Lord Valentine's Castle

'What was all that?' Valentine asked.

'He thinks you are Lord Malibor,' said Hornkast dejectedly. 'He cautions you against the risks of going to sea to hunt dragons.'

'Wise counsel,' said Valentine. 'But it comes too late.'

'He says the Coronal is too precious to gamble his life in such amusements.'

'Tell him that I agree, that if I regain Castle Mount I’ll cling closely to my tasks, and avoid any such diversions.'

The physician Sepulthrove came forward and said quietly, 'We are tiring him. This audience must end, I fear.'

'One moment more,' Valentine said.

Sepulthrove frowned. But Valentine, with a smile, advanced again to the foot of the throne, and knelt there, and held his outspread hands up toward the ancient creature within the glass bubble, and, slipping into the trance-state, sent forth his spirit toward Tyeveras, bearing impulses of reverence and affection. Had anyone ever shown affection toward the formidable Tyeveras before? Very likely not. But for decades this man had been the center and soul of Majipoor, and now, sitting here lost in a timeless dream of governance, aware only intermittently of the responsibilities that once had been his, he deserved such love as his adoptive son and someday successor could bestow, and Valentine gave as fully as the powers of the circlet would permit.

And Tyeveras seemed to grow stronger, his eyes to brighten, his cheeks to take on a ruddy tint. Was that a smile on those shriveled lips? Did the left hand of the Pontifex lift, ever so slightly, in a gesture of blessing? Yes. Yes. Yes. Beyond doubt the Pontifex felt the flow of warmth from Valentine, and welcomed it, and was responding. Tyeveras spoke briefly and almost coherently. Hornkast said, 'He says he grants you his full support, Lord Valentine.'

Live long, old man, Valentine thought, getting to his feet and bowing. Probably you would rather sleep forever, but I must wish upon you a longer life even than you have already had, for there is work for me to do on Castle Mount.

He turned away.

'Let’s go,' he told the five ministers. 'I have what I need.'

They marched soberly from the throne-room. As the door swung shut behind them Valentine glanced at Sepulthrove and said, 'How long can he survive like that?'

The physician shrugged. 'Almost indefinitely. The system sustains him perfectly. We could keep him going, with some repairs every now and then, another hundred years.'

'That won’t be necessary. But he may have to stay with us another twelve or fifteen. Can you do that?'

'Count on it,' said Sepulthrove.

'Good. Good.' Valentine stared at the shining winding passageway that sloped upward before him. He had been in the Labyrinth long enough. The time had come to return to the world of sun and wind and living things, and to settle matters with Dominin Barjazid. To Hornkast he said, 'Return me to my people and prepare transportation for us to the outer world. And before my departure I’ll want a detailed study of the military forces and supporting personnel you’ll be able to place at my disposal.'

'Of course, my lord,' the high spokesman said.

My lord. It was the first indication of submission that he had had from the ministers of the Pontifex. The main battle was yet to come; but Valentine felt, hearing those two small words, almost as though he had already regained Castle Mount.

V The Book of the Castle

—1—

THE ASCENT FROM THE DEPTHS of the Labyrinth was far more swiftly accomplished than the descent had been; for on the interminable downward spiral Valentine had been an unknown adventurer, clawing his way past a stolidly uncaring bureaucracy, and on the upward journey he was a Power of the realm.

Not for him, now, the tortuous climb through level after level, ring after ring, back up through all the intricacies of the Pontifical lair, House of Records and Arena and Place of Masks and Hall of Winds and all the rest. Now he and his followers rose, quickly and without hindrance, using the passage reserved for Powers alone.

In just a few hours he attained the outer ring, that brightly lit and populous halfway house on the rim of the underground city. For all the speed of his climb, the news of his identity had traveled even faster. Word somehow had spread through the Labyrinth that the Coronal was here, a Coronal mysteriously transformed but Coronal nonetheless, and as he emerged from the imperial passageway a great crowd stood assembled, staring as if some creature with nine heads and thirty legs had come forth.

It was a silent crowd. Some made the sign of the starburst, a few called out his name. But most were content simply to gape. The Labyrinth was the domain of the Pontifex, after all, and Valentine knew that the adulation a Coronal would receive elsewhere in Majipoor was not likely here. Awe, yes. Respect, yes. Curiosity, above all. But none of the cheering and waving that Valentine had seen bestowed on the counterfeit Lord Valentine when he rode in grand processional through the streets of Pidruid. Just as well, thought Valentine. He was out of practice at being the object of adulation, and he had never cared much for it, anyway. It was enough — more than enough — that they accepted him, now, as the personage he claimed to be.

