Getting below was not difficult, once Izzy had evaded the notice of cousins, aunts and uncles, servitors, guards under arms, priests, shamans, keepers of this and stalwarts of that, official cranks and mutterers, kitchen people, scullery maids, serfs, herdsmen—the whole feudal bit, which Izzy felt all sensible peoples had no doubt gone through often enough to have down pat by now. Once he knew himself to be absolutely alone, he went to the nearest secret door—in this case, a large chest in the scullery (used to store firewood when used at all)—where he lifted the false bottom, crawled down a dusty tunnel into a spidery hallway, and trotted a lengthy distance across rotting floorboards to the creaking metal cage where, with the press of a timeworn button, he was lowered below. Once there, he went in search of Old Mock, finding him, as he often did, sitting in a vagrant ray of sunlight on a bench, drowsing over a book.
“Halloo,” called Izzy, when he was still some distance away.
“Umph,” replied Old Mock, coming to himself with a start. “If it isn’t the Prince of Palmia, Lord of the Four Realms, Duke of Isher and Fan-Kyu Cyndly, Horselord of the Mellow Marches. How’s your kingdom?”
“I’m not Lord of the Four Realms yet. I won’t be until I reach my majority, assuming I ever do. As for Isher and Fan-Kyu and the Mellow Marches, Uncle Goffio is keeping track of them for me. I have no very clear idea how they’re getting on.”
“What are you doing here on such a fine morning?”
“I’ve come about my prophecy,” said Izzy rather grumpily. “And how do you know it’s a fine morning?”
Old Mock gestured at the ray of sun. “There’s a hole up there. I think it comes out near the stables, as sometimes there’s a very horsey smell when the wind’s from the west. When it’s raining, it drips. When it’s snowing or hailing, it emits hydrometeors of various other sorts. When it’s a fine morning, it gives me sunlight.” He snuffled, digging into his pockets in search of a handkerchief. “And, of course, when I feel like it, I do go outside. We’re not prisoners here, you know.”
Izzy nodded, seating himself on the bench. “I know you go out scrivening,” he said.
“Right. Anytime anything happens up there, there’s bound to be a scrivener, making a record. Nobody pays any attention to scriveners.”
Izzy thought about this in companionable silence, asking at last, “Did you scriven a record of my prophecy?”
“Oh, I should think so,” said Old Mock, getting up to go rummage in a tall armoire that stood against the stone wall. “I keep such things in here, once they’ve been put in the machines. Here we are…no. Wrong thing. That’s an account of the twenty-year drought in Isfoin. Let’s see. Fishery information on the Crawling Sea; list of succession of Farsakian emperors; reports of climatic anomalies in the shore counties…this one looks likely. It’s on parchment, of course. I do wish someone would reinvent paper.”
“You could do it yourself,” suggested Izzy, taking the parchment scroll and unrolling it on his knees. “What language is this in?”
“Palmian, of course. You’ve got it upside down.”
Flushing, Izzy reversed the scroll. “‘Theyn dyd the mydwyve speake to alle those asseymblet….’ What mydwyve?”
“The midwife who delivered you. She carried you out onto the castle balcony, showed you to the crowd assembled below, and said, ‘This is the prince of Palmia, who before his majority shall solve the Great Enigma or die with all posterity.’”
“I’ll bet my parents loved that,” said Izzy.
“Not really, no. They banished the old woman. We kept track of her, of course. She ended up down south of Isfoin somewhere, telling the bones for travelers.”
“What business did she have prophesying, anyhow?”
“She was only a part-time midwife. By profession she was a seeress. One of the Sworpian Society of Seeresses. They used to be sorceresses, years ago, before Faros VII made sorcery illegal. When Faros VII conquered Sworp, all the sorceresses changed professions.”
“That was sensible of them.”
“Very.” Old Mock stared up into his ray of sun, humming a little under his breath.
“It raises a question I’ve been interested in for some time,” mused Izzy. “Now this prophecy is magic; you know it and I know it, and we both believe there’s something to it. I’ve learned magic. I can do some of it rather well. Why is it that in every cycle, people start out able to do magic, and then as time progresses, they are unable to do it anymore?”
