"It may seem to some," said Hornkast, "a mere pleasure jaunt, a trivial and meaningless holiday from the cares of office. Not so! Not so! For it is the person of the Coronal—the actual, physical person, not a banner, not a flag, not a portrait—that binds all the far-flung provinces of the world to a common loyalty.

And it is only through periodic contact with the actual presence of that royal person that that loyalty is renewed."

Valentine frowned and looked away. Through his mind there surged a sudden disturbing image: the landscape of Majipoor sundered and upheaved, and one solitary man desperately wrestling with the splintered terrain, striving to thrust everything back into place.

"For the Coronal," Hornkast went on, "is the embodiment of Majipoor. The Coronal is Majipoor personified. He is the world; the world is the Coronal. And so when he undertakes the grand processional, as you, Lord Valentine, now will do for the first time since your glorious restoration, he is not only going forth to the world, but he is going forth to himself—to a voyage into his own soul, to an encounter with the deepest roots of his identity—"

Was it so? Of course. Of course. Hornkast, he knew, was simply spouting standard rhetoric, oratorical noises of a sort that Valentine had had to endure all too often. And yet, this time the words seemed to trigger something in him, seemed to open some great dark tunnel of mysteries. That dream—the cold wind blowing across Castle Mount, the groans of the earth, the shattered landscape— The Coronal is the embodiment of Majipoor — he is the world—

Once in his reign already that unity had been broken, when Valentine, thrust from power by treachery, stripped of his memory and even of his own body, had been hurled into exile. Was it to happen again? A second overthrow, a second downfall? Or was something even more dreadful imminent, something far more serious than the fate of one single man?

He tasted the unfamiliar taste of fear. Banquet or no, Valentine knew he should have gone at once for a dream-speaking. Some grim knowledge was striving to break through to his awareness, beyond all doubt.

Something was wrong within the Coronal—which was the same as saying something was wrong in the world—

"My lord?" It was Autifon Deliamber. The little Vroonish wizard said, "It is time, my lord, for you to offer the final toast."

"What? When?"

"Now, my lord."

"Ah. Indeed," Valentine said vaguely. "The final toast, yes."

He rose and let his gaze journey throughout the great room, into its most shadowy depths. And a sudden strangeness came upon him, for he realized that he was entirely unprepared. He had little notion of what he was to say, or to whom he should direct it, or even—really—what he was doing in this place at all. The Labyrinth? Was this in truth the Labyrinth, that loathsome place of shadows and mildew? Why was he here? What did these people want him to do? Perhaps this was merely another dream, and he had never left Castle Mount. He did not know. He did not understand anything.