There were those who thought that Ketheron had a fairyland loveliness about it; but to others, the region was a grotesque and bizarre place, something one might imagine in a nightmare. Erosion had cut a network of sharp-sided gullies deep into the cliffs' topmost strata, and weathering had created gnarled tapering spires of a hundred fanciful shapes in the exposed areas. By hollowing those spires out and punching tiny slit-windows through the soft rock of their walls, the Ketheron folk had transformed them into dwelling-places, dreamlike and odd, whole towns made up of tall narrow yellow buildings that looked like the pointed caps of witches.

The strangeness of Ketheron made it a favorite site for soul-painters, who had flocked here for centuries, unfurling their psychosensitive canvases and letting impressions of what they saw filter onto them through their trance-enhanced minds. Hauntingly atmospheric soul-paintings showing Ketheron's twisted yellow towers were standard items in the houses of the newly rich who had not yet learned to shun the commonplace . Even in the Castle Prestimion had seen five or six Ketherons hanging in odd places about the premises, and they had so thoroughly accustomed him to the look of this place that he was afraid he might take the actuality of it for granted when he finally beheld it.

But the soul-paintings, he quickly came to see, had not prepared him in any way for Ketheron itself. That yellow landscape, with the muddy yellow river flowing serenely through its heart, and the skewed and contorted ogre-houses of Ketheron city rising spikily from the tops of the cliffs-how mysterious it all looked, how much like a piece of some alien world that had been set down here on Majipoor between Bailemoona and the Aruachosian coast!

Of course, Prestimion thought, any place you did not know had to be regarded as a place of mystery. And how much knowledge did you ever have, really, even of the places you thought you knew?

What he saw here, though, was truly strange. Ketheron city, which extended for some miles along the northern bank of the river in the heart of the valley, was the capital of the Ketheron district. It was small as the cities of Majipoor went, half a million people at best. Prestimion stared in wonder at the oddly shaped houses, at the unfamiliar faces of the townspeople who came out to peer at their Coronal as he rode past.

Yes, Ketheron was unusual-looking to an extreme. The people themselves had a yellow cast to their features, or so he imagined, and they favored billowing baggy clothing and long floppy caps that gave them a gnomish look perfectly in keeping with the weirdness of their district.

But even if Ketheron had been as familiar to him in its contours and textures as Muldemar or Halanx or Tidias, Prestimion realized that he would be deceiving himself if he believed that he knew it. Every city was a world in itself, a world in miniature, with thousands of years of history locked up in its walls-more secrets than you could ever learn if you spent the rest of your life there. And Ketheron was just one city of all the multitudinous cities of this vast world that had been given into his care, a place that he would pass through this day, and never see again, and its essence would be as much of a riddle to him tomorrow as it had been the day before yesterday.

This was farming territorythe soft yellow ground was phenomenally fertile-and the people seemed like simple folk, by and large, unaccustomed not only to visiting Coronals but to aristocrats of any sort. 'The mayor of Ketheron city appeared almost to be trembling as he came out of the town hall, a spindly, warped three-story tower at the very edge of the cliff, to greet Prestimion and lead him within. He was protected by a formidable armamentarium of superstition: his purpleand-yellow cloak of office was bedecked with so many talismans and amulets that it was a wonder the poor man could stand upright beneath their weight, and he had brought two mages with him for moral support , a plump little oily-skinned man and a tall gaunt scarecrow of a woman, who carried the holy implements of what was apparently a purely local cult, since not even Maundigand-Mirad had ever seen their like before. The Su-Suheris seemed amused by the earnest clodhopping conjurations by which the pair drove lurking dark spirits from the cavernous, musty-smelling room where the meeting was taking place, rendering it safe for the Coronal and his party. Or was it for the mayor's own benefit that these rites were being performed?

Gialaurys conducted the inquiry, while Prestimion and the rest stood to one side. Clearly the mayor was too thoroughly intimidated by the mere proximity of Prestimion to be able to carry on a conversation with him, and Septach Melayn's airy insouciance did not seem likely to put the poor man any more at ease. But Gialaurys, massive and fearsome though he looked, had the art of speaking with plain folk, for he came of plain stock himself.

