"I am, my lord. Somewhat older."
"Eight years ago, was that it? Yes, eight. You were this high. And now a man. Well, I suppose I'm foolish to be surprised, but I suspected a boy even now. You're eighteen?"
"Yes, my lord."
"How old were you when you started poking about in the Register of Souls?"
"You know of that, then, my lord?" Hissune whispers, turning crimson, staring at his feet.
"Fourteen, were you? I think that's what they told me. I've had you watched, you know. It was three or four years ago that they sent word to me that you had bluffed your way into the Register. Fourteen, pretending to be a scholar. I imagine you saw a great many things that boys of fourteen don't ordinarily see."
Hissune's cheeks blaze. Through his mind rolls the thought, An hour ago, my lord, I saw you and your brother coupling with a long-haired witch of Ghiseldorn. He would let himself be swallowed in the depths of the world before he says such a thing aloud. But he is certain that Lord Valentine knows it anyway, and that awareness is crashing to Hissune. He cannot look up. This golden-haired man is not the Valentine of the soul-record, for that had been the dark-haired Valentine, later magicked out of his body in the way that everyone now has heard, and these days the Coronal wears other flesh; but the person within is the same, and Hissune has spied on him, and there is no hiding the truth of that.
Hissune is silent.
Lord Valentine says, "Possibly I should take that back. You always were precocious. The Register probably didn't show you many things that you hadn't seen on your own."
"It showed me Ni-moya, my lord," Hissune says in a croaking, barely audible voice. "It showed me Suvrael, and the cities of Castle Mount, and the jungles outside Narabal—"
"Places, yes. Geography. It's useful to know all that. But the geography of the soul — you learned that your own way, eh? Look up at me. I'm not angry with you."
"No?"
"It was by my orders that you had free access to the Register. Not so you could gawk at Ni-moya, and not so you could spy on people making love, particularly. But so you could get a comprehension of what Majipoor really is, so you could experience a millionth millionth part of the totality of this world of ours. It was your education, Hissune. Am I right?"
"That was how I saw it, my lord. Yes. There was so much I wanted to know."
"Did you learn it all?"
"Not nearly. Not a millionth millionth part."
"Too bad. Because you'll no longer have access to the Register."
"My lord? Am I to be punished?"
Lord Valentine smiles oddly. "Punished? No, that's not the right word. But you'll be leaving the Labyrinth, and chances are you'll not be back here for a very long time, not even when I'm Pontifex, and may that day not come soon. I've named you to my staff, Hissune. Your training period's over. I want to put you to work. You're old enough now, I think. You have family here still?"
"My mother, two sisters—"
"Provided for. Whatever they need. Say goodbye to them and pack your things. Can you leave with me in three days?"
"Three — days—"
"For Alaisor. The grand processional is demanded of me again. And then the Isle. We skip Zimroel this time. Back to the Mount in seven or eight months, I hope. You'll have a suite at the Castle. Some formal instruction — that won't be unpleasant for you, will it? Fancier clothes to wear. You saw all this coming, didn't you? You know I marked you for great things, when you were only a ragged little boy fleecing tourists?" The Coronal laughs. "It's late. I'll send for you again in the morning. There's much for us to discuss."
He extends his fingertips toward Hissune, a courtly little gesture, Hissune bows, and when he dares to look up, Lord Valentine is gone. So. So. It has come to pass after all, his dream, his fantasy. Hissune does not allow any expression to enter his face. Rigid, somber, he turns to the green-and-gold escort, and follows them to the corridors, and they convey him up into the public levels of the Labyrinth. There they leave him. But he cannot go to his room now. His mind is racing, feverish, wild with amazement. From its depths come surging all those long-vanished folk he has come to know so well, Nismile and Sinnabor Lavon, Thesme, Dekkeret, Calintane, poor anguished Haligome, Eremoil, Inyanna Forlana, Vismaan, Sarise. Part of him now, embedded forever in his soul. He feels as though he has devoured the entire planet. What will become of him now? Aide to the Coronal? A glittering new life on Castle Mount? Holidays in High Morpin and Stee, and the great ones of the realm as his companions? Why, he might be Coronal himself some day! Lord Hissune! He laughs at his own monstrous presumption. And yet, and yet, and yet, why not? Had Calintane expected to be Coronal? Had Dekkeret? Had Valentine? But one must not think of such things, Hissune tells himself. One must work, and learn, and live one's life a moment at a time, and one's destiny will shape itself.
He realizes that he has somehow become lost — he, who at the age of ten was the most skillful guide the Layrinth had. He has wandered in his daze from level to level, and half the night is gone, and he has no idea now where he is. And then he sees that he is in the uppermost level of the Labyrinth, on the desert side, near the Mouth of Blades. In fifteen minutes he can be outside the Labyrinth entirely. To go out there is not something he normally yearns to do; but this night is special, and he does not resist as his feet take him toward the gateway of the underground city. He comes to the Mouth of Blades and stares a long while at the rusted swords of some antique era that were set across its front to mark the boundary; then he steps past them and out into the hot dry wasteland beyond. Like Dekkeret roaming that other and far more terrible desert he strides into the emptiness, until he is a good distance from the teeming hive that is the Labyrinth, and stands alone under the cool brilliant stars. So many of them! And one is Old Earth, from which all the billions and billions of humankind had sprung so long ago. Hissune stands as if entranced. Through him pours an overwhelming sense of all the long history of the cosmos, rushing upon him like an irresistible river. The Register of Souls contains the records of enough lives to keep him busy for half of eternity, he thinks, and yet what is in it is just the merest fraction of everything that has existed on all those worlds of all those stars. He wants to seize and engulf it all and make it part of him as he had made those other lives part of him, and of course that cannot be done, and even the thought of it dizzies him. But he must give up such notions now, and forswear the temptations of the Register. He holds himself still until his mind has ceased its whirling. I will be quite calm now, he tells himself. I will regain control over my feelings. He allows himself one final look toward the stars, and searches among them, in vain, for the sun of Old Earth. Then he shrugs and swings about and slowly walks back toward the Mouth of Blades. Lord Valentine will send for him again in the morning. It is important to get some sleep before then. A new life is about to begin for him. I will live on Castle Mount, he thinks, and I will be an aide to the Coronal, and who knows what will happen to me after that? But whatever happens will be the right thing, as it was for Dekkeret, for Thesme, for Sinnabor Lavon, even for Haligome, for all of those whose souls are part of my soul now.
Hissune stands just outside the Mouth of Blades for a moment, only a moment, and the moment stretches, and the stars begin to fade, and the first light of dawn comes, and then a mighty sunrise takes possession of the sky, and all the land is flooded with light. He does not move. The warmth of the sun of Majipoor touches his face, as so rarely has it done in his life until now. The sun: the sun: the glorious blazing fiery sun: the mother of the worlds: He reaches out his arms to it. He embraces it. He smiles' and drinks in its blessing. Then he turns and goes down into the Labyrinth for the last tune.