"You are, my lord," Y-Uulisaan said.

"Therefore our first line of priority must be to keep the lusavender smut out of those regions." He looked up, at Sleet, Tunigorn, Deliamber. "Notify the dukes of the affected provinces at once that all traffic between the smut-infested zones and the healthy lusavender districts is halted at once: a complete closing of the borders. If they don't like it, let them send a delegation to the Mount to complain to Elidath. Oh, and notify Elidath of what's going on, too. Settlement of unpaid trade balances can be routed through Pontifical channels for the time being. Hornkast had better be told to be prepared for a lot of screaming, I suppose.

Next: in the stajja-growing districts—"

For close to an hour a stream of instructions flowed from the Coronal, until every immediate aspect of the crisis appeared to be covered. He turned often to Y-Uulisaan for advice, and always the agricultural expert had something useful to offer. There was something curiously unlikable about the man, Valentine thought, something remote and chilly and overly self-contained, but he was plainly well versed in the minutiae of Zimroel agriculture, and it was a tremendous stroke of good luck that he had turned up in Alaisor just in time to sail for Zimroel with the royal flagship.

All the same, Valentine was left with an odd feeling of futility when the meeting broke up. He had given dozens of orders, had sent messages far and wide, had taken firm and decisive action to contain and eradicate these pestilences. And yet, and yet—he was only one mortal man, in a small cabin aboard a tiny ship tossing in the midst of an immense sea that was itself only a puddle on this gigantic world, and at this moment invisible organisms were spreading blight and death over thousands of acres of fertile farmland, and what could all his bold orders do against the inexorable march of those forces of doom? Yet again he felt himself slipping into a mood of hopeless depression, so alien to his true nature. Perhaps I have some pestilence in me, he thought. Perhaps I am infested with some blight that robs me of my hope and cheer and buoyancy, and I am condemned now to live out my days in sullen misery.

He closed his eyes. Once more came that image out of his dream in the Labyrinth, an image that haunted him endlessly: great crevasses appearing in the solid foundations of the world, and huge slabs of land rearing up at steep angles to crash against their neighbors, and he in the midst of it all, desperately trying to hold the world together. And failing, failing, failing.

Is there a curse on me? he wondered. Why am I chosen, out of all the hundreds of Coronals that have been, to preside over the destruction of our world?

He looked into his soul and found no dark sin there that might be bringing the vengeance of the Divine upon him and upon Majipoor. He had not coveted the throne; he had not schemed to overthrow his brother; he had not made wrongful use of the power he had never expected to gain; he had not—