"Valentine—"

He looked toward Carabella. "What is it, love?"

"Are you all right?"

"Yes," he said. "I'm all right." He felt very tired, he felt very strange. But—yes, he was all right. He had done what had to be done. There had been no choice. And it was done now.

To Sleet he said, "We are finished here. Make my farewells to Nitikkimal for me, and to the others of this place, and tell them that all will be well, that I promise it most solemnly. And then let us be on our way."

"Onward to Dulorn?" Sleet asked.

The Pontifex smiled and shook his head. "No. Eastward. To Piurifayne, first, to meet with the Danipiur and Lord Hissune, and bring into being the new order of the world, now that this hatred has been thrust from it. And then it will be time to go home, Sleet. It will be time to go home!"

8

They held the coronation ceremony outdoors, in the great grassy courtyard by Vildivar Close, where there was a fine view of the Ninety-Nine Steps and the uppermost reaches of the Castle. It was not usual to hold the ceremony anywhere but in the Confalume throne-room, but it was a long while since anyone had given much heed to what was usual; and the Pontifex Valentine had insisted that the ceremony take place outdoors. Who could gainsay the express wish of a Pontifex?

So they all had gathered, by the express wish of the Pontifex, under the sweet springtime sky of Castle Mount. The courtyard was lavishly decorated with flowering plants—the gardeners had brought in halatinga trees in bloom, miraculously potting them into huge tubs without disturbing their buds, and down both sides of the courtyard their crimson-and-gold flowers cast an almost luminescent glow. There were tanigales and alabandinas, caramangs and sefitongals, eldirons, pinninas, and dozens more, everything in full bloom.

Valentine had given orders that there be flowers on all sides; and so there were flowers on all sides.

It was the custom, at a coronation ceremony, to arrange the Powers of the realm in a diamond-shaped pattern, if all four of them had been able to attend: the new Coronal at the head of the diamond, and the Pontifex facing him, and the Lady of the Isle to one side, and the King of Dreams to the other. But this coronation was different from all other coronation ceremonies that Majipoor had ever known, for this time there were five Powers, and a new configuration had had to be devised.

And so it was. Pontifex and Coronal stood side by side. To the right of the Coronal Lord Hissune there stood, some distance away, his mother Elsinome the Lady of the Isle. To the left of the Pontifex Valentine, at an equal distance, stood Minax Barjazid, the King of Dreams. And at the farthest end of the group, facing the other four, stood the Danipiur of Piurifayne, fifth and newest of the Powers of Majipoor.