Robert Silverberg - The King of Dreams

“One of the closest. You saw the other two just now. Jacomin Halefice, Khaymak Barjazid, and I: we are his inner circle, the people he most trusts.” It was the truth, more or less, Thastain thought. The Count was more at ease with Halefice and Barjazid and him than with anyone else. He had told them things that he had kept secret from everyone all his life, about his childhood, his father, his service with Dantirya Sambail. That had to signify a certain closeness.

But Viitheysp Uuvitheysp Aavitheysp said, startling Thastain with the accuracy of his perception, “You are the people he most trusts, yes, but how much does he trust you? Or anyone? And how much do you trust him?”

“I can’t speak to any of that, sir.”

“He is a difficult man, I think, your Count Mandralisca. Proud, suspicious, dangerous. He offers us an alliance. He makes us promises.”

Thastain saw what was going on now. He maintained an uneasy silence.

The Shapeshifter said, “We have not done well by the promises of your people in the past. There were Pontifexes and Coronals who swore to make our lives better, to grant us this privilege and that one that had been taken from us by Lord Stiamot, to permit us to come forth freely from our lands. You see how we live now.”

“Count Mandralisca is neither a Pontifex nor a Coronal. The thing that he seeks is to free the people of this continent from the rule of such kings as those. He means all the people of this continent, your people included.”

“Perhaps so,” the Shapeshifter said. “And he is an honorable man, would you say, your Count Mandralisca?”

Honorable?

That word was not, thought Thastain, the first one that would come to mind in describing Mandralisca. Cold-hearted, yes. Cruel, maybe. Frightening. Fierce. Determined. Ruthless. But honorable? Honorable? Thastain had known a few unquestionably honorable men in his Sennec days, good, strong, uncomplicated men, whose word was their bond. Liaprand Strume, for one, the storekeeper, who would always allow more credit to someone in trouble. Safiar Syamilak, his father’s bailiff, the devoted guardian of their lands. And the big red-bearded man with the farm just upriver from theirs, the one who had cracked his back lifting the wagon that had fallen on that little boy—Gheivir Maglisk, that was his name. Three honorable men, no doubt of that. It was hard to see what Count Mandralisca had in common with those three.

On the other hand it was not his business to be speaking harshly of Count Mandralisca to this Metamorph, or to anyone else. It was Mandralisca whom he served, not the Metamorphs. If this creature wanted to find out how trustworthy Mandralisca might or might not be, he would have to do it on his own.

“The Count is an extraordinary man,” Thastain replied finally. No lie, that. “When this land of ours is freed at last from the oppression of the Pontifexes, you’ll see how well Count Mandralisca keeps his promises.” Which was also the truth, for what it was worth.—“Look there, sir,” Thastain said, desperately searching for some distraction. “How the early-afternoon light strikes the Crystal Boulevard.”

“Is so very beautiful, yes,” said Viitheysp Uuvitheysp Aavitheysp thickly, shading his strange eyes against the brilliant stream of radiance that batteries of revolving reflectors summoned from the Crystal Boulevard’s shining paving-stones. “Is the greatest of cities, your Ni-moya. I am thankful to your Count for permitting me to come here. Is my hope someday to bring my clansfolk here to see it as well, when your Count has won his war against the Pontifex and the Coronal. For such his promise is, that we will be allowed to come.”

“Such his promise is, yes,” Thastain agreed.

Jacomin Halefice was in the Movement headquarters building when Thastain returned to it after delivering the Shapeshifter to his hostelry. Thastain was glad to see him. Lately a friendship of sorts had come into being between Thastain and the aide-de-camp, based, apparently, on Halefice’s fears that Khaymak Barjazid was supplanting him in Mandralisca’s affections. Halefice, Thastain knew, went a long way back with Mandralisca—back to the days when the two of them had been in the service of Dantirya Sambail. They had fought together against the army of Prestimion in the Procurator’s rebellion.

But it was Barjazid, whom Mandralisca had known only a short while, who controlled the all-important helmets. Often, nowadays, the Count seemed to favor the little man from Suvrael over Halefice; and so, evidently, Halefice had decided to cultivate the friendship of the young and swiftly rising Thastain, forming an unstated alliance against a further increase in Khaymak Barjazid’s influence with Mandralisca.

Thastain, young as he was, was clever enough to know that Halefice was being foolish. There was no need for anyone to worry about the place he held in Mandralisca’s “affections.” Mandralisca had no affections, only schemes, desires, goals; he kept people about him who would help him in the fulfillment of those things, saw them entirely as instruments toward his intended purposes, discarded them if they were no longer useful. You were deluding yourself if you imagined that you were any kind of friend to Mandralisca, or he to you.

Even so, Thastain welcomed Halefice’s overtures. It was a nerve-wracking business, working for Count Mandralisca. You never knew when you would make some critical mistake, or even a minor one, and he would turn on you with all his terrible ferocity. Thastain had not really anticipated being thrust into such proximity with the terrifying Count when he had chosen to enter the service of the Five Lords. Jacomin Halefice softened that proximity for him. The aide-de-camp was a genial, easy-natured man, whose company was a pleasant relief after an hour or two with the Count. And perhaps Jacomin Halefice might even be able to protect him against Mandralisca’s wrath should he someday become its target. Sooner or later, after all, everyone did.

“Took the Shapeshifter home, did you?” Halefice asked. “That was a surprise, eh, seeing the Count invite one of those in for a conference! But he’ll ally himself with anyone and anything, will our Count, if he thinks it’ll serve his needs.”

“And will it serve his needs, do you think, to bring in the Shapeshifters in the struggle against Alhanroel? How can you trust such creatures?”

“They are a bunch of slippery serpents, yes,” Halefice said, with a grin and a nod. “I love them no more than you do, boy. But I see why Mandralisca would attempt to make common cause with them, just the same. They have much more reason to hate the Pontificate than he does, you know. And the enemy of your enemy, remember, is your friend. Mandralisca believes that when the time comes, the Piurifayne folk will do everything they can to make life difficult for Prestimion and Dekkeret.”

“So we have Metamorphs as our friends, now!” Thastain shuddered. “Stranger and stranger every day.—The Metamorph doesn’t trust the Count very much, by the way. Doesn’t entirely think he’s going to keep his promises about granting them equality once the war is won.”

“He told you that, did he? Very confiding of him. I wouldn’t pass that word along to Mandralisca, though, if I were you.”

“Why not?”

“What good will it do? If Mandralisca’s planning to doublecross the Shapeshifters when he no longer has any use for them, he’ll do it regardless of what they might suspect. He doesn’t expect anyone to trust him anyway, does Mandralisca. And if you tell him that the Shapeshifter’s been pouring things such as you’ve just told me into your ears, the Count’ll start worrying about how chummy you’re getting with his new Metamorph friends. Keep it to yourself, is what I say. Don’t even tell me. You haven’t told me. Understood?”