"And will you make the world whole again, true Pontifex?" said Aximaan Threysz in a voice of amazing vigor and clarity.

"We will all of us make it whole together, Aximaan Threysz."

"No. Not I, Pontifex Valentine. I will die, next week, the week after, and none too soon, either. But I want a promise from you that the world will be what it formerly was: for my children, for my children's children. And if you will promise me that I will go on my knees to you, and if you promise it falsely may the Divine scourge you as we have been scourged, Pontifex Valentine!"

"I promise you, Aximaan Threysz, that the world will be entirely restored, and finer than it was, and I tell you that this is no false promise. But I will not have you go on your knees to me."

"I have said I would, and I will do it!" And, amazingly, brushing aside the two younger women as if they were gnats, she dropped herself down in deep homage, although her body seemed as rigid as a slab of leather that has been left in the sun a hundred years. Valentine reached down to lift her, but one of the women—her daughter, certainly her daughter—caught his hand and pulled it back, and then stared at her own hand in horror, for having dared to touch a Pontifex. Slowly but unaided she stood again, and said, "Do you know how old I am? I was born when Ossier was Pontifex. I think I am the oldest person in the world.

And I will die when Valentine is Pontifex: and you will restore the world."

It was probably meant as a prophecy, Valentine thought. But it sounded more like a command.

He said, "It will be done, Aximaan Threysz, and you will live to see it done."

"No. No. Second sight comes upon us when first sight goes. My life is almost over. But the course of yours unfolds clearly before me. You will save us by doing that which you think is impossible for you to do.

And then you will seal your deed by doing that which you desire least to do. And though you do the impossible and then you do the undesirable, you will know that what you have done is right, and you will rejoice in it, Pontifex Valentine. Now go, Pontifex, and heal us." Her forked tongue flickered with tremendous force and energy. "Heal us, Pontifex Valentine! Heal us!"

She turned and proceeded slowly back the way she had come, disdaining the help of the two women beside her.

It was an hour more before Valentine was able to disengage himself from the last of the Prestimion Vale folk—they crowded round him in a pathetically hopeful way, as though some Pontifical emanation alone would transform their lives, and magically return them to the condition of the years prior to the coming of the lusavender blight—but at last Carabella, pleading fatigue on his behalf, got them out of there. The image of Aximaan Threysz continued to glow in his mind on the journey back to Nitikkimal's manor. The dry hissing of her voice still resonated in his mind. You will save us by doing that which you think is impossible for you to do. And then you will seal your deed by doing that which you desire least to do. Go, Pontifex, and heal us. Yes. Yes. Heal us, Pontifex Valentine! Heal us!