"No. No. I feel the dragon's mind. The presence of it. I can read nothing. The dragon is a mystery to me, Carabella. The harder I strive to reach it, the more easily it deflects me."

"It's turning. It's beginning to swim away from us."

"Yes. I can feel it closing its mind to me—pulling back, shutting me out."

"What did it want, Valentine? What did it learn?"

"I wish I knew," he said.

He clung tightly to the rail, drained, shaking. Carabella put her hand over his a moment, and squeezed it; and then she moved away and they were silent again.

He did not understand. He understood so very little. And he knew it was essential that he understand.

He was the one through which this turmoil in the world might be resolved, and reunion accomplished: of that he was sure. He, only he, could bring the warring forces together into harmony. But how? How?

When, years ago, his brother's death had unexpectedly made him a king, he had taken on that burden without a murmur, giving himself over fully to it though often the kingship felt to him like a chariot that was pulling him mercilessly along behind it. But at least he had had the training a king must have. Now, so it was beginning to seem, Majipoor was demanding of him that he become a god; and he had had no training at all for that.

He sensed the dragon still there, somewhere not far away. But he could make no real contact; and after a time he abandoned the attempt. He stood until dusk, peering to the north as though he expected to see the Isle of the Lady shining like a beacon in the darkness.

But the Isle was still some days' journey away. They were only now passing the latitude of the great peninsula known as the Stoienzar. The sea-road from Tolaghai to the Isle cut sharply across the Inner Sea almost to Alhanroel—to the Stoienzar's tip, practically—and then angled up the back face of the Rodamaunt Archipelago to Numinor port. Such a route took fullest advantage of the prevailing wind from the south, and of the strong Rodamaunt Current: it was far quicker to sail from Suvrael to the Isle than from the Isle to Suvrael.

That evening there was much discussion of the dragon. In winter these waters normally abounded with them, for the dragons that had survived the autumn hunting season customarily proceeded past the Stoienzar coast on their eastward journey back to the Great Sea. But this was not winter; and, as Valentine and the others had already had the opportunity to observe, the dragons had taken a strange route this year, veering northward past the western coast of the Isle toward some mysterious rendezvous in the polar seas.

But these days, though, there were dragons everywhere in the sea, or so it seemed, and who knew why?

Not I, Valentine thought. Certainly not I.

He sat quietly among his friends, saying little, gathering his strength, replenishing himself.