Robert Silverberg - The End of the Line

He fell silent. The silence stretched for a minute or more. When it began to seem as though he did not intend to resume at all, Stiamot prodded him:

“And—?”

“And that evening three hired thugs wearing masks came for me and took me from Stee to someplace far downslope, Furible or Stipool or one of those cities, and there they beat me until both they and I were sure that I was at the edge of death, and then they left me. But I didn’t die. They badly damaged me, but I lived. All they did was cripple me, as you see. Or did you think I was born with my backbone all askew like this?”

“Strelkimar’s men, were they?”

“They didn’t go to the trouble of telling me that. Make your own guesses.”

“And the next thing to do was killing Lord Thrykeld, I suppose,” said Stiamot, wondering whether he had fallen into some dream.

“Oh, no, nothing like that. They killed the Ghayrog, yes, but the Coronal was persuaded to sign a document of abdication. I can just imagine how he was persuaded, too. In his statement he declared that his health had unfortunately become too poor to permit him to continue to meet his royal responsibilities, and so he was withdrawing from the throne and going off to live in Suvrael. He sent a separate message to the Pontifex Gherivale, urging him most strongly to appoint Strelkimar as the new Coronal. So it was done; and Thrykeld left the palace; and then we heard the regrettable news that Thrykeld’s ship had been sunk by a sea-dragon en route to Suvrael, as you probably remember, and that was that. As for me, I suspected that it would not be a smart idea to return to the capital. In fact I discovered, when I had begun to recover from what your Coronal’s men had done to me, that I had lost all interest in the company of my own species, and I was years in recovering even a little of it. So I floated off quietly into the forests and took up my new career as a doctor to the Piurivars.” He paused again a moment and stared thoughtfully into his wine bowl. Then, looking up, he gave Stiamot a sharp sidelong glance. “Is there anything else you’d like to know, now?”

“No,” Stiamot said. “I think I’ve heard too much already.”

These revelations had rocked him like an earthquake.

He had known, of course, that Lord Thrykeld had given up his throne, pleading incapacity to serve, and that soon afterward he had been lost at sea. He had suspected, as many people did, that there probably had been more to the change of monarchs than that, that the forceful and charismatic Lord Strelkimar very likely had been instrumental in his cousin’s decision to abdicate, though he had taken the tale of Thrykeld’s deteriorating health at face value. But Mundiveen’s tale of strife at court, of ultimatum and counter-ultimatum between the cousins, of the forcible overthrow of a king—and of Mundiveen’s own near-fatal beating—gave the history of the years just before his own arrival at court a darker hue than he ever could have imagined. It all fit together now, Mundiveen’s sour cynicism, Strelkimar’s haunted, guiit-stricken eyes, the awkwardness and strangeness of the meeting of the two men this morning, so many years after all those terrible events. Lord Strelkimar lived daily with the knowledge that he had stolen the throne; Mundiveen lived daily with his fury and pain. And Stiamot had stupidly brought the two of them face to face.

“Now,” Mundiveen said, “tell me what your Lord Strelkimar wants to know about the Piurivars.”

“We want to find a solution to the problem of how we are going to live with them in the years to come, how we are going to share the planet. The Council is split in various ways, putting forth all sorts of ideas ranging from a geographical separation of the races to an all-out war of extermination. I myself hope to find some middle course. The Coronal hasn’t been taking part in our discussions up to now, but he seems to have come around to an awareness that we need to deal with the issue. And so, in my innocence, I told him that I had encountered someone who had intimate knowledge of the Piurivar way of life, and he asked me to bring you to speak with him. Not knowing, of course, that that man was you.”

“The truth must have come as a great surprise to him.”

“Something of a shock, I would say.”

Mundiveen smiled balefully. “Well, so be it. If he had allowed me to tell him anything, I would have said that there’s no good solution to be found. Humans and Piurivars are never going to get along, my friend. Believe me. Never. Never”

The formal state banquet was held as scheduled that evening, in the municipal festival hall, a lofty wooden structure with an arching roof far above. Planters had come in from all about, drawn by the novelty of a Coronal in their midst. A high table had been set up where the Coronal, in full royal regalia, sat flanked by members of his entourage, a duke or two, a couple of Council members, a sprinkling of Pontifical officials. District Resident Kalban Vond sat at the Coronal’s right hand—the greatest honor ever accorded him, Stiamot supposed.

Just as the first course was being served Stiamot heard the sounds of a commotion outside, shouts, angry cries. Alarmed, he rushed to the window.

A struggle of some kind was going on right outside the hall. Stiamot saw bursts of flame limned against the night, shadowy figures running about. Looking back at the high table, he saw the Coronal sitting altogether motionless, frowning, lost once again in the darkness of his own thoughts. He seemed entirely unaware that anything unusual might be taking place. But the District Resident beside him looked stricken and aghast. His mouth was agape; his soft, fleshy face seemed to be sagging.

Then, unexpectedly, astonishingly, a side door that Stiamot had not noticed before opened and Mundiveen came limping in. After what had passed between the Coronal and him this morning, he was the last person, perhaps, whom Stiamot expected to see in the banqueting hall tonight. Flushed, panting, he made his way laboriously to Stiamot’s side at the window.

“Metamorphs,” he said hoarsely. “Disguised as townsfolk. Knives under their cloaks. They’re throwing firebrands.” Stiamot looked out again. In the chaos beyond the window he was able to make out the guards attempting to form a phalanx. They were surrounded on three sides by a host of cloaked figures in rapid motion, flickering, changing dizzyingly from one shape to another as they moved.

He seized Mundiveen by the shoulder. “What is this?”

“The beginning of the insurrection, I think. They want to burn the building down.”

“The Coronal—!”

“Yes, the Coronal.”

“I’m going out there,” said Stiamot. “I have to do something.”

“No one can do anything. Especially not you.”

Hesitating only a moment, Stiamot said, “Well, then, what about you? Even in the darkness, they’ll recognize you. And you could talk to them. They trust you if they trust anybody. You’ve done so many things for them. Explain to them now that this is insane, that they have to withdraw or they’ll all die, that the Coronal is too well guarded.”

Mundiveen glared at him scornfully. “Why would they care about that? They’re beyond all caring about anything. Don’t you see, Stiamot, there’s no hope? This is a war to the death, beginning right now, right here, and it will never end, at least not until you people recognize that you have no choice but to eradicate them altogether.”

His words hit Stiamot with the force of a punch. You people ? Did Mundiveen, then, think that he stood outside the human race? You have to eradicate them altogether ? This, from a man who had spent so many years living among them? Stiamot faltered, speechless.