And then, at last: the Mount filling the sky before him, and the commencement of the familiar ascent by way of Amblemorn of the Slope Cities. The quick eastern road up the mountain by way of Morvole and Dekkeret’s Normork, past Bibiroon Sweep and Tolingar Barrier and the wonderful self-maintaining garden that Lord Havilbove had laid out three thousand years ago, past the Free Cities ring to Ertsud Grand, where the upward slope steepened and the Mount became a gray granite shield pointing toward the clouds that lay just below the summit; Minimool; Hoikmar; the cloud zone, cool and moist, of the Inner Cities. Passing the sparkling burnt orange spires of Bombifale, then, and moving on into the realm of eternal sunlight above, with the High Cities just beyond. They were two dozen miles up into the sky by that time, with the thousands of miles of sprawling lowlands of Alhanroel spread out behind them like a map on which the most gigantic cities became mere dots. Here, now, was the summit road, paved with bright red flagstones, to carry them from Bombifale to High Morpin, with the Castle itself in view above them, finally; and round and round the vast mountain’s diminishing tip they went, the ten miles of the Grand Calintane Highway, brightened by the splendor of the myriads of flowers that bloomed every day of the year amidst the gnarled and fantastic spearlike peaks of the summit.
A great crowd was waiting for him at the Dizimaule Plaza, an immense reception party gathered on the green porcelain cobblestones, with the Castle in all its bewildering bulk of thirty thousand rooms as the backdrop. Navigorn, who had served as regent in Prestimion’s absence, was the first to embrace him. Prestimion’s brother Teotas was waiting also, and Serithorn, and the counsellors Belditan and Dembitave and Yegan and the rest of his inner circle of government, and such members of Lord Confalume’s regime as still remained at the Castle. But one person was not there.
Prestimion said quietly to Navigorn, as they proceeded through the Dizimaule Arch toward Vildivar Close and the Inner Castle buildings that lay beyond it, “And the lady Varaile, Navigorn? How has she fared in my absence? And why was she not at the gate to greet me now?”
“She is quite well, my lord. As for her not being at the gate today, let her give you her reasons herself. I can only tell you that she was invited, and chose not to come.”
“Chose not to come? What does that mean, Navigorn?”
But Navigorn would only say again that the lady Varaile would have to explain that herself.
Which could not be done immediately, much to Prestimion’s displeasure. There were rites that had to be performed to mark a Coronal’s return to the Castle after a long absence, and then it behooved him to go to his office to receive the most urgent of the accumulated memoranda of state, and after that he had his own report to make to the Council. Only then, then, would he be free to pursue private inquiries.
He hastened through the ritual of return in so casual and cursory a way that even Serithorn looked a little shocked. The memoranda of state—abstracts of the host of piled-up reports from every region of the world—were not so easy to dismiss, but Prestimion cut corners by devoting most of his immediate attention to the summaries that had been prepared by the office of the Pontifex, abstracts of the abstracts: presumably those had been filtered for their significance before being forwarded to the Castle. What he saw there was dismaying, tales of mounting insanity in any number of provinces, bands of addled saints drifting about the land and plenty of addled sinners too, riots and other kinds of civil disturbance, fires, crime, a nightmare of ever-expanding chaos. It was precisely as he had said, in an unguarded moment, to the Prefect Kameni Poteva. Bit by bit, it seems, the whole world is going crazy.
Of Dantirya Sambail there seemed to be no news. Akbalik had returned from Ni-moya and was in the western port of Alaisor, awaiting a new assignment. Dekkeret evidently was still in Suvrael. No report had come from Abrigant thus far concerning his expedition to Skakkenoir. From the Isle of Sleep there was a message from the Princess Therissa, suggesting that he find occasion to pay her a visit as soon as his other duties permitted. That would certainly be an appropriate thing to do, Prestimion agreed. He had not seen her for many months. But for the time being that trip would have to wait.
The Council meeting, which lasted about an hour, came next. Navigorn’s report covered much the same material Prestimion had already seen in the papers on his desk. When he was done, the other Council members expressed their concern over the rising incidence of madness across the world, and Gialaurys offered a motion that the high wizards of Triggoin be summoned to the Castle for a consultation that might lead to a remedy. It passed by a powerful margin, despite a protest of sorts from Prestimion. “It was my hope to reduce the influence of superstition in the world, not to hand the government over to the sorcerers,” he said. But even he recognized the value of properly harnessed wizardry; and also he knew only too well how effective the incantations of such men as Gominik Halvor and his son Heszmon Gorse could be. After voicing his objections, then, he quickly withdrew them, and gave his assent to Gialaurys’s measure.
At that point, pleading the fatigue of travel, he ordered the meeting adjourned, and went to his private chambers.
“Ask the lady Varaile,” he said to the major-domo Nilgir Sumanand, “if she will have dinner with the Coronal this evening.”
She was as beautiful as he remembered her to be: more beautiful, even. But she had changed. Something was different about the expression of her eyes and the set of her jaw, and she held her lips now in a tightly compressed way that Prestimion did not recall from before.
Of course she had really been not much more than a girl when he had first met her at the time of his little masquerade in Stee. Now she was moving into her twenties; perhaps all that had happened was that the last vestiges of adolescence were going from her face as she made the transition into full adulthood. But no—no—there seemed to be something else at work—
Perhaps only nervousness, Prestimion decided. She was a commoner, he was the Coronal; and she was a woman, and he a man; they were alone with each other in the Coronal’s private chambers. They barely knew each other, and yet, in their last meeting long months ago, they had reached some sort of understanding that neither of them had been willing to voice explicitly, but which clearly had held implications of a future alliance. In all these months they both had had plenty of time to consider and reconsider those few words that had passed between them in the reception hall after the royal levee at which her father had been honored.
To put her at her ease he opened with what he hoped would be a light-hearted approach: “I told you, the last time we met, that we’d have dinner together as soon as I got back from my trip to the Labyrinth. I neglected to add, I suppose, that I would be going on as far south as Sippulgar before I returned to the Castle.”
“I did begin to wonder, as the weeks mounted up, my lord. But then my lord Navigorn told me that you would be making a further journey and might not be back for many months. He said it was a mission of the highest importance, one that would take you into a distant part of the continent.”
“Did Navigorn tell you just how far I was going, or why?”
She looked startled at that. “Oh, no! Nor did I ask. It’s not my place to be privy to the business of the realm. I’m a mere citizen, my lord.”