But Prestimion merely shook his head. Grim thoughts assailed him. Yes, the battle itself where so many had died had been of Korsibar’s making. Navigorn’s baffling dreams, though, his spasms of agony, his inner confusion long after the event, all of that was part of the new madness, and who was responsible for that if not Prestimion himself? This madness was something that his sorcerers had conjured upon the world at his behest, though he had not known it would happen.
Abrigant broke suddenly into Prestimion’s meditation while they waited for Navigorn to return. “Brother, will you be going down yourself into the south-country to look for the Procurator, as you went east?”
Prestimion was startled at that, because the thought had only just been forming in his own mind. But they were of one flesh, he and Abrigant, and often of the same mind as well. He said with a grin, “I might very well do that. It will need discussion before the full Council, of course. But his majesty the Pontifex has requested my presence at the Labyrinth, and he is right to so request; and as long as I’ve gone that far south, I’ll probably continue on toward Stoien in the hope of finding—”
“You speak of the full Council,” said Septach Melayn. “While Navigorn is out of the room, let me ask this, Prestimion : suppose some member of the Council—Serithorn, say, or my cousin Dembitave—demands from you outright to know why it is that Dantirya Sambail happens to be a fugitive whom you’re hunting from one end of Alhanroel to another? What would you say to him, then?”
“Simply that he has given grave offense against the law and against the person of the Coronal.”
“And you will offer no explanatory details of any sort?”
“I remind you, Septach Melayn, he is Coronal,” said Gialaurys irascibly. “He can do as he pleases.”
“Ah, no, good friend,” said Septach Melayn. “He is king, yes, but not a tyrant absolute. He’s subject to the decrees of the Pontifex as are we all, and he is accountable in some degree to the Council as well. Decreeing a great potentate like Dantirya Sambail to be a criminal, and giving no reason for it to his own Council—not even a Coronal can do that.”
“You know why he must,” Gialaurys said.
“Yes. Because there is one great fact that has been withheld from all the world, excepting only the five of us who are here, and Teotas who is not.” And Septach Melayn nodded toward Maundigand-Klimd and Abrigant, the two latecomers to the truth of what had happened that day at Thegomar Edge. “But we get deeper and deeper into equivocation and evasion and downright lying the longer we clutch that secret to our bosoms.”
“Let it be, Septach Melayn,” Prestimion said. “I have no answers for these questions of yours, except to say that if the Council presses me too far on the subject of Dantirya Sambail’s unspecified crimes, I will equivocate and evade. And, if necessary, lie. But I like none of this any better than you do.—And now Navigorn’s coming back, so put an end to it.”
Abrigant said, just as Navigorn was entering, “One further thing, brother: if you are going south into Aruachosia, I ask permission to accompany you part of the way.”
“Only part?”
“There is the place called Skakkenoir, which we discussed not long ago, where one can recover useful metals from the stems and leaves of the plants that grow there. It’s in the south, somewhere east of Aruachosia, perhaps even east of Vrist. While you hunt for Dantirya Sambail down there, I would go in search of Skakkenoir.”
In some amusement Prestimion said, “I see that nothing will turn you from this quest. But the metal-bearing plants of Skakkenoir are a wild fantasy, Abrigant.”
“Do we know that, brother? Allow me but to go and look.”
Again Prestimion smiled. Abrigant was a relentless force. “Let’s speak of this later, shall we, Abrigant? This is not the time.—Well, Navigorn, are you recovered? Here, have a bit of this wine. It’ll soothe your soul. Now, as I was just about to say at the moment when Navigorn became ilclass="underline" the Pontifex Confalume has reminded me that I am long overdue to call upon him in his new residence, and therefore—”
That evening, just the two of them dining alone in the Coronal’s apartments, Septach Melayn said to Prestimion, “I see you wrestling with the matter of the great secret we keep, and I know how much anguish it gives you. How are we going to deal with this thing, Prestimion?”
They sat face-to-face in Prestimion’s private dining-alcove, a seven-sided elevated room separated from its surroundings by an ascent of seven steps made of solid beams of black fire-oak, and bedecked by embroidered hangings a thousand years old, silks of many colors interwoven with gold and silver threads, that depicted the sports of hunting and hawking.
“If I had an answer for that,” said Prestimion, “I would have given it to you this afternoon.”
Septach Melayn stared for a time at the grilled kaspok in his plate, a rare delicacy—a white fish of the northern rivers, with meat as sweet as fresh berries—that he had scarcely tasted. He took a sip of his wine, and then drank again, not a sip this time. “You wanted to heal the world’s pain, you told me, by wiping clean its memory of the war. To allow everyone a chance at a fresh start. Yes, all well and good. But this general madness that seems to have followed upon it—”
“I never anticipated that. I would never have called for the obliteration, if I could have seen that that would happen. You know that, Septach Melayn.”
“Of course I do. Do you think I’m holding you at fault?”
“You seem to be.”
“Not at all. Quite the opposite. The thing has happened, and I see you taking personal responsibility for it, and I see the effect that it’s having on you. Well, I say once again: what’s done is done. Leave off expending energy in guilt, and deal only with the challenges that we now face. You’ll harm yourself otherwise. When Navigorn had that fit today—”
“Listen to me,” Prestimion said. “I am responsible for the madness. And for everything else that has befallen the world since I took the throne, and everything that will happen throughout my life. I am Coronal, and that means, above all else, the burden of responsibility for the world’s destiny. Which I am prepared to bear.”
Septach Melayn attempted to speak, but Prestimion would not have it. “No. Hear me out.—Did you think I imagined that wearing the crown meant nothing more than grand processionals and splendid banquets and sitting here in the Castle’s opulent rooms amidst ancient draperies and statuary? When I made the decision at Thegomar Edge to cleanse the world of all awareness of the war, it was a hasty thing, and I see now that it may have been a poor choice. But it was my own decision for which I had valid reasons at the time and which still seems to me not altogether a misguided idea. Does that sound like a statement of a man tormented by guilt?”
“You used the word yourself only today. Do you remember? ‘This is one more thing for which I bear the guilt.’ ”
“A passing fancy, nothing more.”
“Not so passing. And not such a fancy, Prestimion. I see into your soul as readily as any magus. Each new report of the madness racks you with pain.”
“And if it does, is it worth ruining this fine dinner to tell me so? Pain fades with time. This kaspok was brought by swift couriers from the shores of Sintalmond Bay for your delectation and mine, and you allow that dainty piece offish to turn to old leather in your plate while you belabor me with all this. Eat, Septach Melayn. Drink. I assure you, I’m ready to live with whatever discomfort the consequences of my decision at Thegomar Edge will bring me.”
“All right,” said Septach Melayn. “Permit me to come to my true point, then. If you must live in pain, why do you condemn yourself to bearing that pain alone?”