Robert Silverberg - Valentine Pontifex

Grand Admiral Asenhart looked uneasily toward Valentine. He indicated the speaking-tube he held, and said, “Shall I order them to yield and escort us into port, majesty?” But the Pontifex only smiled, and signaled to him to be calm.

Now the mightiest of the Piliplok vessels, a monstrous thing with a horrifying fanged figurehead and bizarrely elaborate three-pronged masts, moved forward from the line and took up a position close by the Lady Thiin. Valentine recognized it as the ship of old Guidrag, the senior among the dragon-captains: and yes, there she was, the fierce old Skandar woman herself on the deck, calling out through a speaking tube, “In the name of the free republic of Piliplok, stand forth and identify yourselves!”

“Give me the tube,” Valentine said to Asenhart. Putting it to his lips, he cried, “This is the Lady Thiin, and I am Valentine. Come aboard and speak with me, Guidrag.”

“I may not do that, my lord.”

“I did not say Lord Valentine, but Valentine,” he responded. “Do you take my meaning? And if you will not come to me, why, then I will go to you! Prepare to take me on board.”

“Majesty!” said Sleet in horror.

Valentine turned to Asenhart. “Make ready a floater-basket for us. Sleet, you are the high spokesman: you will accompany me. And you, Deliamber.”

Carabella said urgently, “My lord, I beg you—”

“If they mean to seize us,” he said, “they will seize us whether I am aboard their ship or mine. They have twenty ships for each of ours, and well-armed ones at that. Come, Sleet—Deliamber—”

“Majesty,” said Lisamon Hultin sternly, “you may not go unless I accompany you!”

With a smile Valentine said, “Ah, well done! You give commands to the Pontifex! I admire your spirit: but no, I will take no bodyguards this time, no weapons, no protection of any sort except these robes. Is the floater ready, Asenhart?”

The basket was rigged and suspended from the foremast. Valentine clambered in, and beckoned to Sleet, grim-faced and bleak, and to the Vroon. He looked back at the others gathered on the deck of the flagship, Carabella, Tunigorn, Asenhart, Zalzan Kavol, Lisamon, Shanamir, all staring at him as though he had at last taken complete leave of his wits. “You should know me better by this time,” he said softly, and ordered the basket lifted over the side.

Out over the water it drifted, skimming lightly above the waves, and climbing the side of the dragon-ship until snared by the hook that Guidrag lowered for it. A moment later Valentine stepped out onto the deck of the other vessel, the timbers of which were dark with the ineradicable stains of sea-dragon blood. A dozen towering Skandars, the least of whom was half again Valentine’s size, confronted him, and at their head was old Guidrag, even more gap-toothed than before, her thick matted fur even more faded. Her yellow eyes gleamed with force and authority, but Valentine detected some uncertainty in her features as well.

He said, “What is this, Guidrag, that you offer me so unkind a welcome on this visit?”

“My lord, I had no idea it was you returning to us.”

“Yet it seems I have returned once again. And am I not to be greeted with more joy than this?”

“My lord—things have changed here,” she said, faltering a little.

“Changed? The free republic?” He glanced about the deck, and at the other dragon-ships arrayed on all sides. “What is a free republic, Guidrag? I think I have not heard the term before. I ask you: what does it mean?”

“I am only a dragon-captain, my lord. These political things—they are not for me to speak of—”

“Forgive me, then. But tell me this, at least: why were you sent forth to meet my fleet, if not to welcome us and guide us to port?”

Guidrag said, “I was sent not to welcome you but to turn you away. Though I tell you again that we had no idea it was you, my lord—that we knew only it was a fleet of imperial ships—”

“And imperial ships are no longer welcome in Piliplok?”

There was a long pause.

“No, my lord,” said the Skandar woman lamely. “They are not, my lord. We have—how do I say this?—we have withdrawn from the empire, my lord. That is what a free republic is. It is a territory that rules itself, and is not governed from without.”

Valentine lifted his eyebrows delicately. “Ah, and why is that? Is the rule of the imperial government so burdensome, do you think?”

“You play with me, my lord. These matters are beyond my understanding. I know only that these are difficult times, that changes have been made, that Piliplok now chooses to decide its own destinies.”

“Because Piliplok still has food, and other cities have none, and the burden of feeding the hungry is too heavy for Piliplok? Is that it, Guidrag?”

“My lord—”

“And you must stop calling me ‘my lord,’ ” said Valentine. “You must call me ‘your majesty’ now.”

The dragon-captain, looking more troubled than ever, replied, “But are you no longer Coronal, my lord—your majesty—?”

“The changes in Piliplok are not the only changes that have occurred,” he said. “I will show you, Guidrag. And then I will return to my ship, and you will lead me to the harbor, and I will speak with the masters of this free republic of yours, so that they can explain it to me more thoroughly. Eh, Guidrag? Let me show you who I am.”

And he took Sleet’s hand in one of his, and a tentacle of Deliamber’s in the other, and moved easily and smoothly into the waking sleep, the trance-state that allowed him to speak mind to mind as though he were issuing sendings. And from his soul to Guidrag’s there flowed a current of vitality and power so great that it caused the air between them to glow; for he drew now not only on the strength that had been growing in himself throughout this time of trial and turmoil, but on that which was lent him by Sleet and the Vroon, and by his comrades aboard the Lady Thiin, and by Lord Hissune and Hissune’s mother the Lady, and by his own mother the former Lady, and by all others who loved Majipoor as it had been and as they wished it would be again. And he reached forth to Guidrag and then beyond her to the Skandar dragon-hunters at her side, and then to the crews of the other ships, and then to the citizens of the free republic of Piliplok across the waters; and the message that he sent them was a simple one, that he had come to them to forgive them for their errors and to receive from them their renewed loyalty to the great commonwealth that was Majipoor. And he told them also that Majipoor was indivisible and that the strong must aid the weak or all would perish together, for the world stood at the brink of doom and nothing but a single mighty effort would save it. And lastly he told them that the beginning of the end of the time of chaos was at hand, for Pontifex and Coronal and Lady and King of Dreams were striding forth together to set things to rights, and all would be made whole again, if only they had faith in the justice of the Divine, in whose name he reigned now as supreme monarch.

He opened his eyes. He saw Guidrag dazed and swaying and sinking slowly to her knees on the deck, and the other Skandars beside her doing the same. Then she threw up her hands before her eyes as though to shield them from a terrible light, and murmured in a stunned, awestruck way, “My lord—your majesty—your majesty—”

“Valentine!” someone cried, farther back on the deck. “Valentine Pontifex!” And the cry was taken up by one sailor after another: “Valentine Pontifex! Valentine Pontifex!” until it went echoing from ship to ship, all across the waters and even to the ramparts of distant Piliplok: