Lord Valentine's Castle

come of that.'

'What if the usurper is simply the heir-in-waiting, who grew tired of waiting?'

'No,' said Deliamber. 'Inconceivable. No one deemed qualified to be Coronal would overthrow a lawfully consecrated prince. Besides, why the mummery of pretending to be Lord Valentine, if he is another?'

'I grant you that.'

'Grant me also this: that the person atop Castle Mount now has neither right nor qualification for being there, and must be cast down, and you are the only one who can do it.'

Valentine sighed. 'You ask a great deal.'

'History asks a great deal,' said Deliamber. 'History has demanded, on a thousand worlds across many thousands of years, that intelligent beings choose between order and anarchy, between creation and destruction, between reason and unreason. And the forces of order and creation and reason have been focused always in a single leader, a king, if you will, or a president, a chairman, a grand minister, a generalissimo, use whatever word you wish, a monarch by some name or other. Here it is the Coronal, or more accurately the Coronal ruling as the voice of the Pontifex who was once Coronal, and it matters, my lord, it matters very much, who is to be Coronal and who is not to be Coronal.'

'Yes,' Valentine said. 'Perhaps.'

'You’ll go on wavering from yes to perhaps a long while,' said Deliamber. 'But yes will govern, in the end. And you will make the pilgrimage to the Isle, and with the Lady’s blessing you will march on Castle Mount and take your rightful place.'

'The things you say fill me with terror. If ever I had the ability to rule, if ever I was given the training for it, these things have been burned from my mind.'

'The terror will fade. Your mind will be made whole in the passing of time.'

'And time passes, and here we sit in Dulorn, to amuse the Ghayrogs.'

Deliamber said, 'Not much longer. We’ll find our way eastward, my lord. Have faith in that.'

There was something contagious about Deliamber’s assurance. Valentine’s hesitations and uncertainties were gone — for the moment. But when Deliamber had departed, Valentine gave way to uncomfortable contemplation of certain hard realities. Could he simply hire a couple of mounts and set off for Piliplok with Deliamber tomorrow? What about Carabella, who had suddenly become very important to him? Abandon her here in Dulorn? And Shanamir? The boy was attached to Valentine, not to the Skandars: he neither could nor would be left. There was the cost, then, of a journey for four across nearly all of vast Zimroel, food, lodging, transportation, then the pilgrim ship to the Isle, and what then of expenses on the Isle while he schemed to gain access to the Lady? Autifon Deliamber had guessed it might cost twenty royals for him to travel alone to Piliplok. The cost, for the four of them, or for the five if Sleet were added, though Valentine had no idea if Sleet would care to come, might run a hundred royals or more, a hundred fifty perhaps to the lowest terrace of the Isle. He sorted through his purse. Of the money he had had upon him when he found himself outside Pidruid, he had more than sixty royals left, plus a royal or two that he had earned with the troupe. Not enough, not nearly enough. Carabella, he knew, was almost without money; Shanamir had dutifully returned to his family the hundred sixty royals from the sale of his mounts; and Deliamber, if he had any wealth, would not in old age be hauling himself through the countryside under contract to a crowd of ruffian Skandars.

So, then? Nothing to do but wait, and plan, and hope that Zalzan Kavol intended a generally eastward route. And save his crowns and bide his time, until the moment was ripe for going to the Lady.

—3—

A FEW DAYS AFTER THEIR departure from Dulorn, purses bulging with the generous Ghayrog pay, Valentine drew Zalzan Kavol aside to ask him about the direction of travel. It was a gentle late-summer day, and here, where they were camped for lunch along the eastern, slope of the Rift, a purple mist enfolded everything, a low thick clammy cloud that took its delicate lavender color from pigments in the air, for there were deposits of skuvva-sand just north of here and the winds were constantly stirring the stuff aloft.

Zalzan Kavol looked uncomfortable and irritable in this weather. His gray fur, purpled now by droplets of mist, was clumped in comic bunches, and he rubbed at it, trying to restore it to its proper nap. Probably not the best moment for such a conference, Valentine realized, but it was too late: the issue had been broached.

Zalzan Kavol said hollowly, 'Which of us is the leader of this troupe, Valentine?'

'You are, beyond question.'

'Then why do you try to govern me?'

'I?'

'In Pidruid,' the Skandar said, 'you asked me to go next to Falkynkip, for the convenience of your herdsman squire’s family honor, and I remind you that you forced me to hire the herdsman boy in the first place, though he is no juggler and never will be. In these things I yielded, I know not why. There was also the matter of your interfering in my quarrel with the Vroon—'

'My interference had benefit,' Valentine pointed out, 'as you yourself admitted at the time.'

'True. But interference of itself is unfamiliar to me. Do you understand that I am absolute master of this troupe?'

