The men of Ares were so very body-oriented, so very out-of-doorsy, so very much into tramping and swimming and climbing, and overall heartiness, so very much unaccustomed to sedentary pursuits that they did not consider the possibility of archival technology. No one among them considered examining the archives to determine the real ages of the men they questioned. Inasmuch as the lower levels of the archives had been blocked as tightly as the lower levels of the caverns, even if the Aresians had thought of it, they would probably have found nothing.
Deep below Havenor, the Lord Paramount, dressed in mufti with his second-best crown a-cock, wandered in darkness of air, darkness of stone, and darkness of dust lying deep. Oh, the caverns were darker than remembered, or than he remembered remembering. Had he actually come here, ever? Or had he only told people to create these spaces, drain them, warm them, make them fit for storing all the treasures, all the pleasures of the king. The king. Himself, who had always been a king though he was not called a king. The cosettlers had not wanted a king, but they had accepted a Lord Paramount, a chief Lord, a more lordly lord than lesser lords. Marwell would have preferred to be king. He had always preferred to be king.
When he had seen his own guards taking over the palace, caverns, something strange had happened to him. He had been furious, of course.
He remembered his anger. And he remembered it building into a fury which had grown tighter and tighter, humming like a taut violin string which had then, oddly, snapped as he stepped out into this dark world. He had felt the tightness break, a quite tangible and organic feeling, a cord somewhere inside himself giving way, as though something springy but nonessential had been stretched too far. The sensation had been disquieting, and for the moment he had forgotten his anger, and when he returned to it a moment or so later he could not find it. Anger was more or less gone. Or perhaps it had merely lost its focus. What had been red fury was now only … a sallow swirling, an ashen agitation, a pale pique. He giggled at this. His fury was still there, oh, yes, but it was no longer such an irritating ire. Not anymore.
Without it he felt more comfortable, less driven to do or accomplish at once. There was time. Plenty of time. So, he wandered, lantern in hand, along a roadway deep in dust that rose before his feet in little clouds. He had dressed in his disappearance clothes and shoes, but no matter how he tried, he could not step high enough in those shoes to avoid kicking up the dust. Sometimes he kicked it up just for fun. Some places it rose high, making him sneeze. Other times it merely fountained and fell in opaque puffs, a recurring geyser at his feet.
He spent some time exploring a mountain of crockery. Much of it he remembered seeing before, the patterns were strangely evocative, the extravagant ornamentation of gold and platinum carried hints of old longings and desires. Oh, with a dinner service like that, everyone would know he was more than merely Lord Paramount. So, why had he sent it down here to be stored so clumsily? Who had let it fall so far, who had let it break into such tiny pieces? It was kingly china, he was sure of it, sure as he had been at the time, most kingly, as were the porcelain ornaments in the next box and the crystal goblets in the next heap—one of which he found unbroken and carried with him as he examined scraps of linen and lame in the next pile over but one. When he struck the goblet with his thumbnail it rang, like a tiny bell, and so he went,ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling, betimes straightening his crown, which did not accord with his clothing, but which, nonetheless, he refused to forsake.
He found carpets. He remembered those carpets. He had contemplated them for a year before ordering them, deep, and rich in color, and made by the innocent hands of children in the far mountains of some other world. Chamis, perhaps. Or Alfrenia. Or Verchop’s World. Oh, there had been many carpets, so many, enough for the whole palace, but they had been improperly stored, fallen into ruin and decayed, soaked with lizard filth and burrowed through by creatures.