And from within the sphere of blue glass came the whistling and gurgling sounds of the voice of Tyeveras; and then, plainly, as he had once before done, he could be heard to say, “Come. Rise. Walk.”
“The same words,” said Sepulthrove.
“Life! Pain! Death!”
“I think he knows,” Hornkast said. “I think he must.”
Sepulthrove frowned. “Knows what?”
Hornkast indicated the decree. “This is Lord Valentine’s proclamation of grief upon the loss of Majipoor’s great emperor.”
“I see,” said the physician, and his hawk-featured face turned dark with congested blood. “So it finally must come.”
“Indeed.”
“Now?” Sepulthrove asked. His hands trembled. He held them poised above a bank of controls.
From the Pontifex came one last burst of words:
“Life, Majesty. Death. Valentine Pontifex of Majipoor!”
There was a terrible silence.
“Now,” Hornkast said.
8
Endlessly back and forth across the sea, now sailing once more from the Isle to Zimroeclass="underline" it was beginning to seem to Valentine that in one of his former lives he must have been that legendary ancient captain Sinnabor Lavon, who had set out to make the first crossing of the Great Sea and given up the voyage after five years, and who perhaps for that had been condemned to be reborn and sail from land to land without ever halting for rest. But Valentine felt no weariness now, and no yearning to give up this life of wandering that he had undertaken. In a way—a strange and unexpected way— he was still making his grand processional.
The fleet, sped westward by favorable winds, was nearing Piliplok. There had been no dragons in the sea this time to menace or delay the journey, and the crossing had been swift.
From the masts the banners stood out straight toward Zimroel ahead: no longer the green-and-gold colors of the Coronal, for now Lord Hissune sailed under those as he made his separate voyage to Zimroel. Valentine’s ships bore the red-and-black of the Pontifex, with the Labyrinth symbol blazoned upon them.
He had not yet grown accustomed to those colors, nor to that symbol, nor to those other alterations that had come. They did not make the starburst sign to him any longer when they approached him. Well, so be it; he had always thought that such salutes were foolishness, anyway. They did not address him as “my lord” now when they spoke with him, for a Pontifex must be called “your majesty.” Which made little difference to Valentine except that his ear had long since grown accustomed to that oft-repeated “my lord” as a kind of punctuation, a way of marking the rhythm of a sentence, and it was odd not to hear it. It was with difficulty that he got people to speak to him at all, now: for everyone knew that the custom since ancient times had been to address one’s words to the high spokesman of the Pontifex, never to the Pontifex himself, though the Pontifex was right there and perfectly capable of hearing. And when the Pontifex replied, why, he must do it by indirect discourse also, through his spokesman. That was the first of the Pontifical customs that Valentine had discarded; but it was not easy to get others to abide by the change. He had named Sleet his high spokesman—it seemed a natural enough appointment—but Sleet was forbidden to indulge in any of that antique mummery of pretending to be the Pontifex’s ears.
For that matter no one could comprehend the presence of a Pontifex aboard a ship, exposed to the brisk winds and the bright warm sunlight. The Pontifex was an emperor shrouded in mystery. The Pontifex belonged out of sight. The Pontifex, as everyone knew, should be in the Labyrinth.
I will not go, Valentine thought.
I have passed along my crown, and someone else now has the privilege of putting “Lord” before his name, and the Castle now will be Lord Hissune’s Castle, if ever he has the chance to return to it. But I will not bury myself in the ground.
Carabella, emerging on deck, said, “Asenhart asks me to tell you, my lord, that we will be within range of Piliplok in twelve hours, if the wind holds true.”
“Not ‘my lord,’ ” Valentine said.
She grinned. “I find that so hard to remember, your majesty.”
“As do I. But the change has been made.”
“May I not call you ‘my lord’ even so, when we are in private? For that is what you are to me, my lord.”
“Am I? Do I order you about, and have you pour my wine for me, and bring me my slippers like a servant?”
“You know I mean otherwise, Valentine.”
“Then call me Valentine, and not ‘my lord.’ I was your king, and I am your emperor now, but I am not your master. That has always been understood between us, so I thought.”
“I think perhaps it has—your majesty.”
She laughed, and he laughed with her, and drew her close and held her against him. After a moment he said, “I have often told you I feel a certain regret, or even guilt, for having taken you away from a juggler’s free life, and given you in its place all the heavy responsibilities of Castle Mount. And often you have told me, No, no, nonsense, there is nothing to regret, I came of my own will to live by your side.”
“As in all truth I did, my lord.”
“But now I am Pontifex—by the Lady, I say those words, and they sound like another language in my mouth!—I am Pontifex, I am indeed Pontifex, and now I feel once more that I must rob you of the joys of life.”
“Why, Valentine? Must a Pontifex give up his wife, then? I’ve heard nothing of that custom!”
“A Pontifex must live in the Labyrinth, Carabella.”
“You come back to that again!”
“It never leaves me. And if I am to live in the Labyrinth, why, then you must live there also, and how can I ask that of you?”
“Do you ask it of me?”
“You know I have no wish to part from you.”
“Nor I from you, my lord. But we are not in the Labyrinth now, and it was my belief you had no plan for going there.”
“What if I must, Carabella?”
“Who says must to a Pontifex?”
He shook his head. “But what if I must? You know as well as I how little love I have for that place. But if I must—if for reasons of state I must—if the absolute necessity of it is forced upon me, which I pray the Divine will not happen, but if indeed there comes a time when I am compelled by the logic of government to go down into that maze—”
“Why, then I will go with you, my lord.”
“And give up all fair winds, and bright sunny days, and the sea and the forest and the mountains?”
“Surely you would find a pretext for coming forth now and then, even if you found it necessary to take up residence down there.”
“And if I can’t?”
“You pursue problems too far beyond the horizon, my lord. The world is in peril; mighty tasks await you, and no one will shove you into the Labyrinth while those tasks are undone; there is time later to worry about where we will live and how we will like it. Is that not so, my lord?”
Valentine nodded. “Indeed. I foolishly multiply my woes.”
“But I tell you this, and then let us talk no further of it: if you find some honorable way of escaping the Labyrinth forever, I will rejoice, but if you must go down into it I will go with you and never give it a second thought. When as Coronal you took me as consort, do you imagine I failed to see that Lord Valentine must one day become Valentine Pontifex? When I accepted you, I accepted the Labyrinth: just as you, my lord, accepted the Labyrinth when you accepted the crown your brother had worn. So let us say no more on these matters, my lord.”
“’Your majesty,’” said Valentine. He slipped his arm again about her shoulders, and touched his lips lightly to hers. “I will promise to do no more brooding about the Labyrinth,” he said. “And you must promise to call me by my proper title.”