Night was coming on. A light rain, little more than a heavy mist, began to fall. She felt lightheaded and dizzy from hunger, though she was becoming accustomed to that. Out of the south, from the suburb of Hot Khyntor where all the geothermal formations were, came the sullen booming of Confalume Geyser, punctual as ever, marking the hour. Automatically Millilain looked toward it and saw its great column of steam rising heavenward, with a broad sulphurous mantle of yellow smoke surrounding it and seeming to fill half the sky. She had been looking at the geysers of Hot Khyntor all her life, taking them completely for granted, but somehow tonight the eruption frightened her as never before, and she made the sign of the Lady again and again until it began to subside.
The Lady. Did she still watch over Majipoor? What had become of her kindly sendings that gave such good counsel and warm comfort? For that matter, where was the King of Dreams? Once, in quieter times, those two Powers had kept everyone's life in balance, advising, admonishing, if necessary punishing.
Perhaps they still reigned, Millilain thought: but the situation was so far out of hand that neither King nor Lady could possibly cope with it, though they might labor from dawn to dawn to bring matters back under control. It was a system designed to work beautifully in a world where most people gladly obeyed the law anyway. But now hardly anyone obeyed the law. There was no law.
Yah-tah yah-tah yah-tah voom.
And from the other side:
"Sempeturn! Lord Sempeturn! Hail, hail, hail, Lord Sempeturn!"
The rain was coming down harder, now. Get moving, she told herself. March-men in the square, and the Divine only knows what madness ahead of you, and the Knights of Dekkeret cavorting behind you—trouble, any way at all. And even if Kristofon was among the Knights, she didn't want to see him, eyes glassy with devotion, hands upraised in the new form of the starburst salute. She began to run. Across Malibor to Dizimaule, down Dizimaule toward that little alleyway connecting with Malamola—did she dare?
Yah-tah yah-tah yah-tah voom.
A line of paraders coming up Dizimaule Street toward her, suddenly! Walking like some sort of soulless machines, nine or ten abreast, arms swinging stiffly up and down, right left right left, and that chant bursting from them in an endless insistent jabbing rhythm. They would parade right over her and never see her. She made a quick turn into the alleyway, only to find a horde of men and women with green-and-gold armbands clogging the far end and screaming in praise of the new Lord Stiamot.
Trapped! All the lunatics were out at once tonight!
Desperately glancing about, Millilain saw a door half ajar on the left-hand side of the alleyway and ducked quickly into it. She found herself in a dark corridor, with faint chanting and the sharp scent of a strange incense coming from a room at the far end of it. A shrine of some sort. One of the new cults, maybe. But at least they were unlikely to hurt her, here. She might be able to stay until all the various demented mobs outside had moved along to another part of town.