Had the mayor or any of the townsfolk seen or heard aught of Dantirya Sambail. in these parts? he asked. No, they had not. The mayor did seem aware, at least, of who Dantirya Sambail was. But he could not imagine why the awesome Procurator of Ni-moya would have been traveling hereabouts. That so mighty and terrifyinga personage could have had any reason whatever for entering this picturesque but unimportant region was a concept that left the poor man looking baffled and dismayed.

"We have chosen the wrong route, I think," Prestimion murmured to Septach Melayn. "If he'd been heading straight for the Aruachosian coast, he'd have had no choice but to pass through here, wouldn't he?

We should have gone west from Bailemoona instead of south."

"Unless the mayor's somehow been magicked into forgetting that Dantirya Sambail ever came by," said Septach Melayn. "The Procurator knows how that game's played, now."

But nothing so devious had been necessary. When Gialaurys produced a sketch of Mandralisca that they were carrying with them, the mayor recognized the poison-taster's bleak face instantly. "Oh, yes, yes," he said. "He was here. Traveling in a rusty old floater, he was, and stopped in town to buy provisions-three weeks ago, five, six, somewhere back then. Who could ever forget a face like that?"

'Traveling alone, was he?" Gialaurys asked.

The mayor had no idea. No one had taken the trouble to investigate the floater, which had been parked by the bank of the river. 'The hatchet-faced man had bought what he needed and returned to his floater and continued onward. Nor could the mayor say which way he had gone.

Here, at least, his mages were of some use. "We could see that this stranger would bring no luck to our city," the gaunt woman volun teered. "And so we followed along his floater's trail for half a mile or so, and planted dragon-wax candles every hundred yards to ensure that he'd not return."

"And the direction he was going-?"

"South," the little oily-faced man said immediately. "Toward Arvyanda!"

They were glad to get rid of us," Prestimion said, chuckling.

The royal caravan was crossing something called Spurifon Bridge, a weatherbeaten, disturbingly creaky wooden span that could well have been five thousand years old. It was just barely possible to see the silt-choked Sulfur River far below them, moving at the sluggish pace of a sleepy serpent, a tawny yellow line against the brighter yellow of the valley through which it flowed. "How terrifying we must have seemed! I hope they didn't just make up the first story that came into their minds for the sake of moving us on out of town.91 "It takes courage to lie to a Coronal," Abrigant said. 'Was there so much as one atom of courage in that whole town?"

"They told the truth," said Maundigand-Klimd. "I detect the trail of their incantation-candles along our path. Look: there, and there.

Burned to stumps, but there are the stumps. We go the right way."

"These Ketherons are harmless timid people caught up in matters too deep for them, and we have badly frightened them," Prestimion said. 'We should do something for them." He looked toward Septach Melayn. "Make a note of it. We'll build them a newbridge, at least. This one belongs in a museum.9'

"It's the responsibility of the Pontifex to build bridges," grumbled Septach Melayn. "That's what the title means: builder of bridges. An ancient word, millions of years old."

"Nothing's millions of years old," said Abrigant. "Not even the stars."

'Well, thousands, then."

"Peace, both of you," Prestimion snapped. "Let the appropriate department be notified, a new bridge for Ketheron, and so be it, with no further quibbling." What was the use of being Corona], he wondered, if he had to utter an decree twice, even among his closest associates, in order to make it effective?

South of the river the prevailing yellowness of the countryside soon began to thin out, reversing the pattern of the north, streaks of darker soil becoming more and more common until everything was normal again. It was something of a relief to be leaving it behind. The brilliant color, strange as it was, numbed and deadened the mind after a time by its very intensity, and the monotony of the sulfureous landscape had begun to become oppressive.

They camped that night in the foothills of a mountain range of moderate size that lay just ahead of them. A sending of theLady of the Isle came to Prestimion as he slept.

It was uncommon for Coronals to receive sendings, and not only because the Lady customarily was his own mother. Sendings were meant as guidance for the soul; and one Power of the Realm ordinarily did not presume to advise another. But sometimes when a Coronal stood at a point of decision and crisis the Lady would take it upon herself to intervene with her wisdom. This night, sleep overcame Prestimion almost as soon as he had closed his eyes. He felt himself going down into the trance state that betokened a sending. Then he heard the soft music of the Lady's domain, and glided easily into a low pavilion of pure white marble set all about with pots of flowering shrubs, fragrant alabandinas and tanigales and the like. And there before him was the Princess Tberissa, Lady of the Isle, his mother and mother to all the world, smiling and holding out her hands to him.

