2
“He’s going where?” Elidath said in astonishment.
“Ilirivoyne,” said Tunigorn once more. “He set out three days ago.”
Elidath shook his head. “I hear your words, and they make no sense to me. My mind will simply not accept them.”
“By the Lady, neither will mine! But that doesn’t make it any the less true. He means to go before the Danipiur, and beg her forgiveness for all our sins against her people, or some such madness.”
It was only an hour since Elidath’s ship had docked in Piliplok. He had sped at once to the great hall of the city hoping still to find Valentine there, or, at the worst, just embarking on his way toward Ni-Moya. But no one of the royal party was at the hall save Tunigorn, whom he found morosely shuffling papers in a small dusty office. And this tale that Tunigorn had to tell—the grand processional abandoned, the Coronal venturing into the wild jungles where the Shapeshifters lived—no, no, it was too much, it was beyond all reason!
Fatigue and despair pressed against Elidath’s spirit like monstrous boulders, and he felt himself succumbing to that crushing weight.
Hollowly he said, “I chased him halfway around the world to prevent something like this from happening. Do you know what my journey was like, Tunigorn? Night and day by floater to the coast, without ever halting a moment. And then racing across a sea full of angry dragons, that three times came so close to our cruiser I thought they were going to sink us. And finally to reach Piliplok half dead with exhaustion, only to hear that I’ve missed him by three days, that he’s gone off on this absurd and perilous adventure, when perhaps if I had moved only a little more swiftly, if I had set out a few days sooner—”
“You couldn’t have changed his mind, Elidath. No one could. Sleet couldn’t, Deliamber couldn’t, Carabella couldn’t—”
“Not even Carabella?”
“Not even Carabella,” said Tunigorn.
Elidath’s despair deepened. He fought it fiercely, refusing to let himself be overwhelmed by fear and doubt. After a time he said, “Nevertheless, Valentine will listen to me, and I’ll be able to sway him. Of that much I’m certain.”
“I think you deceive yourself, old friend,” Tunigorn said sadly.
“Why did you summon me, then, for a task you thought was impossible?”
“When I summoned you,” Tunigorn said, “I had no idea what Valentine had in mind. I knew only that he was in an agitated state and was considering some rash and strange course of action. It seemed to me that if you were with him on the processional you might be able to calm him and divert him from whatever he planned. By the time he let us know his intentions, and made us see that nothing could swerve him from them, you were long since on your way west. Your journey has been wasted, and I have only my regrets to offer you.”
“I’ll go to him, all the same.”
“You’ll accomplish nothing, I’m afraid.”
Elidath shrugged. “I’ve followed him this far: how can I abandon the quest now? Maybe there’s some way I can bring him to his senses after all. You say you’re planning to set out after him tomorrow?”
“At midday, yes. As soon as I’ve dealt with the last of the dispatches and decrees that I stayed behind to handle.”
Elidath leaned forward eagerly. “Take them with you. We need to go tonight!”
“That wouldn’t be wise. You told me yourself that your voyage had exhausted you, and I see the weariness in your face. Rest here in Piliplok this evening, eat well, sleep well, dream well, and tomorrow—”
“No!” Elidath cried. “Tonight, Tunigorn! Every hour we waste here brings him that much closer to Shapeshifter territory! Can’t you see the risks?” He stared coolly at Tunigorn. “I’ll leave without you, if I have to.”
“I would not permit that.”
Elidath lifted his eyebrows. “Is my travel subject to your permission, then?”
“You know what I’m saying. I can’t let you head off into nowhere by yourself.”
“Then come with me tonight.”
“Wait only until tomorrow?”
“No!”
Tunigorn closed his eyes a moment. After a time he said quietly, “All right. So be it. Tonight.”
Elidath nodded. “We’ll hire a small, fast vessel, and with luck we’ll overtake him before he gets to Ni-moya.”
Tunigorn said bleakly, “He isn’t traveling toward Ni-moya, Elidath.”
“I don’t understand. The only way from here to Ilirivoyne that I know is up the river past Ni-moya to Verf, is it not, and southward from Verf to Piurifayne Gate.”
“I only wish he had gone that way.”
“Why, what other route is there?” Elidath asked, surprised.
“None that makes any sense. But he devised it himself: southward into Gihorna, and then across the Steiche into Metamorph country.”
Elidath stared. “How can that be? Gihorna’s an empty wasteland. The Steiche is an impassable river. He knows that, and if he doesn’t, his little Vroon certainly does.”
“Deliamber did his best to discourage the idea. Valentine wouldn’t listen. He pointed out that if he went by way of Ni-moya and Verf, he’d be obliged to halt at every city along the way for the usual ceremonies of the grand processional, and he doesn’t want to delay his pilgrimage to the Metamorphs that long.”
Elidath felt himself engulfed by dismay and alarm. “And so he means to wander through the sandstorms and miseries of Gihorna—and then find a way across a river that has already once nearly drowned him—”
“Yes, and all so he can pay a call on the people who successfully managed to push him off his throne ten years ago—”
“Madness!”
“Madness indeed,” Tunigorn said.
“You agree? We set out tonight?”
“Tonight, yes.”
Tunigorn put forth his hand, and Elidath took it and clasped it tight, and they stood in silence a moment.
Then Elidath said, “Answer me one question, will you, Tunigorn?”
“Ask it.”
“You used the word ‘madness’ more than once, in speaking of this venture of Valentine’s, and so did I. And so it is. But I have not seen him in a year or more, and you have been with him ever since he left the Mount. Tell me this: do you think he has truly gone mad?”
“Mad? No, I think not.”
“Appointing young Hissune to the principate? Making pilgrimages to the Metamorphs?”
Tunigorn said, after a time, “Those are not things you or I would have done, Elidath. But I think they are signs not of Valentine’s madness, but of something else in him, a goodness, a sweetness, a kind of holiness, that such as you and I are not fully able to understand. We have always known this about Valentine, that he is different from us in certain ways.”
Frowning, Elidath said, “Better holy than mad, I suppose. But this goodness, this holiness: do you think those are the qualities that Majipoor most needs in its Coronal, as this time of strife and bewilderment unfolds?”
“I have no answer to that, old friend.”
“Nor I. But I have certain fears.”
“As do I,” said Tunigorn. “As do I.”