"What will happen? Will I damage it?"
"You will. And yourself as well."
Dekkeret nodded. He doubted that Barjazid was bluffing, but he did not care to find out.
After a moment he said, "There are no Shapeshifter dream-stealers hiding in this desert, is that right?"
"That is so," Barjazid whispered.
"Only you, secretly experimenting on the minds of other travelers. Yes?"
"Yes."
"And causing them to die."
"No," Barjazid said. "I intended no deaths. If they died, it was because they became alarmed, became confused, because they panicked and ran off into dangerous places — because they began to wander in their sleep, as you did—"
"But they died because you had meddled in their minds."
"Who can be sure of that? Some died, some did not. I had no desire to have anyone perish. Remember, when you wandered away, we searched diligently for you."
"I had hired you to guide and protect me," said Dekkeret. "The others were innocent strangers whom you preyed on from afar, is that not so?"
Barjazid was silent.
"You knew that people were dying as a result of your experiments, and you went on experimenting."
Barjazid shrugged.
"How long were you doing this?"
"Several years."
"And for what reason?"
Barjazid looked toward the side. "I told you once, I would never answer a question of that sort."
"And if I break your machine?"
"You will break it anyway."
"Not so," Dekkeret replied. "Here. Take it."
"What?"
Dekkeret extended his hand, with the dream-machine resting on his palm. "Go on. Take it. Put it away. I don't want the thing."
"You're not going to kill me?" Barjazid said in wonder.
"Am I your judge? If I catch you using that device on me again, I'll kill you sure enough. But otherwise, no. Killing is not my sport. I have one sin on my soul as it is. And I need you to get me back to Tolaghai, or have you forgotten that?"
"Of course. Of course." Barjazid looked astounded at Dekkeret's mercy.
Dekkeret said, "Why would I want to kill you?"
"For entering your mind — for interfering with your dreams—"
"Ah."
"For putting your life at risk on the desert."
"That too."
"And yet you aren't eager for vengeance?"
Dekkeret shook his head. "You took great liberties with my soul, and that angered me, but the anger is past and done with. I won't punish you. We've had a transaction, you and I, and I've had my money's worth from you, and this thing of yours has been of value to me." He leaned close and said in a low, earnest voice, "I came to Suvrael full of doubt and confusion and guilt, looking to purge myself through physical suffering. That was foolishness. Physical suffering makes the body uncomfortable and strengthens the will, but it does little for the wounded spirit. You gave me something else, you and your mind-meddling toy. You tormented me in dreams and held up a mirror to my soul, and I saw myself clearly. How much of that last dream were you really able to read, Barjazid?"
"You were in a forest — in the north—"
"Yes."
"Hunting. One of your companions was injured by an animal, yes? Is that it?"
"Go on."
"And you ignored her. You continued the chase. And afterward, when you went back to see about her, it was too late, and you blamed yourself for her death. I sensed the great guilt in you. I felt the power of it radiating from you."
"Yes," Dekkeret said. "Guilt that I'll bear forever. But there's nothing that can be done for her now, is there?" An astonishing calmness had spread through him. He was not altogether sure what had happened, except that in his dream he had confronted the events of the Khyntor forest at last, and had faced the truth of what he had done there and what he had not done, had understood, in a way that he could not define in words, that it was folly to flagellate himself for all his lifetime over a single act of carelessness and unfeeling stupidity, that the moment had come to put aside all self-accusation and get on with the business of his life. The process of forgiving himself was under way. He had come to Suvrael to be purged and somehow he had accomplished that. And he owed Barjazid thanks for that favor. To Barjazid he said, "I might have saved her, or maybe not; but my mind was elsewhere, and in my foolishness I passed her by to make my kill. But wallowing in guilt is no useful means of atonement, eh, Barjazid? The dead are dead. My services must be offered to the living. Come: turn this floater and let's begin heading back toward Tolaghai."
"And what about your visit to the rangelands? What about Ghyzyn Kor?"
"A silly mission. It no longer matters, these questions of meat shortages and trade imbalances. Those problems are already solved. Take me to Tolaghai."
"And then?"
"You will come with me to Castle Mount. To demonstrate your toy before the Coronal."
"No!" Barjazid cried in horror. He looked genuinely frightened for the first time since Dekkeret had known him. "I beg you—"
"Father?" said Dinitak.
Under the midday sun the boy seemed ablaze with light. There was a wild and fiery look of pride on his face.
"Father, go with him to Castle Mount. Let him show his masters what we have here."
Barjazid moistened his lips. "I fear—"
"Fear nothing. Our time is now beginning."
Dekkeret looked from one to the other, from the suddenly timid and shrunken old man to the transfigured and glowing boy. He sensed that historic things were happening, that mighty forces were shifting out of balance and into a new configuration, and this he barely comprehended, except to know that his destinies and those of these desertfolk were tied in some way together; and the dream-reading machine that Barjazid had created was the thread that bound their lives.
Barjazid said huskily, "What will happen to me on Castle Mount, then?"
"I have no idea," said Dekkeret. "Perhaps they'll take your head and mount it atop Lord Siminave's Tower. Or perhaps you'll find yourself set up on high as a Power of Majipoor. Anything might happen. How would I know?" He realized that he did not care, that he was indifferent to Barjazid's fate, that he felt no anger at all toward this seedy little tinkerer with minds, but only a kind of perverse abstract gratitude for Barjazid's having helped rid him of his own demons. "These matters are in the Coronal's hands. But one thing is certain, that you will go with me to the Mount, and this machine of yours with us. Come, now, turn the floater, take me to Tolaghai."
"It is still daytime," Barjazid muttered. "The heart of the day rages at its highest."
"We'll manage. Come: get us moving, and fast! We have a ship to catch in Tolaghai, and there's a woman in that city I want to see again, before we set sail!"
12
These events happened in the young manhood of him who was to become the Coronal Lord Dekkeret in the Pontificate of Prestimion. And it was the boy Dinitak Barjazid who would be the first to rule in Suvrael over the minds of all the sleepers of Majipoor, with the title of King of Dreams.
SIX
The Soul-Painter and the Shapeshifter
It has become an addiction. Hissune's mind is opening now in all directions, and the Register of Souls is the key to an infinite world of new understanding. When one dwells in the Labyrinth one develops a peculiar sense of the world as vague and unreal, mere names rather than concrete places: only the dark and hermetic Labyrinth has substance, and all else is vapor. But Hissune has journeyed by proxy to every continent now, he has tasted strange foods and seen weird landscapes, he has experienced extremes of heat and cold, and in all that he has come to acquire a comprehension of the complexity of the world that, he suspects, very few others have had. Now he goes back again and again. No longer does he have to bother with forged credentials; he is so regular a user of the archives that a nod is sufficient to get him within, and then he has all the million yesterdays of Majipoor at his disposal. Often he stays with a capsule for only a moment or two, until he has determined that it contains nothing that will move him farther along the road to knowledge. Sometimes of a morning he will call up and dismiss eight, ten, a dozen records in rapid succession. True enough, he knows, that every being's soul contains a universe; but not all universes are equally interesting, and that which he might learn from the innermost depths of one who spent his life sweeping the streets of Piliplok or murmuring prayers in the entourage of the Lady of the Isle does not seem immediately useful to him, when he considers other possibilities. So he summons capsules and rejects them and summons again, dipping here and there into Majipoor's past, and keeps at it until he finds himself in contact with a mind that promises real revelation. Even Coronals and Pontifexes can be bores, he has discovered. But there are always wondrous unexpected finds — a man who fell in love with a Metamorph, for example—