She looked as young as ever, for she was one of those women whom age seemingly could not touch. Her thick dark hair had lost none of its gleam since she had taken up her new duties. 'The silver headband of her office lay lightly on her brow. On the bosom of her robe, as always, rested the Muldemar Ruby, that wondrous jewel that had been in the family four thousand years, a deep red stone with a purple flush, set in a golden hoop.

Thismet was standing beside her.

Or so it seemed at first to Prestimion. That small, delicately formed woman of the mischievous sparkling eyes could only be Thismet; but even as his spirit reverberated with surprise and unease-for why would Thismet be here with the Lady in this sending, when he thought he had begun to make his final peace with the tragedy of her death, and was moving onward in his life?-everything shifted in the smooth way that things often shift in dreams, and he was plainly able to see that the woman next to his mother was not Thismet at all, had never been Thismet, could not have been Thismet. She was Varaile. How strange, he thought, that he had mistaken her for Thismet. For each was beauti9.q-q ful and compelling in her own way, but tall robust full-bodied Varaile looked nothing at all like the tiny fragile-seeming woman whom Prestimion had loved and lost so long ago.

He became aware that his mother was speaking. But there seemed to be some barrier between her and him that kept him from comprehending her words. It was as if the air was too dense in this pavilion, or the fragrance of the flowers too strong. And still she spoke, smiling throughout, gesturing gently toward him, toward Varaile, toward herself . He strained to hear. And at last he understood. "Do you know this woman, Prestimion?" the Lady was saying. "Her name is Varaile, and she lives in Stee."

"I know her, yes, mother. Yes."

"She has the bearing of a queen."

"A queen is what she will be," said Prestimion. "My queen, who will live beside me at the Castle."

"Do you mean that, Prestimion? Tell me that you do."

"Oh, yes, mother. Yes, I do. Yes!"

When he woke in the morning the dream was still burning in his mind, as true sendings always do. Septach Melayn, who was the first to come upon him, looked at him strangely and laughed, and said, "You appear to be in another world today, my friend."

"Perhaps I am," said Prestimion.

It was necessary, though, for him to return to this one. They were still many days'journey from the southern coast, and there was no time to waste if he hoped to overtake Dantirya Sambail.

The last of the yellow sand now lay behind them. So was the desert aridity of Ketheron. The air was soft and moist here, warm and velvetsmooth , the hills thick with greenery that had a waxy sheen, the sky often darkened by rain-clouds, though the showers were always brief.

They were moving now toward the tropical regions.

Three singular landmarks marked the point of transition. The first, in a place where the road veered upward suddenly out of the flat plain and delivered them into a country of craggy hills, was what seemed initially to be a solitary mountain that loomed to their leftj but which quickly revealed itself to be an entire mountain range, a long gray wall that rose with surprising abruptness from the terrain surrounding it. Atop the great base rose a host of smaller rounded peaks, each one the exact image of its neighbor, that swarmed along its elongated summit in chaotic and bewildering profusion.

"It is the Mountain of the Thirteen Doubts," said Maundigand-Klimd, who had made himself the custodian of their maps duringthis journey.

"Its many peaks look just like each other, and one pass leads only into another, so that a traveler attempting to cross the mountain must invariably get lost."

"And will that happen to us?" asked Prestimion, wondering if the Procurator might at this moment be wandering around amidst those identical stone humps.

The Su-Suheris shook both his heads in that unnerving way of his.

"Ah, no, lordship: we go past these mountains, not over them. But their presence to the east of us tells us that we have taken the correct road.

We must look now for the Cliff of Eyes, which will be coming upon us very soon."

"The Cliff of Eyes," said Septach Melayn. "What in the name of the Divine can that be?"

"Wait and see," said Maundigand-Klimd.

When they found it-and sharp-eyed Septach Melayn was the first to spy it-there could be no doubt of its identity. It was a stately mountain of some whitish stone that stood by itself, rising conspicuously above the highway just to their right; and its entire face was bespeckled with a multitude of large, deeply inset oval-shaped boulders of some dark shining mineral, scattered across it like raisins in a pudding.The effect was of a thousand stern black eyes peering down at passers-by from the mountain's white face. Gialaurys made a flurry of holy signs at the sight of it, and even Prestimion felt a shiver of something like awe, or even fear.

