He did not stop again, for there was so much to see, so many hundreds of miles to traverse. He went on, past one city and another in a serene untroubled way, as if he were floating, as if he were flying. Now and again he had an astounding view from the brink of some precipice of all the Mount spread out below him, its Fifty Cities somehow visible every one at once, and the innumerable foothill towns too, and the Six Rivers, and the broad plain of Alhanroel sweeping off to the faraway Inner Sea—such splendor, such immensity.

Majipoor! Surely it was the most beautiful of all the worlds to which mankind had spread in the thousands of years of the great movement outward from Old Earth. And all given into his hand, all placed in his charge, a responsibility from which he would never shrink.

But as he rode onward an unexpected mystery began to impinge upon his soul. The air grew dark and cold, which was strange, for on Castle Mount the climate was forever controlled to yield an eternal balmy springtime. Then something like chill spittle struck him on the cheek, and he searched about for a challenger, and saw none, and was struck again, and again: snow, he realized finally, sweeping hard against him on the breast of the frosty wind. Snow, on Castle Mount? Harsh winds?

And worse: the earth was groaning like a monster in labor. His mount, which had never disobeyed him, now reared back in fear, made a weird whinnying sound, shook its heavy head in slow, ponderous dismay.

Valentine heard the booming of distant thunder, and closer at hand a strange cracking noise, and he saw giant furrows appearing in the ground. Everything was madly heaving and churning. An earthquake? The entire Mount was whipping about like a dragon-ship's mast when the hot dry winds blew from the south.

The sky itself, black and leaden, took on sudden weight.

What is this? Oh, good Lady my mother, what is happening on Castle Mount?

Valentine clung desperately to his bucking, panicky animal. The whole world seemed to be shattering, crumbling, sliding, flowing. It was his task to hold it together, clutching its giant continents close against his breast, keeping the seas in their beds, holding back the rivers that rose in ravening fury against the helpless cities—

And he could not sustain it all.

It was too much for him. Mighty forces thrust whole provinces aloft, and set them clashing against their neighbors. Valentine reached forth to keep them in their places, wishing he had iron hoops with which to bind them. But he could not do it. The land shivered and rose and split, and black clouds of dust covered the face of the sun, and he was powerless to quell that awesome convulsion. One man alone could not bind this vast planet and halt its sundering. He called his comrades to his aid. "Lisamon! Elidath!"

No response. He called again, and again, but his voice was lost in the booming and the grinding.