Valentine shrugged lightly. 'No one disputes that.'

'But do you understand it? My brothers do. They are aware that a body can have only one head — unless it’s a Su-Suheris body, and we’re not talking of those — and here I am the head, it is from my mind that plans and instructions flow, and mine alone.' Zalzan Kavol flashed an austere smile. 'Is this tyranny? No. This is simple efficiency. Jugglers can never be democrats, Valentine. One mind designs the patterns, one alone, or there is chaos. Now what do you want with me?'

'Only to know the shape of our route.'

With barely suppressed anger Zalzan Kavol said, 'Why? You are in our employ. You go where we go. Your curiosity is misplaced.'

'It doesn’t seem that way to me. Some routes are more useful to me than others.'

'Useful? To you? You have plans? You told me you had no plans!'

'I do now.'

'What do you plan, then?'

Valentine took a deep breath. 'Ultimately to make the pilgrimage to the Isle, and become a devotee of the Lady. Since the pilgrim-ships sail from Piliplok, and all of Zimroel lies between us and Piliplok, it would be valuable to me to know whether you plan to go in some other direction, let’s say down to Velathys, or maybe back to Til-omon or Narabal, instead of—'

'You are discharged from my service,' Zalzan Kavol said icily.

Valentine was astounded. 'What?'

'Terminated. My brother Erfon will give you ten crowns as your settlement. I want you on your way within an hour.'

Valentine felt his cheeks growing hot. 'This is totally unexpected! I merely asked—'

'You merely asked. And in Pidruid you merely asked, and in Falkynkip you merely asked, and next week in Mazadone you would merely ask. You annoy my tranquillity, Valentine, and this cancels out your promise as a juggler. Besides, you are disloyal.'

'Disloyal? To what? To whom?'

'You hire on with us, but secretly mean to use us as the vehicle to get you to Piliplok. Your commitment to us is insincere. I call that treachery.'

'When I hired on with you, I had nothing else in mind but to travel with your troupe wherever you went. But things have changed, and now I see reason to make the pilgrimage.'

'Why did you allow things to change? Where’s your sense of duty to your employers and teachers?'

'Did I hire on with you for life?' Valentine demanded. 'Is it treachery to discover that one has a goal more important than tomorrow’s performance?'

'That diversion of energy,' said Zalzan Kavol, 'is what leads me to be rid of you. I want you thinking about juggling every hour of the day, and not about the departure date of pilgrim-ships from Shkunibor Pier.'

'There would be no diversion of energy. When I juggle, I juggle. And I’d resign from the troupe when we approached Piliplok. But until then—'

'Enough,' Zalzan Kavol said. 'Pack. Go. Take yourself swiftly to Piliplok and sail to the Isle, and may you fare well. I have no further need of you.'

The Skandar seemed altogether serious. Scowling in the purple mist, slapping at the soggy patches in his pelt, Zalzan Kavol swung heavily around and began to walk away. Valentine trembled in tension and dismay. The thought of leaving now, of traveling alone to Piliplok, left him aghast; and beyond that he felt part of this troupe, more so than he had ever been aware, a member of a close-knit team, and would not willingly be sundered. At least not now, not yet, while he could remain with Carabella and Sleet and even the Skandars, whom he respected without liking, and continue to increase his skills of eye and hand while moving eastward toward whatever strange destiny Deliamber seemed to have in mind for him.

'Wait!' Valentine called. 'What about the law?'

Zalzan Kavol glared over his shoulder. 'Which law?'

'The one requiring you to keep three human jugglers in your employ,' said Valentine.

'I will hire the herdsman boy in your place,' Zalzan Kavol retorted, 'and teach him whatever skills he can learn.' And he stalked off.

Valentine stood stunned. His conversation with Zalzan Kavol had taken place in a grove of small golden-leafed plants that evidently were psychosensitive for, he noticed now, the plants had folded their intricate compound leaflets in the course of the quarrel, and looked shriveled and blackened for ten feet on all sides of him. He touched one. It was crisp and lifeless, as though it had been torched. He felt abashed at being a party to such destruction.

'What happened?' Shanamir asked, appearing suddenly and staring in wonder at the withered foliage. 'I heard yelling. The Skandar—'

'Has fired me,' said Valentine vacantly, 'because I asked him which way we were going next, because I admitted to him that I intended eventually to journey on pilgrimage to the Isle and wondered if his route would suit my purpose.'

Shanamir gaped. 'You are to make the pilgrimage? I never knew!'

'A recent decision.'

'Why, then,' the boy cried, 'we’ll make it together, won’t we? Come, we’ll pack our things, we’ll steal a couple of mounts from these Skandars, we’ll leave at