"Which as I recall is still some thousands of miles east of here, is it not?" said Hissune. "So we have no little while yet to wait for him. Well, he will get here when he gets here, and there can be no hurrying it, nor do I think it wise to set out for Piurifayne until I have met with him." He smiled ruefully." Our task would be three times as simple, I think, if this world were half as big. Alsimir, send messages of our highest regard to Divvis at Larnimisculus, and perhaps to Belka and Clarischanz and a few other cities along his route, telling him how eager I am to see him once again."

"And are you, my lord?" Alsimir asked.

Hissune looked closely at him. "That I am," he said. "Most genuinely I am, Alsimir!"

He chose for his headquarters the grand study on the third floor of the building. Long ago when this had been the home of Calain, brother to the Duke of Ni-moya—so Hissune recalled out of his acquired memory of the place—the huge room had housed Calain's library of ancient books bound in the hides of uncommon animals. But the books were gone; the study was a vast empty space with a single scarred desk in its center. There he spread out his maps and contemplated the enterprise that lay before him.

It had not pleased Hissune to be left behind at the Isle of Sleep when Valentine sailed to Piliplok. He had meant to handle the pacification of Piliplok himself, by force of arms; but Valentine had had other ideas, and Valentine had prevailed. Coronal might indeed Hissune be, yes, but it became clear to him at the time of that decision that his situation was for some time going to be an anomalous one, for he would have to contend with the existence of a vigorous and active and highly visible Pontifex who had no intention whatever of retreating to the Labyrinth. Hissune's historical studies provided him with no precedent for that.

Even the strongest and most ambitious of Coronals—Lord Confalume, Lord Prestimion, Lord Dekkeret, Lord Kinniken—had yielded up their place and gone to their subterranean abode at the completion of their time at the Castle.

But there was no precedent, Hissune conceded, for anything that was happening now. And he could not deny that Valentine's voyage to Piliplok—which to Hissune had seemed to be the maddest sort of folly—had in fact been a brilliant stroke of strategy.

Imagine: the rebellious city meekly hauling down its flags and submitting without a whimper to the Pontifex, precisely as Valentine had predicted! What magic did he have, Hissune wondered, that allowed him to carry off so bold a coup with such self-assurance? But he had won back his throne in the war of restoration with much the same tactics, had he not? His mildness, his gentleness—they concealed a temperament of remarkable strength and determination. And yet, thought Hissune, it was not a mere cloak conveniently put on, that gentleness of Valentine: it was the essential nature of his character, the deepest and truest part of it. An extraordinary being—a great king, in his curious fashion....