"How did this happen?" he wanted to know. But no one offered an answer, and he knew better than to expect one. Who could say what force had shaped the world, or for what reason? One did not inquire into the nature and motives of the Divine. The world was the world: it was as it was, a place of eternal delight and mystery.

The Cliff of Eyes seemed to watch them for hours as they rode past its eerie flank.

"And soon," said Maundigand-Klimd, bending over his map, "we will be at the Pillars of Dvorn, which mark the boundary between the central sector of Alhanroel and the south."

It was just before dusk when they reached them: two great blue-gray rocks, ten times the height of a man and tapering upward to sharply pointed tips. 'They stood facing each other with the road running straight as an arrow's flight between them, so that they formed a kind of ceremonial gateway to the lands beyond. 'The rocks were rough and convoluted on their outer faces but smooth and flaton the inner ones, which made it seem as if they were the two severed halves of a single great structure.

"'There is magic here," Gialaurys muttered restively, and offered another swarm of holy signs.

"Ah, yes," said Septach Melayn, with a playful lilt to his voice.

"There's a curse on the place. Every twenty thousand years the rocks come crashing together, and woe betide the wayfarers who happen to be passing through the gateway just then."

"So you know the old legend, do you?" asked Maundigand-Klimd.

Septach Melayn swung around to face him. "Legend? What legend? I was only having a little sport with Gialaurys."

'qben you reinvent what already was," said the Su-Suheris. "For indeed there was an ancient Shapeshifter tale that said just that, that these were clashing rocks, which had moved before and someday would move again. And, what is worse, that the next time they did, it would be a great king of the human folk that perished here between them."

"It would, would it?" said Prestimion, smiling jauntily and letting his gaze travel quickly from one great rock face to another. "Well, then, I suppose I'm safe, because, although I'm certainly a king, no one yet would call me a great one." And added, with a wink at Septach Melayn, "But perhaps we should look for some other route south anyway, eh?

just to be absolutely safe."

"The Pontifex Dvorn, my lord, caused magical plates of brass to be installed on each side of the road, inscribed with runes to protect against just such a thing," Maundigand-Klimd said. "Of course, that was thirteen thousand years ago and the plates have long since vanished.

You see those shallow square indentations high up on the walls? That was where they were, or so it's said. But I think our chances of passing through safely are excellent."

And indeed the Pillars of Dvorn remained in place as the royal caravan went past them. 'There was a distinct change in the look of the land on the far side, a greater density of foliage in response to the increase in warmth and humidity, and the hills there were smooth, rounded humps instead of hard jagged crags.

Maundigand-10imd's maps showed no settlements within fifty miles of the Pillars. But the travelers had gone no more than ten minutes'

journey when they came upon the ghost of a road leading off the main highway toward a cluster of low hills to the west, and Septach Melayn, fastening his keen vision on those hills, announced that he could make out a row of stone walls midway up, half buried beneath thickets of strangling vines. Prestimion, his curiosity piqued, sent Abrigant off with a couple of men to investigate. They returned fifteen minutes later with the report that a ruined city lay hidden in there, deserted except for a family of Ghayrog farmers who made their home amidst the ancient buildings. It was, so one of the Ghayrogs had told them, all that remained of a great metropolis of Lord Stiamot's time, whose people were massacred by Shapeshifters during the Metamorph Wars.

"This cannot be," said Maundigand-Klimd, shaking both his heads at once. "Lord Stiamot lived seventy centuries ago. In this climate the jungle would long since have swallowed up any such abandoned city"

"Let's have a look at it," said Prestimion, and they made a side jaunt down the western road, which after a few hundred yards became nothing more than a dirt track that climbed steadily into the hills at a gentle grade. Soon the wall of the ruined city came into view. It was a substantial stone structure, at least fifteen feet high in most places, but nearly overwhelmed by shrubs and vines. just to the left of the entrance to the city proper stood an immense many-buttressed tree with pale-gray bark, whose myriad arms, flattening as they embraced the stone of the wall, seemed to be melting into it so that it was difficult to tell where tree left off and ruin began.