“Ah, well,” answered old Mock, “I’ve always supposed it had to do with the nature of miracles.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Consider, Prince Izakar: in the universe of all things that could happen, there are some events with vanishingly small probability of happening. Still, occasionally, things do happen which have a very small probability, and these things are called miracles. Some of them are quite nice, like instantaneous cures for incurable diseases or escapes from certain death. Some are quite nasty, like rains of frogs.
“Obviously, since the probabilities are so limited, the supply of natural miracles is always small. Magic is a system for tapping into the miraculous, that is, of changing the probability that certain things will occur, of bending certain natural forces in order to influence probability itself.
“As time goes on, however, people learn that things they thought were impossible are, in fact, merely improbable and they learn to make improbable things happen through technology, until the time comes when no one believes in magic anymore because all the improbable things are being done by machines.”
Izzy kicked the bench with his heels, sending a small cataract of dust cascading to the floor. “How probable is it I’m going to solve this Great Enigma thing? With or without magic?”
Old Mock hummed for a time. “I really couldn’t say. It has all the aspects of a standard hero test. Hero tests take the form of labors, or riddles, or quests, and this is probably a quest. There are many kinds of quests: people go hunting lost jewels or books or heirs to the throne or swords….” He cocked his head. “The sword is a favorite thing to quest for. The very word is ancient. In the very ancient language of Avestan it was called svart, swart, savord. It’s phallic, of course, which probably explains why it is so often sought after.”
“I see no reason whatsoever that my phallus would be either sought after or referred to as a Great Enigma,” said Izzy somewhat stiffly. “A small enigma, to be sure, of interest only to myself. Why should we think a sword has anything at all to do with this quest?”
“No reason,” said Old Mock, rubbing his chin. “I just thought the possibility was interesting.”
“Another thing,” said Izzy. “Why is it that quests always take place in feudal ages like this one, with horses and misty mountains and banners blowing across a sullen sky? Are there no quests undertaken in sunny meadows, among pretty girls, in conditions of high technology?”
“Obviously, a magical quest requires a setting like ours, in which magic itself has evolved into a nice complicated thing with lots of lore, but before technology makes magic unnecessary! Lore is interesting. Technology is merely complicated.” Old Mock regarded Izzy’s sullen face for a time. “You might read up on quests,” he suggested at last. “Though you’ve left it rather late.”
“I’ve already read up on them. Most of them take at least a three-book to recount, and some of them are called cycles and go on volume after volume. I don’t have time to go on volume after volume, as you yourself just pointed out. I shall reach my majority soon, and I have to solve the Great Enigma before then.”
“You have three or four years,” soothed Old Mock.
Izzy sighed. “That may not be long enough. Look, if this is a quest, can we assume the standard quest conditions will prevail? Will I find companions for the trip? Will I receive coded clues and mysterious directions? Will I meet with various roadblocks and dangers? Will I inevitably triumph?”
Old Mock sighed deeply. “I don’t think you can assu
me so, Prince Izakar. In the quest books, virtue almost always triumphs, or sometimes bravado does reasonably well, but in real life, as common sense will tell you, evil wins out a good deal of the time.”
“That leaves bravado,” said Izzy in a grumpy voice.
“Your cousins are living—or dead—proof that bravado often ends up with a broken head. All we know for sure is that a member of the Sworpian Society of Seers became aware of something she called the Great Enigma. Now, the seer may have found this thing, or she may have invented it, or discovered a reference to it, or seen it in a vision of the future. She may have taken this thing and hidden it, or left it where it was, or she, the seeress, may be as much in the dark about it as we are. Whatever is true about the Great Enigma, you are somehow connected to it.”
“That’s not very helpful.”
“I have very little help to offer. It would seem to me, however, that since your midwife was a seeress, and since she came from Sworp, your quest might well begin in Sworp. It is perhaps no coincidence that your mother’s people came from there, as well.”
