Robert Silverberg: Valentine Pontifex

Someone should take him by the arm, Hissune thought, and help him to sit down before he falls. But no one moved. No one dared. Please, Hissune begged silently, staring at Sleet, at Tunigorn, at Ermanar. Stop him, someone. Stop him. And still no one moved.

“Lordship!” a voice cried hoarsely.

Hissune realized it was his own. And he went rushing forward to seize the Coronal as he dropped headlong toward the gleaming wooden floor.

This is the dream of the Pontifex Tyeveras:

Here in the realm that I inhabit now, nothing has color and nothing has sound and nothing has motion. The alabandina blossoms are black and the shining fronds of the semotan trees are white, and from the bird that does not fly comes a song that cannot be heard. I lie on a bed of soft gentle rubbermoss, staring upward at drops of rain that do not fall. When the wind blows in the glade, not a leaf flutters. The name of this realm is death, and the alabandinas and semotans are dead, and the bird is dead, and the wind and the rain are dead. And I too am dead.

They come and stand about me and they say, “Are you Tyeveras that was Coronal of Majipoor and Pontifex of Majipoor?”

And I say, “I am dead.”

“Are you Tyeveras?” they say again.

And I say, “I am dead Tyeveras, that was your king and that was your emperor. See, I have no color? See, I make no sound? I am dead.”

“You are not dead.”

“Here on my right hand is Lord Malibor that was my first Coronal. He is dead, is he not? Here on my left hand is Lord Voriax that was my second Coronal. Is he not dead? I lie between two dead men. I also am dead.”

“Come and rise and walk, Tyeveras that was Coronal, Tyeveras that is Pontifex.”

“I need not do that. I am excused, for I am dead.”

“Listen to our voices.”

“Your voices make no sound.”

“Listen, Tyeveras, listen, listen, listen!”

“The alabandinas are black. The sky is white. This is the realm of death.”

“Come and rise and walk, Emperor of Majipoor.”

“Who are you?”

“Valentine that is your third Coronal.”

“I hail you, Valentine, Pontifex of Majipoor!”

“That title is not yet mine. Come and rise and walk.”

And I say, “It is not required of me, for I am dead,” but they say, “We do not hear you, king that was, emperor that is,” and then the voice that says it is the voice of Valentine tells me once more, “Come and rise and walk,” and the hand of Valentine is on my hand in this realm where nothing moves, and it pulls me upward, and I drift, light as air floating on air, and I go forth, moving without motion, breathing without drawing breath. Together we cross a bridge that curves like the rainbow’s arc across an abyss as deep as the world is broad, and its shimmering metal skin rings with a sound like the singing of young girls with each step I take. On the far side all is flooded with color: amber, turquoise, coral, lilac, emerald, auburn, indigo, crimson. The vault of the sky is jade and the sharp strands of sunlight that pierce the air are bronze. Everything flows, everything billows: there is no firmness, there is no stability. The voices say, “This is life, Tyeveras! This is your proper realm!” To which I make no reply, for after all I am dead and merely dreaming that I live: but I begin to weep, and my tears are all the colors of the stars.

And this too is the dream of the Pontifex Tyeveras:

I sit enthroned on a machine within a machine, and about me is a wall of blue glass. I hear bubbling sounds, and the soft ticking of intricate mechanisms. My heart beats slowly: I am aware of each heavy surge of fluid through its chambers, but that fluid, I think, is probably not blood. Whatever it is, though, it moves in me, and I am aware of it. Therefore I must surely be alive. How can that be? I am so old: have I then outlived death itself? I am Tyeveras that was Coronal to Ossier, and I touched once the hand of Lord Kinniken when the Castle was his, and Ossier only a prince, and the second Pontifex Thimin had the Labyrinth. If that is so, I think I must be the only man of Thimin’s time who is yet alive, if I am alive, and I think I am alive. But I sleep. I dream. A great stillness enfolds me. Color seeps from the world. All is black, all is white, nothing moves, there is no sound. This is how I imagine the realm of death to be. Look, there is the Pontifex Confalume, and there is Prestimion, and there is Dekkeret! All those great emperors lie staring upward toward rain that does not fall, and in words without sound they say, Welcome, Tyeveras that was, welcome, weary old king, come lie beside us, now that you are dead like us. Yes. Yes. Ah, how beautiful it is here! Look, there is Lord Malibor, that man of the city of Bombifale in whom I hoped so much, so wrongly, and he is dead, and that is Lord Voriax of the black beard and the ruddy cheeks, but his cheeks are not ruddy now. And at last am I permitted to join them. Everything is silent. Everything is still. At last, at last, at last! At last they let me die, even if it is only when I dream.

And so the Pontifex Tyeveras floats midway between worlds, neither dead nor alive, dreaming of the world of the living when he thinks that he is dead, dreaming of the realm of death when he remembers that he is alive.

“A little wine, if you will,” Valentine said. Sleet put the bowl in his hand, and the Coronal drank deeply. “I was just dozing,” he muttered. “A quick nap, before the banquet— and that dream, Sleet! That dream! Get me Tisana, will you? I have to have a speaking of that dream.”

“With respect, lordship, there’s no time for that now,” said Sleet.

“We’ve come to fetch you,” Tunigorn put in. “The banquet’s about to begin. Protocol requires that you be at the dais when the Pontifical officials—”

“Protocol! Protocol! That dream was almost like a sending, don’t you understand! Such a vision of disaster—”

“The Coronal does not receive sendings, lordship,” Sleet said quietly. “And the banquet will start in minutes, and we must robe you and convey you. You’ll have Tisana and her potions afterward, if you like, my lord. But for now—”

“I must explore that dream!”

“I understand. But there lacks the time. Come, my lord.”

He knew that Sleet and Tunigorn were right: like it or not, he must get himself to the banquet at once. It was more than just a social event; it was a rite of courtesy, the showing of honor by the senior monarch to the younger king who was his adopted son and anointed successor, and even though the Pontifex might be senile or altogether mad the Coronal did not have the option of taking the event lightly. He must go, and the dream must wait. No dream so potent, so rife with omen, could simply be ignored—he would need a dream-speaking, and probably a conference with the wizard Deliamber also—but there would be time to deal with all that afterward.

“Come, lordship,” Sleet said again, holding his ermine robe of office out to him.

The heavy spell of that vision still clung to Valentine’s spirit when he entered the Great Hall of the Pontifex ten minutes later. But it would not do for the Coronal of Majipoor to seem dour or preoccupied at such an event, and so he put upon his face the most affable expression he could manage, as he made his way toward the high table.

Which was, indeed, the way he had conducted himself all throughout the interminable week of this official visit: the forced smile, the studied amiability. Of all the cities of giant Majipoor, the Labyrinth was the one Lord Valentine loved least. It was to him a grim, oppressive place that he entered only when the unavoidable responsibilities of office required it. Just as he felt most keenly alive under the warm summer sun and the great vault of the open sky, riding in some forest in heavy leaf, a fair fresh wind tossing his golden hair about, so did he feel buried before his time whenever he entered this cheerless sunken city. He loathed its dismal descending coils, its infinity of shadowy underground levels, its claustrophobic atmosphere.