it was obvious from his demeanor that he was appalled by the surpassing ugliness of the things, and the pungent, acrid smells that came from them, and the aura of menace conveyed by their various fangs and claws and stingers. “The zeil,” Prestimion said, half to himself. “Ah, there’s a nasty one! And the vourhain—is that what that pestilent bloated one is called? What sort of mind would devise such things? How loathsome they are. And how strange!”
“These were not the only strange things I discovered in the north, your lordship. I must tell you: I saw people laughing aloud in the streets.”
Prestimion looked amused. “They must have been happy, then. Is happiness such a strange thing, Gialaurys?”
“They were alone, my lord. And laughing very loud. I saw two or three who were laughing in this fashion, and not a happy laugh, either. And one other that was dancing. All by himself, very wildly, in the public square of Kharax.”
“I’ve been hearing more such tales myself,” said Septach Melayn. “Odd behavior everywhere. There’s more madness abroad in the land these days than ever there used to be, I think.”
“You may well be right,” Prestimion said. His voice held a note of concern. But there was a certain remoteness in his tone, too, as though his mind was focused on three or four things at once and none held his full attention. He moved away from the others and walked up and down before the cages, shaking his head, solemnly murmuring the names of the synthetic killer-beasts to himself in the manner of an incantation. “Zytoon ... malorn ... min-mollitor ... zeil.” There could be no doubt he was strangely affected by the disagreeable shapes and unquestionable ferocity of the odious beasts that Korsibar’s mages had devised for use in the war. By the overwhelming hideousness of their appearance, by the very needlessness of their mere existence, they seemed to conjure back to life the spirit of the terrible war itself.