Robert Silverberg - Sorcerers of Majipoor

He was freezing now. His hair, streaming out behind him, was stiff with ice. His blood had ceased to move in his veins. But there was no pain for him, and fear was wholly absent from his spirit He was in a kind of ecstasy. Upward and upward he continued, until a band of blackness had closed around him and not even the stars were visible. There was nothing in the sky but Majipoor itself, like a child’s ball beneath him, turning slowly, a thing all green and blue and brown, and he could make out the great dark wedge that was Alhanroel and the long wide green continent that was Zimroel and the little Isle of Dreams lying between them, with tawny Suvrael hanging below and then the world turned and he saw only the Great Sea, that no one had ever crossed from one side to the other, a vast emerald scar spanning the world’s middle. And then Alhanroel came into view again; for the world was turning ever faster and faster, the continents and the sea that lay between them spinning by again and again and again.

It was his. It was meant to be his, and he was meant for it. All doubts of that dropped forever from his soul. This was the thing he sought, this was what he had come to find, up here at reality’s edge. His. The world was his, and he was the world’s, and it hovered before him in the air within his reach.

Prestimion reached down and touched it. It hopped up into his hand, that little ball that was the world, and he held it carefully there, and looked at it closely, and breathed upon it. And said to it, “I am Prestimion who would heal you. But first I must heal myself.” And knew that he would. A great door had swung open in his soul that had been closed until now by iron bars.

He was very cold now, almost frozen; yet even so there still were rivers of sweat running down his body. But his way was clear. He saw the path that would carry him to the warmth, if only he had the will and the strength to follow it. And he knew that he did.

He released the little world and let it go spinning away from him in the darkness.

Then he saw a light above him. The new star was shining again, but now it had a face, and its face was that of the Lady Kunigarda, and he could hear her voice, saying softly, “Come, Prestimion. A little farther. I’m not so far away. A little farther yet. Farther. Farther—”

“Farther. Farther.”

“This is far enough, I would think,” a deep and robust voice above him said. “Come, Prestimion. Open your eyes.”

For a moment he was unable to see; and then he perceived Gialaurys standing beside him, with Svor and Septach Melayn a short distance away. It was mid-morning, at least. The sun was high; the dew was gone from the grass. There was a griping anguished grumbling in his stomach, as though he had not eaten for weeks, and his throat was dry and his eyes felt swollen.

“Take my hand,” said Gialaurys. “Up. Up.”

“We’ve been searching for you since before dawn,” Svor said. “Finally we asked Gominik Halvor, and he said to look in the park. But it’s a big park.”

Prestimion rose and took a few wobbling steps. Then he stumbled and nearly fell into the stream nearby, but Septach Melayn came forward quickly and gracefully caught him and steadied him on his feet.

“You’ve been playing with dangerous toys, haven’t you, Prestimion?” he said, and gestured toward the array of herbs and the patterns of twine on the ground, making no attempt at concealing his scorn. “But you’ll be all right, I think. A good meal, and some rest—”

“You should try these things, Septach Melayn,” said Prestimion, managing a thin smile. He spoke with some difficulty: his voice was rusty and harsh, not yet fully under his control again. “You’d be in for some surprises. Circaris leaves and cobily and some dried jangars, to start with, and then—”

“Thank you, no. Would take the edge off my swordsmanship, I think, to dabble in such medicines as those. What nonsense have you been amusing yourself with out here, Prestimion?”

“Let him be,” said Gialaurys gruffly. “Come. Let’s go back to the inn.”

“Can you walk?” Svor asked, peering into Prestimion’s face in an anxious way.

“I’m fine, Svor.” He held his arms outstretched before himself. “Look: a straight line, step step step step. Is that satisfactory to you?” Prestimion laughed. He gathered up the things he had brought with him and stuffed them into his pack. He felt very calm, very peaceful, after the night’s adventure. His path was altogether clear. He need only take the first step, and then the second. A straight line, yes, step step step step.

“Would you like to hear the news?” Svor said as they walked back together toward town.

“What news is that?” Prestimion asked.

“The proclamation of the Lady Kunigarda, concerning the state of the government Septach Melayn heard it announced in a tavern last night, and we came to your room to tell you, but you were gone; and then began the business of searching for you all over town. How will we get our night’s sleep back that you owe us, Prestimion?”

“Tell me the proclamation, Svor!”

“Oh, yes. That. It seems that the Lady has fled from the Isle, taking with her the mechanisms by which sendings are made; and announces that by means of those devices she will continue to guide the souls of the world, naming herself Lady-in-Exile. And also she has spoken out against Korsibar, and against her brother the Pontifex Confalume too. She gives the name of usurper to Korsibar. ‘The false Coronal, the usurper Korsibar,’ is what she calls him. Her own nephew! As for Confalume, she denounces his supine acceptance of Korsibar’s taking of the throne. They have brought the displeasure of the Divine upon the world, she says. She’s called on all citizens of Majipoor to rise up at once and cast Korsibar aside. She means to make war on him herself, by sendings and other methods also.”

“All this from Kunigarda?” Prestimion said, amazed. It seemed to him that this was still part of his dream, that he lay yet asleep on the grass beside the stream, holding the little ball that was Majipoor in his band. “And what has become of Kunigarda, I wonder? Has she been proscribed too?”

“She’s left the Isle,” said Septach Melayn. “She’s somewhere in southern Alhanroel right now, and making her way north. She has announced that she means to find you and join forces with you: for you are the rightful Coronal of Majipoor, Prestimion—so says the Lady Kunigarda. Which we would have been happy to tell you last night, my friend, except that you felt it needful to spend a night sleeping in the park with a belly full of—what did you say? Circaris leaves and cobily?” A great gust of roaring derisive laughter came from him. “Has all this been achieved by means of witchcraft, I wonder, this making of an alliance with Confalume’s own sister? Did you come out here to invoke Proiarchis and Remmer on your behalf, and did those great beings look upon you with favor, Prestimion, and give you the world to hold in your hand like a toy?”

Prestimion made no reply. But a secret smile played quickly across his face.

It was in Lord Makhario’s statuary garden in Sipermit that I saw it, when I was on holiday there,” said Sebbigan Kless of Perimor, who was a manufacturer of doublets and hose in that busy city on the lower slope of Castle Mount His companion, who was listening as intently as though Sebbigan Kless had just told him that the Mount was about to break loose from the planet and drift off into space, was the jobber and wholesaler Aibeil Gammis of Stee, an important distributor of Sebbigan Kless’s products in several of the Free Cities a little way higher on the mountain. “There was this Su-Suheris walking in the garden, with the smallest Vroon you could imagine sitting on his shoulder. Well, you can’t help stealing a glance at a Su-Suheris whenever you see one, can you?—such weird bastards, those two pointy heads sticking up out of that neck—and for one to have a Vroon riding on his shoulder was pretty strange too, but, let me tell you, that was nothing at all compared to seeing the Su-Suheris flicker all of a sudden, and then—”