“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 wilclass="underline" 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.”
“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.