"How altogether splendid she is," Abrigant said, still aglow. "I comprehend everything now. -Does she call you'my lord'all the time?"

"Only when she's among people unfamiliar to her," Prestimion said.

"A little touch of formality, is all. She's a very well-bred woman, you know. But we're on more intimate terms when we're alone."

"I would hope so, brother." Abrigant shook his head in amazement.

"Simbilon Khayf's daughter! Who would ever believe it? That squalid little man, bringing into the world a woman like that-"

And now it was summer in the Alhanroel midlands where Castle Mount rose to the heavens, though there was no sign of a change of seasons at the Castle itself, favored as always by its perpetual gentle springtime.

A deceptive cahn had settled there. For the moment, at least, there were no crises to deal with. Prestimion, accustoming himself now to his role as Coronal, met with delegations from far-off lands, paid occasional visits to the neighboring cities of the Mount, presided over the deliberations of the Council, conferred with the representatives of the Pontifex and the Lady on such matters of government as required his cooperation . The plague of madness continued to claim new victims, but not quite so voraciously as before, and the populace at large seemed to have accepted it as a fact of life, like unduly heavyrainfall that flooded the fields at harvest time, or lusavender blight, or the sandstorms that sometimes ravaged southeastern Zimroel, or any of the other little flaws of existence that made Majipoor something other than a perfect paradise.

As for Dantirya Sambail, he seemed to have vanished from the face of the world. That he had lost his life somehow in the course of his wanderings through Alhanroel struck Prestimion as being much too good to be true; but he was coming reluctantly to accept the possibility that that might have been what had occurred. The mere thought of a world without Dantirya Sambail caused wondrous serenity and ease to steal over him. At moments of high stress or great fatigue during the course of his daily tasks Prestimion would sometimes pause and think, I am rid forever of Dantirya Sambail, simply for the sake of savoring the tranquility that the words brought to his spirit.

Varaile, too, had adapted well to the change in her circumstances that marrying Prestimion had brought. The Coronal's wife had tasks of her own, a full daily round of them. One, though, was self-imposed: a visit to Simbilon Khayf in his comfortable captivity in the guest-house in the northern wing of the Castle near Lord Hendighail's Hall, every morning before going on to that day's regular chores.

'The man who once had been the richest citizen of Stee, and whose grand mansion in that city had been the object of universal envy and admiration, now lived in just five modest rooms far from the center of Castle life. But he did not seem to care, or even to notice. Simbilon Khayf's days of striving were over. He gave no indication even of remembering the power that had been his, or the fierce driving ambition that had led him to it, or the multitude of little vanities by which he had announced to the world that Simbilon Khayf was a force to be reckoned with.

Each day now he was born anew into the world. Yesterday's experiences , such as they had been, had been washed from his mind as completely as the tracks that birds make at low tide along the sandy shore of the Inner Sea. His morning nurse awakened him and bathed him and dressed him in a simple white robe, and gave him hisbreakfast, and took him for a short walk along Lord Methirasp's Parapet, the broad cobblestoned terrace behind his residence. Usually Varaile arrived just as he was returning from that.

This morning, as every morning, Simbilon Khayf seemed relaxed and happy. He greeted her, as ever, with a courteous if absent-minded kiss on the cheek and a brief, fleeting handclasp. Though he remembered little of his former life, he did, at least, generally recall that he had a daughter, and that her name was Varaile.

"You look well this morning, father. Did you have a good rest?"

"Oh, yes, very good. And you, Varaile?"

"It would have been nice to sleep a little longer, but of course I couldn't do that. We were up very late last night: another banquet, it was, the Duke of Chorg here from Bibiroon, and he's a great connoisseur of wines. And since Prestimion's family is famous for its wine, naturally it was necessary to have a whole case of rarities shipped up from Muldemar for the banquet, and the duke, wouldn't you know, wanted to have a sip from every single bottle-"

"Prestimion?" said Simbilon Khayf, smiling vaguely.

"My husband. Lord Prestimion, the Coronal. You know that I'm the Coronal's wife, don't you, father?"

Simbilon Khayf blinked. "You've married old Confalume, have you?

Why would you have wanted to do that? Isn't it strange, being married to a man older than your father?"

"But I'm not," she said, laughing despite the gravity of the situation.

"Father, Confalume isn't Coronal any longer. He's gone on to become Pontifex. 'There's a new Coronal now."

"Yes, of course: Lord Korsibar. How silly of me! How could I have forgotten that it was Korsibar who became Coronal after Confalume? -So you've married Korsibar, have you?"

