Lord Prestimion

by Robert Silverberg

  Maundigand-Klimd replied with his disconcerting double nod, but made no other response.

  “There were some who walked as though asleep in the streets, or laughed to themselves, or cried or screamed,” Prestimion said. “A kinsman of Count Fisiolo in Stee calls himself Lord Prestimion, and randomly sinks boats that he meets along the river for his own pleasure. In Hoikmar—” He had with him the three coins that the beggar had pressed into his hand, and, remembering them now, he brought them out and laid them before Maundigand-Klimd. “I had these of a poor sad crazy old man there, who came upon us all eager to sell us a rusty box heavy with good silver royals for a handful of crowns. Look you, Maundigand-Klimd: these coins are thousands of years old. Lord Sirruth, this is, and Lord Guadeloom, and here—”

  The Su-Suheris set the three coins out in a precise row in the palm of his own gaunt white hand. The left head gave Prestimion a quizzical look. “You bought the whole box of them, did you, my lord?”

  “How could I? But we gave him a little money for charity’s sake, and he forced these three on us in return, and turned and fled.”

  “He was not so mad as you suppose, I think. And you did well not to make him an offer. These coins are false.”

  “False?”

  Maundigand-Klimd placed one hand over the other, closing the coins between, and held them that way for a time. “I can feel the vibration of their atoms,” he said. “These coins have cores of bronze, and just a thin wash of silver over them. I could easily scrape through to the base metal with my fingernail. How likely is it that Lord Sirruth’s ten-royal pieces had bronze cores?” The Su-Suheris handed back the coins. “There are madmen galore roaming the world, my lord, but your poor old man of Hoikmar is not one of them. A simple swindler is all he is.”

  “There’s some comfort in that,” Prestimion said, in as light a tone as he could manage just then. “At least there’s one out there who still has his wits!—But where’s all this madness coming from, do you suppose? Septach Melayn says it may be connected with the obliteration. That there’s a vacuum in people’s minds where the memories of the war once were, and strange things go rushing in when vacuums are created.”

  “I find a degree of wisdom in that notion, my lord. On a certain day some months past I felt what I thought of as an emptiness entering me, though I had no idea of its cause. As it happened I was strong enough to withstand its effects. Others evidently are not so fortunate.”

  A pang of guilt and shame seared through Prestimion at the Su-Suheris sorcerer’s words. Could it be? Was the whole world to be infected with madness because of his spur-of-the-moment decision on the battlefield at Thegomar Edge?

  No, he thought. No. No. No. Septach Melayn’s theory is wrong. These are isolated, random instances. A world of many billions of people will always have a great many madmen among those billions. It is only coincidence that so much of this is coming to our attention just now.

  “Be that as it may,” Prestimion said, pushing back his discomfort, “we’ll look into the truth of it at some other time. Meanwhile: I’ll shortly be leaving the Castle again for some weeks, or even months, to make formal visits to several of the cities of the Mount. The unfinished matter of Dantirya Sambail has to be dealt with before I go.”

  “And what is your pleasure, my lord?”

  “You spoke not long ago of giving him back his memory of the civil war,” Prestimion said. “Can such a thing actually be done?”

  “Any spell can be reversed by the one who cast it.”

  “It was Heszmon Gorse of Triggoin, and his father Gominik Halvor. But they have gone off to their home in the north, and would be many weeks in returning if I summoned them back now. And in any case they themselves no longer have any inkling of what it was I asked them to do.”

  A flicker of surprise crossed Maundigand-Klimd’s faces. “Is that so, my lord?”

  “The obliteration was complete, Maundigand-Klimd. Septach Melayn and Gialaurys and I were the only ones excepted from it. And since the day it was done you are the only one who’s been told that it happened.”

  “Ah.”

  “I’m not eager to allow knowledge of it into the possession of anyone else, not even Gominik Halvor and his son. But Dantirya Sambail was the prime agent of the usurpation, and for that he has to be punished, and it’s evil to punish a man for something he doesn’t know he’s done. I want to see some shred of remorse from him before I pronounce sentence. Or some awareness, at the very least, that he deserves what I intend to impose on him. Tell me this, Maundigand-Klimd: could you undo the obliteration in him?”

