But the point, he knew, was that everyone in the government, from the Pontifex and Coronal on down, was a career civil servant. And every prince of Castle Mount who had any ambition toward high office was required to put in time doing routine work of just this sort. Even Prestimion, who had been born to the rank of Prince of Muldemar and might have spent a life of pleasant idleness puttering in his vineyards, had had to go through a round of chores like this by way of gathering the practical experience that had carried him to the throne.
Dekkeret, a salesman’s son, had never had such grandiose ambitions. The starburst crown was no part of his plan; to be a knight of the Castle seemed as bold an aspiration as he could allow himself. Well, he was that, now, thanks to the happenstance of his having been standing close by the Coronal at the time of the assassination attempt: a knight-initiate, anyway. And therefore he found himself behind this desk at the Office of Documentary Appeal in Ni-moya, plodding through day after day of foolish dreary work and hoping eventually to move on to grander things, closer to the summit of power. But this had to be done first.
Akbalik, whom he never saw during his working hours and only occasionally in the evenings, was someone who already had gone on to grander things, though Dekkeret was not sure just what they were. Plainly Akbalik was a model worth patterning oneself after. He was very close to the Coronal’s inner circle, apparently, if not actually a member of it himself just yet. He was quite friendly with the High Counsellor Septach Melayn; he had the respect of the gruff and businesslike Admiral Gialaurys; he seemed to have easy access to Lord Prestimion. Surely he was destined to have a swift ascent to the highest reaches of the government.
Of course, Akbalik was the nephew of the wealthy and powerful Prince Serithorn, and that surely helped. But although high birth could get you fairly easily to high places in the Castle hierarchy, Dekkeret knew that ultimately it was merit, intelligence, character, perseverance, that brought you to the top. Fools and sluggards didn’t become Coronals, although they might, by good luck and the accident of family connection, attain illustrious lesser posts despite their blatant deficiencies. Count Meglis of Normork was a good example of that.
Nor did great riches or noble birth suffice to get one to the throne, or else Serithorn, descended from half the great Coronals of antiquity, would have had it. Prince Serithorn, though, was not the kind of man who was suited for the job. He lacked the necessary seriousness. Septach Melayn, the High Counsellor, would never be Coronal either, it seemed, for the same reason.
But Lord Prestimion, obviously, had proven himself fit for the post. So had Lord Confalume before him. And Akbalik, too, that calm, steady-minded, quick-witted, hardworking, reliable man, might have the stuff of Coronals in him. Dekkeret admired him inordinately. It was much too early even to speculate about who might succeed Prestimion as Coronal when he became Pontifex; but, Dekkeret thought, how splendid if it turned out to be Akbalik! And how good that would be for Dekkeret of Normork, too, for he could plainly see that Akbalik looked upon him favorably and regarded him as a highly promising young man. For a moment, just a moment, Dekkeret allowed himself the wild fantasy of picturing himself as High Counsellor to the Coronal Lord Akbalik. And then it was back to correcting misspelled names on deeds of trust, and sorting out conflicts in land titles that went back to Lord Keppimon’s day, and authorizing refunds for taxes that had been levied in triplicate by overenthusiastic revenue inspectors.
Two months went by in this fashion. Dekkeret grew enormously restless at his job, but he plodded gamely onward and allowed no hint of discontent to pass his lips. In his free time he roamed the city, bowled over again and again by the splendors he found everywhere. He made a few friends at the office; he met a couple of pleasant young women; once or twice a week Akbalik joined him at a local tavern for an evening’s amiable exploration of the excellent Zimroel wines. Dekkeret had no idea what sort of assignment it was that had brought Akbalik to Ni-moya, and he did not ask. He was grateful for the older man’s company, and wary of seeming to probe matters that obviously did not concern him.
One night Akbalik said, “Do you remember that time when we were in the Coronal’s office and Septach Melayn spoke about our going on a steetmoy-hunting expedition while we were here?”
“Of course I do.”
“You’re bored silly with the work you’ve been doing, aren’t you, Dekkeret?”
Dekkeret reddened. “Well—”
“Don’t try to be diplomatic. You’re supposed to be bored silly with it. It was designed to bore you. But you weren’t sent here to be tortured. I’m about ready for a break in my own work: what say we take ten days up north, and see how the steetmoy are running this time of year?”
“Would I be able to arrange a leave of absence?” Dekkeret asked.
Akbalik grinned. “I think I could manage to get one for you,” he said.
8
The countryside changed very quickly once they were north of Ni-moya. The climate of most of Majipoor was subtropical or tropical, except along such high mountain ridges as the Gonghar mountains of central Zimroel and atop Mount Zygnor in far-northern Alhanroel. Castle Mount itself, where the weather-machines devised by the ancients eternally fended off the bitter night of the stratospheric altitude, enjoyed an endless springtime.
But one sector of northeastern Zimroel reached far up toward the pole and therefore had a cooler climate. In the high, mountain-bordered plateau known as the Khyntor Marches, snow was not at all uncommon during the winter months; and beyond that, walled off behind the tremendous peaks known as the Nine Sisters, there was an unknown polar land of perpetual storm and frost where no one ever went. In that grim and virtually inaccessible region, so legend had it, a race of fierce fur-clad barbarians had dwelled for thousands of years in complete isolation, as unaware of the comfort and warmth and prosperity enjoyed by Majipoor’s other inhabitants as the rest of Majipoor was of them.
Akbalik and Dekkeret had no intention of going anywhere near that myth-shrouded land of constant winter and unyielding ice. But even just a short distance back of Ni-moya, its stark influence on the territories bordering on it was quickly apparent. Lush green subtropical forests yielded to vegetation more typical of a temperate climate, dominated by curious angular deciduous trees with bright yellow trunks, set very far apart from one another in stony meadows of scruffy pallid grass. And then, as they entered the foothills of the Khyntor Marches, a further increment of bleakness became evident. The trees and grass were far sparser, now. The landscape here was a gradually rising terrain of flat gray granite shields with swift cold streams slicing down out of the north. In the hazy distance the first of the Nine Sisters of Khyntor was visible: Threilikor, the Weeping Sister, whose dark facade was glossy with a multitude of rivulets and streams.
Akbalik had hired a team of five hunters, March-men, lean leathery-skinned mountaineers of the northlands who dressed in rough, crudely stitched robes of black haigus-hide, to guide them into the Marches. Three of them seemed to be male, two female, although it was not easy to tell, so thoroughly were they engulfed in their bulky robes. They said very little. When they talked to each other, it was in a harsh mountain dialect that Dekkeret found practically impossible to understand. In addressing their two Castle lord-lings they took care to use conventional speech, but he had trouble with that too, because the thick-tongued mountaineers spoke with heavy accents tinged with the rhythms of their own tongue, and also Dekkeret was often unfamiliar with the Ni-moyan idioms that peppered their speech. He let Akbalik do most of the talking.