She stared at him, puzzled and saddened. His damaged mind wandered in the strangest ways. "Korsibar? No, father. Wherever did you get that name from? There isn't any Lord Korsibar. I've never heard of anyone by that name."

"But I was sure that-"

"No, father."

"Then who-"

"Prestimion, father. Prestimion. He's the Coronal now, the successor to Urd Confalume. And I'm his wife."

"Ah. Lord Prestimion. Very interesting. 'The new Coronal's name is Prestimion, not Korsibar. What could I have been thinking of?. -You're his wife, you say?"

' That's right."

"How many children do you and this Lord Prestimion have, then?"

Varaile said, reddening a little, "We haven't really been married all that long, father. We don't have any children yet."

'Well, you will. Everybody has children. I had one myself, I think."

"Yes. You did. You're speaking with her right now."

"Oh. Yes. Yes. The one who married the Coronal. What's his name, this Coronal you married?"

"Prestimion, father."

"Prestimion. Yes. I knew a Prestimion once. Smallish man, blond hair, very quick with a bow and arrow. A clever sort. I wonder what ever became of him."

"He became Coronal, father," said Varaile patiently. "I married him."

"Married the Coronal? Is that what you said: you married the Coronal? How very unusual! And what a step upward in the world for us, my dear. No one in our family has ever married a Coronal before, isn't that so?"

"I'm sure that I'm the first," Varaile said. It was about this time, each visit, when her eyes would begin welling with tears and she would have to turn briefly away, for it was bewildering and upsetting to Simbilon Khayf to see her cry. 'That happened now. She flicked her fingers across her face and turned back to him, smiling valiantly.

In recent weeks it had become quite clear to her that she had never actually loved her father in the days when his mind was intact: had not, in fact, even Eked him very much. She had accepted the nature of their life together without ever questioning any aspect of it: his hunger for money and glory, his embarrassing social pretensions, his arrogance, his many foolishnesses of dress and speech, his enormous wealth. A prank of the Divine had made her his daughter; another, her mother's early death, had made her the mistress of Simbilon Khayf's household when she was still just a girl; and Varaile had accepted all that and had simply gone about the responsibilities that had fallen to her, repressing whatever rebellious thoughts might surface in her mind. Life as Simbilon Khayf's daughter had often been a trying business for her, but it was her life, and she had seen no alternative to it.

Well, now the horrid little man who had happened to be her father was a shattered thing, an empty vessel. He too had been the victim of a prank of the Divine. It would be easy enough for her to turn her back on him and forget that he had ever existed; he would never know the difference . But no, no, she could not do that. All her life she had looked after the needs of Simbilon Khayf, not because she particularly wanted to, but because she had to. Now that he was in ruinsand her own life had been immensely transformed for the better by yet another of the Divine's little jokes, she looked after him still, not because it was in any way necessary, but because she wanted to.

He sat there smiling uncomprehendingly as she told him of yesterday's Castle events: the meeting in the morning with Kazmai Noor, the Castle architect, to discuss the preliminary plans for the historical museum that Prestimion wanted to build, and then her lunch with the Duchess of Chorg and the Princess of Hektiroon, and in the afternoon a visit to a children's hospital downslope at Halanx and the dedication of a playground in nearby Low Morpin. Simbilon Khayf listened, ever smiling , saying now and then, "Oh, that's very nice. Nice indeed."

Then she drew some papers forth and said, "I also had a few matters of private business to deal with yesterday. You know, father, that I've been signing all the family enterprises over to the employees, because someone has to run those companies and neither you nor I would be capable of doing that now, and in any case it would never do for the Coronal's wife to engage in commerce. We transferred seven more of them yesterday."

"Oh, very nice," said Simbilon Khayf, smiling.

"I have their names here, if you're interested, though I don't think that you are. Migdal Velorn was at the Castle-you know who he is, father? The president of your bank in Amblemorn?-and I signed all the papers he brought me. They involved Velathyntu Mills, and the shipping company in Alaisor, and two banks, and-well, there were seven. We have just eleven companies left, now, and I hope to be rid of them in another few weeks."

"Indeed. How good of you to take such care of things."

His constant smile was unnerving. These visits were never easy. Was there anything else she needed to tell him today? Probably not. What difference did it make, anyway? She rose to leave. "I'll be going now, father. Prestimion sends his love."

"Prestimion?"

"My husband."

"Oh, you're married now, Varaile? How very nice. Do you have any children?"

On a fine golden morning toward the end of summer Prestimion went downslope to his family estates in Muldemar to attend the great annual festival of the new wine. Every year at that time, by ancient tradition, the newly made wines of the previous autumn's vintage were brought out for their first tasting, and a lively day-long celebrationwas held in Muldemar city, capped by a grand banquet at Muldemar House, the res idence of the Prince of Muldemar.

