Majipoor Chronicles

grew to pierce the sky were dwarfed eerie things here, no taller than a man and no thicker than a girl's wrist. It was in this pygmy forest that Valentine had come to grief, goading his mount too hard in a place where treacherous roots snaked over the ground. The mount had lost its footing, Valentine had been thrown, his leg had been horribly bent between two slender but unyielding trees whose trunks had the toughness of a thousand years, and months of anguish and frustration had followed while the bones slowly knit and an irreplaceable year of being young slipped away from him. Why had they come back here now? Voriax prowled the weird forest as if searching for hidden treasure. At last he turned to Valentine and said, 'This place seems enchanted.'

'The explanation is simple. The roots of the trees are unable to penetrate very deeply into this useless gray soil; they take the best grip they can, for this is Castle Mount where everything grows, but they are starved for nourishment, and so—'

'Yes, I understand,' said Voriax coolly. 'I didn't say the place is enchanted, only that it seems that way. A legion of Vroon wizards couldn't have created anything so ugly. Yet I'm glad to be seeing it at last. Shall we ride through it?'

'How subtle you are, Voriax.'

'Subtle? I fail to see—'

'Suggesting that I take another try at crossing the place that nearly cost me my leg.'

Voriax' ruddy face turned even more florid. 'I hardly think you'd fall again.'

'Surely not. But you think I may think so, and you've long believed that the way to conquer fear is to take the offensive against whatever it is you dread, and so you maneuver me into a second race here, to burn away any lingering timidity this forest may have instilled in me. It is the opposite of what you were doing when we went on the mirror-slides, but it amounts to the same thing, does it not?'

'I understand none of this,' said Voriax. 'Do you have some sort of fever today?'

'Not at all. Shall we race?'

'I think not.'

Valentine, baffled, pounded one fist against another. 'But you just suggested it!'

'I suggested a ride,' Voriax answered. 'But you seem full of mysterious angers and defiance, and you accuse me of maneuvering and manipulating you where no such things were intended. If we cross the forest while you're in such a mood, you'll certainly fall again, and probably smash your other leg. Come: we'll go on into Amblemorn.'

'Voriax—'

'Come.'

'I want to ride through the forest.' Valentine's eyes were steady on his brother's. 'Will you ride with me, or do you prefer to wait here?'

'With you, I suppose.'

'Now tell me to be careful and watch out for hidden roots.'

A muscle flickered in annoyance in Voriax' cheek, and he let out a long sigh of exasperation. 'You are no child. I would not say such a thing to you. Besides, if I thought you needed such advice, I'd deny you as my brother and cast you forth.'

He stirred his mount and rode off furiously down the narrow avenues between the pygmy trees.

Valentine followed after a moment, riding hard, striving to close the gap between them. The path was difficult and here and there he saw obstacles as menacing as the one that had brought him down when he rode here with Elidath; but his mount was sure-footed and there was no need to pull back on the reins. Though the memory of his fall was bright in him, Valentine felt no fear, only a sort of heightened alertness: if he fell again, he knew he would fall less disastrously. He wondered it he might not be overreacting to Voriax. Perhaps he was too touchy, too sensitive, too quick to defend himself against the imagined overprotectiveness of his older brother. Voriax was in training to be lord of the world, after all; he could not help but seem to assume responsibility for everyone and everything, especially his younger brother. Valentine resolved to be less zealous in his defense of his autonomy.

They passed through the forest and into Amblemorn, oldest of the cities of Castle Mount, an ancient place of tangled streets and vine-encrusted walls. It was here, twelve thousand years ago, that the conquest of the Mount had begun — the first bold and foolish ventures into the bleak, airless wastes of the thirty-mile-high excrescence that jutted from Majipoor's flank. For one who had lived all his life amid its Fifty Cities and their eternal fragrant springtime, it was hard now to imagine a time when the Mount was bare and uninhabitable; but Valentine knew the story of the pioneers edging up the titanic slopes, carrying the machines that brought warmth and air to the great mountain, transforming it over centuries into a fairyland realm of beauty, crowned at last by the small rugged keep at the summit that Lord Stiamot had established eight thousand years ago, and that had grown by incredible metamorphosis into the vast, incomprehensible Castle where Lord Malibor dwelled today. He and Voriax paused in awe before the monument in Amblemorn marking the old timber-line: above here all was barren once

A garden of wondrous halatinga trees with crimson-and-gold flowers surrounded the shaft of polished black Velathyntu marble that bore the inscription.

A day and a night and a day and a night in Amblemorn, and then Voriax and Valentine descended through the valley of the Glayge to a place called Ghiseldorn, off the main roads. At the edge of a dark and dense forest a settlement had sprung up here of a few thousand people who had retreated from the great cities; they lived in tents of black felt, made from the fleece of the wild blaves that grazed in the meadows beside the river, and had little to do with their neighbors. Some said that they were witches and wizards; some that they were a stray tribe of Metamorphs that had escaped the ancient expulsion of their kind from Alhanroel, and perpetually wore human form; the truth, Valentine suspected, was that these folk were simply not at home in the world of commerce and striving that was Majipoor, and had come here to live their own way in their own community.