  The Su-Suheris took a moment to reply.

  “Quite probably I could, my lord.”

  “You hesitated. Why?”

  “I was contemplating the consequences of doing such a thing, and I saw—well, certain ambiguities.”

  Prestimion gave him a puzzled frown. “Make yourself perfectly clear, Maundigand-Klimd.”

  Another brief pause. “Do you know how I see into the future, my lord?”

  “How could I possibly know that?”

  “Let me explain it, then.” The Su-Suheris touched his right hand to his right forehead, and then to the other one. “Alone among all intelligent species of the known universe, my lord, my race is constructed with a double mind. Not a double identity, despite our custom of carrying a pair of names apiece; merely a double mind. One self divided between two brain-cases. I may speak with this mouth or that, as I please; I may turn this head, or that one, to observe something; but I am a single self none the less. Each brain has the capacity to carry on an independent train of thought. But they are also capable of joining in a united effort.”

  “Indeed,” said Prestimion, scarcely understanding at all, and mystified by where this might be heading.

  “Do you think, lordship, that our insight into things to come is brought about by lighting incense and muttering incantations, invoking demons and dark forces, and such? No, my lord. That is not how it is done by us. Such folk as the geomancers of Tidias may rely on such methods, yes, their bronze tripods and colored powders, their chanting, their spells. But not us.” He passed one hand, long fingers outspread, before both his faces. “We establish a linkage between one mind and the other. A vortex, if you will: a whirlpool of tension as the neural forces meet and swirl round each other. And in that vortex we are thrust forward along the river of time. We are given glimpses of what lies ahead.”

  “Reliable glimpses?”

  “Usually, my lord.”

  Prestimion tried to imagine what it was like. “You see actual scenes of the future? The faces of people? You hear the words they speak?”

  “No, nothing like that,” said Maundigand-Klimd. “It’s far less concrete and specific, my lord. It is a subjective thing, a matter of impressions, inferences, subtle sensations, intuitions. Insight into probabilities. There’s no way I could make you really understand. One must experience it. And that—”

  “Is impossible for someone who has only one head. All right, Maundigand-Klimd. At least it sounds rational to me. You know I have a bias in favor of rationality, don’t you? I’m not truly comfortable with the sorcery of incantations and aromatic powders, and I don’t expect I ever will be. But there’s an aspect of science, or something like science, in what you say. A telepathic communion of your two minds—a temporal vortex, a whirlpool that carries your perceptions forward in time—that’ s easier for me to swallow than the whole superstitious rigmarole of ammatepilas and pentagrams and magical amulets.—So tell me, Maundigand-Klimd: What do you see, when you cast the auguries for restoring the Procurator’s lost memories?”

  Again that little moment of hesitation. “A multitude of forking paths.”

  “I can see that much myself,” Prestimion said. “What I need to know is where those paths lead.”

  “Some, to complete success in all your endeavors. Some to trouble. Some to great trouble. And then there are some whose destinations are utterly unclear.”
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  “This is not helpful, Maundigand-Klimd.”

  “There are sorcerers who will tell a prince whatever he wishes to hear. I am not one of those, my lord.”

  “I understand that, and I’m grateful for it.” Prestimion let out his breath in a soft whistling sound.—“Give me a reasonable assessment of risk, at least. I feel the moral necessity of making Dantirya Sambail’s mind intact again as a prerequisite to passing sentence on him. Do you see anything inherently dangerous in that?”

  “Not if he remains your prisoner until the sentence is carried out, my lord,” said Maundigand-Klimd.

  “You’re certain of that?”

  “I have no doubt.”

  “Well, then. That sounds good enough for me. Let’s go to the tunnels and pay him a little visit.”

  The Procurator was in a far less amiable mood than on the occasion of his last interview with Prestimion. Obviously the additional weeks of confinement had told on his patience and temper: there was nothing in the least affable or jovial about the basilisk glance that he gave Prestimion now. And when the Su-Suheris entered his cell a moment after the Coronal, stooping low to negotiate the arching entrance, Dantirya Sambail looked altogether vitriolic.

