Robert Silverberg - The King of Dreams

He loves you.

He loves you more than you could possibly believe.

And Dinitak:

I beg you most urgently.

My dearest one. My dearest one. My dearest one.

A knock at her door. “My lady?” It was Ekkamoor, the chamberlain from the Castle who had looked after her on this frantic journey to the continent’s edge. “The ship is about to dock, my lady. Is it your wish to be at the pier when it does?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course!”

It flew the Coronal’s green-and-gold banner, and the Coronal’s star-burst emblem was on its prow. But there was a yellow flag of mourning flying from its mast as well, and Keltryn, watching from the waiting-room as the gangplank was fixed in place, stared frowning as a solemn-faced honor guard came from the vessel first, bearing a coffin, by the looks of it a coffin of the most costly make. Walking behind it was a heavy-shouldered, powerfully built man whom she recognized, after a moment, as the Grand Admiral Gialaurys, Septach Melayn’s old friend and companion-in-arms, but a Gialaurys who seemed to have aged a hundred years since she last had seen him at the Castle at the time of Lord Dekkeret’s coronation. His head was bowed, his face was dark and grim. As the procession bearing the coffin went past her, he did not appear to notice her at all. But why should he? If he knew her at all, it was only as one of the innumerable young ladies of the court. And he was obviously so preoccupied with his grief that he could spare no attention for those he passed while coming ashore.

But who is it that is dead? she wondered, looking back at the somber procession as it vanished from view.

And then a familiar voice cried, “Keltryn! Keltryn!”

“Dinitak!”

He had changed, somehow. Not outwardly: he was the same slender, compact man, with the same sun-darkened face and the same look of taut-coiled intensity. But something was different. There was—what?—a kind of grandeur about him now, an almost regal air of attainment and purpose. Keltryn saw it right away. She ran to him, and he opened his arms to her, and she pressed herself tight against him, and the sensation of contact brought warm, good memories to life in her, but there was also, even now, that puzzling sense of changes that had taken place within him.

Of course. He had gone to Zimroel with the Coronal. He had taken part in some kind of terrible struggle against the enemies of the throne.

After a time she stepped back from him and said, “Well, here I am, Dinitak!”

“Here you are, yes. How wonderful that is.”

“And Zimroel—you’ll tell me all about it—?”

“In time. It is a very long story. And there is so much else to tell too.” A curious smile traveled like a flickering flame across his dark features. “I am to be a Power of the Realm, Keltryn. And if you will have me, you will be, like your sister, the consort of a Power.”

The words made no sense at all to her. She stood there, saying them over and over in her mind, and in no way could she draw a meaning from them.

He said, “It is agreed, by Dekkeret and Prestimion and the Lady. I am to wear the helmet, and enter minds as the Lady does, and seek out those who would do harm to others. And with the helmet I am to warn them of the consequences of their actions, and to punish them if they proceed in spite of the warning. The King of Dreams is to be my title; and it will descend to my children, and to my children’s children forever, who will be trained in the helmet’s use. So there will be no more Mandraliscas in the world. You see, then, I am to be a Power. But will you be a Power’s wife, Keltryn?”

“You’re asking me to marry you?” she said, dumfounded.

“If the King of Dreams is to have children who will inherit his tasks, he must have a queen, is that not so?—We will live in Suvrael. That is Prestimion’s decision, not mine, that the new Power must make his home far from those of the other three; but it is not the worst place in the world, Suvrael, and I think you will get used to it much quicker than you think. If you like, we can return to the Castle to be married, or go to the Labyrinth and have Prestimion perform the ceremony, but Dekkeret and I are agreed that it is best for me to go to Suvrael as quickly as I can, in order that I can—”

She was barely listening, and scarcely understanding at all. A Power of the Realm? King of Dreams? Suvrael? It was all whirling madly in her mind.

“Keltryn?” Dinitak said.

“So much—so strange—”

“Tell me this, at least: will you marry me, Keltryn?”

That much she could focus on. There would be time later to comprehend the rest of it, King of Dreams and Suvrael and all of that, and what had happened while he and Dekkeret and the others were over in Zimroel, and whose body it was that Gialaurys had escorted from the ship.

“Yes,” she said, understanding that much. He loves you. He loves you more than you could possibly believe. “Yes, Dinitak, yes, yes, yes, yes!”

Prestimion said, glancing down at the dispatch that had just been brought to him, “Gialaurys has come from Alaisor to Sisivondal with the body, and is setting out on his way back to the Mount. So we will have to set out ourselves for the Castle in a day or two also, Varaile.”

She smiled. “I knew you’d have to find some excuse to get yourself away from the Labyrinth before much longer, Prestimion. I don’t think we’ve ever spent as many consecutive months anywhere as we have since we got back here from Stoien.”

“In truth I’ve grown quite accustomed to life in the Labyrinth, my love. Confalume said I would, sooner or later; and he was right in that, as he was in so many things. It’s when you’re Coronal that you’re a rover. The blood is hot in you, then. The Pontifex prefers a quieter life, and the Labyrinth has a way of growing on one, don’t you think?” He gestured about him with one hand and then the other, indicating all the familiar possessions of their Castle household, everything now comfortably installed in the apartments of the Labyrinth that once had been Confalume’s and now were theirs, and looking as though they had been in place for decades rather than months. “—In any case, it wasn’t my decision to bury Septach Melayn at the Castle. It was Dekkeret’s. To which I gladly defer.”

“He was your friend, Prestimion. And High Spokesman to the Pontifex, as well. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for him to be laid to rest here at the Labyrinth?”

Prestimion shook his head. “He was never a man of the Labyrinth, was Septach Melayn. He came here only out of loyalty to me. Castle Mount was his place, and there he will lie. I will not overrule Dekkeret on that. He died saving Dekkeret’s life; that act alone gives Dekkeret claim on where to bury him.”

He realized that he was speaking quite calmly of these details of Septach Melayn’s burial, as though it were merely some ordinary piece of business of the realm, and for a moment Prestimion actually thought that the pain of his friend’s death might be starting to heal. But then it all came sweeping back upon him, and he grimaced and turned away. His eyes were stinging. That Septach Melayn, of all men, should have been lost in the struggle against Mandralisca—that he should have given up his own life for the sake of ridding the world of that—that—

“Prestimion—” said Varaile, reaching a hand toward him.

He fought to regain his control, and succeeded. “We needn’t discuss this, Varaile. Shouldn’t. Dekkeret has decreed a Castle funeral and a Castle burial, and Gialaurys is bringing him there, and the monument is already being designed, and I will officiate at the ceremony, and so you and I should start packing for our trip up the Glayge. And so be it.”