He emerged into the dusty little plaza in front of his house. Before him lay the narrow curving streets of the Guadeloom Court district where he had spent all the days of his life; above him rose the decrepit buildings, thousands of years old and lopsided with age, that formed the boundary palisade of his world. Under the harsh white lights, much too bright, almost crackling in their electric intensity—all this ring of the Labyrinth was bathed in that same fierce light, so little like that of the gentle golden-green sun whose rays never reached this city—the flaking gray masonry of the old buildings emanated a terrible weariness, a mineral fatigue. Hissune wondered if he had ever noticed before just how bleak and shabby this place was.
The plaza was crowded. Not many of the people of Guadeloom Court cared to spend their evenings penned up in their dim little flats, and so they flocked down here to mill aimlessly about in a kind of random patternless promenade. And as Hissune in his shimmering new clothes made his way through that promenade, it seemed that everyone that he had ever known was out there glaring at him, glowering, snickering, scowling. He saw Vanimoon, who was his own age to the hour and had once seemed almost like a brother to him, and Vanimoon’s slender almond-eyed little sister, not so little anymore, and Heulan, and Heulan’s three great hulking brothers, and Nikkilone, and tiny squinch-faced Ghisnet, and the beady-eyed Vroon who sold candied ghumba root, and Confalume the pickpocket, and the old Ghayrog sisters that everyone thought were really Metamorphs, which Hissune had never believed, and this one and that one and more. All staring, all silently asking him, Why are you putting on such airs, Hissune, why this pomp, why this splendor?
He moved uneasily across the plaza, miserably aware that the banquet must be almost about to begin and he had an enormous distance downlevel to traverse. And everyone he had ever known stood in his way, staring at him.
Vanimoon was the first to cry out. “Where are you going, Hissune? To a costume ball?”
“He’s off to the Isle, to play ninesticks with the Lady!”
“No, he’s going to hunt sea-dragons with the Pontifex!”
“Let me by,” Hissune said quietly, for they were pressing close upon him now.
“Let him by! Let him by!” they chorused gaily, but they did not move back.
“Where’d you get the fancy clothes, Hissune?” Ghisnet asked.
“Rented them,” Heulan said.
“Stole them, you mean,” said one of Heulan’s brothers.
“Found a drunken knight in an alleyway and stripped him bare!”
“Get out of my way,” said Hissune, holding his temper in check with more than a little effort. “I have something important to do.”
“Something important! Something important!”
“He has an audience with the Pontifex!”
“The Pontifex is going to make Hissune a Duke!”
“Duke Hissune! Prince Hissune!”
“Why not Lord Hissune?”
“Lord Hissune! Lord Hissune!”
There was an ugly edge to their voices. Ten or twelve of them ringed him, pushing inward. Resentment and jealousy ruled them now. This flamboyant outfit of his, the shoulder chain, the epaulet, the boots, the cloak—it was too much for them, an arrogant way of underscoring the gulf that had opened between him and them. In another moment they’d be plucking at his tunic, tugging at the chain. Hissune felt the beginnings of panic. It was folly to try to reason with a mob, worse folly to attempt to force his way through. And of course it was hopeless to expect imperial proctors to be patrolling a neighborhood like this. He was on his own.
Vanimoon, who was the closest, reached toward Hissune’s shoulder as though to give him a shove. Hissune backed away, but not before Vanimoon had left a grimy track along the pale green fabric of his cloak. Sudden astonishing fury surged through him. “Don’t touch me again!” he yelled, angrily making the sign of the sea dragon at Vanimoon. “Don’t any of you touch me!”
With a mocking laugh Vanimoon clawed for him a second time. Swiftly Hissune caught him by the wrist, clamping down with crushing force.
“Hoy! Let go!” Vanimoon grunted.
Instead Hissune pulled Vanimoon’s arm upward and back, and spun him roughly around. Hissune had never been much of a fighter—he was too small and lithe for that, and preferred to rely on speed and wits—but he could be strong enough when anger kindled him. Now he felt himself throbbing with violent energy. In a low tense voice he said, “If I have to, Vanimoon, I’ll break it. I don’t want you or anybody else touching me.”
“You’re hurting me!”
“Will you keep your hands to yourself?”
“Man can’t even stand to be teased—”
Hissune twisted Vanimoon’s arm as far up as it would go. “I’ll pull it right off you if I have to.”
“Let—go—”
“If you’ll keep your distance.”
“All right. All right!”
Hissune released him and caught his breath. His heart was pounding and he was soaked with sweat: he did not dare to wonder how he must look. After all of Ailimoor’s endless fussing over him, too.
Vanimoon, stepping back, sullenly rubbed his wrist. “Afraid I’ll soil his fancy clothes. Doesn’t want common people’s dirt on them.”
“That’s right. Now get out of my way. I’m late enough already.”
“For the Coronal’s banquet, I suppose?”
“Exactly. I’m late for the Coronal’s banquet.”
Vanimoon and the others gaped at him, their expressions hovering midway between scorn and awe. Hissune pushed his way past them and strode across the plaza.
The evening, he thought, was off to a very bad start.
3
On a day in high summer when the sun hung all but motionless over Castle Mount, the Coronal Lord Valentine rode out joyously into the flower-shimmering meadows below the Castle’s southern wing.
He went alone, not even taking with him his consort the Lady Carabella. The members of his council objected strongly to his going anywhere unguarded, even within the Castle, let alone venturing outside the sprawling perimeter of the royal domain. Whenever the issue arose, Elidath pounded hand against fist and Tunigorn rose up tall as though prepared to block Valentine’s departure with his own body, and little Sleet turned positively black in the face with fury and reminded the Coronal that his enemies had succeeded in overthrowing him once, and might yet again.
“Ah, surely I’d be safe anywhere on Castle Mount!” Valentine insisted.
But always they had had their way, until today. The safety of the Coronal of Majipoor, they insisted, was paramount. And so whenever Lord Valentine went riding, Elidath or Tunigorn or perhaps Stasilaine rode always beside him, as they had since they were boys together, and half a dozen members of the Coronal’s guard lurked a respectful distance behind.
This time, though, Valentine had somehow eluded them all. He was unsure how he had managed it: but when the overpowering urge to ride had come upon him in midmorning he simply strode into the south-wing stables, saddled his mount without the help of a groom, and set out across the green porcelain cobblestones of a strangely empty Dizimaule Plaza, passing swiftly under the great arch and into the lovely fields that flanked the Grand Calintane Highway. No one stopped him. No one called out to him. It was as though some wizardry had rendered him, invisible.
Free, if only for an hour or two! The Coronal threw his head back and laughed as he had not laughed in a long while, and slapped his mount’s flank, and sped across the meadows, moving so swiftly that the hooves of his great purple beast seemed scarcely to touch the myriad blossoms all about.