resolutions — easy enough to think of taking the Pontificate out of Alhanroel altogether, off to some congenial spot on the younger continent, Ni-moya, perhaps, or Dulorn, and live among beauty and delight. He found it hard to imagine himself voluntarily walling himself up in this fantastic and repellent Labyrinth. But yet, but yet, they had all done it before him, Dekkeret and Confalume and Prestimion and Stiamot and Kinniken and the others of times gone by, they had moved from Castle Mount to this dark hole when their moment came. Perhaps it was not as bad as it seemed. Perhaps when one is Coronal long enough one is glad to retire from the heights of Castle Mount. I will think more of these matters, Valentine told himself, when the appropriate time is at hand.
The caravan of floater-cars executed a hairpin turn and entered yet a lower level.
'The Arena,' Hissune announced grandly.
Valentine stared into a huge hollow chamber, so great in length and width that he was unable to see its walls, only the twinkling of distant lights in the shadowed corners. There were no visible supports to its ceiling. It was astonishing to think of the massive weight of the upper levels, those millions of people, those endless winding streets and alleyways, those buildings and statues and vehicles and all, pressing down on the roof of the Arena, and this vast nothingness resisting the colossal pressure.
'Listen,' said Hissune. He scrambled out of the car, put his hands to his mouth, and unleashed a piercing cry. And echoes returned, sharp stabbing sounds bouncing from this wall and that, the first few magnified in sound, the rest diminished until they were no more than the twittering chirping sounds of droles. He sent forth another cry, and another on its heels, so that sounds crashed and reverberated all about them for more than a minute. Then, with a self-satisfied smirk, the boy returned to the car.
'What purpose does this place serve?' Valentine asked.
'None.'
'None? None at all?'
'It’s just an emptiness. The Pontifex Dizimaule wanted a large empty space here. Nothing ever happens in it. No one’s allowed to build in it, not that anyone would want to. It just sits. It makes good echoes, don’t you think? That’s the only use it has. Go on, Valentine, make an echo.'
Valentine smiled and shook his head. 'Another time,' he said.
Crossing the Arena seemed to take all day. On and on they went, never once seeing a wall or a column; it was like traversing an open plain, except for the vaguely visible ceiling far above. Nor was Valentine able to discern the moment when they began to leave the Arena. He realized after a time that the floor of the place had turned somehow into a ramp, and that they had made an imperceptible transition to a lower level that returned to the familiar claustrophobic closeness of the Labyrinth’s coils. As they proceeded down this new semi-circular corridor it grew gradually more brightly lit, until soon it was nearly as well illuminated as that level close to the mouth where the shops and markets were. Ahead, rising to an extraordinary height directly before them, was a screen of some sort on which inscriptions in brilliant luminous colors could be seen.
Hissune said, 'We are coming to the House of Records. I can go with you no farther.'
Indeed the road terminated in a five-sided plaza in front of the great screen — which, Valentine now saw, was a kind of chronicle of Majipoor. Down its left-hand side were the names of the Coronals, a list so long that he could scarcely read its upper reaches. Down the right was the corresponding list of Pontifexes. Beside each name was the date of reign.
His eyes searched the lists. Hundreds, hundreds of names, some the familiar ones, the great resonant names of the planet’s history, Stiamot, Thimin, Confalume, Dekkeret, Prestimion, and some that were only meaningless arrangements of letters, names that Valentine had seen when as a boy he had whiled away rainy afternoons reading the lists of the Powers, but that had no significance other than that they were on the list — Prankipin and Hunzimar and Meyk and Struin and Scaul and Spurifon, men who had held power on Castle Mount and then in the Labyrinth a thousand years ago, three thousand, five, had been the center of all conversation, the object of all homage, had danced across the imperial stage and done their little show and vanished into history. Lord Spurifon, he thought. Lord Scaul. Who were they? What color was their hair, what games did they enjoy, what laws had they decreed, how calmly and bravely had they met their deaths? What impact had they had on the lives of the billions of Majipoor, or had they none? Some, Valentine saw, had ruled only a few years as Coronal, carried off quickly to the Labyrinth by the death of a Pontifex. And some had occupied the summit of Castle Mount for a generation. This Lord Meyk, Coronal for thirty years, and Pontifex for — Valentine scanned the dizzying lists — Pontifex for twenty more. Fifty years of supreme power, and who knew anything of Lord Meyk and Meyk the Pontifex today?
