“This is true,” the Vroon murmured. “They carry no memories away from their trances. As I explained, they are vehicles, merely, for whatever the demon chooses to reveal.”
“I hope that’s really so,” Akbalik said. “Get him out of here as fast as you can.” He felt shaken and weak himself, as if it were he and not the Su-Suheris who had just been through the spasms and convulsions of that eerie seizure.
His head ached from the unrelenting sound of those gongs and trumpets. And the slow, precise, stunning words of the oracle reverberated ceaselessly in his mind: The man whom you seek is here. He has spent many months gathering an army in a far-off place. It is his desire to overthrow the king of the world.
The usual route from Castle Mount to the port of Alaisor on Alhanroel’s western coast was by river: downslope by floater by way of Khresm and Rennosk to Gimkandale, where the River Uivendak had its source, and then by riverboat down the Uivendak past the Slope Cities of Stipool and Furible and the foothills of the Mount via Estotilaup and Vilimong into the great central plain of the continent. The Uivendak, which after a thousand miles changed its name to the Clairn, and a thousand miles farther on became the Haksim, eventually was joined by the potent Iyann, which came flowing down out of the moist green country northwest of the Valmambra Desert and met the Haksim at a place known as Three Rivers, though no one knew why, since there were only two rivers there. From there to the coast the united rivers took the name of the Iyann.
That final stretch of the Iyann had once been famous for its sluggishness, and travelers heading westward on it had needed to resign themselves to an unhurried final leg of their journeys; but since the breaking of the Mavestoi Dam up-river from the joining with the Haksim the waters of the western Iyann were far more vigorous than they had been in previous centuries, and the riverboat that carried Prestimion and Varaile moved along toward Alaisor at a speed that Prestimion would have found more heartening if it did not constantly remind him of the infamous tragedy of the breaking of the dam.
Now they were just a few days’ journey from the coast, passing swiftly through warm, green, fertile agricultural lands whose inhabitants lined the shore, waving and cheering, shouting his name and sometimes Varaile’s also, as the Coronal’s ship went by. Prestimion and Varaile stood side by side at the rail, acknowledging the greeting with waves of their own.
Varaile seemed amazed by the strength and depth of the outpouring of affection that came from them. “Listen to it, Prestimion! Listen! You can practically feel their love for you!”
“For the office of the Coronal, you mean. It has nothing much to do with me in particular. They haven’t had time to learn anything more about me than that Lord Confalume picked me to succeed him, and therefore I must be all right.”
“There’s more to it than that, I think. It’s that there’s a new Coronal, after all those years of Confalume. Everybody loved and admired Lord Confalume, yes, but he’d been there so long that everyone had come to take him for granted, the way you would the sun or the moons. Now there’s a new man at the Castle, and they see him as the voice of youth, the hope of the future, someone fresh and full of vitality who’ll build on Lord Confalume’s achievements and lead Majipoor into a glorious new era.”
“Let’s hope they’re right,” said Prestimion.
They were silent for a time after that, looking out toward the west, where the golden-green sphere of the sun had begun to slip toward the horizon. The land was fiat, here, and the river very wide. Fewer people could be seen along the shore.
Then Varaile said, “Tell me something, Prestimion. Is it possible under the law for a Coronal’s son ever to become Coronal after him?”
The question astounded him. “What? What are you talking about, Varaile?” he said sharply, whirling about to face her with such a furious glare in his eyes that she backed away, looking a little frightened.
“Why, nothing! I was only wondering—”
“Well, don’t. It can never happen. Never has, never will! We have an appointive monarchy on Majipoor, not a hereditary one. I could show you historical records going back thousands of years to prove it.”
“You don’t need to do that. I believe you.” She still looked alarmed at the vehemence of his reaction. “But why do you seem so angry, Prestimion? I was simply asking a question.”
“A very strange one, I have to say.”
“Is it? I didn’t grow up at the Castle, you know. I’m not an expert on constitutional law. I do know that the new Coronal usually isn’t the son of the one before. But then I found myself wondering, well, what if—”
The question, Prestimion realized, had been entirely innocent. She had no way of knowing of Korsibar and his ill-fated revolt. He tried to calm himself. She had found him off his guard, that was all, seeming to probe into a sensitive, even a forbidden, area but in fact meaning nothing of the kind.
“Well,” she said, “if he can’t be Coronal—and not Prince of Muldemar either, I guess, because Abrigant’s bound to have children of his own some day and they’ll inherit that title—well, then, maybe he can be a prince of something else, I suppose.”
“He?” Prestimion was completely bewildered now.
“Oh, yes,” Varaile said, patting her stomach. “Definitely a he, Prestimion. I knew that weeks ago. But I had Maundigand-Klimd do a divination, all the same, and he confirmed it.”
He stared. Suddenly this all made sense.
“Varaile?”
“You look so amazed, Prestimion! As if it’s never happened before in the history of the world.”
“Not to me, it hasn’t. But that’s not the thing, Varaile. You told Maundigand-Klimd about it weeks ago, and not me? And told Septach Melayn too, I suppose, and Gialaurys, and Nilgir Sumanand, and your ladies-in-waiting, and the Skandar who sweeps the courtyard in front of—”
“Stop it, Prestimion! You mean you hadn’t figured it out?”
He shook his head. “It never occurred to me at all.”
“I think that you really ought to pay closer attention, then.”
“And you ought not to wait so long before telling me important news like this.”
“I waited until now,” she said, “because Maundigand-Klimd told me to. He cast my horoscope and said that it would be more auspicious for the child if I mentioned nothing about him to you until we were west of the ninetieth meridian. We are west of the ninetieth meridian, aren’t we, Prestimion? He said it was where the land flattened out and the river got very wide.”
“I’m not the captain of the ship, Varaile. I haven’t really been keeping track of the latitude.”
“I was speaking of longitude, I believe.”
“Latitude—longitude—what difference does it make?” Were they really past the ninetieth meridian yet? he wondered. Probably so. But either way what difference did it make, eightieth meridian, ninetieth, two hundredth? She should have told him long ago. But it seemed to be his destiny, he thought, to find himself entangled with some sort of wizardry at every turn. His head was throbbing with anger. “Sorcerers! Mages! They’re the ones who rule this world, not me! It’s outrageous, Varaile, completely outrageous, that this information has been circulating all over the Castle for weeks, and it’s been kept from me all this time simply because—because some magus happened to tell you—” He was practically sputtering with indignation. She was looking at him, wide-eyed with amazement. A smile crossed her face, and gave way to a giggle.
Then Prestimion began to laugh as well. He was being very foolish, he knew. “Oh, Varaile—Varaile—oh, I love you so much, Varaile!” He slipped his arms around her and drew her close against him. After a long while he released her, and smiled, and kissed the tip of her nose.—"And no, Varaile, no, he can’t possibly become Coronal after me, and don’t ever even think about such an idea. Is that understood?”