By late afternoon he and Voriax reached a hill from which they could see the forest of Ghiseldorn and the village of black tents just beyond it. The forest seemed unwelcoming — pingla-trees, short and thick-tninked, with their plump branches emerging at sharp angles and interlacing to form a tight canopy, admitting no light. Nor did the village appear to beckon. The ten-sided tents, widely spaced, looked like giant insects of a peculiar geometry, pausing for the moment before continuing an inexorable migration across a landscape to which they were utterly indifferent. Valentine had felt a powerful curiosity about Ghiseldorn and its folk, but now that he was here he was less eager to penetrate its mysteries.

He glanced over at Voriax and saw the same doubts on his brother's face.

'What shall we do?' Valentine asked.

'Camp on this side of the forest, I think. In the morning we can approach the village and see what our reception is like.'

'Would they attack us?'

'Attack? I doubt it very much. I think they're even more peaceful than the rest of us. But why intrude if we're not wanted? Why not respect their seclusion?' Voriax pointed to a half-moon of grassy ground at the edge of a stream. 'What do you say to making our camp there?'

They halted, set the mounts to pasture, unrolled their packs, gathered succulent sprouts for dinner, While they foraged for firewood Valentine said suddenly, 'If Lord Malibor were chasing some rare beast through the forest here, would he give any thought to the privacy of the Ghiseldorn folk?'

'Nothing prevents Lord Malibor from pursuing his prey.'

'Exactly. The thought would never occur to him. I think you will be a far finer Coronal than Lord Malibor, Voriax.'

'Don't talk foolishness.'

'It isn't foolishness. It's a sensible opinion. Everyone agrees that Lord Malibor is crude and thoughtless. And when it's your turn—'

'Stop this, Valentine.'

'You will be Coronal,' Valentine said. 'Why pretend otherwise? It's certain to happen, and soon. Tyeveras is very old; Lord Malibor will move on to the Labyrinth in two or three years: and when he does, he'll surely name you Coronal. He's not so stupid as to fly in the face of all his advisers. And then —'

Voriax caught Valentine by the wrist and leaned close. There was anguish and annoyance in his eyes. 'This kind of chatter brings only bad luck. I ask you to stop.'

'May I say one more thing?'

'I want no more speculation about who is to be Coronal.'

Valentine nodded. 'This is not speculation, but a question from brother to brother, that has been on my mind for some time. I don't say you will become Coronal, but I would like to know if you wish to become Coronal. Have they consulted you at all? Are you eager for the burden? Just answer me that, Voriax.'

After a long silence Voriax said, 'It is a burden no one dares refuse.'

'But do you want it?'

'If destiny brings it to me, should I say no?'

'You aren't answering me. Look at us now: young, healthy, happy, free. Aside from our responsibilities at court, which are hardly overwhelming, we can do as we please, go anywhere in the world we like, a voyage to Zimroel, a pilgrimage to the Isle, a holiday in the Khyntor Marches, anything, anywhere. To give all that up for the sake of wearing the starburst crown, and signing a million decrees, and making grand processionals with all those speeches, and someday to have to live at the bottom of the Labyrinth — why, Voriax? Why would anyone want to do that? Do you want to do that?'

'You are still a child,' said Voriax.

Valentine pulled back as though slapped. Condescension again! But then he realized that this had been merited, that he was asking naive, puerile questions. He forced his anger to subside and said, 'I thought I had moved somewhat into manhood.'

'Somewhat. But you still have much to learn.'

'Doubtless.' He paused. 'All right, you accept the inevitability of the kingship, if the kingship should come to you. But do you want it, Voriax, do you truly crave it, or is it only your breeding and your sense of duty that lead you to prepare yourself for the throne?'

Voriax said slowly, 'I am not preparing myself for the throne, but only for a role in the government of Majipoor, as you also are doing, and yes, it is a matter of breeding and a sense of duty, for I am a son of the High Counsellor Damiandane, as I believe you also to be. If the throne is offered to me I will accept it proudly and discharge its burdens as capably as I can. I spend no time craving the kingship and even less time speculating on whether it will come to me. And I find this conversation tiresome in the extreme and I would be grateful if you permitted me to gather firewood in silence.'

He glared at Valentine and turned away.

Questions blossomed in Valentine like alabandinas in summer, but he suppressed them all, for he saw Voriax' lips quivering and knew that he had already gone beyond a boundary. Voriax was ripping angrily at the fallen branches, pulling twigs free with a vehemence not at all necessary, for the wood was dry and brittle.