"And shall we toss a royal-piece for it?" came a voice suddenly from the doorway.

Divvis, sweaty-looking and unshaven and still in his hunting clothes, stood facing Hissune.

Hissune smiled. "I am cheered to see you once again, my lord Divvis."

"I regret that I have missed so much of this meeting. Are we forming armies and choosing Coronals today, Prince Hissune?"

"Lord Valentine must choose the Coronal," Hissune replied calmly. "To you and me, after that, will fall the task of forming the armies and leading them. And it will be a while, I think, before either of us again has the leisure for such pastimes as hunting, my lord." He indicated the vacant chair beside him at the high table. "Will you sit, my lord Divvis? I have made some proposals before this meeting, which I will repeat to you, if you will grant me a few moments for it. And then we must come to some decisions. So will you sit and listen to me, my lord Divvis? Will you sit?"

4

Once more, then, to sea: through heat-haze and swelter, with the fiery wind out of Suvrael at his back and a swift unceasing current from the southwest pushing the ships swiftly toward northern lands.

Valentine felt other currents, turbulent ones, sweeping through his soul. The words of the high spokesman Hornkast at the banquet in the Labyrinth still resounded in him, as though he had heard them only yesterday, and not what seemed like ten thousand years ago.

The Coronal is the embodiment of Majipoor. The Coronal is Majipoor personified. He is the world; the world is the Coronal.

Yes. Yes.

And as he moved back and forth upon the face of the world, from Castle Mount to the Labyrinth, from the Labyrinth to the Isle, from the Isle to Piliplok to Piurifayne to Bellatule, from Bellatule to Suvrael—now from Suvrael again to the Isle—Valentine's spirit opened ever more widely to the anguish of Majipoor, his mind grew ever more receptive to the pain, the confusion, the madness, the horror, that now was ripping apart what had been the happiest and most peaceful of worlds. Night and day was he flooded with the outpourings of twenty billion tormented souls. And gladly did he receive it all; and eagerly did he accept and absorb all that Majipoor must pour into him; and willingly did he search for ways of easing that pain. But the strain was wearying him. Too much came flooding in; he could not process and integrate it all, and often it baffled and overwhelmed him; and there was no escaping from it, for he was a Power of the realm, and this was his task, which could not be refused.

All this afternoon he had stood by himself on the deck, staring straight ahead, and no one dared approach him, not even Carabella, so complete was the sphere of isolation in which he had enclosed himself. When after a time she did go to him, hesitantly, timidly, it was in silence. He smiled and drew her close, her hip against his thigh, her shoulder against the pit of his arm, but still he did not speak, for he had passed for the moment into a realm beyond words, where he was calm, where the eroded places of his spirit might begin to heal somewhat. He knew he could trust her not to intrude on that.