Robert Silverberg - The King of Dreams

He was going down and down and down a winding staircase made of planks of some gleaming scarlet wood that floated, like the Vroon, without visible means of support in the middle of the air. It was clear to him that he must be leaving the relatively familiar upper reaches of the Castle now and descending into the auxiliary zones lower on the Mount where the thousands of people whose services were essential to the life of the Castle dwelled: the guards and servitors, gardeners and cooks, archivists and clerks, road-menders and wall-builders and game-keepers, and so on and so on. Neither waking nor dreaming had he spent much time down there. But these levels were part of the Castle too. The Castle, big as it was, grew even greater from year to year. It was like a living creature in that regard. The royal sector of the great building nestled atop the uppermost crags of the Mount, but it had layer upon layer of subterranean vaults beneath, cutting deep into the stony heart of the giant mountain. And also there were the outer zones, sprawling downward for many miles along every face of the Mount’s summit like long trailing arms, extending themselves farther down the slope all the time.

“My lord?” the Vroon called, singing sweetly to him from overhead. “This way! This way!”

Puffy-faced Hjorts lined his path now, bowing officiously, and great thick-furred Skandars made the starburst salute with all the dizzying multiplicity their four arms afforded, and whistling greetings came to him from reptilian Ghayrogs, and flat-faced three-eyed little Liimen acknowledged him also, as did a phalanx of pale haughty Su-Suheris folk—representatives of all the alien races that shared vast Majipoor with its human masters. There were Metamorphs here as well, it seemed, long-legged slinking beings who slipped in and out of the shadows on every side. What, Prestimion wondered, were they doing on Castle Mount, where the aboriginal species had been forbidden since the long-ago days of Lord Stiamot?

“And now come this way,” said the Vroon, leading him into a building that was like a castle within the castle, a hotel of some sort with thousands of rooms arranged along a single infinitely receding hallway that uncoiled endlessly before him like a highway to the stars; but the Vroon was a Vroon no longer.

This was the version of the dream that Prestimion most dreaded.

There had been a transformation. His guide now was dark-haired Lady Thismet, daughter to the Coronal Lord Confalume and twin sister to Prince Korsibar, Thismet whom he had loved and lost so long ago. As buoyant as the Vroon and just as swift, she danced along before him with her bare toes a few inches above the ground, remaining always just out of his reach, turning now and then to urge him along with a luminous smile, a wink of her dark sparkling eyes, a quick encouraging flutter of her fingertips. Her matchless beauty speared through him like a blade. “Wait for me!” he called, and she answered that he must move more quickly. But, fast as he went, she was always faster, a slim lithe figure in a rippling white gown, her gleaming jet-black hair fanning out in back of her as she retreated from him down that unending hall. “This-met!” he cried. “Wait, Thismet! Wait! Wait! Wait!” He was running with desperate fervor now, pushing himself to the last extreme of his endurance. Ahead of him, doors were opening on either side of the endless corridor; faces peered out, grinned, winked, beckoned to him. They were Thismet too, every one of them, Thismet again and again, hundreds of Thismets, thousands, but as he came to each room in turn its door slammed shut, leaving him only the tinkling laughter of the Thismet behind it. And still the Thismet who was guiding him moved forward serenely, constantly turning to lure him onward, but never letting him catch up.

“Thismet! Thismet! Thismet!”

His voice became a tremendous clamoring roar of agony and rage and frustration.

“My lord?”

“Thismet! Thismet!”

“My lord, are you ill? Speak to me! Open your eyes, my lord! It’s me, me, Diandolo! Wake up, my lord. Please, my lord—”

“This—met—”

The lights were on now. Prestimion, blinking, dazed, saw the young page Diandolo bending over the bed, wide-eyed, gaping at him in shock. Other figures were visible behind him, four, five, six people: bodyguards, servitors, others whose faces were completely unfamiliar. He struggled to come fully up out of sleep.

The sturdy figure of Falco now appeared, nudging Diandolo aside, bending forward over Prestimion. He was Prestimion’s steward on all his official travels, twenty-five or so, a fine strapping fellow from Minimool with an enviable head of thick glossy black hair, a wonderfully melodious singing voice, and a bright-eyed look of invincible good cheer.

“It was only a dream you were having, my lord.”

Prestimion nodded. His chest and arms were drenched with sweat. His throat felt rough and raw from the force of his own outcries. There was a fiery band of pain across his forehead. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “It was—only—a—dream—”

Three of Varaile’s four children were waiting for her in the morning-room when she entered it. They rose as she entered. It was the family custom for them to take the first meal of the day with her.

Prince Taradath, the eldest, was accompanying his father on his current journey, and therefore it was the second son, Prince Akbalik, who formally escorted Varaile to her seat. He was twelve, and already tall and sturdy: he had inherited his father’s yellow hair and powerful build, but he had his mother’s height. In two or three years he would be taller than either of his parents. His soft eyes and thoughtful manner, though, belied his stature and heft: he was destined to be a scholar, or perhaps a poet, most definitely not any sort of athlete or warrior.

Prince Simbilon, ten years old, still round-faced in a babyish way, terribly solemn of demeanor—priggish, even—elaborately offered Varaile the tray of fruits that was her usual first course. But the Lady Tuanelys, who was eight and had a conspicuous lack of interest in the routines of politeness, gave her mother nothing more than the quickest of nods and returned to her seat at the table, and to the plate piled high with cheese covered with honey that she had already provided for herself. It was folly to expect courtesy from Tuanelys. She was a pretty child, with a lovely cloud of golden hair that she wore in a beaded net, and finely sculpted features that foretold the feminine beauty that would be hers in six or seven more years; but her lean little body was as straight and long as a strap, just now. She was a runner, a climber, a fighter, a tomboy in every way.

“Did you sleep well, mother?” Prince Akbalik asked.

“As ever. And yourself?”

But it was Tuanelys who answered. “I dreamed of a place where all the trees grew upside down, mother. Their leaves were in the ground and their roots stuck up into the sky. And the birds—”

“Mother was speaking to Akbalik, child,” said Prince Simbilon loftily.

“Yes. But Akbalik never has anything interesting to say. And neither do you, Simbilon.” The Lady Tuanelys stuck her tongue out at him. Simbilon reddened, but would not respond. Fiorinda, watching the family scene from one side, began to giggle.

Akbalik now said, as though there had been no interruption, “I slept very well, mother.” And began to tell her of his schedule for the day, the classes in history and epic poetry in the morning and the archery lesson that afternoon, as though they were events of the greatest importance to the world. When he was done, Prince Simbilon spoke at length of his own busy day to come, punctuated twice by requests from the Lady Tuanelys to pass her serving-dishes of food. Tuanelys had nothing else to say at all. She rarely did. Her life just now seemed almost entirely focused on swimming; she spent hours each day, as much time as she could steal from her schooling, racing fiendishly back and forth in the pool in the east-wing gymnasium like a frenzied little cambeliot. There was something manic about the intensity with which she swam her laps. Her instructor said she had to be halted after a certain time lest she swim herself into exhaustion, because she would never stop of her own accord.