Orchestras, acrobats, dancers, animal-trainers, jugglers, before him and aft, thousands of blank faces in the seats, ribbon-bedecked arcades of grandees — Valentine saw none of it except in the most subliminal way. Throw, throw, throw and catch, throw and catch, throw and catch, on and on, until in the corner of his eye he saw the brilliant green-and-gold draperies flanking the royal pavilion. He turned to face the Coronal. This was a difficult moment, for now he had to divide his attention: keeping the clubs flying, he sought for Lord Valentine himself, and found him, halfway up the sloping pavilion. Valentine prayed for another jolt of interchanged energy, another quick flash of contact with the Coronal’s searing eyes. He threw automatically, precisely, each club rising its allotted distance and arcing over to land between his thumb and fingers, and as he did so he searched the Coronal’s face, but no, no jolt of energy this time, for the prince was distracted, he did not see the juggler at all, he stared in boredom across the whole width of the stadium, toward some other act, perhaps some fang-and-claw animal number, perhaps the bare-rumped ballet-dancers, perhaps at nothing at all. Valentine persevered, counting out the full sixty seconds of his homage, and toward the end of his minute it seemed to him the Coronal did indeed glance his way a fraction of an instant, but no more than that.
Then Valentine moved on. Carabella and Sleet were already approaching the exit. Valentine turned in a half circle where he stood, and grinned high-heartedly at the Skandars, who marched forward under a dancing canopy of axes and fiery torches and sickles and hammers and pieces of fruit, adding object after object to the multitude of things they whirled aloft. Valentine juggled at them a moment before continuing his solitary orbit of the stadium.
And onward, and outward through the far gate. And caught his clubs and held them as he passed into the outer world. Again, as he left the presence of the Coronal, he felt a letdown, a weariness, an emptiness, as though Lord Valentine did not truly radiate energy but merely drained it from others, giving the illusion of a bright out-flashing aura, and when one moved beyond him one experienced only a sense of loss. Besides, the performance was over; Valentine’s moment of glory had come and gone, and no one apparently had noticed.
Except Zalzan Kavol, who looked dour and irritable. "Who taught you that two-club throw?" he demanded, the moment he came through the gate.
"No one," said Valentine. "I invented it myself."
"And if you had dropped your clubs out there?"
"Did I drop them?"
"That was no place for fancy tricks," the Skandar muttered. Then he softened a bit. "But I do admit you carried yourself well." From a second major-domo he received a purse of coins, and dumped them into his two outer hands, counting quickly through them. Most he pocketed, but he tossed one to each of his brothers, and one apiece to Sleet and Carabella, and then, after some thought, smaller coins to Valentine and Shanamir.
Valentine saw that he and Shanamir had each received half a crown, and the others a crown apiece. Not important: money was of no real account so long as a few crowns jingled in his pouch. The bonus, however small, was unexpected. He would squander it gleefully tonight on strong wine and spicy fish.
The long afternoon was nearly over. Fog rising off the sea was bringing an early darkness to Pidruid. In the stadium, the sounds of circus still resounded. The poor Coronal, Valentine thought, would be sitting there far into the night.
Carabella tugged at his wrist.
"Come now," she whispered urgently. "Our work is done! Now we make festival!"
—9—
SHE SPRINTED OFF into the crowd, and Valentine, after a moment’s confusion, followed her. His three clubs, fastened by a cord to his waist, clumped awkwardly into his thighs as he ran. He thought he had lost her, but no, she was in sight now, taking high bouncy strides, turning and grinning saucily back at him, waving him on. Valentine caught up with her on the great flat steps that led down to the bay. Barges had been towed into the near harbor, with pyres of slender logs piled on them in intricate patterns, and already, though it was hardly night yet, a few of them had been torched and were burning with a cool green glow, sending up scarcely any smoke.
The entire city had been converted, during the day, into a playground. Carnival booths had sprung up like toadstools after summer rain; revelers in strange costumes swaggered along the quays; there was music on all sides, laughter, a feverish excitement. As the darkness deepened, new fires blazed, and the bay became a sea of colored light; and out of the east erupted some kind of pyrotechnic display, a skyrocket of piercing brilliance that soared to a point high overhead and burst, sending dazzling streamers downward to the tips of Pidruid’s highest buildings.
A frenzy was on Carabella, and a frenzy crept into Valentine too. Hand in hand they raced recklessly through the city, from booth to booth, scattering coins like pebbles as they played. Many of the booths were games of skill, knocking down dolls with balls or upsetting some carefully balanced construct. Carabella, with her juggler’s eye and juggler’s hand, won nearly everything she tried, and Valentine, though less skilled, took his share of prizes too. At some booths the winnings were mugs of wine or morsels of meat; at others they were silly stuffed animals or banners bearing the Coronal’s emblem, and these things they abandoned. But they ate the meat, they gulped the wine, and they grew flushed and wild as the night moved on.
"Here!" Carabella cried, and they joined a dance of Vroons and Ghayrogs and drunken Hjorts, a capering circle-dance that seemed to have no rules. For long minutes they pranced with the aliens. When a leathery-faced Hjort embraced Carabella she hugged it back, clasping it so tightly that her small strong fingers sank deep into its puffy hide, and when a female Ghayrog, all snaky locks and myriad swaying breasts, pressed herself against Valentine he accepted her kiss and returned it with more enthusiasm than he would have expected himself to muster.
And then it was onward again, into a open-walled theater where angular puppets were enacting a drama in jerky stylized movements, and on into an arena where, at a cost of a few weights, they watched sea-dragons swim in menacing circles round and round in a glistening tank, and onward from there to a garden of animate plants from Alhanroel’s southern shore, ropy tentacular things and tall trembling rubbery columns with surprising eyes near their summits. "Feeding time in half an hour," the keeper called, but Carabella would not stay, and with Valentine in tow she plunged off through the gathering darkness.
Fireworks exploded again, now infinitely more effective against the backdrop of night. There was a triple starburst that gave way to the image of Lord Valentine filling half the sky, and then a dazzle of green and red and blue that took the form of the Labyrinth and yielded to the gloomy visage of old Pontifex Tyeveras, and after a moment, when the colors had cleared, a new explosion threw a sheet of fire across the heavens, out of which coalesced the beloved features of the great royal mother, the Lady of the Isle of Sleep, smiling down on Pidruid with all of love. The sight of her so deeply moved Valentine that he would have fallen to his knees and wept, a mysterious and startling response. But there was no room in the crowd for any of that. He stood trembling an instant. The Lady faded into the darkness. Valentine slipped his hand against Carabella’s and held it tightly.
"I need more wine," he whispered.
"Wait. There’s one more to come."
Indeed. Another skyrocket, another burst of color, this one jagged and uncouth to the eye, yellows and reds, and out of it another face, heavy-jawed and somber-eyed, that of the fourth of the Powers of Majipoor, that darkest and most ambiguous figure of the hierarchy, the King of Dreams, Simonan Barjazid. A hush fell over the crowd, for the King of Dreams was no one’s friend, though all acknowledged his power, lest he bring bad fortune and dread punishment.