Robert Silverberg - Sorcerers of Majipoor

“The armies, again. Marching up and down, drilling beside the lake.”

“Armies?” Prestimion said quickly.

Svor leaned close to him. “I told you they’d discovered information that would be useful to us.”

The fliers had indeed been making reconnaissance flights up the valley of the Iyann all week, once they noticed the military movements north of their town, and they had learned a great deal already, all of which they were pleased to make available to Prestimion for just a few silver royals. A great force of men, they said, had come riding lately in floaters across the land out of the east, men with weapons and armor; and upon reaching the Iyann they had gone straight up along the part of the river that flowed down from the north, until they had reached Mavestoi Dam, at the foot of the great reservoir that held the water supply for much of this province.

They were camped now all along the dam’s rim, and up both sides of the lake behind it. Each day one of the sons of Gornoth Gehayn had flown up there to see what was taking place—Gornoth Gehayn himself no longer went aloft, he said; he was too old for the game and each day they saw additional troops arriving and digging in.

“The interesting thing,” Svor said, “is that three days ago one of the boys swooped low and saw a man in the center of the camp, a tall dark-haired man wearing a Coronal’s clothes, the green and gold with trim of white fur and it seemed to him that he saw something flashing on the dark-haired man’s brow that might just have been a crown.”

Prestimion gasped. “Korsibar? Korsibar himself is out here?”

“So it would appear.”

“Can it be? I thought he’d stay safe and snug in the Castle as long as he had men like Navigorn and Farholt to fight his battles for him.”

“It seems,” said Svor, “that he has come to fight this one himself. Or so our airborne spies tell us.”

“Why is it, I wonder,” said Prestimion, frowning, “that Korsibar’s men allow these birds to fly low and spy them out, and make no attempt to shoot them down? I suppose they see only the hierax from below, and not the rider clinging to its back, and give it no heed. Well, no matter: if this is true, Svor, opportunity’s in our grasp, would you not say? We’ll send word to our friend Duke Horpidan of Alaisor to hurry those troops, and gather them in, and make an attempt on Korsibar while he’s here. It’s our one great chance. Seize him and the war’s over, simple as that.”

“I’ll bring him as a prisoner to you myself,” said Septach Melayn, whose wound was healing quickly and who was eager to be wielding his sword once again.

Each day, now, the hieraxes went forth; and each day they returned with further reports of the activities at Lake Mavestoi. The army there, they said, was a considerable one, though all three of Gornoth Gehayn’s sons were of the opinion that Prestimion’s own army was larger still. They had set up tents and were chopping down the trees around the lake to use for fortifications; and, yes, the man in the vestments of a Coronal could readily be seen whenever they flew over the camp, moving vigorously about in the midst of the soldiers, directing things.

Prestimion longed to hop on the back of one of these hieraxes himself, and verify that with his own eyes: but when he spoke of it to Gialaurys and Septach Melayn, sounding more than half serious, they rose up in wrath against him and told him that they would slaughter Gornoth Gehayn’s birds with their own hands should he make any motion to go near them. And Prestimion promised them that he would not, but still he yearned for attempting it, both for what he might learn concerning his enemy and also for the sheer wonder and splendor of flying through the air.

There once had been airborne vessels on Majipoor, a very long time ago: Lord Stiamot, so it was said, had fought his war against the Shapeshifters from the air, setting fire to their villages by dropping burning brands on them and driving them into captivity. The skill of making flying machines had been lost in the distant past, though, and to get from place to place on the enormous planet it was necessary to crawl along by floater or mount-drawn vehicle, and no one but these bony lads from the district of the Iyann knew what it was like to go up above the surface of the world. Prestimion bitterly envied them.

But there would be no hierax-flying for him. He knew it was a skill you had to be born to, and learn as a child; and perhaps he was too sturdily built for the birds to carry. And in any event he had a war to fight, and soon.

They had decided not to wait for the reinforcements from the west. While they waited, Korsibar’s other armies would be coming upon them from the east, and if the forces of Mandrykarn and Farholt and Navigorn were given the opportunity to join with those under Korsibar’s command, they would have no hope against them. The thing to do was to strike at once, against an army apparently not as numerous as their own.

“Had Thalnap Zelifor not left us,” Gialaurys said, “we could be using his witcheries to see into Korsibar’s camp and count their number. And also to learn the best route by which to attack.”

“We see the camp through the actual eyes of these boys,” Prestimion told him, “which is better than glimpsing it by sorcery. As for the route, this is Gornoth Gehayn’s home country, and he has drawn good maps for us. Thalnap Zelifor will return one of these days, bringing those thought-reading devices of his. But we’ll finish Korsibar off without his help, I think.”

They bent low over the maps. There were paths through the forests on both sides of the river leading up to the dam. Come up by night, on a night when no moons were in the sky; station half the cavalry on the east bank, half on the west, at a signal, ride into Korsibar’s camp and attack from both sides at once. Prestimion would have his archers atop mounts for this engagement come riding in, riddle the enemy with arrows as they came. That would be a sure producer of terror, men on mountback with bows. And then the heavy infantry, Gaviad coming in from the east side, Gaviundar from the west—the Divine preserve them if they were slow this time!—a series of massive strokes, one after another, Septach Melayn’s bright sword cutting a path into the royalist camp, Gialaurys with his spear—

Yes. Yes. What wild miscalculation of Korsibar’s was it that had delivered the usurper by his own free will into their hands?

“There’ll be no moons shining three days hence,” Svor announced, after consulting his almanacs and almagests.

“Then that’s our night,” said Prestimion.

The Iyann here was an arrow river, not very deep, easy to ford. Most of its flow out of the north was choked off by the dam that Lord Mavestoi had constructed eight hundred years before. It was simple enough for Prestimion to divide his forces, sending half to either bank. He took up a position on the eastern shore, with his mounted archers; Gialaurys was behind him with the heavy infantry and Gaviad’s army in back of those. On the river’s western side was the regular cavalry detachment under Duke Miaule, with Septach Melayn’s battalions accompanying them, and the army of Gaviundar poised to the rear for the second thrust.

The night’s only illumination was that of the stars, which in this part of the world shined with particular brilliance. There were the great stars that everyone knew, Trinatha up to the north, and Phaseil in the eastern sky and its twin Phasilin in the west, and Thorius and blazing red Xavial marking the midpoint of the heavens. Somewhere out there, too, was the little yellow star of Old Earth, though there was no agreement on which one that really was; and then, too, the new star, the fierce blue-white star that had appeared to the world while Korsibar and Prestimion were making their separate journeys northward up the Glayge to Castle Mount, was in plain view straight overhead, piercing the sky like a furious staring eye.