"Indeed." For an instant the Coronal's eyes flickered into glassiness again. Then, recovering once more, he said, "To business, then. The first item of which is the giving of my thanks. I'd have been badly hurt but for your being there to catch me. You must have been on your way toward me before I went over, eh?

Was it that obvious I was about to keel over?"

Reddening a little, Hissune said, "It was, lordship. At least to me."

"Ah."

"But I may have been watching you more closely than the others were."

"Yes. I dare say you may have been."

"I hope your lordship won't greatly suffer the ill effects of—of—"

A faint smile appeared on the Coronal's lips. "I wasn't drunk, Hissune."

"I didn't mean to imply—I mean—but that is to say—"

"Not drunk, no. A spell, a sending—who knows? Wine is one thing, and sorcery's another, and I think I still can tell the difference. It was a dark vision, boy: not the first I've had lately. The omens are troublesome. War's on the wind."

"War?" Hissune blurted. The word was unfamiliar, alien, ugly: it hovered in the air like some foul droning insect looking for prey. War? War? Into Hissune's mind leaped an image eight thousand years old, springing from the cache of memories he had stolen in the Register of Souls: the dry hills of the far northwest ablaze, the sky black with thick coils of rising smoke, in the final awful convulsion of Lord Stiamot's long war against the Metamorphs. But that was ancient history. There had been no war in all the centuries since, other than the war of restoration. And scarce any lives had been lost in that, by design of Lord Valentine, to whom violence was an abomination. "How can there be war?" Hissune demanded. "We have no wars on Majipoor!"

"War's coming, boy!" said Sleet roughly. "And when it does, by the Lady, there'll be no hiding from it!"

"But war with whom? This is the most peaceful of worlds. What enemy could there be?"

"There is one," Sleet said. "Are you Labyrinth people so sheltered from the real world that you fail to comprehend that?"

Hissune frowned. "The Metamorphs, you mean?"

"Aye, the Metamorphs!" Sleet cried. "The filthy Shapeshifters, boy! Did you think we could keep them penned up forever? By the Lady, there'll be a rampage soon enough!"

Hissune stared in shock and amazement at the lean little scar-faced man. Sleet's eyes were shining. He seemed almost to welcome the prospect.

Shaking his head slowly, Hissune said, "With all respect, High Counsellor Sleet, this makes no sense to me. A few millions of them, against twenty billions of us? They fought that war once, and lost it, and however much they hate us, I don't think they're going to try it again."

Sleet pointed toward the Coronal, who seemed barely to be listening. "And the time they put their own puppet on Lord Valentine's throne? What was that if not a declaration of war? Ah, boy, boy, you know nothing! The Shapeshifters have been scheming against us for centuries, and their time is at hand. The Coronal's own dreams foretell it! By the Lady, the Coronal himself dreams of war!"