He looked up, aghast.

"All this in so short a time?"

"And these are only fragmentary reports, Valentine. No one really knows what's going on out there right now—the distances are so vast, the communications channels so disturbed—"

His hand sought hers. "Everything foretold in my dreams and visions is coming to pass. The darkness is coming, Carabella, and I am all that stands in its path."

"There are some who stand beside you, love."

"That I know. And for that am I grateful. But at the last moment I will be alone, and then what will I do?" He smiled ruefully. "There was a time when we were juggling at the Perpetual Circus in Dulorn, do you recall, and the knowledge of my true identity was only then beginning to break through to my awareness. And I was speaking with Deliamber, and telling him that perhaps it was the will of the Divine that I had been overthrown, and that perhaps it was just as well for Majipoor that the usurper keep my name and my throne, for I had no real desire to be king and the other might indeed prove to be a capable ruler. Which Deliamber denied completely, and said there could be only one lawfully consecrated king and I was that one, and must return to my place. You ask a great deal of me, I said. 'History asks a great deal,'

he replied. 'History has demanded, on a thousand worlds across many thousands of years, that intelligent beings choose between order and anarchy, between creation and destruction, between reason and unreason.' And also: 'It matters, my lord, it matters very much,' said he, 'who is to be Coronal and who is not to be Coronal.' I have never forgotten those words of his, and I never will."

"And how did you answer him?"

"I answered 'yes' and then I added 'perhaps,' and he said, 'You'll go on wavering from yes to perhaps a long while, but yes will govern in the end.' And so it did, and therefore I recaptured my throne—and nevertheless we move farther every day from order and creation and reason, and closer to anarchy, destruction, unreason." Valentine stared at her in anguish. "Was Deliamber wrong, then? Does it matter who is to be Coronal and who is not to be Coronal? I think I am a good man, and sometimes I think even that I am a wise ruler; and yet even so the world falls apart, Carabella, despite my best efforts or because of them, I know not which. It might have been better for everyone if I had stayed a wandering juggler."

"Oh, Valentine, what foolish talk this is!"

"Is it?"

"Are you saying that if you'd left Dominin Barjazid to rule, there would have been a fine lusavender harvest this year? How are you to blame for crop failures in Zimroel? These are natural calamities, with natural causes, and you'll find a wise way to deal with them, because wisdom is your way, and you are the chosen of the Divine."