"Your exception is duly noted, although no threat is intended. How do you vote, Nimian?"

"Opposed."

"So be it. Four stand in opposition, which falls well short of a carrying number. Stasilaine, will you ask Prince Hissune to enter the council-chamber?" Glancing about the room, Elidath added, "If any who cast opposing votes wish now to withdraw them, this is the moment."

"Let my vote stand," the Duke of Halanx said at once.

"And mine," said the Prince of Banglecode, and Nimian of Dundilmir also.

"And what says the son of Lord Voriax?" Elidath asked.

Divvis smiled. "I change my vote. The thing is done: let it have my support as well."

At that Manganot rose halfway from his seat, gaping in astonishment, face coloring. He began to say something, but Divvis cut short his words with an upraised hand and a sharp sudden glare. Frowning, shaking his head in bewilderment, Manganot subsided. The Duke of Halanx whispered something to Prince Nimian, who shrugged and made no reply.

Stasilaine returned, with Hissune beside him, clad in a simple white robe with a golden splash on the left shoulder. His face was lightly flushed, his eyes were unnaturally bright, but he was otherwise calm and contained.

Elidath said, "By nomination of the Coronal Lord Valentine and the acclamation of these high lords, we name you to the principate of Majipoor, with full rank and privilege."

Hissune bowed his head. "I am moved beyond words, my lords. I can barely express my gratitude to you all for bestowing this unimaginable honor upon me."

Then he looked up, and his gaze traveled through the room, resting for a moment on Nimian, and on Manganot, and on the Duke of Halanx, and then, for a long while, on Divvis, who returned his stare coolly and with a faint smile.

6

That lone sea dragon, so strangely beating its wings against the water at twilight, was a harbinger of stranger things to come. In the third week of the voyage from Alaisor to the Isle of Sleep an entire herd of the huge creatures suddenly manifested itself off the starboard side of the Lady Thiin.

Pandelume, the pilot, a Skandar with deep blue fur who once had hunted sea dragons for her livelihood, was the first to sight them, just after dawn, as she was taking her sightings from the observation deck. She carried the news to Asenhart the Grand Admiral, who conferred with Autifon Deliamber, who took it upon himself to awaken the Coronal.

Valentine went quickly to the deck. By now the sun had come up out of Alhanroel and cast long shadows upon the waters. The pilot handed him her seeing-tube and he put it to his eye, and she trained it for him on the shapes that moved through the sea far in the distance.

He stared, seeing little at first except the gentle swells of the open sea, then shifting his gaze slightly to the north and refining his focus to bring the sea dragons into view: dark humped shapes thronging the water, moving in close formation, swimming with strange purposefulness. Now and again a long neck rose high above the surface, or vast wings were fanned and fluttered and spread out on the bosom of the sea.