They had been traveling up the Zimr for weeks and weeks, city upon city, Flegit and Clarischanz, Belka and Larnimisculus and Verf, and now they were in Ni-moya at last, were Dekkeret and Fulkari, installed in the great palace that once had belonged to Dantirya Sambail, wandering in amazement through its multitude of rooms, exclaiming over the splendor of its design.
“He did indeed live like a king,” Fulkari murmured. They had reached the westernmost wing of the building, where a colossal window of a single pane provided a sweeping view that ran from the waterfront on their left to the white towers of the Ni-moyan hills on the right, and the great bosom of the giant river rolling on before them far into the remote regions of the continent. “What will you do with this place now, Dekkeret? You aren’t going to have it torn down, are you?”
“No. Never. I can’t hold this building guilty of the crimes of Dantirya Sambail and his five pitiful nephews. Those crimes will be forgotten, sooner or later. But what a crime against beauty it would be to destroy the Procurator’s palace.”
“Yes. Quite so.”
“I’ll appoint a duke to reign over Ni-moya—I don’t know who it will be, but he’ll be someone without a drop of Sambailid blood in him—and he and his heirs can live here, knowing they do so by grace of the Coronal’s generosity.”
“A duke. Not a procurator.”
“There’ll be no more procurators here, Fulkari. That was Prestimion’s decree, which I will renew. We’ll remake the government of Zimroel to decentralize it again: a single authority here’s too dangerous, too threatening to the imperial government itself. Provincial dukes, loyalty to the crown, frequent grand processionals to underscore the allegiance of Zimroel to the constitution—that’s how it will be, yes.”
“And the Five Lords?” she asked.
“Lords no more, you can be sure of that. But it would be a sin to put such fools to death. When they’ve done enough penance for their little uprising, they can go back to their palaces in the desert, and there they’ll stay forever. I doubt they’ll make any further trouble. And if the thought of it even comes into their minds, the King of Dreams will take care of that.”
“The King of Dreams,” Fulkari said, smiling. “Our brother Dinitak. A brilliant scheme, that was. Although you’ve cost me a sister by sending him off to Suvrael.”
“And cost myself a friend,” said Dekkeret. “It can’t be helped. Prestimion insisted: the King of Dreams must make his headquarters down there. We can’t have three of the four Powers clustered in Alhanroel. He’ll do the job well, I think. He was born for it.—Did you ever think, Fulkari, that your wild tomboy of a sister would marry a Power of the Realm?”
“Did I ever think I would?” she asked, and they laughed, and moved closer to each other by the great window. Dekkeret stared outward. Night was beginning to fall, now. Somewhere out there to the west was a further world of marvels that they were yet to visit: Khyntor of the great steaming geysers, and crystalline Dulorn where the Perpetual Circus offered its carnival of wonders night and day, day and night, and ancient cobblestoned Pidruid beyond it on the coast, and Narabal, Til-omon, Tjangalagala, Cibairil, Brunir, Banduk Marika, all those fabled cities of the distant west.
They would visit them all. He was determined to go everywhere. To stand before the people and say, Here I am, Dekkeret your Coronal Lord, who will devote his life to your service.
“What a beautiful sunset,” Fulkari said softly. “So many colors: gold, purple, red, green, all swirling together.”
“It is. Very beautiful.”
“But it’s still only the middle of the day in Khyntor, isn’t it? And morning in Dulorn. And the middle of the night before, out in Pidruid. Oh, Dekkeret, the world is so very big! The Castle seems so far away, just now!”
“The Castle is far away, my sweet.”
“How long will we be gone on this processional, do you think?”
Dekkeret shrugged. “I don’t know. Five years? Ten? Forever?”
“Seriously, Dekkeret.”
“I tell you, Fulkari: I don’t know. As long as it takes. The Castle will get along without us, if it has to. I am the Coronal Lord wherever I happen to be on Majipoor. And we have an entire world to visit.” The sky was changing as they watched, the colors deepening, red giving way to bronze, purple shading into a dark maroon. Soon it would be night here, and twilight in the west. The stars were beginning to appear. One of the lesser moons came into view and cast a silver strand of light on the waters of the river. Dekkeret’s arm tightened around Fulkari’s shoulders, and they stood silently for a time. “Look you there,” he said then, when at last all the colors had faded to black. “There is Majipoor before us, and the night is as beautiful as the day.”