Majipoor Chronicles

Valentine did not attempt again to breach his brother's defenses, though he had learned only a little of what he wanted to know. He suspected, from Voriax' defensiveness, that Voriax did indeed hunger for the kingship and devoted all his waking hours to training himself for it; and he had an inkling, but only an inkling, of why he should want it. For its own sake, for the power and the glory? Well, why not? And for fulfillment of a destiny that called certain people to high obligations? Yes, that too. And doubtless to atone for the slight that had been shown their father when he had been passed over for the crown. But still, but still, to give up one's freedom merely to rule the world — it was a mystery to Valentine, and in the end he decided that Voriax was right, that these were things he could not fully comprehend at the age of seventeen.

He carried his load of firewood back to the campsite and began kindling a blaze. Voriax joined him soon, but he said nothing, and a chill of estrangement lingered between the brothers that gave Valentine great distress. He wished he could apologize to Voriax for having probed so deeply, but that was impossible, for he had never been graceful at such things with Voriax, nor Voriax with him. He still felt that brother could talk to brother concerning the most intimate matters without giving offense. But on the other hand this frostiness was hard to bear, and if prolonged would poison their holiday together. Valentine searched for a way of regaining amity and after a moment chose one that had worked well enough when they were younger.

He went to Voriax, who was carving the meat for their meal in a gloomy, sullen way, and said, 'While we wait for the water to boil, will you wrestle with me?'

Voriax glanced up, startled. 'What?'

'I feel the need for exercise.'

'Climb those pingla-trees, then, and dance on their branches.'

'Come. Take a few falls with me, Voriax.'

'It would not be right.'

'Why? If I overthrew you, would that offend your dignity even further?'

'Careful, Valentine!'

'I spoke too sharply. Forgive me.' Valentine went into a wrestler's crouch and held out his hands. 'Please? Some quick holds, a bit of sweat before dinner—'

'Your leg is only newly healed.'

'But healed it is. You can use your full strength on me, as I will on you, and never fear.'

'And if the leg snaps again, and we a day's journey from any city worth the name?'

'Come, Voriax,' Valentine said impatienly. 'You fret too much! Come, show me you still can wrestle!' He laughed and slapped his palms together and beckoned, and slapped his hands again, and thrust his grinning face almost against the nose of Voriax, and pulled his brother to his feet, and then Voriax yielded and began to grapple with him.

Something was wrong. They had wrestled often enough, ever since Valentine had been big enough to fight his brother as an equal, and Valentine knew all of Voriax' moves, his little tricks of balance and timing. But the man he wrestled with now seemed a complete stranger. Was this some Metamorph sneaked upon him in the guise of Voriax? No, no, no; it was the leg. Valentine realized, Voriax was holding back his strength, was being deliberately gentle and awkward, was once again patronizing him. In surprising rage Valentine lunged and, although in this early moment of the bout etiquette called on them only to be testing and probing one another, he seized Voriax with the intent to throw him, and forced him to one knee. Voriax stared in amazement. As Valentine caught his breath and gathered his strength to drive his brother's shoulders against the ground, Voriax rallied and pressed upward, unleashing for the first time all his formidable strength: he nearly went down anyway before Valentine's onslaught, but at the last moment he rolled free and sprang to his feet.

They circled one another warily.

Voriax said, 'I see I underestimated you. Your leg must be entirely healed.'

'So it is, as I've told you many times. I merely limp a little, which makes no difference. Come here, Voriax: come within reach again.'

He beckoned. They sprang for one another and locked chest against chest, neither able to budge the other, and stayed that way for what seemed to Valentine an hour or more, though probably it was only minutes. Then he drove Voriax back a few inches, and then Voriax dug in and resisted, and forced Valentine back the same distance. They grunted and sweated and strained, and grinned at one another in the midst of the struggle. Valentine took the keenest pleasure in that grin of Voriax, for it meant that they were brothers again, that the chill between then was thawed, that he was forgiven for his impertinence. In that moment he yearned to embrace Voriax instead of wrestling with him; and in that same moment of relaxed tension Voriax shoved at him, twisted, pivoted, drew him to the ground, pinned his midsection with his knee, and clamped his hands against Valentine's shoulders. Valentine held himself firm, but there was no withstanding Voriax for long at this stage: steadily Voriax pushed Valentine downward until his shoulder blades pressed against the cool moist ground.

'Your match,' Valentine said, gasping, and Voriax rolled free, lying beside him as laughter overtook them both. 'I'll whip you the next one!'

How good it felt, even in defeat, to have regained his brother's love!

Abruptly Valentine heard the sound of applause coming from not very far away. He sat up and stared about in the twilight, and saw the figure of a woman, sharp-featured and with extraordinarily long straight black hair, standing by the edge of the forest. Her eyes were bright and wicked, her lips were full, her clothes were of a strange style — mere strips of tanned leather crudely tacked together. She seemed quite old to Valentine, perhaps as much as thirty.

'I watched you,' she said, coming toward them with no trace of fear. 'At first I thought it was a real quarrel, but then I saw it was for sport.'

'At first it was a real quarrel,' said Voriax. 'But also it was sport, always. I am Voriax of Halanx, and this is Valentine, my brother.'