Two sturdy young Ghayrogs came forth to greet them. They were both naked, but it was impossible to tell whether they were male or female, because the sexual organs of male Ghayrogs emerged only when they were aroused, and the breasts of the females were similarly hidden except when they were nursing young. Nor, marnmals though they were, was it easy to think that they were other than reptilian.

These two had brightly gleaming scales and strong tubular arms and legs; their cold green eyes were unblinking and their forked scarlet flicked constantly in and out between their hard fleshless lips; tongues and masses of fleshy black coils writhed like serpents on their heads in lieu of hair.

They greeted their visitors with a kind of indifferent courtesy and asked them to wait while 1hey summoned their grandfather. He appeared shortly, a venerable Ghayrog indeed, limping slowly up to them. "I am Bekrimiin," he said, with a creaky but effusive gesture of welcome. Prestimion did not offer his own name in return. "We are very poor here, but you are welcome to such hospitality as we can provide," Bekrimiin said, and signaled to his grandchildren, who quickly produced platters that were nothing more than the giant heart-shaped leaves of some nearby tree, on which they had placed some sort of mashed starchy vegetable, evidently fermented, that had a fiercely spicy flavor. Prestimion took some and ate with a determined show of pleasure, and several of the others followed suit, though neither Gialaurys nor the fastidious Septach Melayn made even a pretense of eating. A sweet, mildly bubbly liquid-either wine or beer; Prestimion was unable to tell which-accompanied it.

Afterward the Ghayrog led them into the heart of the ruins. Only the merest outlines of the city were visible, mainly the foundations of buildings , here and there a charred tower, or a couple of standing walls, propped up by the trees that stood beside them, of what might once have been a warehouse or a temple or a palace. Most of the structures had long since been engulfed by the giant buttressed trees, whose flattening arms tended to grow together until they completely encircled and concealed whatever it was that they had drawn their support from when young. The name of the city, the old man said, was Diarwis, a name that meant nothing to Prestimion or his companions.

"It dates from Lord Stiamot's time, does it?" Prestimion asked.

The Ghayrog laughed harshly. "Oh, no, nothing like that. These foolish children told you that? They are ignorant. Whatever I try to teach them of history goes from their minds before I finish my words. -But no, the city is much more recent. It was abandoned only nine hundred years ago."

"Then there was no Metamorph attack here, either?"

"They told you that too, did they? No, no, that is just a myth. The Metamorphs were long gone from Alhanroel by then. This city destroyed itself." And the old Ghayrog told a tale of a cruel and haughty duke, and of an uprising of the serfs who tilled his fields: the murder of three members of the duke's family, and the duke's savage reprisal, and then a further uprising, leading to an even mor brutal reprisal, followed by the assassination of the duke himself and the abandonment of the city by serfs and masters alike, for by that time not enough people remained alive here to sustain any sort of urban life.

Prestimion listened in brooding silence, stunned by this bit of unknown history.

Like any prince of the Castle who had been marked for a high role in the government, he had made an extensive study of the annals of Majipoor's history; and, by and large, it was a strikingly peaceful tale, with no significant bloodshed between the time of Stiamot's campaigns against the Metamorphs and Prestimion's own struggle with Korsibar.

Certainly he had never come upon any accounts of rebellious serfs and assassinated dukes. 'The story went against all that he wanted to believe about the basically benign ways of the people of Majipoor, who had learned long ago to settle their quarrels by less violent means. He would rather have been told that the Shapeshifters had been the ones who worked this ruination; at least there already was a well-established history of fierce conflict between humans and Metamorphs, though it had come to an end thousands of years before this city's destruction.

Bekrirniin informed his guests now that they were welcome to stay with him overnight, or for as long as they wished; but Prestimion had already had more than enough of this place, which had begun to weigh heavily on his spirits. To Gialaurys he said, "Thank him and give him some money, and tell him that it is the Coronal who he has entertained this afternoon. And then let's be on our way." To Abrigant he added, "When we are back at the Castle, find me whatever documents you can that exist concerning this place. I'd like to study its history more deeply."

"There may very well be nothing to find in the archives about it," said Septach Melayn. "The suppression of unpleasant facts was perhaps not any invention of ours, my lord."

"Perhaps so," Prestimion said somberly, and went out through the city's gateway, and stood for a time staring at the great tree that held the city wall in its devouring embrace; and he said littleto anyone all the rest of the afternoon.

