Robert Silverberg - The King of Dreams

“Your grace—are you all right, your grace?”

Mandralisca nodded. He was numb with exhaustion.

“What happened, your grace?”

“Shielded—just as you said. Impossible to get near him. Completely defended.” He pressed his fingertips to his aching eyes. “Can he be some kind of superman, do you think? I know this Dekkeret, this Coronal, only by repute—we have never met—but nothing I’ve ever heard about him would lead me to think he has any special powers of mind. And yet—the way he deflected me—the ease of it—”

Khaymak Barjazid shook his head. “I know of no power of the human mind that would let it fend off the thrust of the helmet. More likely they have come up with some new form of the device. My nephew Dinitak, you know, is with the Coronal’s party. He understands the helmets. And may have modified one in such a way that he can use it to protect his master.”

“Of course,” said Mandralisca. It was all completely clear now. “Dinitak, who sold his own father out to Prestimion by bringing him the helmets, and who has done it again these twenty years afterward. He has ever been a thorn in my side, that nephew of yours. Great is the mischief he’s done: and great will be his suffering, Khaymak, when I finally begin to pay him back for it!”

Thastain returned toward nightfall, rumpled and soiled from his day in the maze of tunnels and galleries and narrow arcades that was the Grand Bazaar of Ni-moya, and soaked through and through by the inexorable rain. Mandralisca could see at once that the boy must have failed in his mission, for he looked both glum and fearful, and he had returned alone, instead of bringing some Shapeshifter with him as Mandralisca had ordered. But he listened with a sort of weary patience to Thastain’s long recitation: his tour of the vast labyrinthine market, his conversations with this merchant and that one until finally he had won the cooperation of a certain Gaziri Venemm, a dealer in cheeses and oils, who after much hesitation and circumlocution agreed, upon payment of a purse full of royals, to arrange for Thastain to be conducted to one of his fellow merchants who was believed— believed— to be a Shapeshifter masquerading as a man of the city of Narabal.

And indeed, Thastain reported, the supposed man of Narabal did appear, from his shifty ways and uncertain accent, to be a Metamorph in disguise. But he would not, not for any price, agree to undertake a mission to the Danipiur.

“I mentioned your name, your grace. He was indifferent. I mentioned the name of Viitheysp Uuvitheysp Aavitheysp. He tried to pretend that he had never heard that name before. I showed him a purse of royals. It was all no use.”

“And is he the only Shapeshifter in the bazaar?” asked Mandralisca.

“I spoke with four more of them all told,” said Thastain, and from the look of distaste on his face Mandralisca knew that it was true, and that it had not been a pleasant task. “They will not do it. Two denied, very indignant, that they were Metamorphs at all; and I could see that they were lying, and that they knew I knew they were lying, and that they did not care. A third pleaded poor health. A fourth simply refused, before I had spoken six words. I can go back to the bazaar tomorrow, excellence, and perhaps then I can find—”

“No,” Mandralisca said. “There’s no point in that. Something has happened. The Danipiur’s ambassador has decided not to help us, and has returned to Piurifayne to tell her that. I’m certain of it.” He was surprised at his own composure. Perhaps he had passed beyond the whirlwind zone, now. “Get me Halefice,” he said.

When the aide-de-camp arrived Mandralisca said at once, “There are some new difficulties, Jacomin.”

“Other than the arrival of Dekkeret and the disappearance of the Metamorph, excellence?”

“Other than those, yes.” Mandralisca provided a crisp summary of his own thwarted attempts against Dekkeret with the helmet and Thastain’s fruitless search in the bazaar for a cooperative Metamorph. “Very soon, I suppose, the Coronal will be marching this way. The Shapeshifter aid I had counted on will evidently not materialize. As for the military forces we’ve been able to raise ourselves, they are sufficient to defend Ni-moya, I suppose, but not to permit us to go beyond the perimeter of the lands we already hold.”

There was a stricken look on Halefice’s face. “Then what will we do, your grace?”

“I have a new plan.” Mandralisca looked from Halefice to Barjazid, from Barjazid to Thastain, letting his gaze linger on each of them, assaying them carefully, seeking to measure their trustworthiness. “You three are the first to hear it, and you will also be the last. The scheme is this: the Lord Gaviral will invite Dekkeret to a parley at a place midway between Piliplok and Ni-moya, telling him that we want to arrive at a peaceful solution to our disputes, a compromise that will treat the grievances of Zimroel without damaging the structure of the imperial government. I know that that will appeal to him. We’ll sit down at a table together and try to work things out. We’ll offer our terms. We’ll listen to his.”

“And then?” Halefice asked.

“And then,” said Mandralisca, “just when the talks are going as smoothly as can be, Jacomin, we’ll kill him.”

“A parley,” Dekkeret said, fascinated by the strangeness of the idea. “We are asked to a parley!”

“First he tries to strike at you with his helmet, and then he asks you to a parley?” Septach Melayn said, laughing. “I see that the man will try anything. You will refuse, of course.”

“I think not,” said Dekkeret. “He has been testing us. And now that we’ve shown him that Dinitak can beat back his attacks, I think he’s found out what we are made of, and wants to change his tune for a new and sweeter one. We should listen to it, and see what it sounds like, eh?”

“But a parley? A parley? My lord, the Coronal does not negotiate peace terms with those who deny his sacred authority,” said Gialaurys in his deepest, most sternly ponderous tone. “He simply destroys them. He sweeps them aside like gnats. He does not enter into discussions with them concerning the concessions he is being asked to make, the territory he is expected to yield, or anything else. A Coronal can concede nothing at all, ever, to any such creatures as these.”

“Nor will I,” said Dekkeret, smiling a little at the old Grand Admiral’s staunch and earnest rigor. “But to refuse outright to hear the virtuous Count Mandralisca’s proposals—or, rather, those of the great and mighty Pontifex Gaviral, since I see that it’s Gaviral who invites us to this meeting—no, I think it would be wrong to take that position. We should listen, at least. This parley will draw them out of Ni-moya, which will spare us the need to lay siege to that city, and perhaps to do harm to it. We will talk with them; and then, if we must, we will fight; but all the advantage lies on our side.”

“Does it?” Dinitak asked. “We have an army, yes. But I remind you, Dekkeret, we are on enemy soil, very far from home. If Mandralisca has been able to collect forces anywhere near the size of our own—”

“Enemy soil?” Gialaurys cried. “No! No! What are you saying? We are in Zimroel, where his majesty the Pontifex’s coinage still is legal tender, and I mean the Pontifex Prestimion, not this foolish puppet of Mandralisca’s. The imperial writ is law here still, Dinitak. Lord Dekkeret here is king of this land. And also I was born here, no more than fifty miles from this spot that you call enemy soil. How can you even speak such words? How—”

“Peace, good Gialaurys,” said Dekkeret, close to laughter now. “There’s a certain truth to what Dinitak says. This may not be enemy soil right here, but we don’t know how far upriver we can go before that changes. Ni-moya has proclaimed its independence: by the Lady, has named its own Pontifex! Has begun striking its own coins with Gaviral’s silly face on them, for all we know. Until we have put things to rights, we need to think of Ni-moya as an enemy city, and the lands surrounding it as hostile territory.”