Then he had a glimpse of her seated by the eight-sided pool in her chamber of fine white stone at Inner Temple on the Isle. She was bending forward, as though studying her reflection. He floated toward her and hovered just behind her, and looked down and saw the familiar face glimmering in the pool, the dark shining hair, the full lips and warm loving eyes, the flower as always behind one ear, the silver band about her forehead. He said softly, "Mother? It's Valentine."

She turned to face him. But the face he saw was the face of a stranger: a pale, haggard, frowning, puzzled face.

"Who are you?" he whispered.

"Why, you know me! I am the Lady of the Isle!"

"Most certainly I am."

"No."

"Why have you come to me here? You should not have done that, for you are Pontifex, and it is more fitting for me to journey toward you than you toward me."

"Pontifex? Coronal, you mean."

"Ah, did I say that? Then I was mistaken."

"And my mother? Where is she?"

"I am she, Valentine."

And indeed the haggard pale face was but a mask, which grew thin and peeled away like a sheath of old skin, to reveal his mother's wondrous smile, his mother's comforting eyes. And that in turn peeled away to show the other face once more, and then the true Lady's beneath that, but this time she was weeping. He reached for her and his hands passed through her, and he found himself alone. She did not return to him that night, though he pursued her through vision after vision, into realms of such strangeness that he would gladly have retreated if he could; and at last he abandoned the quest and gave himself over to the deepest and most dreamless of sleeps.

When he awakened it was midmorning. He bathed and stepped from his chamber and found Carabella outside, face drawn and tense, eyes reddened as though she had not slept at all.

"How is my lord?" she asked at once.

"I learned nothing last night. My dreams were hollow, and the Lady did not speak with me."

"Oh, love, how sorry I am!"

"I'll attempt it again tonight. Perhaps I had too little dream-wine, or too much. The hierarch will advise me. Have you eaten, Carabella?"

"Long since. But I'll breakfast again with you now, if you wish. And Sleet wants to see you. Some urgent message arrived in the night, and he would have gone right in to you, but I forbade it."

"What message is that?"

"He said nothing to me. Shall I send for him now?"

Valentine nodded. "I'll wait out there," he said, indicating with a wave of his arm the little portico overlooking the outer face of the cliff.

Sleet had a stranger with him when he appeared: a slender smooth-skinned man with a wide-browed triangular face and large somber eyes, who made a quick starburst gesture and stood staring at Valentine as though the Coronal were a creature from some other world. "Lordship, this is Y-Uulisaan, who came last night from Zimroel."