"Where am I to go, then?"

Again he hesitated.

Quietly he said, "I think they will make me Coronal, mother. And when they do, you must go to the Isle, and take up a new and difficult task. Do you comprehend what I say?"

"Indeed."

"And are you prepared, mother?"

"I will do what I must," she told him, and she smiled, and shook her head as though in disbelief. And shook the disbelief away, and reached forth to take him into her arms.

9

"Now let the word go forth," Faraataa said.

It was the Hour of the Flame, the midday hour, and the sun stood high over Piurifayne. There would be no rain today: rain was impermissible today, for this was the day of the going forth of the word, and that was a thing that must be accomplished under a rainless sky.

He stood atop a towering wicker scaffold, looking out over the vast clearing in the jungle that his followers had made. Thousands of trees felled, a great slash upon the breast of the land; and in that huge open space his people stood, shoulder to shoulder, as far as he could see. To each side of him rose the steep pyramidal forms of the new temples, nearly as lofty as his scaffold. They were built of crossed logs, interwoven in the ancient patterns, and from their summits flew the two banners of redemption, the red and the yellow. This was New Velalisier, here in the jungle. Next year at this time, Faraataa was resolved, these rites would be celebrated at the true Velalisier across the sea, reconsecrated at last.

He performed now the Five Changes, easily and serenely journeying from form to form: the Red Woman, the Blind Giant, the Flayed Man, the Final King, each Change punctuated by a hissing outcry from those who looked on, and when he underwent the fifth of the Changes, and stood forth in the form of the Prince To Come, the sound was overwhelming. They were crying out his name now in mounting crescendos: "Faraataa! Faraataa! FARAATAA!"

"I am the Prince To Come and the King That Is," he cried, as he had so often cried in his dreams.

And they replied: "All hail the Prince To Come, who is the King That Is!"

And he said, "Join your hands together, and your spirits, and let us call the water-kings."

And they joined hands and spirits, and he felt the strength of them surging into him, and he sent out his call:

— Brothers in the sea!

He heard their music. He felt their great bodies stirring in the depths. All the kings responded: Maazmoorn, Girouz, Sheitoon, Diis, Narain, and more. And joined, and gave of their strength, and made from themselves a trumpet for his words.

And his words went forth, to every land, to all who had the capacity to hear.

— You who are our enemy, listen! Know that the war is proclaimed against you, and you are already defeated. The time of reckoning has come. You cannot withstand us. You cannot withstand us. You have begun to perish, and there is no saving you now.