Robert Silverberg: Lord Valentine's Castle

"We cross the Golden Plaza," said Shanamir, "and on the far side of it we take Water Road, that leads to the piers, and our inn is ten minutes out that way. You’ll find the plaza amazing."

Indeed it was, such of it as Valentine was able to see: a vast rectangular space, wide enough to drill two armies in, bordered on all four sides by immense square-topped buildings on whose broad flat faces were inlaid dazzling designs in gold leaf, so that by the evening’s torchlight the great towers blazed with reflected light and were more brilliant than the fireshower trees. But there was no crossing the plaza tonight. A hundred paces from its eastern entrance it was roped off with thick braided cord of red plush, behind which stood troops in the uniform of the Coronal’s bodyguard, smug, impassive, arms folded across their green-and-gold jerkins. Shanamir leaped from his mount and trotted forward, and spoke quickly with a vendor. When he returned he said angrily, "They have it entirely blocked. May the King of Dreams send them prickly sleep tonight!"

"What’s happening?"

"The Coronal has taken lodging in the mayor’s palace — that’s the tallest building, with the jagged golden swirls on its walls, on the far side over there — and nobody can get near it tonight. We can’t even go around the plaza’s inner rim, because there’s such a mob piled up there, waiting for a glimpse of Lord Valentine. So it’s a detour for us, an hour or more, the long way around. Well, sleep isn’t that important, I suppose. Look, there he is!"

Shanamir indicated a balcony high on the facade of the mayor’s palace. Figures had emerged on it. At this distance they were no larger than mice, but mice of dignity and grandeur, clad in sumptuous robes; Valentine could see at least that much. There were five of them, and the central personage was surely the Coronal. Shanamir was straining and standing on tiptoe for a better view. Valentine could make out very little: a dark-haired man, possibly bearded, in a heavy white steetmoy-fur robe over a doublet in green or light blue. The Coronal stood at the front of the balcony, spreading his arms toward the crowd, who made the starburst symbol with their outstretched fingers and shouted his name again and again: "Valentine! Valentine! Lord Valentine!"

And Shanamir, at Valentine’s side, cried out too: "Valentine! Lord Valentine!"

Valentine felt a fierce shudder of revulsion. "Listen to them!" he muttered. "Yelling as if he’s the Divine Itself, come down for dinner in Pidruid. He’s only a man, isn’t he? When his bowels are full he empties them, yes?"

Shanamir blinked in shock. "He’s the Coronal!"

"He means nothing to me, even as I mean less than nothing to him."

"He governs. He administers justice. He holds back chaos. You said those things yourself. Aren’t such things worthy of your respect?"

"Respect, yes. But not my worship."

"To worship the king is nothing new. My father has told me of olden times. They had kings as far back as Old Earth itself, and I’ll bet they were worshiped, Valentine, in scenes far more wild than what you see here tonight."

"And some were drowned by their own slaves, and some were poisoned by their chief ministers, and some were smothered by their wives, and some were overthrown by the people they pretended to serve, and every last one was buried and forgotten." Valentine felt himself growing surprisingly warm with anger. He spat in disgust. "And many lands on Old Earth got along without kings altogether. Why do we need them on Majipoor? These expensive Coronals, and the weird old Pontifex hiding in his Labyrinth, and the sender of bad dreams out of Suvrael — No, Shanamir, I may be too simple to understand it, but it makes no sense to me. This frenzy! These screams of delight! No one screams delight, I’ll wager, when the Mayor of Pidruid rides through the streets."

"We need kings," Shanamir insisted. "This world is too big to be ruled by mayors alone. We need great and potent symbols, monarchs who are almost like gods, to hold things together. Look. Look." The boy pointed toward the balcony. "Up there, that little figure in the white robe: the Coronal of Majipoor, You feel nothing go shivering down your back when I say that?"

"Nothing."

"You get no thrill, knowing that there are twenty billion people on this world and only one is Coronal, and that tonight you behold him with your own eyes, something which you will never do again? You feel no awe?"

"None."

"You’re a strange one, Valentine. I’ve never met anyone like you at all. How could anyone be untouched by the sight of the Coronal?"

"I am," said Valentine, shrugging, a little puzzled by it himself. "Come, let’s get out of here. This mob tires me. Let’s find the inn."

It was a long journey around the plaza, for all streets ran into it but few ran parallel to it, and Valentine and Shanamir had to move in ever-widening circles while trying to proceed westward, with the train of mounts clopping placidly wherever Shanamir led. But at last they emerged from a district of hotels and fine shops into one of warehouses and lofts, and approached the edge of the waterfront, and came finally to a weather-beaten inn of warped black timbers and frayed thatching, with stables to the rear. Shanamir housed his beasts and went through a courtyard to the innkeeper’s quarters, leaving Valentine alone in the shadows. He waited a long while. It seemed to him that even here he could hear the blurred and muffled cries: "Valentine . . . Valentine . . . Lord Valentine!" But it meant nothing whatever to him that multitudes were crying his name, for it was the name of another.

Shanamir returned in time, sprinting lightly and silently across the yard.

"It’s arranged. Give me some money."

"The fifty?"

"Smaller. Much smaller. A half-crown or so."

Valentine groped for coins, sorted through them by dim lamplight, handed several well-worn pieces to Shanamir. "For the lodging?" he asked.

"To bribe the doorkeeper," Shanamir replied. "Places to sleep are hard to come by tonight. Crowding in one more means less room for everybody, and if someone counts heads and complains, it’s the doorkeeper must back us up. Follow me and say nothing."

They went in. The place smelled of salt air and mildew. Just within, a fat grayish-faced Hjort sat like an enormous toad at a desk, arranging playing-cards in patterns. The rough-skinned creature barely looked up. Shanamir laid the coins before him and the Hjort signaled with an almost imperceptible flicker of its head. Onward, to a long narrow windowless room, lit by three widely spaced glowfloats that yielded a hazy reddish light. A row of mattresses spanned the length of the room, one close by the next on the floor, and nearly all of them were occupied. "Here," Shanamir said, nudging one with the tip of his boot. He stripped off his outer clothes and lay down, leaving room for Valentine. "Dream well," the boy said.

"Dream well," said Valentine, and kicked off his boots, and shed his top-garments, and dropped down beside him. Distant shouts echoed in his ears, or perhaps in his mind. It astonished him how weary he was. There might be dreams; tonight, yes, and he would watch carefully for them so that he could sift them for meaning, but first there would be deep sleep, the sleep of the utterly exhausted. And in the morning? A new day. Anything might befall. Anything.

THERE WAS A DREAM, of course, somewhere toward the depth of the night. Valentine placed himself at a distance from it and watched it unfold, as he had been taught from childhood Dreams held great significance; they were messages from the Powers that ruled the world, by which one was to guide one’s life; they were ignored only at one’s peril, for they were manifestations of the deepest truth. Valentine saw himself crossing a vast purple plain under a baleful purple sky and a swollen amber sun. He was alone and his face was drawn, his eyes were tense and strained. As he marched, ugly fissures opened in the ground, gaping cracks that were bright orange within, and things popped forth like children’s toys popping from a box, laughing shrilly at him and swiftly retreating into the fissures as they closed.