Prestimion had presided over a dozen or so of these events in his time as prince. Then, for two years running, there had been the distraction of the civil war to keep him from being present. Now he was Coronal and Abrigant had succeeded him at Muldemar. But last year there had been no banquet either, because he and Abrigant had been off in the east-country chasing after Dantirya Sambail at the customary time of the festival. So this would be Abrigants first festival since becoming Prince of Muldemar; and he would regard it as a high honor if Prestimion were to attend. The Coronal did not ordinarily attend the Muldemar festival. But no member of Prestimion's family had ever gone on to become Coronal before, either. Prestimion felt obligated to be there. It would mean an absence of three or four days from the Castle altogether.

Varaile, though, was a little unwell, and begged off attending. Even the short trip down to Muldemar seemed a little too much for her to deal with just now, she told him, and she certainly had no eagerness to take part in a lavish dinner where rich food and strong wines would be served far into the night. She asked Prestimion to bring Septach Melayn along as his companion instead. Prestimion was reluctant to go without her; but he was even more reluctant to disappoint Abrigant, who would be deeply hurt if he failed to appear. And so it happened that when the major-domo Nilgir Sumanand arrived at the Coronal's resi dence with word that a young knight-initiate named Dekkeret had just returned to the Castle after a long absence overseas and was seeking an audience with Lord Prestimion on a matter of extremely great importance , it was to Varaile and not the Coronal to whom he delivered the message.

"Dekkeret?" Varaile said. "I don't think I know that name."

"No, milady. He has been away since before the time you came to live here."

"It isn't usual for knight-initiates to request audiences with the Coronal, is it? How extreme is the importance of this extremely important matter, anyway? Important enough for you to send him down to Prestimion at Muldemar, do you think?"

"I have no idea. He said it was quite urgent, but that he must deliver his report to the Coronal himself, or else to the High Counsellor, or, if neither of them is here, to Prince Akbalik. However, the Coronal is in Muldemar today, as you know, and the High Counsellor is down there with him, and Prince Akbalik has not yet returned from his own travels-he is in Stoienzar, I think. I hesitate to disturb Lord Prestimion's holiday in Muldemar without your permission, milady."

"No. Quite right, Nilgir Sumanand." And then, somewhatto her own surprise, for she had been feeling queasy all morning: "Send him here to me. I'll find out from him myself whether it's something worth bothering the Coronal about."

Therewas something generous and open-spirited about Dekkeret's feature and the straightforward gaze of his eyes that made Varaile take an immediate intuitive liking to him. He was obviously highly intelligent, but there did not seem to be anything sly or scheming or crafty about him. He was a big, ruggedly built young man, perhaps twenty years old or a year or two more, with wide, powerful shoulders and a general look of tremendous physical strength held under careful control. The skin of his face and hands had a tanned, almost leathery look, as though he had spent a great deal of time outdoors lately in some hot, harsh chmate .

The Coronal, she told him, would be away from the Castle for several days more. She made it quite clear that she would not intrude on her husband's visit to Muldemar except for very good cause. And asked him what it was, exactly, that Knight-Initiate Dekkeret wished to bring to the Coronal's attention.

Dekkeret was hesitant at first in his reply. Perhapshe was disconcerted at finding himself in the company of Lord Prestimion's consort instead of Lord Prestimion, or perhaps it was the fact that Lord -iion's consort was so very close to his own age. Or else he was Prestin simply unwilling to reveal the information to someone he did not know: a woman, moreover, who was not even a member of the Council. He made no attempt, at any rate, to disguise his uncertainty about how to proceed.

But then he appeared to decide that it was safe to tell her the tale.

After some awkward false starts he began to offer her a long, rambling prologue. Prince Akbalik, he said, had taken him with him some time back on a diplomatic mission to Zimroel. He had not been entrusted with any important responsibilities himself, but was brought along only to gain a little seasoning, since he had only a short while before joined the Coronal's staff. After spending some time in Ni-moya he had arranged, for reasons that he did not seem to be able to make very clear, to be transferred temporarily to the service of the Pontifex, and had gone off to Suvrael to investigate a problem involving cattle exports.

Suvrael?" Varaile said. "How awful to be sent there, of all places!"

"It was at my own request, milady. Yes, I know, it is an unpleasant land. But I felt a need to go someplace unpleasant for a time. It would be very complicated to explain." It sounded to Varaile almost as though he had deliberately been looking to experience great physical discomfort: as a sort of purgation, perhaps, a penitential act. That was hard for her to comprehend. But she let the point pass without attempting to question him on it.

