Robert Silverberg - Sorcerers of Majipoor

Carefully he said, forcing a look of urgent concern and deep sympathy to his face, “My lord, I have no doubt of it. It’s no more than the momentary madness of the season. Let it dry up and blow away; and the people will hail you gladly as their lord, as they have since the beginning. This I promise you, my lord. Remain true to your own self, and no lies will attach themselves to you.”

“Ah,” said Korsibar in relief. And then, almost as though he had caught the habit from Dantirya Sambail, said again, after a moment, “Ah.”

Oljebbin said, “Serithorn, may I have a word with you?”

Serithorn, who was examining a tray of ancient carved kebbel-stones that had been brought to him an hour before by a dealer in antiquities from Gimkandale, glanced up at the former High Counsellor and said pleasantly, “You look very hot and bothered, old man. Is anything wrong?”

“Wrong? Wrong? Oh, no, nothing at all!” Oljebbin came fully into Serithorn’s study—both men still maintained their lavish suites at the Castle, though they no longer held significant posts in the government—and slapped his hand down on the desk so fiercely that the kebbel-stones leaped about in the tray. “Do you see this hand, Serithorn? Does that look to you like a Metamorph’s hand?”

“For the love of the Divine, Oljebbin!”

“Does it? Can I make it wriggle and shift? Sprout another seven or eight fingers, maybe? Turn it into a Skandar’s hand if I feel like it? What about you, Serithorn? Let’s see your hand! If I twist it hard enough, will it change?”

“You’re overwrought, Oljebbin. Sit down and have some wine with me. This absurd tale about Lord Korsibar—”

“Not just Korsibar. Gonivaul’s been to see me. The thing is spreading like a plague. Do you know what they’re telling each other in places like Alaisor and Sisivondal? That we’re all Metamorphs, every last one of us, you and me and Gonivaul and Farquanor and Farholt and Dantirya Sambail—”

“Well,” said Serithorn, “I wouldn’t care to speak for Farquanor and Farholt, and Gonivaul may very likely be a Metamorph for all I know, although if he is he’s a deucedly hairy one; and as for Dantirya Sambail, I never thought he was a human being in the first place—but I tell you flat out that I am myself and nothing other than myself, as incapable of changing shapes as I am of making love to twenty women the same night, and I’m reasonably confident that you are quite genuine too. Reasonably confident, I say. I don’t have serious doubts of you. I’d be willing to accept at face value any oath that you’d care to swear as to your humanity, old friend, and never once hereafter would I let anyone try to make me believe that you were actually—”

“Serithorn, for once in your life be serious!” cried Oljebbin explosively.

“Very well.” The little smile that was Serithorn’s usual expression gave way to a look of dour glowering intensity worthy of Farholt or Gialaurys. “I am serious now.”

“Thank you. Listen to me: of course I don’t believe that Korsibar’s a Metamorph, or that you are, or that I may be one myself and simply haven’t noticed. It’s all too ridiculous for words. But the fact is that five or ten billion people out there seem to think he is. Gonivaul’s been making inquiries, and the story’s all over Alhanroel by now, in at least a dozen different permutations, each one more preposterous than the next. What effect do you think this is having on Korsibar’s legitimacy in the eyes of those five billion people? Don’t you think he’s hideously compromised by it? He takes the throne by unconstitutional means, for which he’s already being denounced up and down the land by nobody less than the former Lady of the Isle, Kunigarda herself, who’s spouting subversive sendings day and night. And then it becomes widely believed that he’s not only not human but is in fact a Shapeshifter who’s disguised himself as Korsibar—” Oljebbin ran both his hands agitatedly through his thick shock of white hair. “Prestimion’s alive, did you know that?” he asked. “And is about to make a second try at claiming the throne.”

Serithorn’s elegant facade of unshakable poise gave way to a gasp of astonishment.

“Alive?”

“Yes. This is confirmed, just today. I don’t think the Coronal knows it yet. Farquanor’s afraid to tell him, apparently. Prestimion has been in Triggoin, it seems, but now, according to Gonivaul, he’s out and marching around again somewhere in western Alhanroel, patching together those pieces of the rebel army that Korsibar didn’t drown, and recruiting a new—”

There was a knock at the door.

“Gonivaul,” Oljebbin said. “I asked him to join me here.”

“Come in, admiral!” Serithorn called, and Prince Gonivaul strode into the room. His shaggy-bearded face was grim and stormy.

“Has Oljebbin told you—” he began.

“Yes,” Serithorn said. “We’re all supposed to be Metamorphs. Well, we aren’t, and that’s that. But what’s this business about Prestimion being alive?”

“He is. That’s definite. He’s come out of the north—Triggoin, I hear—and has set up headquarters for himself in the plains between Gloyn and Marakeeba, which are places somewhere on the far side of the Trikkalas. He’s collecting a new army there, with the notion of marching to Castle Mount, gathering up a billion or so rebel soldiers along the way, and pushing Korsibar off the throne.”

“Is he the one behind this lunatic thing of Korsibar’s being a Metamorph?” Serithorn asked.

Gonivaul shrugged. “I can’t say. There’s probably no connection. But certainly he’ll be willing to make damaging use of it as propaganda. ‘Accept me as your true Coronal in place of this creature who pretends to be Korsibar,’ he’ll say. ‘The person you take for Korsibar is not only an unlawful Coronal but an evil Metamorph impostor!’ And people will gobble it up. —There’s a germ of truth, I think, in this Metamorph fable, anyway.”

“There is?” said Oljebbin and Serithorn at one and the same instant.

“Oh, not literally,” Gonivaul said. “But Korsibar’s been very thick these last few months with the Vroon Thalnap Zelifor, who used to work for me once upon a time, and who, as you may recall, got himself into big trouble with Korsibar last year by putting some kind of wild ideas into the Lady Thismet’s head and after that by running off to join Prestimion. When the Vroon came scooting back here after Prestimion’s defeat at Stymphinor, he managed somehow to talk his way into Korsibar’s good graces, don’t ask me how, and has been right up there in prestige with Sanibak-Thastimoon on his staff of mages ever since.

“Well, this Thalnap Zelifor is very good with gadgets, and I happen to know that something he was working on when he was in my pay was a device that would allow the wearer to seem to change shape. Not actual shapeshifting, mind you, just the illusion of it. Now, there definitely seems to be some escapade of Korsibar’s at the bottom of all these stories—he was seen changing shapes in Bombifale or Bibiroon or somewhere by a vacationing businessman who doesn’t seem to have had any reason to be inventing the tale, and he says Korsibar had a Vroon with him at the time. My guess is that he and Thalnap Zelifor slipped away from the Castle to experiment with this machine, and got careless with it just as the businessman happened by. After which the story started circulating that—”

“All right,” Oljebbin said. “Whether it did or didn’t happen that way, the main thing is that the story’s traveling like wildfire and doing Korsibar alot of harm. Metamorphs are feared and detested everywhere. He’ll have a hard time scrubbing away the taint. True or false, this business is bound to weaken Korsibar’s position with the common folk, which is weak enough already now that Kunigarda’s been speaking out against him. With Prestimion suddenly back in the picture, what I want to know from you two is this: is this the moment for us to withdraw our support from Korsibar too?”