— Come, my lord.

— Tell me next that it is my duty to awaken.

— I need not tell you what you know so well. Come.

He opened his eyes, and found himself in midair, lying limply in Lisamon Hultin's arms. The Amazon carried him as though he were a doll, nestling against the vastness of her breasts. Small wonder he had imagined himself in a cradle, he thought, or floating down the black river! Beside him was Autifon Deliamber, perched on Lisamon's left shoulder. Valentine perceived the wizardry that had called him back from his swoon: the tips of three of the Vroon's tentacles were touching him, one to his forehead, one to his cheek, one to his chest.

He said, feeling immensely foolish, "You can put me down now."

"You are very weak, lordship," Lisamon rumbled.

"Not quite that weak, I think. Put me down."

Carefully, as though Valentine were nine hundred years old, Lisamon lowered him to the ground. At once, sweeping waves of dizziness rocked him, and he reached out to lean against the giant woman, who still hovered protectively close by. His teeth were chattering. His heavy robes clung to his damp, clammy skin like shrouds. He feared that if he closed his eyes only for an instant, that pool of darkness would rise up again and engulf him. But he forced himself toward a sort of steadiness, even if it were only a pretense.

Old training asserted itself: he could not allow himself to be seen looking dazed and weak, no matter what sort of irrational terrors were roaring through his head.

He felt himself growing calmer after a moment, and looked around. They had taken him from the great hall. He was in some brightly lit corridor inlaid with a thousand intertwined and overlapping Pontifical emblems, the eye-baffling Labyrinth symbol repeated over and over. A mob of people clustered about him, looking anxious and dismayed: Tunigorn, Sleet, Hissune, and Shanamir of his own court, and some of the Pontifex's staff as well, Hornkast and old Dilifon and behind them half a dozen other bobbing yellow-masked heads.

"Where am I?" Valentine asked.

"Another moment and we'll be at your chambers, lordship," Sleet said.

"Have I been unconscious long?"

"Two or three minutes, only. You began to fall, while making your speech. But Hissune caught you, and Lisamon."

"It was the wine," Valentine said. "I suppose I had too much, a bowl of this and a bowl of that—"

"You are quite sober now," Deliamber pointed out. "And it is only a few minutes later."

"Let me believe it was the wine," said Valentine, "for a little while longer." The corridor swung leftward and there appeared before him the great carved door of his suite, chased with gold inlays of the starburst emblem over which his own LVC monogram had been engraved. "Where is Tisana?" he called.

"Here, my lord," said the dream-speaker, from some distance.

"Good. I want you inside with me. Also Deliamber and Sleet. No one else. Is that clear?"