"Let him tell you himself," said Dekkeret.

Prestimion felt his eyes beginning to sag shut. What he really wanted more than anything was to have these two go away and permit him to get some sleep. But no: no, he must get to the heartof this mystery. He indicated to young Barjazid that he should speak.

"My lord-" the boy began.

He looked toward Prestimion, then to Dekkeret, then to Prestimion again. It was curious, Prestimion thought, how his face changed as he turned from one to the other. For Prestimion he donned a look of deep respect, almost subservience. But it was a desultory and mechanical expression, a subject's automatic acknowledgment that he was in the presence of the Coronal Lord of Majipoor and nothing more; and Prestimion thought he saw a subtext even of resentment there, a hidden unwillingness to concede full acceptance of the power that the Coronal indeed wielded over him.

When Dinitak Barjazid looked at Dekkeret, though, a glow came into the boy's eyes that spoke of sheer worship. He seemed mesmerized by Dekkeret's personal force, his charisma, his vibrant strength. Perhaps it is because they are closer in age, Prestimion thought. He sees me as a member of some senior generation. But it was a distressing demonstration of the erosion of his own youthful vigor that just these few years at the summit of power had brought about.

"My lord," the young Barjazid was saying, "when my father and I came to the Castle, it was my hope that we could offer the dreammachine to you, that we could enroll ourselves in your serviceand make ourselves of value. But through some error we were imprisoned instead. This left my father greatly embittered, though I said again and again that it was a mistake."

Yes, Prestimion thought. And I could tell you whose mistake it was, too.

"Then we escaped. It was through the help of an old friend of my father's that we did. But the Procurator of Ni-moya's people were also involved. He has his influence among the Castle guards, you know."

Prestimion exchanged a glance with Dekkeret at that, but said nothing.

"And so it was to the Procurator, who seemed to be our only ally, to whom we fled," the boy continued. "To his camp in the Stoienzar Peninsula. And there we learned that it is the Procurator's plan to wage war against your lordship and against his majesty the Pontifex, and make himself the master of the world."

That phrase had a fine resonant sound, Prestimion thought: master of the world. He speaks very well, Prestimion told himself. No doubt the boy's been rehearsing this little speech for weeks.

But it was a struggle to pay attention. Another wave of weariness had come over him. He realized that he had begun rocking rhythmically back and forth on his feet in an effort to keep himself awake.

My lord?" the boy said. "Are you not well, my lord?"

"Just a little tired, is all," he said. Mustering all his self-control, he brought himself up toward something close to wakefulness again. It was very shrewd of the boy to have noticed, in the midst of his own narrative , that I was flagging, Prestimion thought. He poured a drink of water for himself. "How old did you say you were, boy?"

:'Sixteen next month, sir."

'Sixteen next month. Interesting. -All right, go on. Dantirya Sambail wants to be master of the world, you were saying."

"I said to my father when we heard that, 'There is no future for us in this place. We will only find trouble here.' And also I said to him, We should not be part of this rebellion. The Coronal will destroy this man Dantirya Sambail, and we will be destroyed along with him.' But my father is full of anger and bitterness. It is not that he is an evil man so much as he is an angry one. His soul is full of hatred. I could not tell you why that is. When I said that we should leave the camp of Dantirya Sambail, he struck me."

"Struck you?"

Prestimion could see the fury in the boy's eyes, even now.

"Indeed, my lord. Lashed out at me the way you mightlash out at a beast that had nipped at your foot. Told me I was a fool and a child; told me I was incapable of seeing where our true advantage lay; told mewell , no matter what he told me, my lord. It was nothing very pretty.

'That night I left the Procurator's camp and slipped away through the jungle." Again the boy glanced at Dekkeret, that same worshipful glance. "I had heard, my lord, that Prince Dekkeret was in Stoien city. I decided that I would go to Prince Dekkeret and enroll in his service."

"in his service," Prestimion said. "Not mine, but his, eb? How flattering that must sound to you, Dekkeret. Prince Dekkeret, I should say.

Since everyone seems to think you're a prince, I suppose I'll have to make you one when we get back to the Castle, won't Y'

A look of shock appeared on Dekkeret's usually stolid face. "My lord, I have never aspired-"

"No. No. Forgive my sarcasm, Dekkeret." I must be very tired indeed, Prestimion thought, to be saying such things as that. Once more he glanced toward Dinitak Barjazid. "And so. To continue. You made your way through the jungle-"

tTes, my lord. It is not a pleasant journey, my lord. But it was one that I had to make. -Shall I show it to him now, Prince Dekkeret?" he asked, looking aside.

