12
The last time Dekkeret had been in Stoien city had been in the second or third year of Prestimion’s reign as Coronal, a time when he was merely an earnest young newcomer to the inner circles of Castle Mount without the faintest expectation of becoming Coronal himself. Stoien awakened old memories for him, and not all of them were fond ones.
The eerie, unforgettable beauty of the city, matchlessly situated along a hundred miles of lovely white beaches here on the rim of the Stoienzar Peninsula: that had remained fresh in his mind all these years. Nor had Stoien changed in any way. Its skies were still cloudless. Its curious buildings, rising from the peninsula’s flat terrain on artificial platforms anywhere from ten feet in height to hundreds, still dazzled the eye as they had before; its lush vegetation, the omnipresent denseness of bushes with leaves brilliant with irregular bursts of indigo and topaz and sapphire, of cobalt and claret and vermilion, still set the soul ablaze with delight. Such damage as had been done by the fires that madmen had set during the chaos of the insanity plague had long since been repaired.
But it was in Stoien that Dekkeret had taken leave for the last time of his dear friend and mentor Akbalik of Samivole, Akbalik who had been his guide in his earliest years in Prestimion’s service at the Castle. Akbalik whom Dekkeret had loved more than any other man, even Prestimion—Akbalik who in all probability would be Coronal now, if he had lived—it was here to Stoien that Akbalik had come, limping and in pain from the swamp-crab bite that he had suffered while hunting for the fugitive Dantirya Sambail in the steaming jungles east of the city, and which would kill him not long afterward. “The wound is nothing,” Akbalik told Dekkeret when Dekkeret arrived in Stoien after a voyage to the Isle, to which he had gone bearing urgent messages for Lord Prestimion. “The wound will heal.”
But perhaps Akbalik had already known that it would not, for he had also exacted from Dekkeret an oath promising that he would speak out against anything that Lord Prestimion might want to do that would put his life at risk, such as chasing after Dantirya Sambail into the same jungles where Akbalik had been bitten: “No matter how angry you make him, no matter what risks to your own career you run, you must keep him from doing anything so rash.” Which Dekkeret had sworn, though inwardly he felt it should be Akbalik’s task, not his, to say such things to the Coronal; and then Akbalik had set out eastward from Stoien across Alhanroel, escorting the Lady Varaile—pregnant then with the future Prince Taradath—back to Castle Mount. But he made it no farther than Sisivondal on the inland plateau before the poison in his wound killed him.
All that was long ago. Now the winds of fortune had made Dekkeret Coronal. Prince Akbalik of Samivole was remembered only by middle-aged folk. The only Prince Akbalik of whom most people were aware was Prestimion’s second son, named in the other Akbalik’s honor. But the sight of Stoien’s strange and wondrous myriad of towers brought that first Akbalik, that calm, wise, gray-eyed man who had meant so much to Dekkeret, vividly back to life in his memory, and a great sadness came over him at the recollection.
To make it even worse, Prestimion and his family were settled in the very same lodgings they had had on that earlier occasion, the royal suite of the Crystal Pavilion, and they had put Dekkeret and his companions up there also. Nothing could have been better designed to force him to relive the final exhausting moments of the war against Dantirya Sam-bail, when Prestimion, making use of the Barjazid helmet, had struck against the Procurator from this very building, aided wherever possible by Dinitak and Maundigand-Klimd and the Lady Therissa and Dekkeret himself.
But there was no other choice, really. The Crystal Pavilion was Stoien’s premier building, the only place in the city suitable to house a visiting monarch.—Or, in this case, a pair of monarchs: for here were Coronal and Pontifex both in Stoien at the same time, a thing that never had happened before, and that had, so Dekkeret learned before he had been in Stoien more than ten minutes, thrown the city administration into such a state of panicky confusion that they would need the rest of their lives to recover from it.
It was fairly late in the evening when Dekkeret and his party arrived. He was caught a little off balance by the discovery that Prestimion wanted to meet with him at once. Dekkeret had had a hectic journey down the coast from Alaisor—he had not anticipated that Prestimion would come so quickly from the Isle to the mainland—and he begged an hour’s respite, or two, to rest and cleanse himself from the dust of the road before seeing the Pontifex.
Fulkari wondered why it was necessary to have such an immediate conference. “Is it really so urgent? Can’t we be allowed some time for dinner first, and a night’s sleep?”
“Perhaps there have been developments in Zimroel that I don’t know about,” Dekkeret said. “But I think not. This is simply his nature, love. Everything is urgent to Prestimion. He is the most impatient man alive.”
She accepted that grudgingly, and when he had bathed he went upstairs to Prestimion’s rooms. Septach Melayn and Gialaurys were there with him, which Dekkeret had not expected.
Nor did he expect the swiftness with which the Pontifex swept him toward the point of the meeting. Prestimion embraced him warmly, as a father might embrace a long-lost son, but almost at once they were deep into a discussion of the matter of Zimroel. Prestimion cared hardly at all to hear about Dekkeret’s journey across the continent, his odd adventures in Shabikant and Thilambaluc and the other obscure stops along his westward route. Two or three brusque questions, followed by quick interruptions of Dekkeret’s replies, and then they were talking of Mandralisca and the Five Lords, and how Prestimion believed the crisis in Zimroel must be resolved.
Which was, Dekkeret rapidly learned, by sending a great army across the sea—an army led in person by the Coronal Lord Dekkeret—to set things to rights there by force, if need be.
“At long last we must break this Mandralisca, and break him so that he can never recover from it,” said Prestimion. As he uttered those words his features underwent an extraordinary transformation, his intense sea-green eyes now strangely aflame with a cold fury that Dekkeret had never seen in them before, his thin lips tightening into a taut grimace, his nostrils flaring with an astonishing vindictive rage. “Let there be no mistake about it: we have to destroy him, regardless of the cost, and all those who follow his banner as well. There is no hope of peace in the world so long as that man continues to breathe.”
Prestimion’s tone was an extraordinarily belligerent one, uncompromising, fierce. Dekkeret was taken aback by that, though he did his best to hide his surprise and dismay from the Pontifex. Surely Prestimion knew, better than any man alive, what it meant for there to be civil war on Majipoor. Yet here he was, trembling with barely contained wrath, instructing his Coronal to set all of Zimroel ablaze, if necessary, for the sake of ending the Sambailid rebellion!
Perhaps I am misunderstanding him, Dekkeret thought, hoping against all probability.
Perhaps he is not advocating actual warfare at all, but only a grand show of imperial pomp and force, under cover of which Mandralisca can be peacefully encircled and removed.
It was Dekkeret himself who had first suggested, some months earlier, that it might be necessary for him to go to Zimroel and make an end to such unrest as was brewing there. And Prestimion had agreed that that might be a good idea. But it was Dekkeret’s impression that they had both been thinking of something along the lines of a grand processionaclass="underline" the Coronal making a formal state visit to the western continent, with all the pageantry that a visit of that sort entailed, and thereby reminding the people of Zimroel of the ancient covenant under which all regions of the world lived together in peace. During that visit Dekkeret would be able to determine the strength of Mandralisca’s insurrection and, through the power and authority of his mere presence, take steps—political steps, diplomatic steps—to bring it to a halt.