"And what's the main belief?" Stasilaine asked.

"More or less as Elidath said: that the dragons will come ashore some day and take command of the government and end all misery and suffering."

"What misery and suffering?" Divvis said. "I know of no great misery and suffering anywhere in the world, unless you refer to the whining and muttering of the Shapeshifters, and they—"

"You think everyone lives as we do on Castle Mount?" Hissune demanded.

"I think no one is left in need, that all are provided for, that we are happy and prosperous, that—"

"All this is true, Divvis. Nevertheless there are some who live in castles and some who sweep the dung of mounts from the highways. There are those who own great estates and those who beg for coins in the streets. There are—"

"Spare me. I need no lectures from you on social injustice."

"Forgive me then for boring you," Hissune snapped. "I thought you wanted to know why there were people who wait for water-kings to deliver them from hardship and pain."

"Water-kings?" Elidath said.

"Sea dragons. So they are called by those who worship them."

"Very well," said Stasilaine. "There's famine in Zimroel, and a troublesome cult is spreading among the lower classes. You said there were two important new developments. Are those the two you meant?"

Elidath shook his head. "Those are both parts of the same thing. The other important matter concerns Lord Valentine. I have heard from Tunigorn, who is greatly distressed. The Coronal, he says, has had some sort of revelation during his visit with his mother on the Isle, and has entered a mood of high elevation, a very strange mood indeed, in which he appears almost totally unpredictable."

"What sort of revelation?" Stasilaine asked. "Do you know?"

"While in a trance guided by the Lady," said Elidath, "he had a vision that showed him that the agricultural troubles in Zimroel indicate the displeasure of the Divine."

"Who could possibly think otherwise?" Stasilaine cried. "But what does that have to—"

"According to Tunigorn, Valentine thinks now that the blights and the food shortages—which as we now know are much more serious than our own first reports made them seem—have a specifically supernatural origin—"

Divvis, shaking his head slowly, let out his breath in a derisive snort.

"—a specifically supernatural origin," Elidath continued, "and are, in fact, a punishment imposed upon us by the Divine for our mistreatment of the Metamorphs down through the centuries."

"But this is nothing new," said Stasilaine. "He's been talking that way for years."

"Evidently it is something new," Elidath replied. "Tunigorn says that since the day of the revelation, he's been keeping mainly to himself, seeing only the Lady and Carabella, and sometimes Deliamber or the dream-speaker Tisana. Both Sleet and Tunigorn have had difficulty gaining access to him, and when they do it's to discuss only the most routine matters. He seems inflamed, Tunigorn says, with some grandiose new idea, some really startling project, which he will not discuss with them."