"Show it, yes."

The boy reached down and scooped up the burlap sack, which had been lying at his feet all this while. He drew from it an intricate circular object fashioned of rods and wires of several different metals delicately woven together, gold and silver and copper and perhaps one or two more, with a series of glittering inlaid stones and crystals, sapphire and serpentine and emerald and what looked like hematite, affixed along its inner surface within an ivory frame. It had something of the look of a royal crown, or perhaps some talismanic instrument of magery, on the order of a rohilla, though much larger. But what it actually was, Prestimion saw, was a mechanism of some sort.

"This," the boy said proudly, holding the thing forth for Prestimion's inspection, "is one of the three working models of the dream-machine. I took it from my father's tent in the jungle and brought it safely here.

And I am willing to show you how to use it in your war against the rebels."

The coolly delivered statement struck Prestimion like a bolt from on high.

"May I see it?" he asked, when he had regained a little of his steadiness.

"Of course, my lord."

He placed it in Prestimion's hands. It was a beautiful gleaming thing of complex and elegant design, scarcely heavier than a feather, that seemed almost to be throbbing with the force of the power locked up within it.

Prestimion realized that this was not the first time he had seen something like this. During the civil war, when they were camped in the Marraitis meadowlands west of the Jhelum River on the eve of the great battle that soon would be fought there, he had gone into the tent of the Vroon Thalnap Zelifor and observed him working over an object of somewhat similar design. It was, the Vroon had explained, a device that would enable him when it was perfected to amplify the waves coming from the minds of others, and read their inmost thoughts, and place thoughts of his own into their heads. In time he had indeed perfected it, and eventually it had fallen into the hands of Venghenar Baijazid, and now-nowAbruptly Prestimion lifted the instrument toward his own forehead.

:'My lord, no!" the young Barjazid cried.

'No? Why is that?"

"You must have the training, first. There is tremendous strength in the instrument that you hold. You'll injure yourself, my lord, if you simply put it to your head like that."

"Ah. Perhaps so." He handed the thing back to the boy as though it were about to explode.

Could it be, he wondered, that this youngster had actually brought him the one weapon that might give him hope of countering the uprising that confronted him?

To Dekkeret he said, "What do we have here, do youthink? Is this boy to be trusted? Or is it all some new plot of Dantirya Sambail's to send him here among us?"

"Trust him, my lord," Dekkeret said. "Oh, I beg you, Lord Prestimion: trust him!"

Travelers; returning to Castle Mount from Stoien began their eastward journey by going up along the coast to Treymone, where they could take a boat up the River Trey as far as it was navigable. 'Then it was necessary to swing to the north to avoid the grim desert that surrounded the ruins of the ancient Metamorph capital of Velalisier. The route led up into the broad, fertile valley of the River Iyann, which they would traverse as far as Three Rivers, where the Iyann took off on its northward journey. There one turned slightly to the south again, entering the grassy plain known as the Vale of Gloyn, and crossed west-central Alhanroel to the midlands mercantile center of Sisivondal, where the main highway to the Mount could be found. From there it was a straight path across the heart of the continent to the foothills of the mighty peak.

Prestimion had provided Varaile and Akbalik with a floater of the most capacious sort for their homeward journey to the capital. They rode in cushioned comfort while platoons of tireless Skandar drivers guided the big swift vehicles as they hovered just above the bed of the highway. An armed escort of Skandar troops occupying half a dozen armor-shelled military floaters accompanied them, three vehicles preceding theirs and three traveling aft, as safeguards against any disturbances that the convoy might encounter. Not that any sane man would dare to lift his hand against the Coronal's consort, but sanity was beginning to be a commodity in short supply in these districts, and Prestimion intended to take no chances. Again and again, as the floaters halted briefly for supplies in some town or village along the way, Varaile saw wild, distorted faces peering at her from the roadside, and heard the harsh cackling cries of the demented. The Skandars, though, kept all these troubled folk at a safe distance.

They were beyond Gloyn now, moving along through a series of unfamiliar places with such names as Drone, Hunzimar, Gannamunda.

So far Varaile had had a fairly easy time of the journey. She had expected much more discomfort, especially as the passing days brought her ever closer to the hour when the new Prince Taradath would enter the world. But aside from the growing heaviness of her body, the sagging weight of her swelling belly, the occasional throbbings in her legs, the pregnancy had little effect on her well-being.

Varaile had never given much thought to motherhood-she had not even had any lovers, before Prestimion had come like a whirlwind into her life and swept her away-but she was tall and strong and young, and she could see now that she was going to withstand whatever stresses were involved in childbirth without serious challenge.