She looked from one to the other. 'Yes, of course, brothers. Anyone could see that. I am called Tanunda, and I am of Ghiseldorn. Shall I tell you your fortunes?'

'Are you a witch, then?' Valentine asked.

There was merriment in her eyes. 'Yes, yes, certainly, a witch. What else?'

'Come, then, foretell for us!' cried Valentine.

'Wait,' said Voriax. 'I have no liking for sorceries.'

'You are too sober by half,' Valentine said. 'What harm can it do? We visit Ghiseldorn the city of wizards; should we not then have our destinies read? What are you afraid of? It's a game, Voriax, only a game!' He walked toward the witch and said, 'Will you stay with us for dinner?'

'Valentine—'

Valentine glanced boldly at his brother and laughed. 'I'll protect you against evil, Voriax! Have no fear!' And in a lower voice he said, 'We've traveled alone long enough, brother. I'm hungry for company.'

'So I see,' murmured Voriax.

But the witch was attractive and Valentine was insistent and shortly Voriax appeared to grow less uneasy about her presence; he carved a third portion of meat for her, and she went into the forest and came back with fruits of the pingla and showed them how to roast them to make their juice run into the meat and give a pleasingly dark and smoky flavor to it. Valentine felt his head swimming somewhat after a time, and he doubted that the few sips of wine he had had could be responsible, so quite probably it was the juice of the pinglas; the thought crossed his mind that there might be some treachery here, but he rejected it, for the dizziness that was overtaking him was an amiable and even exciting one and he saw no peril in it. He looked across at Voriax, wondering if his brother's more suspicious nature would arise to darken their feast, but Voriax, if he was feeling the effects of the juice at all, appeared only to be made more congenial by it: he laughed loudly at everything, he swayed and clapped his thighs, he leaned close to the witch-woman and shouted raucous things into her face. Valentine helped himself to more meat. Night was falling, now, a sudden blackness settling over the camp, stars abruptly blazing out of a sky lit only by one small sliver of moon. Valentine imagined he could hear distant singing and discordant chanting, though it seemed to him that Ghiseldorn must be too far away for such sounds to carry through the dense woods: a fantasy, he decided, stirred by these intoxicating fruits.

The fire burned low. The air grew cool. They huddled close together, Valentine and Voriax and Tanunda, and body pressed against body in what was at first an innocent way and then not so innocent. As they entwined Valentine caught his brother's eye, and Voriax winked, as if he were saying, We are men together tonight, and we will take our pleasure together, brother. Now and then with Elidath or Stasilaine Valentine had shared a woman, three tumbling merrily in a bed built for two, but never with Voriax, Voriax who was so conscious of his dignity, his superiority, his high position, so there was special delight for Valentine in this game now. The Ghiseldorn witch had shed her leather garments and showed a lean and supple body by firelight. Valentine had feared that her flesh would be repellent, she being so much older than he, older even than Voriax by some years, but he saw now that that was the foolishness of inexperience, for she seemed altogether beautiful to him. He reached for her and encountered Voriax' hand against her flank; he slapped at it playfully, as he would at a buzzing insect, and both brothers laughed, and above their deep laughter came the silvery chuckling of Tanunda, and all three rolled about in the dewy grass.

Valentine had never known so wild a night. Whatever drug was in the pingla-juice worked on him to free him of all inhibition and to spur his energies, and with Voriax it must have been the same. To Valentine the night became a sequence of fragmentary images, of sequences of events unlinked to others. Now he lay sprawled with Tanunda's head in his lap, stroking her gleaming brow while Voriax embraced her, and he listened to their mingled gasps with a strange pleasure; and then it was he who held the witch tight, and Voriax was somewhere close at hand but he could not tell where; and then Tanunda lay sandwiched between the two men for some giddy grappling; and somehow they went from there to the stream, and bathed and splashed and laughed, and ran naked and shivering to the dying fire, and made love again, Valentine and Tanunda, Voriax and Tanunda, Valentine and Tanunda and Voriax, flesh calling to flesh until the first grayish strands of morning broke the darkness.

All three were awake as the sun burst into the sky. Great swathes of the night were gone from Valentine's memory, and he wondered if he had slept unknowing from time to time, but now his mind was weirdly clear, his eyes were wide, as though this were the middle of the day. Voriax was the same, and the grinning naked witch who sprawled between them.

'Now,' she said, 'the telling of fortunes!'

Voriax made an uneasy sound, a rasping of the throat, but Valentine said quickly, 'Yes! Yes! Prophesy for us!'

'Gather the pingla-seeds,' she said.

They were scattered all about, glossy black nuts with splashes of red on them. Valentine scooped up a dozen of them, and even Voriax collected a few; these they gave to Tanunda, who had found a handful also, and she began to roll them in her fists and scatter them like dice on the ground. Five times she cast them, and scooped them up and cast again; then she cupped her hands and allowed a line of seeds to fall in a circle, and threw the remaining ones within that circle, and peered close a long while, squatting with face to the ground to study the patterns. At length she looked up. The wanton deviltry was gone from her face; she looked strangely altered, very solemn and some years older.