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Majipoor Chronicles
by Robert Silverberg
For Kirby who may not have been driven all the way to despair by this one, but who certainly got as far as the outlying suburbs.
Prologue
In the fourth year of the restoration of the Coronal Lord Valentine a great mischief has come over the soul of the boy Hissune, a clerk in the House of Records of the Labyrinth of Majipoor. For the past six months it has been Hissune's task to prepare an inventory of the archives of the tax-collectors — an interminable list of documents that no one is ever going to need to consult — and it looks as though the job will keep him occupied for the next year or two or three. To no purpose, so far as Hissune can understand, since who could possibly care about the reports of provincial tax-collectors who lived in the reign of Lord Dekkeret or Lord Calintane or even the ancient Lord Stiamot? These documents had been allowed to fall into disarray, no doubt for good reason, and now some malevolent destiny has chosen Hissune to put them to rights, and so far as he can see it is useless work, except that he will have a fine geography lesson, a vivid experience of the hugeness of Majipoor. So many provinces! So many cities! The three giant continents are divided and subdivided and further divided into thousands of municipal units, each with its millions of people, and as he toils, Hissune's mind overflows with names, the Fifty Cities of Castle Mount, the great urban districts of Zimroel, the mysterious desert settlements of Suvrael, a torrent of metropolises, a lunatic tribute to the fourteen thousand years of Majipoor's unceasing fertility: Pidruid, Narabal, Ni-moya, Alaisor, Stoien, Piliplok, Pendiwane, Amblemorn, Minimool, Tolaghai, Kangheez, Natu Gorvinu — so much, so much, so much! A million names of places! But when one is fourteen years old one can tolerate only a certain amount of geography, and then one begins to grow restless.
Restlessness invades Hissune now. The mischievousness that is never far from the surface in him wells up and overflows.
Close by the dusty little office in the House of Records where Hissune sifts and classifies his mounds of tax reports is a far more interesting place, the Register of Souls, which is closed to all but authorized perso
Yes, it would certainly make this job more tolerable if he could divert himself with an occasional peek into the Register of Souls.
From that realization it is but a short journey to the actual attempting of it. He equips himself with the appropriate passes — he knows where all the document-stampers are kept in the House of Records — and makes his way through the brightly lit curving corridors late one afternoon, dry-throated, apprehensive, tingling with excitement.
It has been a long time since he has known any excitement. Living by his wits in the streets was exciting, but he no longer does that; they have civilized him, they have housebroken him, they have given him a job. A job! They! And who are they? The Coronal himself, that's who! Hissune has not overcome his amazement over that. During the time when Lord Valentine was wandering in exile, displaced from his body and his throne by the usurper Barjazid, the Coronal had come to the Labyrinth, and Hissune had guided him, recognizing him somehow for what he truly was; and that had been the begi
He enters a small antechamber and presents his pass to the dull-eyed Hjort on duty.
Hissune is ready with a flow of explanations: special assignment from the Coronal, important historical research, need to correlate demographic details, necessary corroboration of data profile — oh, he's good at such talk, and it lies coiled waiting back of his tongue. But the Hjort says only, "You know how to use the equipment?"
"It's been a while. Perhaps you should show me again."
The ugly warty-faced fellow, many-chi