“The Gershons,” said Izzy. “Yes.”
“You might use that machine over there,” said Old Mock in his kindliest voice. “The maintenance team has just been at it, and it’s working quite well.”
He went back to his book while Izzy seated himself at the console and summoned up whatever it was the library knew about Sworp. A country to the west of the Crawling Sea. Capital city: the town of Gulp on the River Guzzle. Ruled by the emperor’s nephew, Fasal Grun. Fasal Grun was of the ersuniel tribe, but Sworp was home to a varied people, all of whom were described, none of whom were pictured. Not for the first time, Izzy wished for pictures of people. At the end of the last cycle there had been a great purge of the machines, in an effort, said Mock, to remove harmful knowledge, and though the machines still held many pictures of ancient places and things, it contained no pictures of people. Back three millennia ago, the various religions had forbidden graven images along with certain ideas, and the machines had been programmed to exclude them.
Still, one knew the people were not terribly unlike people today. They lived in many of the same ways. Some ancient people had been very religious, building huge structures, some of them as tall aboveground as the library was deep below. These had been called cathedrals, and in most of them the level of craftsmanship was higher than anything Izzy’s world had as yet reattained. Of course, Bubblism would not serve as a foundation for such elaborate structures. What point was there in beginning a building which might take 500 years to finish when everything was going pop before then?
Which was, said Old Mock, one of the chief attractions of eschatological religions. When one’s world was impermanent, difficult endeavors, like procuring justice or balancing the ecology, need never be attempted. One need only make contributions to the ascendant hierarchy, cast one’s eyes heavenward with an awed and anticipatory expression, while continuing to behave as selfishly as one liked. When everything is going to go pop, one needn’t bother to provide for or preserve for the grandchildren.
“Finding anything?” asked Old Mock from his bench.
“Nothing useful,” said Izzy. “I guess there’s no help for it. I’m just going to have to start out.”
“Find someone to go with you,” said Old Mock. “It’s always better traveling with companions. And to answer your earlier question, I think you should plan on using magic. Without it, your chance of success is probably short of miraculous. A little intuition might not be amiss, either.”
Izzy nodded, gave the old man a dusty hug, and found his way back into the daily life of the castle above. It was too late in the day to start recruiting companions, so he had a bath, then a good night’s sleep, and only on the morrow did he get himself onto a bald-tailed, ewenecked, hammer-headed horse called Flinch and ride out of the castle gate. Izzy often rode Flinch because he ran very fast when frightened, and he frightened very easily.
He had determined to begin the search in Palmody, the town that began just outside the castle walls and ended up at the wharves along the river. The nearest houses were occupied by those in daily contact with the castle: the armorers and the bishops and the nobility. Farther down the hill were the persons of lesser involvement, the wine merchants and the fabric importers, and in the town itself were the homes of the emerging middle class, the guilds and merchants, purveyors of leather and pots and grain and whatall. Izzy had been riding about in Palmody town since he was about seven; he knew the place well and got along with its inhabitants. He had the touch, said Uncle Goffio, just common enough to seem friendly but allowing no presumption. Noblesse oblige, but not too damned far.
The inn was at one side of the village square, and it was in that direction that Izzy urged his fidgety horse. He had barely entered the square when he caught the unmistakable chatter of umminhi, large and impressive animals, their breeders’ tags gleaming, tied by their silver collars to a tree on the far side of the square amid a cluster of kapric handlers and pheledian guards. Nearer the tavern stood a group of riders, among them a large pheled with two VIPs, one greater and one lesser.
Smiling in friendly fashion, Izzy trotted forward to offer his services.
7
Opalears: Nassif Continues
We arrived in the town of Palmody, left the animals in the care of the handlers while Soaz, Sahir and I headed toward the tavern. We had barely crossed the square when we were accosted by a young person dressed in rather eccentric clothing and riding a very peculiar horse. He was ponjic, like myself. “Welcome, travelers,” he said, offering his hand, which I took, though somewhat at a loss. I gave him our names as I had been instructed to do by Prince Sahir, leaving out any honorifics. He introduced himself as Prince Izakar of Palmia, though he looked most unlike a prince, and he offered us the hospitality of the nearby tavern in return, so he said, for news of the country we had ridden through.