  Along with rage, though, there seemed to be a certain expression of fear in his amethyst-hued eyes. Prestimion had never before seen the slightest flicker of dismay on the Procurator’s features: he was a man of utter self-confidence, ever in command of his soul. But the sight of Maundigand-Klimd appeared to have shaken that command now.

  “What is this, Prestimion?” Dantirya Sambail asked acidly. “Why do you bring this alien monstrosity into my lair?”

  “You do him an injustice with such harsh words,” said Prestimion. “This is Maundigand-Klimd, high magus to the court, a man of science and learning. He’s here to repair your injured mind, cousin, and bring you back to full consciousness of certain deeds that have been stripped from your recollections.”

  The Procurator’s eyes went bright as flame. “Aha! You admit it then, that you tampered with my mind! Which you denied, Prestimion, on your last visit.”

  “I never denied it. I simply made no reply when you accused me of it. Well, cousin, you were indeed tampered with, and I regret that now. I come here today to see that it’s undone. And we will now proceed.—How will you go about this, Maundigand-Klimd?”

  Fury and terror in equal proportion made Dantirya Sambail’s fleshy face redden and swell. His great spreading nostrils widened like yawning chasms and his eyes shrank down to slits, so that their strange beauty was concealed and only his malevolence could be seen. He shrank back against the green-glowing wall of the cavernous cell, making angry throttling gestures with his hands as though defying the Su-Suheris to approach him. Something like a snarl came from his throat.

  But that ugly sound died away suddenly into a placid murmur, and his puffed-up features relaxed, and his meaty shoulders slumped and went slack. He stood as though bewildered before the looming form of the towering sorcerer and made no further attempt at resistance.

  Prestimion had no idea what kind of transaction was passing between the two of them. But it seemed clear that one was in progress. Maundigand-Klimd’s heads stood forward in eerie rigidity at the summit of the long massive column that was his neck. The two tapering skulls appeared to be touching, or almost so, along their crests. Something invisible but undeniably real hovered in the air between the Su-Suheris and Dantirya Sambail. There was a terrible crackling silence in the room. There was a sense of almost unbearable tension.

  Then the tension broke; and Maundigand-Klimd stepped back, nodding that weird double nod of his in what looked very much like satisfaction.

  Dantirya Sambail seemed stunned.

  He took a couple of staggering steps backward and slipped limply into a chaise along the wall, where he sat slumped for a moment with his head in his hands. But quickly the formidable strength of the man appeared to be reasserting itself. He looked up; gradually the old demonic power returned to his expression; he smiled ferociously at Prestimion, the clearest sign that he was his full self again, and said, “It was a close thing, I see, that day by Thegomar Edge. A little better aim with that axe and I’d be Coronal right now instead of a prisoner in these tunnels of yours.”

  “The Divine guided me that day, cousin. You were never meant to be Coronal.”

  “And were you, Prestimion?”

  “Lord Confalume, at least, thought so. Thousands of good men died to back his choice. All of whom would be alive today, but for your villainies.”

  “Am I such a villain? If that’s the case, then so were Korsibar and his magus Sanibak-Thastimoon. Not to mention your friend the Lady Thismet, cousin.”

  “The Lady Thismet lived long enough to see the error of her ways, and amply demonstrated her repentance,” said Prestimion coolly. “Sanibak-Thastimoon had his punishment on the battlefield at the hands of Septach Melayn. Korsibar was a mere dupe; and in any event he’s dead also. Of the shapers of the insurrection, cousin, you’re the only one who lives on to contemplate the foolishness and wickedness and shameful wastefulness of the entire infamous thing. Contemplate it now. The opportunity to do so is yours.”

  “Foolishness, Prestimion? Wickedness? Wastefulness?” Dantirya Sambail laughed a great boisterous laugh. “The foolishness was yours, and bloody foolishness it was, at that. The wickedness and the wastefulness: they were yours as well, not any of my doing. You talk of insurrection, do you? That was your insurrection, not Korsibar’s. Korsibar was Coronal, not you! He had been crowned in this very Castle; he was on the throne! And you and your two henchmen willingly chose to launch a rebellion against him, to the cost of how many lives, I could not begin to tell you!”

  “You believe that, do you?”

