Robert Silverberg - The King of Dreams

“Perhaps there have been developments in Zimroel that I don’t know about,” Dekkeret said. “But I think not. This is simply his nature, love. Everything is urgent to Prestimion. He is the most impatient man alive.”

She accepted that grudgingly, and when he had bathed he went upstairs to Prestimion’s rooms. Septach Melayn and Gialaurys were there with him, which Dekkeret had not expected.

Nor did he expect the swiftness with which the Pontifex swept him toward the point of the meeting. Prestimion embraced him warmly, as a father might embrace a long-lost son, but almost at once they were deep into a discussion of the matter of Zimroel. Prestimion cared hardly at all to hear about Dekkeret’s journey across the continent, his odd adventures in Shabikant and Thilambaluc and the other obscure stops along his westward route. Two or three brusque questions, followed by quick interruptions of Dekkeret’s replies, and then they were talking of Mandralisca and the Five Lords, and how Prestimion believed the crisis in Zimroel must be resolved.

Which was, Dekkeret rapidly learned, by sending a great army across the sea—an army led in person by the Coronal Lord Dekkeret—to set things to rights there by force, if need be.

“At long last we must break this Mandralisca, and break him so that he can never recover from it,” said Prestimion. As he uttered those words his features underwent an extraordinary transformation, his intense sea-green eyes now strangely aflame with a cold fury that Dekkeret had never seen in them before, his thin lips tightening into a taut grimace, his nostrils flaring with an astonishing vindictive rage. “Let there be no mistake about it: we have to destroy him, regardless of the cost, and all those who follow his banner as well. There is no hope of peace in the world so long as that man continues to breathe.”

Prestimion’s tone was an extraordinarily belligerent one, uncompromising, fierce. Dekkeret was taken aback by that, though he did his best to hide his surprise and dismay from the Pontifex. Surely Prestimion knew, better than any man alive, what it meant for there to be civil war on Majipoor. Yet here he was, trembling with barely contained wrath, instructing his Coronal to set all of Zimroel ablaze, if necessary, for the sake of ending the Sambailid rebellion!

Perhaps I am misunderstanding him, Dekkeret thought, hoping against all probability.

Perhaps he is not advocating actual warfare at all, but only a grand show of imperial pomp and force, under cover of which Mandralisca can be peacefully encircled and removed.

It was Dekkeret himself who had first suggested, some months earlier, that it might be necessary for him to go to Zimroel and make an end to such unrest as was brewing there. And Prestimion had agreed that that might be a good idea. But it was Dekkeret’s impression that they had both been thinking of something along the lines of a grand processional: the Coronal making a formal state visit to the western continent, with all the pageantry that a visit of that sort entailed, and thereby reminding the people of Zimroel of the ancient covenant under which all regions of the world lived together in peace. During that visit Dekkeret would be able to determine the strength of Mandralisca’s insurrection and, through the power and authority of his mere presence, take steps —political steps, diplomatic steps—to bring it to a halt.

But Prestimion had spoken just now of sending an army—a great army—to Zimroel to deal with Mandralisca.

There had never been any talk, so far as Dekkeret recalled, of his undertaking the Zimroel journey at the head of any sort of military force. When had Prestimion’s thinking shifted from the use of peaceful means against the rebels to one of all-out war? Dekkeret wondered what had turned the Pontifex so suddenly into such a fire-breather. No one had greater reason to hate war than Prestimion, and yet—yet—that look in his eyes—the angry crackle of his voice—could there be any doubt of his meaning? There must be war, was the essence of what Prestimion was saying. And you are the one who will wage it for us. It sounded very much like an order: a direct command from the senior monarch.

Dekkeret wondered how he was going to cope with that.

Certainly Mandralisca had to be removed: no question of that. But was war really the only way? Suddenly Dekkeret found his mind aswirl with a torrent of roiling conflicts. War was as repugnant a concept to him as it was to any sensible being. It had never occurred to him that his reign might begin, as Prestimion’s had, on the battlefield.

He glanced quickly about for guidance toward Septach Melayn, toward Gialaurys. But Gialaurys’s jowly face was rigidly set, a bleak, stony mask of icy determination, and even the flippant and sportive Septach Melayn had a strange look of seriousness about him just now. They were both of them resolved on war, Dekkeret realized. Perhaps these two, Prestimion’s oldest friends, were the very ones who had turned the Pontifex onto that course.

Cautiously Dekkeret said, hoping Prestimion would not notice the ambiguity of his phrasing, “I give you my pledge, your majesty, that I will do whatever must be done to restore the rule of law in Zimroel.”

Prestimion nodded. He looked calmer now, his face less flushed than it had been a moment before, some of the tension gone from it. “I’m confident that you will, Dekkeret. And so far as a specific plan of action goes—?”

“As soon as possible, majesty.” More ambiguity, but Prestimion did not appear to find that troublesome. “It would be unwise for me to rush toward decisions just now. Your brother’s death deprived me of my High Counsellor, and I’ve had no opportunity to choose another. And therefore, your majesty—”

“You are being very formal with me today, Dekkeret.”

“If I am, it is because we are discussing great matters of war and peace. You have been my friend for many years; but you are also my Pontifex, Prestimion. And”—he gestured toward Septach Melayn—“we are in the presence of your High Spokesman as well.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. This is serious business, and calls for a serious tone.—By all means, Dekkeret, take a few days to think things over.” Prestimion smiled for the first time in the course of the meeting. “Just so long as the path that you choose is one that will rid me of Mandralisca.”

Fulkari must have seen at once, when Dekkeret returned to their rooms on the floor just below Prestimion’s, what an effect his meeting with the Pontifex had had on him. Quickly she drew a bowl of wine for him and waited without speaking while he drank it down.

Then she said, “There’s trouble, isn’t there?”

“Apparently so.”

He could barely bring himself to speak. He felt a little dizzy from weariness, from hunger, from the strain of the strange, tense encounter.

“In Zimroel?”

“In Zimroel, yes.”

Fulkari was staring at him oddly. He had never seen such a look of profound concern in those lovely gray eyes of hers. Dekkeret knew that he must be a terrible sight. His whole body felt clenched. A throbbing had begun behind his eyes. His jaw muscles were aching: too much insincere smiling, he supposed. He accepted a second bowl of wine from her and drank it nearly as swiftly as he had the first.

“Do you want to talk about it at all?” she asked gently, when some time had gone by in silence.

“No. I can’t. I can’t, Fulkari. These are high matters of state.”

Dekkeret had moved to the window now, and stood with his back to her, looking out into the night. All the mysterious beauty of Stoien city lay spread out before him, the slender buildings on their lofty brick pedestals, the variations of high and low, the artificial hills rising in the distance, the dazzling abundance of tropical vegetation. Fulkari, somewhere on the other side of the room, said nothing. He knew that he had wounded her with the sharpness of his words. She was his life’s companion, after all. She was not yet his wife, but she would be, whenever the pressures of this unexpected crisis relented long enough for a royal wedding to take place. And yet he had spoken to her as though she were some casual amusement of the evening, with whom it would be unthinkable to share the slightest detail of what had passed between the Pontifex and the Coronal. He realized that he was asking her to bear all the burdens of being the royal consort without making her privy to any of the daily challenges of his task.