We went in. The three of us sat down at a table near the window while Soaz joined our guardsmen at another table. I asked for tea. Sahir asked for wine, as did our host.
“Where are you headed?” Izakar asked.
After a glance at Sahir, I replied, “We are going to the Hospice at St. Weel.”
“Ah,” said Izakar. “May one inquire the reason for your travel, or is it confidential?”
Prince Sahir gave me a look, as though to say, “Who does this person think he is?” but he replied, nonetheless. “My health has not been good. We in Tavor have been told of remarkable cures at St. Weel.”
“A long journey for a doubtful result,” remarked Izakar, taking a deep swallow of wine.
“He’s feeling much better already,” I remarked testily.
“The fresh air, no doubt,” said Izakar. “And escaping from the vexations of the court. If your court is like mine…”
“I cannot imagine that it is,” said Sahir, in a lofty tone. “If I had a court, which I do not admit to having, I cannot imagine that it would allow me to ride, for example, such an exceedingly ugly horse.”
“Flinch,” said Izakar, unperturbed by Sahir’s manner. “Who can run like the wind. Faster even than umminhi. Besides, umminhi do not breed well at this altitude.”
It was not a word I had heard before. “Altitude?” I asked.
“This far up in the mountains. If you come from Tavor, you have climbed the Little Stonies, you have crossed the Wycos plateau and the River Roq—by the bridge, I should think, this time of year—and have then ascended the Big Stonies before coming down into Palmia. While we are lower than the surrounding lands, we are much higher than Tavor. Though you have traveled slowly enough to minimize the effects, you may notice a slight breathlessness.”
“I have noticed,” said Sahir. “But you say horses can be bred in these mountains.”
“Ours can, certainly. They are of very old mountain stock,” said Izzy. “From many cy—that is, generations in the past. We sell the larger breeds as mounts and the lighter as chariot
horses to Farsak, as a matter of fact. Horses are among our more lucrative trade goods.”
“We will no doubt encounter Farsakian authorities on the way to St. Weel,” said Sahir. “Are we likely to have trouble?”
Izakar shrugged. “Faros VII considers Palmia a tributary province, but we are allowed to keep our own religion and customs. You will go through our province of Isher, which is Bandercranian, a sect of Ghotianism, and through our province of Fan-Kyu, which is Halfish, a similar sect.”
“I do not know these religions,” said Sahir.
Izzy settled himself comfortably, as though for a protracted lecture on the subject. “The Bandercranians teach that Ghoti’s son Bandercran cares for this particular bubble, that in year three hundred two he was hatched inside this bubble from an egg laid by a virgin trout—as, indeed, all trout are, so to speak—and has thereafter appeared off the coast of various cities in the guise of a merperson or hemi-ghoti to preach a doctrine of Good Thinking. Since even so early as the fourth century the Ghotian hierarchy did not approve of thinking, they executed Bandercran, first bodily, by netting him and whacking him to death, then intellectually, by denying that he was the real Bandercran, and finally spiritually, by consistently misrepresenting his teachings. Nonetheless, so the Bandercranians teach, the hemi-ghoti has reemerged into the ocean of light and rises each day as the sun in our sky to inspire persons with Good Thoughts. If there are sufficient Good Thoughts, Bandercran may convince Ghoti to forget hell.”
“And the Halfishers?” I asked.
“Though the Bandercranians teach that Good Thoughts are all-important, the Halfishers teach that Bandercran does not care if people deviate from thinking good thoughts so long as they spend much of their waking time committing Correct Actions. Correct Actions, according to the Halfishers, include some sensible rules about personal hygiene along with extensive provisions concerning the uses of wheeled vehicles, allowable salad dressings, and a cuisine from which most flavors are relentlessly extirpated.”
The Family Tree Page 10
