Robert Silverberg - The King of Dreams

“It is all like that,” said Dekkeret. “Pavement, pavement, pavement. Buildings, buildings, buildings. Concrete, concrete, concrete. I remember seeing a shrub or two, last time. No doubt they’ve had those removed by now.”

“Well, we aren’t coming here as settlers, are we?” said Septach Melayn lightly. “So let us pretend that we adore the place, if they should ask us, and then let us get ourselves far from it as soon as we can.”

“I second the motion,” Fulkari said.

“Look,” said Dekkeret. “Here comes our reception committee.”

Half a dozen vessels had put out from the harbor. Dekkeret, still uneasy, was relieved to see that they did not have the look of military ships—he recognized them as the strange-looking fishing vessels of Piliplok that were known as dragon-ships, lavishly ornamented with bizarre fanged figureheads and sinister spiky tails, with garish painted rows of white teeth and scarlet-and-yellow eyes along their sides, and intricate many-pronged masts carrying their black-and-crimson sails—and that they flew ensigns of welcome that showed the green-and-gold colors symbolic of the power and authority of the Coronal.

It could, of course, all be some deceptive maneuver of Mandralisca’s, Dekkeret supposed. But he doubted that. And he felt further reassurance when a huge voice came booming across the waters to him through a speaking-tube, crying out the traditional salute: “Dekkeret! Dekkeret! All hail Lord Dekkeret!” It was the unmistakable deep rumble of a Skandar’s voice. There was a greater concentration of the giant four-armed beings in Piliplok than anywhere else in the world. The Lord Mayor of Piliplok himself, Kelmag Volvol by name, was a Skandar, Dekkeret knew.

And that was unquestionably Kelmag Volvol now, an immense shaggy figure nearly nine feet high in the red robes of mayoralty, standing in the bow of the lead dragon-ship making clusters of starburst signs, four at a time, and then signalling that he wished to come aboard the Lord Stiamot for a parley. If this were a trap, Dekkeret thought, would the mayor of the city have been willing to bait it with his own person?

The two flagships lined up broadside. Kelmag Volvol clambered into a wickerwork transport basket. A thick rope that culminated in a massive curved blubber-hook, normally used in the butchering of sea-dragons, was lowered from the rigging and the hook was fastened to the basket. The rope then was hoisted by pulleys so that the basket containing Lord

Mayor Kelmag Volvol was lifted aloft and swung outward over the rail of the ship. Slowly and steadily it traveled through the gap separating the vessels, Kelmag Volvol standing solemnly upright all the while, and neatly deposited him beside the capstan head on the deck of the Lord Stiamot.

Dekkeret lifted both his hands in greeting. The towering Skandar, nearly half again as tall as the Coronal, knelt before him and saluted once more.

“My lord, you are welcome to Piliplok. Our city rejoices at your presence.”

Protocol now called for an exchange of small gifts. The Skandar had brought a surprisingly delicate necklace fashioned from finely interwoven sea-dragon bones, which Dekkeret placed around Fulkari’s neck, and Dekkeret offered him a rich brocaded mantle of Makroposopos manufacture, purple and green with the royal starburst and monogram at its center.

The ceremonial sharing of food in the Coronal’s cabin was the next order of ritual. This posed certain technical difficulties, since the Lord Stiamot had not been designed with Skandars in mind, and Kelmag Volvol could barely manage to negotiate the companionway that led belowdecks. And he had to stoop and crane his neck to fit within the royal cabin itself, which was roomy enough for Dekkeret and Fulkari but which the Lord Mayor Kelmag Volvol filled practically to overflowing. Septach Melayn and Gialaurys, who had accompanied them below, were forced to stand in the passage outside.

“I must begin this meeting with troublesome news, my lord,” the Skandar said as soon as the formalities were over.

“Concerning Ni-moya, is it?”

“Concerning Ni-moya, yes,” said Kelmag Volvol. He threw an uneasy glance toward the two men outside.—“It is a highly sensitive matter, my lord.”

“Nothing that needs to be hidden from the Grand Admiral Gialaurys and the High Spokesman Septach Melayn, I think,” Dekkeret replied.

“Well, then.” Kelmag Volvol looked acutely uncomfortable. “It is this, and I regret to be the bearer of such tidings. Your journey onward to Ni-moya: I must advise you against it. A cordon has been placed around the city and the territory immediately surrounding it, to a distance of some three hundred miles in all directions.”

Dekkeret nodded. It was as he had guessed: Mandralisca had reined in his original grandiose plans to claim all of Zimroel at the outset, and was limiting the sphere of his rebellion to an area he was easily capable of defending. But a rebellion was still a rebellion, even so.

“A cordon,” Dekkeret repeated thoughtfully, as though it were a mere nonsensical sound that conveyed nothing to him. “And what, I pray, does that mean, a cordon around Ni-moya?”

The pain in Kelmag Volvol’s great red-rimmed eyes was unmistakable. His four shoulders shifted about in keen embarrassment. “A zone, my lord, protected by military force, which officials of the imperial government are forbidden to enter, because it is now under the administration of the Lord Gaviral, Pontifex of Zimroel.”

A snort of astonishment came from Septach Melayn. “Pontifex, is he! Of Zimroel!”

And from Gialaurys: “We will flay him and nail his hide to the door of his own palace, my lord! We will—”

Dekkeret motioned to them both to be still.

“Pontifex,” he said, in the same wondering tone. “Not merely Procurator, the title his uncle Dantirya Sambail was content to hold, but Pon-tifex? Pontifex! Ah, very fine! Very bold!—He makes no claim to Prestimion’s own throne, does he? He is content only to rule over the western continent, our new Pontifex, beginning with the territory around Ni-moya? Why, then, I applaud his restraint!”

Skandars, Dekkeret remembered a moment too late, had virtually no capacity for irony. Kelmag Volvol reacted to Dekkeret’s lighthearted words with such a sputtering display of astonishment and distress that it was immediately necessary to assure him that the Coronal did indeed regard the developments in Ni-moya with the greatest concern.

“Which brother is this, this Gaviral?” Dekkeret said to Septach Melayn, who had lately been gathering information concerning these nephews of Dantirya Sambail.

“The eldest one. A small scheming man, with a certain rudimentary intelligence. The other four are little more than drunken beasts.”

“Yes,” said Dekkeret. “Like their father Gaviundar, the Procurator’s brother. I met him once, when he came to the Castle in Prestimion’s time as Coronal, sniveling after some favor having to do with land. An animal, he was. A great huge coarse vile-smelling hideous animal.”

“Who betrayed us at the battle of Stymphinor in the Korsibar war,” said Gialaurys darkly, “when Navigorn nearly cut our army to pieces and Gaviundar and his other brother Gaviad, our allies then, shamefully held back their troops. And his seed comes back to haunt us now!”

Dekkeret turned again to the Skandar, who looked baffled by all this talk of unknown battles, but was struggling to hide his confusion. “Tell me the rest of it. What territorial claims is this Gaviral actually making? Just Ni-moya, or is that only the beginning?”

“As we understand it down here,” Kelmag Volvol went on, “the Lord Gaviral—that is the title he uses, the Lord Gaviral—has decreed this entire continent independent of the imperial government. Ni-moya is apparently already under his control. Now he has sent ambassadors to the surrounding districts, explaining his purposes and asking for oaths of allegiance. A new constitution will shortly be announced. The Lord Gaviral soon will select the first Coronal of Zimroel. It is believed that he will name one of his brothers to the post.”