Gavdat said, “But the distances are so great—they’d have to sail for many weeks just to reach Piliplok—and then, to march across hostile territory all the way to Ni-moya—”
It was a reasonable point. Perhaps Gavdat was not quite so much of a fool as he seemed, Mandralisca thought.
“You’re right, milord, that operating a line of supply that stretches all the way across the Inner Sea from Castle Mount to Ni-moya will be a very challenging task. That is why I think we’ll ultimately be successful in our revolt. But they will have no choice, I think, but to try to regain their grasp of us. We must be fully prepared. We must have troops waiting at Piliplok and all the other major ports of our eastern coast, possibly as far south as Gihorna.”
“But there’s no harbor good enough for a major landing in Gihorna!” Gavahaud objected.
“Exactly so. That’s why they might attempt it: to take us by surprise. There’s no big harbor there, but there are minor ones all up and down the province. They might make several landings at once in places so obscure they don’t expect us to think of them. We must fortify the whole coast. We must have a second line of defense inland, and a third at Ni-moya itself. And we’ll need to assemble a fleet to meet them at sea in the hope of preventing them from reaching our shores in the first place. All this will take time. We should be well along in the task before we tip our hand.”
“You should know,” Gavdat said, “that I have cast the runes very carefully, and they predict success in all our endeavors.”
“We expect no other outcome,” said Mandralisca serenely. “But the runes alone won’t ensure our victory. Proper planning is needed also.”
“Yes,” said Gaviral. “Yes. You see that, brothers, do you not?”
The other two looked at him uncomfortably. Perhaps they sensed in some dim way that quick little Gaviral was somehow outflanking them, allying himself suddenly with the voice of caution now that he realized that caution might be required.
“There is a third point to be considered,” Mandralisca said.
He made them wait. He had no desire to overload their brains by piling too many arguments together too quickly.
Then he said, “It happens that I am testing a new weapon, one that is vital to our hopes of victory. It is the helmet that the little man Khaymak Barjazid brought to me, a version of the one that was used—unsuccessfully, alas—by Dantirya Sambail in his struggle against Prestimion long ago. We are making improvements in the weapon. I am extending my mastery over it day by day. It will do terrible destruction, once I’m ready to unleash it. But I am not quite ready, my lords. Therefore I ask you for more time. I ask you for time enough to make the great victory that milord Gavdat so accurately predicts a certainty.”
8
As though in a dream Dekkeret roamed the myriad halls of the Castle that would from now on bear his name, examining everything as though seeing it for the first time.
He was alone. He had not made a special point of asking to be left alone, but his manner, his expression, had left no doubt of his need for solitude. This was the fourth day since Dekkeret’s return from the festivities at the Labyrinth that had confirmed Prestimion’s ascent to the imperial throne, and every moment up till now had been taken up in planning for his own coronation. Only this morning had an opening developed in the press of business, and he had taken the opportunity to wander out into the Pinitor Court and go drifting off by himself through some few of the many levels of the Castle’s topmost zone.
He had lived at the Castle more than half his life. He had been eighteen when his thwarting of the attempt on Prestimion’s life had earned him the award of knight-initiatehood, and now he was thirty-eight. Though he still signed his name, when official duties required it of him, “Dekkeret of Normork,” it would be more accurate to call himself “Dekkeret of the Castle,” for Normork was only a boyhood memory and the Castle was his home. The eerie tower of Lord Arioc, the harsh black mass of the Prankipin Treasury, the delicate beauty of the Guadeloom Cascade, the pink granite blocks of Vildivar Close, the spectacular sweep of the Ninety-Nine Steps—he passed through these things every day.
He passed through them now. Down one hall and up the next. He turned a bend in a corridor and found himself staring through a giant crystal window, a window so clear as to be essentially invisible, providing a sudden stunning view of open air—an abyss that descended mile after mile until it was sealed at its lower end by a thick layer of white cloud. It was a vivid reminder that they were thirty miles high, up here at the Castle, sitting at the tip of the biggest mountain in the universe, provided with light and air and water and all other necessities by ingenious mechanisms thousands of years old. You tended to forget that, when you spent enough time at the Castle. You tended to begin to think that this was the primary level of the world, and all the rest of Majipoor was mysteriously sunken far below the surface. But that was wrong. There was the world, and then there was the Castle; and the Castle loomed far above all.
The gateway before him led back into the Inner Castle. On his left lay Prestimion’s archival building, rising behind the Arioc Tower; to his right was the white-tiled hall where the Lady of the Isle resided when she came to the Castle to visit her son, and just beyond that Lord Confalume’s garden-house, with its bewildering collection of tender plants from tropical regions. He went through the gate that lay beside the Lady’s hall and found himself in the maze of hallways and galleries, so bewildering to newcomers, that led to the core of the Castle.
He avoided going near the halls of the court. They were all very busy in there, officials both of the outgoing regime and his own still only partly formed administration—discussing matters of protocol at the coronation ceremony, making lists of guests according to rank and precedence, et cetera, et cetera. Dekkeret had had enough of that, and more than enough, for the moment. Left to his own devices, the coronation rite would have at best an audience of seven or ten people, and would take no longer than the time necessary for Prestimion to take the starburst crown from its bearer and place it on the brow of his successor, and cry, “Dekkeret! Dekkeret! All hail Lord Dekkeret!”
But he knew better than to think it could be as simple as that. There had to be feasting, and rituals, and poetry readings, and the salutations of the high lords, and the ceremonial showing of the Coronal’s shield, and the crowning of his mother the Lady Taliesme as the new Lady of the Isle of Sleep, and whatever else was required to invest the incoming Coronal with the proper majesty and awesomeness. Dekkeret did not intend to interfere with any of that. Whatever innovations his reign would bring, and he certainly intended that there would be some, he was not going to expend his authority this early over trivial matters of ceremony. On the other hand, he took care now to keep away from the rooms where the planning was taking place. He turned instead toward the very center of the royal sector, deserted now in this time of transition from one reign to another.
A pair of great metal doors, fifteen feet high, confronted him now. These were Prestimion’s doing, a project that had been in progress for a decade or more and was still a long way from completion. The left-hand door was covered, every square inch of it, with scenes from the events of Lord Confalume’s reign. The door opposite it still presented only a smooth blank surface.
I will have that door engraved with the deeds of Prestimion, done in a matching style by the same artisans, Dekkeret told himself. And then I will have both doors gilded, so that they will shine forever down the ages.
He touched one of the heavy bronze handles and the door, precisely and delicately calibrated, swung back to admit him to the Castle’s heart.