'Will it all be that easy?' he asked Deliamber. 'Simply ride across Alhanroel proclaiming myself the real Lord Valentine, and have everything fall into my hands?'

'I doubt it mightily. Barjazid still wears the Coronal’s countenance. He still holds the seals of power. Down here, if the ministers of the Pontifex say you are the Coronal, the citizens will hail you as Coronal. If they had said you were Lady of the Isle, they probably would hail you as Lady of the Isle. I think it will be different outside.'

'I want no bloodshed, Deliamber.'

'No one does. But blood will flow before you mount the Confalume Throne once more. There’s no avoiding it. Valentine.'

Gloomily Valentine said, 'I would almost rather abandon power to the Barjazid than plunge this land into some convulsion of violence. Peace is what I love, Deliamber.'

'And peace is what there will be,' said the little wizard. 'But the road to peace is not always peaceful. See, there — your army is gathering already, Valentine!'

Valentine saw, not far ahead, a knot of people, some familiar, some unknown to him. All those who had gone into the Labyrinth with him were there, the band he had accumulated in his journey across the world, Skandars, Lisamon Hultin, Vinorkis, Khun, Shanamir, Lorivade and the bodyguard of the Lady, and the rest. But also there were several hundred in the colors of the Pontifex, already assembled, the first detachment of — what? Not troops; the Pontifex had no troops. A civilian militia, then? Lord Valentine’s army, at any rate.

'My army,' Valentine said. The word had a bitter taste. 'Armies are something out of Lord Stiamot’s time, Deliamber. How many thousands of years has it been since there has been war on Majipoor?'

'Things have been quiet a long while,' the Vroon said. 'But nevertheless there are small armies in existence. The bodyguards of the Lady, the servitors of the Pontifex — and what about the knights of the Coronal, eh? What do you call them, if not an army? Carrying weapons, drilling on the fields of Castle Mount — what are they, Valentine? Lords and ladies amusing themselves in games?'

'So I thought, Deliamber, when I was one of them.'

'Time to think otherwise, my lord. The knights of the Coronal form the nucleus of a military force, and only an innocent would believe anything else. As you will discover quite inescapably, Valentine, when you come closer to Castle Mount.'

'Can Dominin Barjazid bring my own knights out in battle against me?' Valentine asked in horror.

The Vroon gave him a long cool stare. 'The man you call Dominin Barjazid is, at the moment, Lord Valentine the Coronal, to whom the knights of Castle Mount are bound by oath. Or have you forgotten that? With luck and craft you may be able to convince them that their oath is to the soul and spirit of Lord Valentine, and not to his face and beard. But some will remain loyal to the man they think is you, and they will lift swords against you in his name.'

The thought was sickening. Since the restoration of his memory Valentine had thought more than once of the companions of his earlier life, those noble men and women with whom he had grown up, with whom he had learned the princely arts in happier days, whose love and friendship had been central to his life until the day the usurper had shattered that life. That bold huntsman Elidath of Morvole, and the fair-haired and agile Stasilaine, and Tunigorn, who was so quick with the bow, and so many more — only names to him now, shadowy figures out of a distant past, and yet in a moment those shadows could be given life and color and vigor. Would they now come forth against him in war? His friends, his beloved companions of long ago — if he had to do battle with them for Majipoor’s sake, so be it, but the prospect was dismaying.

He shook his head. 'Perhaps we can avoid that. Come,' he said. 'The time for leaving this place is at hand.'

Near the gateway known as the Mouth of Waters Valentine held a jubilant reunion with his followers and met the officers that had been provided for him by the ministers of the Pontifex. They seemed a capable crew, perceptibly quickened in spirit by this chance to leave the dreary depths of the Labyrinth. Their leader was a short, tight-coiled man named Ermanar, with close-cropped reddish hair and a short sharp-pointed beard, who in his size and movements and straight-forwardness might well have been brother to Sleet. Valentine liked him at once. Ermanar made the starburst at Valentine in a quick, perfunctory way, smiled warmly, and said, 'I will be at your side, my lord, until the Castle is yours again.'

'May the journey north be an easy one,' Valentine said.

'Have you chosen a route?'

'By riverboat up the Glayge would be swiftest, would it not?'

Ermanar nodded. 'At any other time of year, yes. But the autumn rains have come, and they have been unusually heavy.' He drew forth a small map of central