And so the Pontifex Tyeveras floats midway between worlds, neither dead nor alive, dreaming of the world of the living when he thinks that he is dead, dreaming of the realm of death when he remembers that he is alive.

7

"A little wine, if you will," Valentine said. Sleet put the bowl in his hand, and the Coronal drank deeply. "I was just dozing," he muttered. "A quick nap, before the banquet— and that dream, Sleet! That dream! Get me Tisana, will you? I have to have a speaking of that dream."

"With respect, lordship, there's no time for that now," said Sleet.

"We've come to fetch you," Tunigorn put in. "The banquet's about to begin. Protocol requires that you be at the dais when the Pontifical officials—"

"Protocol! Protocol! That dream was almost like a sending, don't you understand! Such a vision of disaster—"

"The Coronal does not receive sendings, lordship," Sleet said quietly. "And the banquet will start in minutes, and we must robe you and convey you. You'll have Tisana and her potions afterward, if you like, my lord. But for now—"

"I must explore that dream!"

"I understand. But there lacks the time. Come, my lord."

He knew that Sleet and Tunigorn were right: like it or not, he must get himself to the banquet at once. It was more than just a social event; it was a rite of courtesy, the showing of honor by the senior monarch to the younger king who was his adopted son and anointed successor, and even though the Pontifex might be senile or altogether mad the Coronal did not have the option of taking the event lightly. He must go, and the dream must wait. No dream so potent, so rife with omen, could simply be ignored—he would need a dream-speaking, and probably a conference with the wizard Deliamber also—but there would be time to deal with all that afterward.

"Come, lordship," Sleet said again, holding his ermine robe of office out to him.

The heavy spell of that vision still clung to Valentine's spirit when he entered the Great Hall of the Pontifex ten minutes later. But it would not do for the Coronal of Majipoor to seem dour or preoccupied at such an event, and so he put upon his face the most affable expression he could manage, as he made his way toward the high table.

Which was, indeed, the way he had conducted himself all throughout the interminable week of this official visit: the forced smile, the studied amiability. Of all the cities of giant Majipoor, the Labyrinth was the one Lord Valentine loved least. It was to him a grim, oppressive place that he entered only when the unavoidable responsibilities of office required it. Just as he felt most keenly alive under the warm summer sun and the great vault of the open sky, riding in some forest in heavy leaf, a fair fresh wind tossing his golden hair about, so did he feel buried before his time whenever he entered this cheerless sunken city. He loathed its dismal descending coils, its infinity of shadowy underground levels, its claustrophobic atmosphere.