His task in Suvrael, Dekkeret said, had been to visit a place called Ghyzyn Kor, the capital of the cattle-ranch country, and make inquiries there about the reasons for the recent decline in beef production.

Ghyzyn Kor lay at the heart of a mountain-sheltered zone of fertile grazing lands, six or seven hundred miles deep in the torrid continent's intenor , that was entirely surrounded by the bleakest of deserts. But upon his arrival at the port of Tolaghai on Suvrael's northwest coast, he quickly learned that getting there was not going to be any easy matter.

'There were, he was told, three main routes inland. But one of these was currently being ravaged by fierce sandstorms thatmade it impassable . A second was closed to travelers on account of marauding Shapeshifter bandits. And the third, an arduous desert road that ran across the mountains by way of a place called Khulag Pass, had fallen into disuse in recent years and was in a bad state of repair. No one went that way any more, his informant said, because the route was haunted.

"Haunted?"

"Yes, milady. By ghosts, so I was told, that would enter your mind at night as you slept and steal your dreams, and replace them with the most ghastly terrifying fantasies. Some travelers in that desert had died of their own nightmares, I heard. And by day the ghosts would sing in the distance, coriftising you, leading you from the proper path with strange songs and eerie sounds, until you drifted off into some sandy wasteland and were lost forever."

"Ghosts who steal your dreams," said Varaile, marveling. Her innate skepticism bridled at the whole idea. "Surely you aren't the sort to let yourself be frightened by nonsense like that."

"Indeed I'm not. But setting off by myself into that miserable desert, ghosts or no ghosts, was a different matter. I began to think my mission was doomed to end in complete failure. But then I came across someone who claimed that he often went inland by way of Ehulag Pass and had never had any problems with the ghosts. He didn't say that the ghosts weren't there, only that he had ways of withstanding their powers . I hired him to serve as my guide."

His name, Dekkeret said, was Venghenar Barjazid: a sly, disreputable little man, very likely a smuggler of some sort, who extorted a formidable price from him for the job. The plan was to reverse the usual patterns of wakefulness, traveling by night and making camp during the burning heat of the day. They were accompanied by Barjazid's son, an adolescent boy named Dinitak, along with a Skandar woman to serve as porter and a Vroon who was familiar with all the desert roads. A dilapidated old floater would be the vehicle in which they traveled.

The journey out of Tolaghai and up into the hills leading to Ehulag Pass was uneventful. Dekkeret found the landscape startling in its ugliness-dry rocky washes, sandy pockmarked ground, spiky twisted plants-and it grew even more forbidding once they had gone through the pass and began their descent into the Desert of Stolen Dreams beyond. He had never imagined that the world held any such fearsome place, so stark and grim and inhospitable. But, he said, he simply took that cruel, barren wasteland as it came, without feeling a flicker of dismay . Perhaps he even liked it in some perverse way, Varaile supposed, considering that he had gone to Suvrael in the first place in search of whatever gratification there might be in hardship and suffering.

Then, though, the nightmares began. Daymares, rather. He dreamed that he was floating toward the benevolent embrace of the Lady of the Isle, at the center of a sphere of pure white light;it was a vision of peace and joy, but gradually the imagery of his dream changed and darkened, so that he found himself marooned on a bare gray mountainside, staring down at a dead and empty crater, and awakened trembling and weak with fear and shock.

"Did you dream well?" Barjazid had asked him, then. "My son says you moaned in your sleep, that you rolled over many times and clutched your knees. Did you feel the touch of the dream-stealers, Initiate Dekkeret?"

When Dekkeret admitted that he had, the little man pressed him for details. Dekkeret grew angry at that, and asked why he should allow Barjazid to probe and poke in his mind; but Barjazid persisted, and finally Dekkeret did provide a description of what he had dreamed. Yes, said Barjazid, he had felt the touch of the dream-stealers: an invasion of the mind, a disturbing overlay of images, a taking of energy.

"I asked him," Dekkeret told Varaile, "if he had ever felt their touch himself. No, he said, never. He was apparently immune. His son Dinitak had been bothered by them only once or twice. He would not speculate on the nature of the creatures that caused such things. I said then, 'Do the dreams get worse as one gets deeper into the desert?'Towhich he replied, very coolly indeed, 'So I am given to understand."'

When they moved on at twilight, Dekkeret imagined he heard distant laughter, the tinkling of far-off bells, the booming of ghostly drums.