They entered now into the district known as Arvyanda. Whenever anyone spoke of that region, it was always in the phrase, "Arvyanda of the golden hills," which brought to Prestimion's mind the image of the parched tawny hills of some area that had long dry summers, as was common farther to the north. He wondered why hills would be golden in this perpetually green and lush tropical region of frequent rainfall. Or was it that the yellow metal itself was mined in this place?

But the answer came quickly enough, and it was neither of those. A thick-boled tree with wide boat-shaped leaves grew in copious quantity on the hillsides of Arvyanda, to the exclusion of nearly everything else; and in the bright tropical sunlight those innumerable leaves, which were stiff and outspread and of a texture that seemed almost metallic, gave back a brilliant golden reflection, as though the entire region had been gilded.

In Arvyanda city they made inquiries concerning Dantirya Sambail, with inconclusive results. Nobody was prepared to claim that they had actually seen the Procurator pass that way, although there were some scattered reports of unpleasant strangers moving swiftly through the outskirts of town some weeks before. Were they being deliberately vague, or were the Arvyanda folk merely stupid and unobservant?

There was no easy way to tell; but in any case there was nothing to learn from them.

"Shall we continue?" Septach Melayn asked Prestimion.

"As far as the coast, yes."

On the other side of Arvyanda were the celebrated topaz mines of Zeberged. It was the transparent form of the precious mineral that was found here, clear as the finest glass and, when polished, of an unparalleled brilliance. But so bright was the sun against the rocky terrain of Zeberged that the topaz outcroppings were invisible by day because of the glare; and therefore the miners came out only at twilight, when the topaz could be seen gleaming lustrously by the last rays of the fight, and clapped bowls over the shining stones to serve as markers. Early the next morning they would return and cut away the marked pieces of rock, and turn them over to the craftsmen who polished them.

Prestimion watched all this with interest. But the miners of Zeberged, though they presented him with wondrous slabs of purest topaz, could give him no information about Dantirya Sambail.

Beyond Zeberged the sky grew dark with clouds, hanging heavy in the sky like thick, opalescent gauze. They were entering rainy Kajith Kabulon, where a wedge-shaped mountain formation perpetually caught the fogs that came off the southern seas and transformed them into rain.

Indeed it was not long before they reached the zone of precipitation, and once they did they saw no more sunlight for days. 'The rain came in a steady drumbeat. It was essentially continuous, interrupted only by occasional scant hours of surcease. I The jungles of Kajith Kabulon were green, green, green. Trees and shrubs in exuberant prodigality rose everywhere toward the sky, their trunks striped brilliantly with strands of red and yellow fungi that provided the only splashes of vivid color to be seen and their crowns tied together by an impenetrable tangle of lianas and epiphytes that formed a virtually solid canopy, against which the rain constantly splashed, dripping through to the ground below. The spongy soil was covered by a dense carpet of furry green moss, broken here and there by narrow streamlets and numerous small pools, all of which reflected and refracted the dim greenish light in such complex ways that it often was impossible to tell whether that light came from overhead or rose in spontaneous generation from the forest floor.

There was animal life everywhere here too, bewildering in its abundance . Voracious long-legged bugs; clouds of fleas; droning white wasps with black-striped wings. Blue spiders that hung groundward in lengthy chains from towering trees. Flies with immenseruby eyes.

Yellow-spotted scarlet lizards. Flat-headed booming toads. Mysterious small things that lurked in the crannies of rocks without revealing any more of themselves than hairy probing talons. And, now and again, some heavy shaggy beast that never came anywhere near the travelers, but could be seen at a great distance, snorting and snuffling through the jungle as it overturned clods of moss with its fork-like trunk to seek whatever might dwell beneath. In the green darkness, things took on strange borrowed forms: slender chameleons looked like gray twigs, twigs like chameleons, snakes pretended to be vines, certain vines had the unmistakable look of serpents. Rotting logs lying in the streams were easily enough taken for lurking predatory gurnibongs; but once, as Gialaurys knelt by the water's edge to splash his face in the morning, he saw what he was sure was only a log that was lying in the stream a few feet from him rise, grunting, on four stubby legs and move slowly away, snapping its long toothy snout in displeasure at having been disturbed .