In the night, lying awake with Carabella at his side, he listened to the voices of Majipoor. He heard them crying with hunger in Khyntor and whimpering with fear in Pidruid; he heard the angry shouts of vigilante forces running through the cobbled streets of Velathys, and the barking outbursts of street-corner orators in Alaisor. He heard his name called out, fifty million times. He heard the Metamorphs in their humid jungle savoring the triumph that was sure to come, and he heard the dragons calling to one another in great solemn tones on the floor of the sea.

And also he felt the cool touch of his mother's hand across his brow, and the Lady saying, "You will be with me soon, Valentine, and I will give you ease." And then the King of Dreams was with him to declare,

"This night will I traverse the world seeking your enemies, friend Coronal, and if I can bring them to their knees, why, that I mean to do;" Which gave him some repose, until the cries of dismay and pain began again, and then the singing of the sea-dragons, and then the whispering of the Shapeshifters; and so the night became morning, and he rose from his bed more weary than when he had entered it.

But once the ships had passed the tip of the Stoienzar and entered into the waters between Alhanroel and the Isle,

Valentine's malaise began to lift. The bombardment of anguish from every part of the world did not cease; but here the power of the Lady was paramount and grew daily stronger, and Valentine felt her beside him in his mind, aiding, guiding, comforting. In Suvrael, confronted with the pessimism of the King of Dreams, he had spoken eloquently of his conviction that the world could be restored. "There is no hope,"

said Minax Barjazid, to which Valentine replied, "There is, if only we reach out to seize it. I see the way."

And the Barjazid said, "There is no way, and all is lost," to which Valentine replied, "Only follow me, and I will show the way." And eventually he had pulled Minax from his bleakness and won his grudging support.

That shard of hope that Valentine had found in Suvrael had somehow slipped from his grasp during this voyage north; but again it seemed to be returning.

Now the Isle was very close. Now each day it stood higher above the horizon, and every morning, as the rising sun struck its eastern face, its chalky ramparts offered a brilliant display, pale pink in the first light, then a stunning scarlet that gave way imperceptibly to gold, and then at last, when the sun was fully aloft, the splendor of total whiteness, a whiteness that rang out across the waters like the clashing of giant cymbals and the upsurge of a vast sustained melody.

In Numinor port the Lady was waiting for him at the house known as the Seven Walls. Once more the hierarch Talinot Esulde conducted Valentine to her in the Emerald Room; once more he found her standing between the potted tanigale trees, smiling, her arms outstretched to him.