  “It was nothing but the truth.”

  “I won’t argue the legalities with you, Dantirya Sambail. You know as well as I that a Coronal’s son does not succeed his father. Korsibar simply grabbed the throne, with your encouragement, and Sanibak-Thastimoon bamboozled old Confalume with some wizardly hypnosis to make him accept it.”

  “And it would have been better off for everyone, Prestimion, if you’d let things stand that way. Korsibar was an idiot, but he was a good uncomplicated man who would have run things in the proper way, or at least would have let those who know how to run things in the proper way do so without interference. Whereas you, determined to put your mark on every little thing, determined in your pathetic boyish fashion to be a Great Coronal Who Will Be Remembered in History, will manage to bring the whole world down into calamity and ruin by insistently getting in the way of—”

  “Enough,” Prestimion said. “I understand completely how you would have liked the world to be run. And have devoted several difficult years of my life to making certain that it isn’t going to happen that way.” He shook his head. “You feel no remorse at all, do you, Dantirya Sambail?”

  “Remorse? For what?”

  “Well done. You’ve condemned yourself out of your own mouth. And therefore I find you guilty of acts of high treason, cousin, and hereby sentence you—”

  “Guilty? What about a trial? Where’s my accuser? Who speaks in my defense? Do we have a jury?”

  “I am your accuser. You choose not to speak in your own defense, and no one else will. Nor is there need of a jury, though I can call in Septach Melayn and Gialaurys, if you prefer.”

  “Very amusing. What will you do, Prestimion, have my head cut off before a mob in the Dizimaule Plaza? That’ll put you into the history books, all right! A public execution, the first one in—what? Ten thousand years? Followed, of course, by a civil war, as all of irate Zimroel rises against the tyrannical Coronal who dared to put the legitimate and anointed Procurator of Ni-moya to death for reasons that he was entirely unable to explain.”

  “I should put you to death, yes, and damn the consequences, Dantirya Sambail. But that’s not what I plan to do. I lack the necessary barbarity.” Prestimion ga
ve Dantirya Sambail a piercing look. “I pardon you of the capital crimes of which you are guilty. You are, however, stripped forever of the title of Procurator, and deprived for the rest of your life of all authority beyond the confines of your own estate, though I leave you your lands and wealth.”

  Dantirya Sambail gazed at him through half-closed eyelids. “That is very kind of you, Prestimion.”

  “There’s something more, cousin. Your soul’s a cesspool of poisonous thoughts. That must be altered, and will be, before I can allow you to leave the Castle and return to your home across the sea.—Maundigand-Klimd, would it be possible, do you think, to adjust this man’s mind in such a way as to make him a more benign citizen? To strip him of wrath and envy and hatred as I’ve just stripped him of rank and power, and send him out into the world a more decent person?”

  “For the love of the Divine, Prestimion! I’d rather you cut off my head,” bellowed Dantirya Sambail.

  “Yes, I believe you would. You’ll be a total stranger to yourself, won’t you, once all that foul venom has been pumped out of you?—What do you say, Maundigand-Klimd? Can it be done?”

  “I think it can, yes, my lord.”

  “Good. Get about it, then, as quickly as you can. Wipe away these memories of the civil war that you’ve just restored, now that he has seen what he did to merit the sentence I pronounced—wipe those away now, immediately—and then do what you must to transform him into a being fit for life in civilized society. I’ll be leaving very soon, you know, on a journey to Peritole and Strave and several other cities of the Mount. I want this man rendered harmless, and I want it done quickly.—And after I’ve come back, Dantirya Sambail, we’ll have one more little chat, and if I decide then that I can take the risk of setting you free, why, free you’ll surely be! Is that not kind of me, cousin? And merciful, and loving?”

  12

  It was not a grand processional, not in the strict sense of the term, for that would have required him to let himself be seen in the farthest-flung regions of the realm, not merely the cities of Alhanroel but also those of the other continents, places he knew of only in the sketchiest way, Pidruid and Narabal and Til-omon on Zimroel’s far coast, and Tolaghai and Natu Gorvinu, at least, in burning Suvrael. The full journey would take years. It was too soon in his reign for such a prolonged absence from Castle Mount.