He looked toward the bottom of the lists, where they trailed off into blankness. Lord Tyeveras — Lord Malibor — Lord Voriax — Lord Valentine—
That was where the left-hand list ended, of course. Lord Valentine, reign three years old and unfinished—
Lord Valentine, at least, would be remembered. Not for him the oblivion of the Spurifons and Scauls; for they would tell the tale on Majipoor, for generations to come, of the dark-haired young Coronal who was cast by treachery into a fair-haired body, and lost his throne to the son of the King of Dreams. But what would they say of him? That he was a guileless fool, as comic a figure as Arioc who made himself Lady of the Isle? That he was a weakling who had failed to guard himself against evil? That he had suffered an astounding fall, and had valiantly regained his place? How would the history of Lord Valentine be told, a thousand years hence? One thing he prayed, as he stood before the great list of the House of Records: let it not be said of Lord Valentine that he regained his throne with magnificent heroism, and then ruled feebly and aimlessly for fifty years. Better to abandon the Castle to the Barjazid than to be known for that.
Hissune tugged at his hand.
'Valentine?'
He looked down, startled.
The boy said, 'I leave you here. The people of the Pontifex will come for you soon.'
'Thank you, Hissune, for all you’ve done. But how will you get back by yourself?'
Hissune winked. 'It won’t be by walking, I promise you that.' He peered solemnly up and said, after a pause, 'Valentine?'
'Yes?'
'Aren’t you supposed to have dark hair and a beard?'
Valentine laughed. 'You think I’m the Coronal?'
'Oh, I know you are! It’s written all over your face. Only — only your face is wrong.'
'It’s not a bad face,' said Valentine lightly. 'A little more kindly than my old one, and maybe more handsome. I think I’m going to keep it. I suppose whoever had it first has no more need for it now.'
The boy’s eyes were wide. 'Are you in disguise, then?'
'You might say that.'
'I thought so.' He put his small hand in Valentine’s. 'Well, good luck, Valentine. If you ever come back to the Labyrinth, ask for me and I’ll be your guide again, and the next time for free. Remember my name: Hissune.'
'Goodbye, Hissune.'
The boy winked again, and was gone.
Valentine looked toward the great screen of history.
Lord Tyeveras — Lord Malibor — Lord Voriax — Lord Valentine—
And perhaps someday Lord Hissune, he thought. Why not? The boy seemed at least as qualified as many who had ruled, and probably would have had sense enough not to drink Dominin Barjazid’s drugged wine. I must remember him, he told himself. I must remember him.
—5—
FROM A GATEWAY AT THE far side of the plaza of the House of Records now came three figures, a Hjort and two humans, in the masks of Labyrinthine officialdom. Unhurriedly they advanced toward the place where Valentine stood with Deliamber, Sleet, and a few others.
The Hjort gave Valentine careful scrutiny and did not seem awed.
'Your business here?' she asked.
'To apply for an audience with the Pontifex.'
'An audience with the Pontifex,' the Hjort repeated in wonder, as if Valentine had said, To apply for a pair of wings, To apply for permission to drink the ocean dry. 'An audience with the Pontifex!' She laughed. 'The Pontifex grants no audiences.'
'Are you his chief ministers?'
The laughter was louder. 'This is the House of Records, not the Court of Thrones. There are no ministers of state here.'
The three officials turned and started back toward the gateway.
'Wait!' Valentine called.
He slipped into the dream-state and sent an urgent vision toward them. There was no specific content to it, only a broad and general sense that the stability of things was in peril, that the bureaucracy itself was sorely threatened, and that only they could stave off the forces of chaos. They walked on, and Valentine redoubled the intensity of his sending, until he began to sweat and tremble with the effort of it. They halted. The Hjort looked around.
'What do you want here?' she asked.
'Admit us to the ministers of the Pontifex.'
There was a whispered conference.
'What do we do?' Valentine asked Deliamber. 'Juggle for them?'
'Try to be patient,' the Vroon murmured.
Valentine found that difficult; but he held his tongue, and after some moments the officials returned to say that he could enter, and five of his companions. The others must take lodgings on an upper level. Valentine scowled. But there seemed no arguing with these masked ones. He chose Deliamber, Carabella, Sleet, Asenhart, and Zalzan Kavol to continue on with him.
'How will the rest find lodgings?' he asked.
The Hjort shrugged. That was none of her affair.
