Robert Silverberg - Sorcerers of Majipoor

“And what is that?” Navigorn asked.

“How can I say? I tell you only that Lord Korsibar is not Lord Korsibar to me, but only Prince Korsibar, and I reject his authority over me. I would like now to end this meeting.”

“As you wish,” said Navigorn bleakly, and made no move to apprehend him as Prestimion turned to return to his own lines.

As they walked away, Prestimion said to Septach Melayn, “This is not going to be quite like a grand processional after all, is it? We will have the war, it seems, sooner than we bargained for.”

“Sooner than Korsibar bargains for either,” Gialaurys said. “If Navigorn and Kanteverel are the best generals he can find at short notice, we’ll beat them into surrender this very day.”

“Kanteverel’s here only to wheedle,” said Svor. “Navigorn’s the general, and he’s the one will call the tune, if there’s to be a battle today.”

“What is the plan?” Septach Melayn asked.

“We continue on to Arkilon,” said Prestimion. “They’ll have to come down the hill to stop us. If they do, we make them regret that they tried.”

Lord Korsibar was in his great bath of alabaster and chalcedony, disporting himself in the warm bubbling water with his sister’s handmaiden, the red-haired Aliseeva of the milky skin, when word was brought to him that Count Farquanor was waiting outside with important news. There had been a military engagement at Arkilon, it seemed, and Farquanor had had word from the field.

“I will be back quickly,” Korsibar told the girl. He robed himself and went out into the antechamber, where mosaic sea-dragons were inscribed on the white-tiled walls in many fine bits of blue and green and red glass, and saw at once from the look of smugness on little Farquanor’s lean and wolfish face that the news must be good.

“Well?” he said at once. “Is Prestimion taken?”

“Escaped into the open country, my lord. Navigorn was too merciful, I think. But the rebel force has suffered great losses and is in severe retreat.”

“Septach Melayn dead, at least? Gialaurys?”

Farquanor said, with apology in his voice, “None of those, lordship, nor Svor either. But a multitude of casualties for them—I have some names, but the only one I know is that of Gardomir of Amblemorn—and the back of the resistance broken. The war is over in its very first encounter, it would seem.”

“Tell me,” said Korsibar.

Farquanor ran his hand down the long sharp blade of his nose that sprang so startlingly from his brow. “Here is the valley of Arkilon,” he said, drawing pictures in the air. “The city, here. The Vormisdas hill, where our troops are situated, here. Prestimion over here on the plain, with a raggle-taggle army that he has put together out of Amblemorn and Vilimong and some other places, and a bunch of wine-makers from Muldemar at the center of it. There is a parley; Navigorn delivers the message; Prestimion defies it, as we all expected. And then—”

Prestimion, he said, having turned his back on Navigorn after the parley, had attempted to continue his march through the flatlands toward Arkilon. Navigorn had brought his army quickly down from its hilltop position, a battalion of small floaters at the center that were equipped with low-caliber energy-throwers, flanked by two squadrons of mounted spearsmen, and the mass of the infantry held back to the rear. Prestimion had no cavalry at all, and his troops were more of a casual aggregation than a trained army; the best he could do was give an order to scatter and surround, so that there would be no center for Navigorn’s floaters to attack, and try to throw Navigorn’s men into confusion by coming upon them from every side at once.

But that was of no avail. The early ferocity of Prestimion’s onslaught took Navigorn by surprise, but Navigorn’s men were better armed and better skilled, and very much more numerous; and after a few difficult moments they fought the rebel forces off with great success. The floaters held their formation, the spearsmen prevented any serious incursion into their ranks by the rebels, and even before the royal infantrymen had had a chance to reach the field, the tide of the battle had become clear and Prestimion’s men were in unruly retreat, fleeing helter-skelter, some toward Arkilon and others back in the direction of Ghrav and some off in a third direction entirely.

“But Prestimion and his three minions got safely away?” Korsibar asked when Farquanor paused.

“Alas, yes. Navigorn had given orders that none of them be harmed, only captured. It was too kind of him, lordship. Had someone like my brother Farholt had charge of the day, I think we’d have seen a different result. Surely Farholt would—”

“Spare me the advertisement of your brother’s virtues,” said Korsibar unsmilingly. “Capturing them would have been sufficient. But they failed even at that?”

“They had Septach Melayn held in close quarters in the middle of the field for a time, with Hosmar Varang, the captain of the spearsmen, giving him great menace, and Earl Alexid of Strave, on foot, penning him up from the other side with two other men.”

“But he got away even so?”

“He cut Hosmar Varang down from his mount and gave him a deep slice near the armpit that will take a year to repair, and killed Alexid outright and slashed the other two so that they were left counting their fingers and hard pressed to find ten between them. And—entirely untouched, himself—leaped upon Hosmar Varang’s mount, snatching up the loathsome little mongrel Duke Svor whom he loves like a baby, and off they went at high speed into the woods, seeing that the battle was lost and there was no sense in remaining.”

“Four of them against his one, and he prevails? The man is in league with demons. No, he is a demon himself! And Alexid dead?” Korsibar grew more somber at that. He had hunted with Alexid of Strave beside him many times, in the jungles of the south and on the bare purple slopes of the northern mountains: a lean restless man, quick and capable with a javelin. This was suddenly very real, to hear Alexid had perished. “What other losses did we suffer, of men I would know?” Korsibar asked; but then, seeing Farquanor unfolding what seemed to be a considerable list, hastily waved him into silence. “Prestimion, you say, is fled into Arkilon?”

“Into the forest to the west of it. They are all four of them in there, I think, with the other survivors, and thought to be moving farther westward yet.”

“Later today,” said Korsibar, “I will issue a proclamation naming Prestimion as traitor to the realm, with a price of three thousand royals to anyone who brings him in alive.”

“Dead or alive,” amended Farquanor immediately, with a ferocious gleam coming into his cool gray eyes.

“Has it come to that already?” Korsibar asked, pensive a moment. “Yes. Yes, I suppose it has. Well, then. Five thousand silver royals, dead or alive, for Prestimion, and three thousand for any of the other three. Send word to Navigorn that he’s to undertake close pursuit. And Farholt will have a second army, to chase Prestimion up the other side of the world if need be, and we’ll catch him between. This will all be over in another ten days, I think.”

“The Divine favors our cause, lordship,” said Farquanor in his oiliest tone. He made the starburst and withdrew, leaving Korsibar free to return to the bathchamber.

“Pleasing news?” asked red-haired Aliseeva, peering winsomely over the side of the tub.

“It might have been better,” Korsibar said. “But yes: yes. Pleasing news.”

From the royal chamber Count Farquanor made his way at once to the apartments of the Lady Thismet. She had asked him not long before to keep her apprised of news of the rebellion; and this first report of victory would serve as good pretext for other matters he hoped to put before her.