Robert Silverberg: Valentine Pontifex

And most of all he loathed the knowledge of the inevitable destiny that awaited him here, when he must succeed to the title of Pontifex at last, and give up the sweet joys of life on Castle Mount, and take up residence for the rest of his days in this dreadful living tomb.

Tonight in particular, this banquet in the Great Hall, on the deepest level of the gloomy subterranean city—how he had dreaded that! The hideous hall itself, all harsh angles and glaring lights and weird ricocheting reflections, and the pompous officials of the Pontifical staff in their preposterous little traditional masks, and the windy speechmaking, and the boredom, and above all the burdensome sense of the entire Labyrinth pressing down upon him like a colossal mass of stone—merely to think of it had filled him with horror. Perhaps that ugly dream, he thought, had been a mere foreshadowing of the uneasiness he felt about what he must endure tonight.

Yet to his surprise he found himself unwinding, relaxing—not precisely enjoying himself at the banquet, no, hardly that, but at least finding it within his endurance.

They had redecorated the hall. That helped. Brilliant banners in green and gold, the colors emblematic of the Coronal, had been hung everywhere, blurring and disguising the strangely disquieting outlines of the enormous room. The lighting too had been changed since his last visit: gentle glowfloats now drifted pleasantly through the air.

And plainly the officials of the Pontifex had spared neither cost nor effort in making the occasion a festive one. From the legendary Pontifical wine cellars came an astounding procession of the planet’s finest vintages: the golden fireshower wine of Pidruid, and the dry white of Amblemorn, and then the delicate red of Ni-moya, followed by a rich, robust purple wine of Muldemar that had been laid down years ago, in the reign of Lord Malibor. With each wine, of course, an appropriate delicacy: chilled thokkaberries, smoked sea dragon, calimbots in Narabal style, roast haunch of bilantoon. And an unending flow of entertainment: singers, mimes, harpists, jugglers. From time to time one of the Pontifex’s minions would glance warily toward the high table where Lord Valentine and his companions sat, as though to ask, Is it sufficient? Is your lordship content?

And Valentine met each of those worried glances with a warm smile, a friendly nod, a lifting of his wine-bowl, by way of telling his uneasy hosts, Yes, yes, I am well pleased with all you have done for us.

“What edgy little jackals they all are!” Sleet cried. “You can smell the worry-sweat on them from six tables away.”

Which led to a foolish and painful remark from young Hissune about the likelihood that they were trying to curry favor with Lord Valentine against the day when he became Pontifex. The unexpected tactlessness stung Valentine with whiplash effect, and he turned away, heart racing, throat suddenly dry. He forced himself to remain calm: smiled across the tables to the high spokesman Hornkast, nodded to the Pontifical majordomo, beamed at this one and that, while behind him he could hear Shanamir explaining irately to Hissune the nature of his blunder.

In a moment Valentine’s anger had ebbed. Why should the boy have known, after all, that that was a forbidden topic of discussion? But there was nothing he could do to put an end to Hissune’s obvious humiliation without acknowledging the depth of his sensitivity on that score; so he let himself glide back into conversation as though nothing untoward had happened.

Then five jugglers appeared, three humans, a Skandar, and a Hjort, to cause a blessed distraction. They commenced a wild and frenzied hurling of torches, sickles, and knives that brought cheers and applause from the Coronal.

Of course, they were mere flashy third-raters whose flaws and insufficiencies and evasions were evident enough to Valentine’s expert eye. No matter: jugglers always gave him delight. Inevitably they recalled to his mind that strange and blissful time years before, when he had been a juggler himself, wandering from town to town with an itinerant raggle-taggle troupe. He had been innocent then, untroubled by the burdens of power, a truly happy man.

Valentine’s enthusiasm for the jugglers drew a scowl from Sleet, who said sourly, “Ah, lordship, do you truly think they’re as good as all that?”

“They show great zeal, Sleet.”

“So do cattle that forage for fodder in a dry season. But they are cattle nonetheless. And these zealous jugglers of yours are little more than amateurs, my lord.”

“Oh, Sleet, Sleet, show more mercy!”

“There are certain standards in this craft, my lord. As you should still remember.”

Valentine chuckled. “The joy these people give me has little to do with their skills, Sleet. Seeing them stirs recollections in me of other days, a simpler life, bygone companions.”

“Ah, then,” Sleet said. “That’s another matter, my lord! That is sentiment. But I speak of craft.”

“We speak of different things, then.”

The jugglers took their leave in a flurry of furious throws and bungled catches, and Valentine sat back, smiling, cheerful. But the fun’s over, he thought. Time for the speeches now.

Even those proved surprisingly tolerable, though. Shinaam delivered the first: the Pontifical minister of internal affairs, a man of the Ghayrog race, with glistening reptilian scales and a flickering forked red tongue. Gracefully and swiftly he offered formal welcome to Lord Valentine and his entourage.

The adjutant Ermanar made reply on behalf of the Coronal. When he was done, it was the turn of ancient shriveled Dilifon, private secretary to the Pontifex, who conveyed the personal greetings of the high monarch. Which was mere fraud, Valentine knew, since it was common knowledge that old Tyeveras had not spoken a rational word to anyone close upon a decade. But he accepted Dilifon’s quavering fabrications politely and delegated Tunigorn to offer the response.

Then Hornkast spoke: the high spokesman of the Pontificate, plump, solemn, the true ruler of the Labyrinth in these years of the senility of the Pontifex Tyeveras. His theme, he declared, was the grand processional. Valentine sat to attention at once: for in the past year he had thought of little else than the processional, that far-ranging ceremonial journey in which the Coronal must go forth upon Majipoor and show himself to the people, and receive from them their homage, their allegiance, their love.

“It may seem to some,” said Hornkast, “a mere pleasure jaunt, a trivial and meaningless holiday from the cares of office. Not so! Not so! For it is the person of the Coronal—the actual, physical person, not a banner, not a flag, not a portrait—that binds all the far-flung provinces of the world to a common loyalty. And it is only through periodic contact with the actual presence of that royal person that that loyalty is renewed.”

Valentine frowned and looked away. Through his mind there surged a sudden disturbing image: the landscape of Majipoor sundered and upheaved, and one solitary man desperately wrestling with the splintered terrain, striving to thrust everything back into place.

“For the Coronal,” Hornkast went on, “is the embodiment of Majipoor. The Coronal is Majipoor personified. He is the world; the world is the Coronal. And so when he undertakes the grand processional, as you, Lord Valentine, now will do for the first time since your glorious restoration, he is not only going forth to the world, but he is going forth to himself—to a voyage into his own soul, to an encounter with the deepest roots of his identity—”

Was it so? Of course. Of course. Hornkast, he knew, was simply spouting standard rhetoric, oratorical noises of a sort that Valentine had had to endure all too often. And yet, this time the words seemed to trigger something in him, seemed to open some great dark tunnel of mysteries. That dream—the cold wind blowing across Castle Mount, the groans of the earth, the shattered landscape— The Coronal is the embodiment of Majipoor — he is the world —