Robert Silverberg - The End of the Line

News of the Coronal’s imminent arrival reached Stiamot two days later. He gathered a troop of peacekeepers and rode out to meet him east of town and escort his party into the city.

Strelkimar, wrapped in that dark cloud that seemed to go with him everywhere, greeted Stiamot in a perfunctory way, acknowledging him curtly with a quick, minimal movement of his hand. The Coronal was a commanding figure of a man, tall and powerfully built, but today he looked tired. That unfathomable darkness that lay at the core of his soul showed through plainly to the surface. Everything about Lord Strelkimar was dark: his eyes, his beard, the black doublet and leggings that he almost always wore, and, thought Stiamot, his soul itself. Stiamot suspected that the strange chain of events that had brought Strelkimar to the summit of power, the abrupt abdication and disappearance of his predecessor and all the whispered gossip that had surrounded the change of rule, had left some indelible mark on him. But all of that had happened before Stiamot’s own time at court; he had heard the stories, of course, but had no hard knowledge of what had really taken place.

“Has your journey been a good one, my lord?” Stiamot asked.

The question was mere routine courtesy, the obligatory sort of thing that a courtier would ask his arriving master. But it seemed to anger the Coronal: Lord Strelkimar’s obsidian eyes flared for a moment, and he scowled as though Stiamot had said something offensive. Then he softened. Stiamot was one of his favorites, after all, though it had appeared to take a moment or two for him to remember that. “These towns are all alike,” he said gruffly. “I’ll be glad to move along through here to Alaisor.”

“I’m sure you will,” said Stiamot. “The sea air will do you good, my lord. But I have a fine lodging waiting for you, and there will be an audience of notables tonight, and a state banquet tomorrow evening.”

“An audience, yes. A banquet. Very good.” The Coronal seemed ten thousand miles away. Stiamot conducted him into town—the whole population had turned out, lining the one main street on both sides—and took him to the Residency, where Kalban Vond greeted him with embarrassing obsequiousness. The Coronal asked to be left alone in his chambers for an hour or two. Stiamot obliged. He was glad to be free of the Coronal’s oppressive presence for a little while. When he returned in late afternoon, Strelkimar seemed refreshed—he had had a bath and changed his clothes, a different black doublet, different black leggings, and he had even donned his crown, that slender shining circlet that was his badge of office and which most of the time he disdained to wear. But his lips were clamped, as ever, in that brooding scowl that he seemed never to shed.

“Well, Stiamot, have you been keeping yourself amused here?”

“This is hardly an amusing place, sir.”

“I suppose not. Seen any Shapeshifters, have you?”

Was that some sort of mocking jab? There was a strange glint in the Coronal’s dark eyes. Stiamot had been a member of the Coronal’s council the past seven years, and was as close to him, quite likely, as anyone. But he never could tell, even after so much time, quite where he stood with Lord Strelkimar. He came from a good family though not one of the great ones, and had risen very swiftly at court through diligence, loyalty, intelligence, and—to some degree—luck, a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Still, the Coronal was a mystery to him. Much of the time he still found Strelkimar an enigma, baffling, opaque, impenetrable. He said warily, “As a matter of fact, I have, my lord. One. Right in the center of town, crossing a street. We stopped and stared at each other for a moment or two. He did a quick little shapeshifting trick, or so I thought. And then he went walking away.”

“Right out in the open,” the Coronal said. “So there are some actually living in this town?”

“I don’t think so. But they’re in the forests all around, and I guess one of them comes drifting through, occasionally.”

“And why is that?” said the Coronal, toying with the starburst decoration on the breast of his doublet.

“I have no idea, sir. But I can try to find out. I’ve met a man here who knows a great deal about them—has lived with them, even, in the forests—and he’s been telling me something about them. I hope to learn more from him.”

“Yes. Yes.” The Coronal peered at his knuckles as though he had never seen his hands before. “The Shapeshifters,” he murmured, after a time. “What an enigma they are, Stiamot. What a puzzle. I will never understand them.”

Stiamot said nothing. An enigma contemplating an enigma was too much for him to deal with.

Brusquely, in an entirely different tone of voice, the Coronal said, “And what time is this audience I’m holding supposed to happen?”

“In two hours, my lord.”

“Can you manage to make it any sooner? I’d like to get it over with.”

“That would be difficult, sir. Some of the planters live a considerable distance from town. I don’t see any way we could—”

“All right. All right, Stiamot.” There was another long pause. Then, suddenly, unexpectedly: “Tomorrow morning, bring me this forest-dweller of yours, this Shapeshifter expert. Maybe he can teach me a thing or two about them.”

Getting Mundiveen to come to a private morning interview with the Coronal was not so easy to accomplish. The little man had already made it clear to Stiamot that he was anything but an early riser; and simply to locate him was a problem. But with the District Resident’s help he tracked Mundiveen to his lair, a little ramshackle cottage in a dreary corner of town, and sent one of his aides in to ascertain whether he was awake. He was, though not happy about it. Fortunately, the Coronal was no early riser either, and his idea of “morning” was more like early afternoon.

Mundiveen seemed taken aback by this summons to the Coronal’s chambers. “Why does he want to see me?”

“I told him you knew a great deal about the Piurivars. He’s interested in them, all of a sudden. At court he hasn’t wanted to talk about them or, maybe, even to think about them, but now, for some reason—please, Mundiveen. You have to come.”

“Do I?”

“He is the Coronal.”

“And he can call me to his side just like that, with a snap of his fingers?”

“Please, Mundiveen. Don’t be difficult.”

“Difficult is what I am, my friend.”

“For me. A favor. Let him ask you a few questions. This is more important than you can possibly know. The future of Majipoor may depend on it.”

“I doubt that. But for me my not seeing him is more important than you can possibly know. Let me be, Stiamot.”

“A few questions, only. I’ve promised him I’ll bring you. Come. Come, Mundiveen.”

“Well—”

Stiamot saw him weakening. Some powerful inner struggle was going on; but as the moments passed Mundiveen’s resistance appeared to be diminishing. Refusing a royal command was evidently something that even the crusty, acerbic Mundiveen was unwilling to do. Or perhaps it was merely the fierce lofty indifference that seemed to underlie everything he said or did, that cosmic shrug with which he faced the world, that led him ultimately to yield.

“Give me half an hour to get myself ready,” Mundiveen said. But the meeting was a brief and unhappy one. Mundiveen was strangely tense and withdrawn during the journey to the Residency, saying almost nothing. He came limping into the Coronal’s chamber with Stiamot beside him, and when he saw Strelkimar he shot a look of such coruscating hatred at him as Stiamot had never seen in human eyes. Strelkimar, who was poring over a sheaf of newly arrived dispatches, took no notice. He barely looked up, greeting Mundiveen with no more than a grunt and a casual glance, and signalled that he wanted to continue reading for a moment. One had to grant a Coronal such whims, but Stiamot knew that Mundiveen was no man to honor even a Coronal’s whim, and half expected him to turn indignantly and leave. Surprisingly, though, he simply stood and waited, a tightly controlled figure, practically motionless, his breath coming in a harsh rasp, and at last the Coronal looked up again. This time, when his eyes met Mundiveen’s, some violent unreadable emotion—shock, anger, despair?—swirled for an instant across Lord Strelkimar’s face. Then it vanished, and was replaced by a steely fixed stare. He stared at Mundiveen with a terrible piercing force that reminded Stiamot of the look that that Metamorph had given him in the street. But despite the grim power of that stare Strelkimar seemed somehow unnerved by Mundiveen’s presence, confounded, dazed.