And the next day he dreamed again, a dream that began in a green and lovely garden of fountains and pools but quickly transformed itself into something terrible in which he lay naked and exposed to the desert sun, so that he felt his own skin charring and crackling. This time, when he awakened, he discovered that he had wandered away from camp in his sleep and was sprawled out in the midday heat amid a horde of stinging ants. Nor could he find his way back to the floater, and he thought he would die; but eventually the Vroon came for him, bearing a flask of water, and led him to safety. There had been suffering aplenty in that adventure, more, in truth, than he was looking for; but the worst of it, he told Varaile, had been neither the heat nor the thirst nor the ants, but the anguish of being denied the solace of normal dreaming, the terror of having that cheerful and soothing vision turn to something gruesome and frightful.

"so there really is some truth to these travelers' tales, then?" asked Varaile. "This haunted desert actually does have deadly dream-stealing ghosts in it."

"Of a sort, yes, milady. As I will shortly explain."

They were almost out of the desert, now, following the bed of a longextinct river through a violent terrain that had often been fractured by earthquakes. The land here rose gradually toward two tall peaks in the southwest, between which lay Munnerak Notch, the gateway to the cooler, greener lands of the cattle-country beyond. In another few days he would be at Ghyzyn Kor.

But the worst dream of all still lay ahead for him. He would not describe it in any specific way to Varaile, saying only that it brought him face to face with the one evil deed of his life, the sin that had sent him on his voyage of penance to Suvrael in the first place. Stage by stage he was forced to re-enact that sin as he slept, until the dream culminated in a scene of the most horrific intensity, one that made him shiver and blanch even to think of it now; and at its climax he experienced a sudden piercing pain, an intolerable sensation as of a needle of searing bright light slashing down into his skull. "I heard the tolling of a great gong far away," said Dekkeret, "and the laughter of some demon close at hand. When I opened my eyes I was almost insane with dread and despair. Then I caught sight of Barjazid, across the way, half hidden behind the floater. He had just taken off some kind of mechanism that he was wearing around his forehead, and was trying to hide it in his baggage.

Varaile gave a little start. "He was causing the dreams?"

"Oh, you are quick, milady, you are very quick! It was he, yes. With a machine that enabled him to enter minds and transform thoughts. A much more powerful machine than those used by the Lady of the Isle; for she can merely speak to minds, and this Barjazid's device could actually take command of them. All this he admitted, not very willingly or gladly, when I demanded the truth from him. It was his own invention , he said, a thing that he had been working on for many years."

"And carrying on experiments with it, is that it, using the minds of the travelers that he took into the desert?"

"Exactly, MY lady."

"You did well to come to the Coronal with this, Dekkeret.This device is a dangerous thing. Its use needs to be stopped."

"It has been," said Dekkeret. A broad smile of self-satisfaction spread across his face. "I succeeded in taking Barjazid and his son prisoner then and there, and seized the machine. They are here with me at the Castle. Lord Prestimion will be pleased, I think. Oh, lady, I surely hope that he is, for I tell you, lady, nothing is more important to me than pleasing Lord Prestimion!"

His name is Dekkeret," Varaile said. "A knight-initiate, very young and a little rough around the edges, but destined, I think, for great things."

Prestimion laughed. They were in the Stiamot throne-room with Gialaurys. It was only an hour since his return to the Castle and Varaile had greeted him with this tale as though it were the most important thing in the world. "Oh, I know Dekkeret, all light! He saved my life in Normork long ago, when some lunatic with a sharp blade came charging out of a crowd at me."

"Did he? He didn't say anything to me about that."

"No. I'd be very surprised if he had."

"The story that he told me was absolutely astonishing, Prestimion."

He had listened to it with no more than half an ear. "Let me see if I have it straight," he said, when she was done. "He was with Akbalik on an assignment in Zimroel, that much I know, and then for some reason that was never made clear to me he went on by himself to Suvrael, and now, you tell me, he's come back from there bringing what sort of thing?"

"A machine that seizes control of people's minds. Which was invented by some shabby little smuggler, Barjazid by name, who offers to guide travelers through the desert, but who actually-"

"Baijazid?" Prestimion, frowning, glanced at Gialaurys. "It seems to me I've heard that name before. I know I have. But I don't recall where."

"A shady fellow who originally came from Suvrael, with squinty eyes and skin that looked like old leather," Gialaurys; said. "He was in the service of Duke Svor for a couple of years: a very slippery sort, this Barjazid, much like Svor himself. You always detested him."

"All. It comes back to me now. It was right after that little trouble we had at Thegomar Edge, when we caught hold of that smarmy Vroon wizard, ThaInap Zelifor, who made all those mind-reading devices and had no hesitations about selling them both to us and to our opponents as well-"