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 gave 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.
No, not a grand processional, only a state visit to some neighboring cities. But it was certainly a processional, and very grand in its own way. Out through the Dizimaule Gate and down the Grand Calintane Highway the Coronal went, aboard the first of a long succession of ornate royal floaters, and with him went his brothers Abrigant and Teotas and half the high officials of his young administration, the Grand Admiral Gialaurys and the Counsellors Navigorn of Hoikmar and Belditan the younger of Gimkandale and Yegan of Low Morpin, and Septach Melayn’s kinsman Dembitave, Duke of Tidias, and many more. Septach Melayn himself had remained behind as regent at the Castle: it seemed best not to leave the place entirely bereft of its major figures, even for the few weeks of this tour.