“—is in fine health, and looks forward to seeing you at once, Lord Prestimion.”
Fine health? What was the High Spokesman’s idea of fine health? Prestimion had no idea what to expect. But he was confounded, upon entering the vestibule of the maze of rooms, a labyrinth within the Labyrinth, that was the residence of the Pontifex of Majipoor. A smiling Confalume, formally clad in the ornate scarlet-and-black Pontifical robes, was standing—standing!—in the arched doorway at the vestibule’s inner end, holding his arms out toward Prestimion in a warm show of welcome.
Prestimion was so thoroughly taken aback that it was a moment before he could speak, and when he found his tongue the best he could do was stammer, “They told me—that you—you were—”
“Dying, Prestimion? Already well on my way back to the Source, eh? Whatever you may have heard, my son, here’s the truth: I am risen from my bed of affliction. As you see, the Pontifex stands on his own two legs. The Pontifex walks. A little stiffly, true, but he walks. He speaks, as well. Not yet dead, Prestimion, not even close to it.—You say nothing. Speechless with joy, are you? Yes, I suppose you are. You are reprieved from the Labyrinth for a little while longer.”
“They said you had had a stroke.”
“A little swoon, let’s say.” The Pontifex held up his left hand and clenched it into a fist. The second and fifth fingers would not close; he had to fold them into place with his other hand. “A minor bit of difficulty here, you see? But very minor. And the left leg—” Confalume took a few steps toward him. “A slight drag, you will notice. My dancing days are over. Well, it is not required of me at my age that I move very quickly.—You could call it a stroke, I suppose, but not a very serious one.” And then, noticing Taradath standing behind him: “Your son, is he, Prestimion? Grown almost out of all recognition since last I saw him. When was that, boy, five years ago, seven, when I was at the Castle?”
“Eight years ago, your majesty,” said Taradath, all too plainly fighting back his awe. “I was seven years old, then.”
“And now you’re as tall as your father, not that that’s such a difficult thing to achieve. And you’ve got your mother’s dark complexion, too. Well, come in, come in, both of you! Don’t just stand there!”
There was a quaver in Confalume’s voice, Prestimion observed, and he seemed to have acquired an old man’s garrulity as well. But he appeared to be in phenomenally fine shape. Confalume had always been a man of more than usual vigor and stamina, of course. Even now, his stocky frame was still muscular-looking and his sweeping thatch of hair, though it had long since turned white, was as thick as ever. Only the soft, papery texture of his cheeks betrayed the Pontifex’s great age in any meaningful way. And he did seem to have thrown off all but the most trifling signs of the stroke that had caused such excitement throughout both capitals of the realm.
He led Prestimion and Taradath within. Few visitors ever ventured into the private Pontifical chambers. Confalume’s famed collection of treasures decorated every sill and alcove and shelf: figurines of spun glass, carvings of dragon-ivory inlaid with porphyry and onyx, jeweled caskets, a whole forest of strange trees fashioned from strands of woven silver, ancient coins and mounted insects, leather-bound volumes of antique lore, and ever so much more, the hoard of a long acquisitive lifetime surrounding him on all sides. Nor had the Pontifex lost his fascination for the arts of wizardry, either: there were his cherished instruments of magic, still, his ammatepalas and veralistias and his armil-lary spheres, his rohillas and his protospathifars, his powders and potions and ointments. Perhaps, thought Prestimion, the old man had somehow been able to magic himself up out of his deathbed: certainly if faith in occult matters was sufficient to bring it about, Confalume would live forever.
The Pontifex poured wine for Prestimion and himself, and then for Taradath as well, and showed the boy through some of his rooms of fanciful objects, and engaged them in pleasant superficial conversation about their journey down the Glayge, and current construction projects at the Castle, and the activities of the Lady Varaile, and the like. It was all very charming and not in any way how Prestimion had expected the visit to unfold.
Taradath was no longer awed. He seemed to see the Pontifex as no more than a kindly old grandfather, now.
“Were these men all Pontifexes too?” he asked, pointing to the long row of painted medallions along the upper wall of the room.
“Indeed so,” Confalume replied. “This is Prankipin here—you do remember him, of course, don’t you, Prestimion?—and Gobryas who was just before him—Avinas—Kelimiphon—Amyntilir—” He could put a name to each portrait. “Dizimaule—Kanaba—Sirruth—Vildivar—”
Listening to Confalume go on and on, reciting the names of his predecessors for thousands of years, Prestimion felt a humbling sense of the immensity of history, that great soaring arch that disappeared at its farther end into the mists of myth, and in which could be found, at the end that was anchored in the present day, none other than his own self.
Most of these men were little more than names to Prestimion. The achievements of the Pontifexes Kanaba and Sirruth and Vildivar were known only to historians now. More recent ones, Gobryas, Avinas, Kelimiphon, yes, he knew something about them, though from all accounts they had been mediocre rulers. The world had come into hard times under the uninspired rule of such men as Gobryas and Avinas. But Prestimion, looking upward at that long array of faces, had a sudden awareness of himself as part of an extraordinary modern dynasty.
Prankipin, up there, Coronal for twenty years or so and Pontifex for forty-three, had inherited a weak and troubled world from his predecessor Gobryas and by wise measures and dynamic leadership had returned it to its former grandeur. If toward the end he had given way to the folly of sorcery and allowed the world to swarm with wizards, well, it was a forgivable flaw for a man who had accomplished so much. Then here was Confalume, not yet a portrait on the wall but an actual breathing man, Pontifex these twenty years past and Coronal forty-three more before that, who had built on Prankipin’s glorious foundation and seen to it that prosperity became even more general among Majipoor’s fifteen billion people. He, too, needed to be forgiven for his passion for magic, but that was easy enough, Prestimion thought.
And now it was the turn of Prestimion of Muldemar, Lord Prestimion now, Prestimion Pontifex one day to be. Would he be deemed a worthy successor to the great Prankipin and the splendid Confalume? Perhaps so. Majipoor was thriving under his guidance. He had made mistakes, yes, but so had Prankipin, so had Confalume. His own greatest achievement was that he had saved the world from misrule under Korsibar; but no one would ever know that. Had he achieved anything else worthwhile? Certainly he hoped that he had; but he of all people was in no position to know. He was still young, though. He would eventually, so he profoundly hoped and believed, be ranked with those other two as architects of a golden age.
“And is this Stiamot?” Taradath asked.
“He’s farther down the row, boy. Of course, the artist had to guess at what he really looked like, but there he is. Here—let me show you—”
Amazingly spry, the damaged left leg dragging only a little, Confalume went shuffling toward the far side of the room. Prestimion watched him going from portrait to portrait with Taradath, calling off the names of the early emperors.
The boy remained down there, peering up solemnly at the faces of Pontifexes who had ruled this world when Stiamot himself was a thousand years unborn. Confalume, returning to where Prestimion still sat, refilled their wine-bowls and said, in a low, confidential tone, “The true reason you came scurrying down here was that you thought I was dying, wasn’t it? You wanted to check my condition out with your own eyes.”