Prestimion too was holding his sides. This sort of performance was nothing that he would ever have expected from the gruff Gialaurys.
Septach Melayn said in a more serious way, when the merriment had subsided a little, “What do you think, Prestimion? Will Dekkeret really choose to land in Piliplok, as Gialaurys says? I think there are some difficulties in that.”
“There are difficulties in anything we do,” said Prestimion, and his mood grew grim again as he contemplated the realities of the war he was so passionately determined to launch.
It was a fine brave thing to cry out for an end, at long last, to the iniquities of the Sambailids and their venomous chief minister. But he had no idea of the true depth of the Five Lords’ support in Zimroel. Suppose it was already possible for Mandralisca to assemble an army of a million soldiers to defend the western continent against an attack by the Coronal? Or five million? How would Dekkeret raise an army big enough to meet such a force? How would the troops be transported to Zimroel? Would transporting that many men even be possible? And, if so, at what a cost? The armaments needed, the ships, the provisions—
And then, the invasion itself—the glint in Gialaurys’s eyes as he spoke of rough men of Piliplok knocking down the flimsy gates of Ni-moya brought no corresponding thrills of delight to Prestimion. Ni-moya was one of the wonders of the world. Was it worth putting that incomparable city to the torch merely for the sake of maintaining the world’s present system of laws and rulers?
He would not let himself waver from his belief that it was necessary and inevitable to go to war. Mandralisca was a blight upon the world, a blight that could only spread and spread and spread if it were left unchecked. He could not be tolerated; he could not be appeased; he must be destroyed.
But, Prestimion thought gloomily, would the people of future times ever forgive him for it? He had wanted his reign to be known as a golden age. He had bent every effort toward that goal. And yet, somehow, the years of his ascendance had been marked by catastrophe upon catastrophe—the Korsibar war, the plague of insanity that followed it, the rebellion of Dantirya Sambail—and now it seemed certain that the final achievement of his reign would be either the destruction of Ni-moya or else the partition of what had been a peaceful world into a pair of mutually hostile independent kingdoms.
Both choices seemed equally hateful. But then Prestimion reminded himself of his brother Teotas, terror-stricken to the point of suicidal madness and scrambling about in a panicky haze atop some precarious parapet of the Castle. His little daughter Tuanelys, writhing in fear in her own bed. And how many other innocent people across the world, random victims of Mandralisca’s malevolence?
No. The thing had to be done, no matter the cost. He forced himself to harden his soul around that thought.
As for Gialaurys and Septach Melayn, they were already caught up in the anticipation of the glorious military campaign that they hoped would cap their years. And were, as usual, disagreeing: Prestimion heard Septach Melayn, his eyes agleam, saying, “Is utterly idiotic, my dear friend, the whole idea of landing at Piliplok. Don’t you think Mandralisca can figure out that that’s where we’d have to come ashore? Piliplok’s the easiest port in the world to defend. He’ll have half a million armed men waiting for us at the harbor, and the river behind them blockaded by a thousand ships. No, sweet Gialaurys, we’ll have to put our troops ashore well south of there. Gihorna’s the place, say I. Gihorna!”
Gialaurys screwed his face into a mask of contempt. “Gihorna’s a wasteland, a dismal swamp, uninhabitable, altogether abominable. The Shapeshifters themselves won’t go near the place. Mandralisca won’t even need to fortify it. Our men will sink into the mud and vanish as soon as they step out of their landing-craft.”
“On the contrary, my dear Gialaurys. It’s precisely because the Gi-horna coast is so unappealing that Mandralisca is unlikely to think we’ll land there. But we can, and will. And then—”
“—And then we march north for thousands of miles up the side of the continent to Piliplok, which according to you we should avoid doing because it is the easiest port in the world to defend and Mandralisca’s army will be waiting for us there, or else we have to turn west right into the dark jungles of the Shapeshifter reservation and head for Ni-moya that way. Do you really want that, Septach Melayn? To send the whole army into the perils of unknown Piurifayne on its way north? What kind of insanity is that? I’d rather take my chances on a straightforward Piliplok landing and fight whatever battle we have to fight there. If we follow the jungle route the filthy Metamorphs will pounce on us and—”
“Stop it, both of you!” Prestimion said, in a tone of such vehement insistence that Septach Melayn and Gialaurys both turned toward him wide-eyed. “All this arguing is completely pointless. Dekkeret is the commanding general who will fight this war. Not you. Not me. These matters of strategy are for him to decide.”
They continued to stare at him. They both looked shaken; and not only, Prestimion thought, on account of the harshness with which he had just spoken to them. It was his abdication of command, he suspected, that amazed them so. That was not at all like the Prestimion they had known all these years, to cut off this kind of debate by saying that such a matter of high policy was outside his jurisdiction. He was amazed at it himself.
But Dekkeret was Coronal now, not Prestimion; Dekkeret was the one who would have to prosecute this war; it was up to Dekkeret to devise the best way to go about it. Prestimion, as the senior monarch, could offer advice, and would. But it was Dekkeret to whom the ultimate responsibility for the war’s success must fall, and the final word on strategy had to be his.
Prestimion told himself that he was content with that. The system of government to which he was dedicated, the age-old system that had worked so well since Dvorn the Pontifex had devised it, required it of him. So long as Dekkeret, his chosen successor as Coronal, conducted the war bravely and effectively, it was right and proper for Prestimion himself, as Pontifex, to retire to a secondary role in the conflict. And Prestimion had no doubt that Dekkeret would.
In a quieter tone he said, “A little more wine, gentlemen?”
Someone was knocking at the door, though. Septach Melayn went to open it.
It was the Lady Varaile, who had gone off for a time to be with the children. Tuanelys was still troubled by dreams; and Varaile herself looked careworn and weary, suddenly older than her years. Merely to see her in this condition was enough to inflame Prestimion’s wrath all over again: he would kill Mandralisca with his own hands, if ever he had the chance.
She was holding a slip of paper. “There’s been a message from Dekkeret,” she said. “He’s in Klai, less than a day’s journey away. And hopes to be here tomorrow.”
“Good,” Prestimion said. “Excellent. Did he have anything else to say?”
“Only that he sends the Pontifex his love and respect, and looks forward to his reunion with him.”
“As do I,” said Prestimion warmly.
He realized, suddenly, how very tired he was of the responsibilities of great power, and how much he had come to depend on Dekkeret’s youthful vigor and strength. It would be good to see him, yes. And especially good to discover how he, Dekkeret, planned to cope with this crisis. For that is not my task but his, thought Prestimion, and how glad I am of that!
A time will come when you’ll be eager to be Pontifex, Confalume had told him once, in the old Pontifex’s rooms in the Labyrinth just a few days before his death. Yes. And now it had. For the first time Prestimion understood to the depths of his spirit what the old man had been talking about that day.