Robert Silverberg: Lord Valentine's Castle

Barjazid retreated, holding his trembling hands before his face. Was this onslaught coming from him, or did he have an ally hidden in the room? Valentine recoiled as that inexorable unseen power thrust against his mind once more, even more numbingly. He shook. He pressed his hands to his temples and tried to collect his senses. Catch Barjazid, he told himself, get him down, sit on him, yell for assistance—

He sprang forward, lunged, seized the false Coronal’s arm. Barjazid yelled and pulled free. Advancing, Valentine sought to corner him, and nearly did, but abruptly, with a wild shriek of fear and frustration, Dominin Barjazid darted past him and went scrambling across the room. He dived into one of the curtained alcoves on the far side, crying, "Help me! Father, help me!"

Valentine followed and ripped away the curtain.

And stood back in astonishment. Concealed in the alcove was a powerfully built, fleshy old man, dark-eyed, glowering, wearing on his forehead a glittering golden circlet, and grasping in one hand some device of ivory and gold, some thing of straps and hasps and levers. Simonan Barjazid he was, the King of Dreams, the terrifying old haunter out of Suvrael, skulking here in the judgment-hall of the Coronal! It was he who had sent the mind-numbing dream-commands that nearly had felled Valentine; and he struggled now to send another, but was prevented by the distraction of his own son, who clung hysterically to him, begging for help.

Valentine knew this was more than he could handle alone.

"Sleet!" he called. "Carabella! Zalzan Kavol!"

Dominin Barjazid sobbed and moaned. The King of Dreams kicked at him as if he were some bothersome dog nipping at his heels. Valentine edged cautiously into the alcove, hoping to snatch that dread dream-machine from old Simonan Barjazid before he could work more damage with it.

And as Valentine reached for it, something more astounding yet occurred. The outlines of Simonan Barjazid’s face and body began to waver, to blur— To change—

To turn into something monstrously strange, to become angular and slender, with eyes that sloped inward and a nose that was a mere bump and lips that could scarcely be seen — A Metamorph.

Not the King of Dreams at all, but a counterfeit, a masquerade King, a Shapeshifter, a Piurivar, a Metamorph—

Dominin Barjazid screamed in horror and let go of the bizarre figure, recoiling and throwing himself down, quivering and whimpering, against the wall. The Metamorph glared at Valentine in what surely was unalloyed hatred and hurled the dream-device at him with ferocious violence. Valentine could only partly shield himself; the machine caught him in the chest and knocked him awry, and in that moment the Metamorph rushed past him, dashed frantically to the far side of the room, and in a wild scramble leaped over the sill of the window that Dominin Barjazid had opened, flinging himself out into the night.

PALE, SHAKEN, VALENTINE TURNED and saw the room full of people: Sleet, Zalzan Kavol, Deliamber, Shanamir, Carabella, Tunigorn, and he could not tell how many others, hastily pressing in through the narrow vestibule. He pointed toward Dominin Barjazid, who lay huddled in a pitiful state of shock and collapse.

"Tunigorn, I give you charge of him. Take him to a secure place and see that no harm comes to him."

"The Pinitor Court, my lord, is safest. And a dozen picked men will guard him every instant."

Valentine nodded. "Good. I don’t want him left alone. And get a doctor to him: he’s had a monstrous fright, and I think it’s done him harm." He looked toward Sleet. "Friend, are you carrying a wine-flask? I’ve had some strange moments here myself." Sleet reached a flask to him; Valentine’s hand quivered, and he nearly spilled the wine before he got it to his lips.

Calmer now, he walked to the window through which the Metamorph had leaped. Lanterns gleamed somewhere far below. It was a fall of a hundred feet, or more, and in the courtyard down there he saw figures surrounding something that lay covered with a cloak. Valentine turned away.

"A Metamorph," he said in bewilderment. "Was it only a dream? I saw the King of Dreams standing there — and then it was a Metamorph — and then it rushed to the window—"

Carabella touched his arm. "My lord, will you rest now? The Castle is won."

"A Metamorph," Valentine said again, with wonder in his voice. "What could it have—"

"There were Metamorphs also in the hall of the weather-machines," said Tunigorn.

"What?" Valentine stared. "What did you say?"

"My lord, Elidath has just come up from the vaults with a strange story." Tunigorn gestured; and out of the crowd at the back of the room stepped Elidath himself, looking battle-weary, his cloak stained and his doublet torn.

"My lord?"

"The weather-machines—"

"They are unharmed, and the air and warmth go forth again, my lord."

Valentine let out a long sigh. "Well done! And there were Shapeshifters, you say?"

"The hall was guarded by troops in the uniform of the Coronal’s own guard," said Elidath. "We challenged them, we ordered them to yield, and they would not, even to me. Whereupon we fought them, and we — slew them, my lord—"

"There was no other way?"

"No other way," Elidath said. "We slew them, and as they died they — changed—"

"Every one?"

"All were Metamorphs, yes."

Valentine shivered. Strangeness upon strangeness in this nightmare revolution! He felt exhaustion rushing upon him. The engines of life turned again; the Castle was his, and the false Coronal a prisoner; the world was redeemed, order restored, the threat of tyranny averted. And yet — and yet — there was this new mystery, and he was so terribly tired—

"My lord," said Carabella, "come with me."

"Yes," he said hollowly. "Yes, I’ll rest a little while." He smiled faintly. "See me to the couch in the robing-room, will you, my love? I think I will rest, an hour or so. When was it that I last slept, do you recall?"

Carabella slipped her arm through his. "It seems like days, doesn’t it?"

"Weeks. Months. Just an hour — don’t let me sleep more than that—"

"Of course, my lord."

He sank to the couch like one who had been drugged. Carabella drew a coverlet over him and darkened the room, and he curled up, letting his weary body go limp. But through his mind darted luminous images: Dominin Barjazid clinging to that old man’s knees, and the King of Dreams angrily trying to shake him off, all the while waving that strange machine about, and then the shifting of shapes, the eerie Piurivar face glaring at him — Dominin Barjazid’s terrifying cry — the Metamorph rushing toward the open window — again and again, again and again, scenes beyond comprehension acting themselves out in Valentine’s tormented mind—

And sleep came over him gently, slipping up on him as he lay wrestling with the demons of the judgment-hall.

He slept the hour he had asked, and something more than that, for when he woke it was because the bright golden light of morning was in his eyes. He sat up, blinking and stretching. His body ached. A dream, he thought, a wild and bewildering dream of — no, no dream. No dream.

"My lord, are you rested?"

Carabella, Sleet, Deliamber. Watching him. Standing guard over his slumber.

Valentine smiled. "I’m rested, yes. And the night is gone. What has been happening?"

"Little enough," said Carabella, "except that the air grows warm again, and the Castle rejoices, and word is spreading down the Mount of the change that has come upon the world."

"The Metamorph who sprang from the window — was it killed?"

"Indeed, my lord," said Sleet.

"It wore the robes and regalia of the King of Dreams, and carried one of his devices. How was that, do you think?"