The Shortage—the famine—had started somewhere out west, in the Rift country. At first it had seemed unimportant and almost unreal to Millilain, since it was happening so far away, in places that were themselves unreal to her. She had never been west of Thagobar. When the first reports came in, she had felt a certain abstract compassion for the people who were said to be going hungry in Mazadone and Dulorn and Falkynkip, but it was hard for her to believe that it was actually happening—nobody ever went hungry on Majipoor, after all—and whenever word came of some new crisis out west, a riot or a mass migration or an epidemic, it struck her as being remote not only in space but in time, not something taking place right this moment but more like something out of a history book, an event of Lord Stiamot's time, say, thousands of years ago.

But then Millilain began to find that there were days when things like niyk and hingamorts and glein were in short supply at the places where she shopped. It's because of the crop failures out west, the clerks told her: nothing much is coming out of the Rift farm belt any longer, and it's a slow and costly business to ship produce in from other areas. After that, such basic things as stajja and ricca suddenly were being rationed, even though they were grown locally and there had been no disruptions of agriculture in the Khyntor region. The explanation this time was that surplus food stocks were being shipped to the afflicted provinces; we must all make sacrifices in such a time of dire need, et cetera, et cetera, said the imperial decree. Then came the news that certain of the plant diseases had shown up around Khyntor also, and east of Khyntor as far downriver as Ni-moya. Allotments of thuyol and ricca and stajja were cut in half, lusavender disappeared entirely from sale, meat began to become scarce. There was talk of bringing in supplies from Alhanroel and Suvrael, where apparently everything was still normal. But that was only talk, Millilain knew. There weren't enough cargo ships in the whole world to carry produce from the other continents in quantities big enough to make a difference, and even if there were, the cost would be prohibitive. "We're all going to starve," she told Kristofon.

So the Shortage reached Khyntor at last.

The Shortage. The famine.

Kristofon didn't think anyone would really starve. He was always optimistic. Somehow things will get better, he said. Somehow. But here were a hundred people desperately converging on a sausage vendor.

The Hjort woman tried to pass her. Millilain hit her hard with her shoulder and knocked her sprawling.

She had never hit anyone before. She felt a strange lightheaded sensation, and a tightness in her throat. The Hjort screamed curses at her, but Millilain ran on, heart pounding, eyes aching. She jostled someone else aside and elbowed her way into the line that was forming. Up ahead, the Liiman was handing out sausages in that strange impassive Liiman way, not at all bothered, it seemed, by the struggling mob in front of him.