Akbalik, though-it was clear to Varaile that he was finding the trip east very much of an ordeal.

His infected leg seemed to be getting worse. He said nothing about it to her, of course, not a word of complaint. But his forehead glistened with sweat much of the time, now, and his face was flushed as though he suffered from a constant fever. Now and again she would catch him biting his lower lip to hold back pain, or he would turn away from her and let a stifled groan escape his lips while she pretended not to notice.

It was important to Akbalik, Varaile saw, to maintain a pose of good health, or at least of steady recovery. But it was easy enough to tell that all that was a There facade.

How sick was he, really? Could his life be in danger, perhaps?

Varaile knew what high regard Prestimion had for Akbalik. He was a bulwark of the throne. It was possible, even, that Prestimion saw Akbalik as a likely choice for Coronal in case anythingshould happen to old Confalume and it became necessary for Prestimion to move along to the senior throne. "A Coronal has to keep the succession in mind all the time," Prestimion had said to her more than once. "At any moment he can find himself transformed into a Pontifex-and it'll go badly for the world if there's no one ready to take over for him at the Castle."

If Prestimion had already selected the man he would call upon in such an eventuality, he had never said a thing about it to her. Coronals did not like to talk about such matters, apparently-not even with their wives. But she saw already that Septach Melayn, though Prestimion loved him more than any other man in the world, was too whimsical a person to entrust with the throne, and Gialaurys, Prestimion's other dear great friend, was too credulous and slow.

Who, then? Navigorn? A strong man, but troubled greatly by what looked very much like the onset of the madness. There was Dekkeret, of course: fall of promise and ability and fervor. But he was ten years too young for a Coronal's high responsibilities. Very likely he would be horrified if Prestimion were to turn to him tomorrow and offer him the starburst crown.

Which left only Akbalik, really. To lose Akbalik to the stupid bite of a vicious little Stoienzar crab, then, would be a terrible blow to all of Prestimion's plans. Especially in a challenging time like this, when troubles seemed to sprout like mushrooms on every side.

We will be in Sisivondal before long, Varaile thought. 'That was an important city: her father had owned warehouses there, she remembered , and a bank, and a meat-packaging company. Surely there would be competent doctors in a city like that. Would it be possible to persuade Akbalik to go to one of them for treatment? It would have to be handled very delicately. "Akbalik was so wonderfully sensible that we all used to go to him for advice about our problems," Prestimion had told her. "But the wound has changed him. He's turned touchy and strange. You have to be very careful not to offend him, now." But certainly she had legitimate reasons of her own now for wanting to stop in Sisivondal for a medical checkup; and would it greatlyupset him, she wondered, if she were to suggest in a mild sort of way that he might just as well get that leg of his looked at too, while they were there?

She would try it. She had to.

Sisivondal, though, was still many hundreds of miles away. It was too soon to bring the subject up.

They sat side by side in silence, watching for hour after hour as the flat monotonous landscape of west-central Alhanroel's dusty drylands flowed past their windows.

"Can you tell me if any battles were fought here in the civil war?"

Varaile asked him, finally, purely for the sake of having some sort of conversation at all.

Akbalik looked at her strangely. "How would I know, milady?"

"I thought-well-"

"That I fought in it? I suppose I did, milady. Many of us did. But no memory of it remains to me. You understand why that is, do you not?"

Fresh perspiration had broken out on his brow and cheeks. His deepset gray eyes, nearly always bloodshot now, took on a haunted look.

Varaile regretted having said anything at all.

"I know what the mages did at 'Megomar Edge, yes," she said.

"But-listen, Akbalik, if talking about the war is something painful for you-"

He seemed scarcely to have heard her. "As I understand it, there were no engagements close by here," he said, looking not at her but at the scene outside, a parched brown landscape punctuated by occasional sparse clumps of gray-green trees that grew in strange spiral coils.

"There was a battle northwest of here, at the reservoir on the Iyann.

And something by the Jhelum, off to the south, and one in Arkilon plain, I think Prestimion said. And of course the one at Thegomar Edge, which is far off to the southeast. But the war bypassed this region, so I do believe." Akbalik turned suddenly in his seat to stare at her with wild-eyed intensity. "You know, do you not, milady, that I fought against Lord Prestimion in the war?

Varaile would not have been more startled if he had revealed himself just then to be a Shapeshifter. "No," she said, with as much control as she could muster. "No, I had no idea! You were on Korsibar's side? But how can that be, Akbalik? Prestimion thinks the world of you, you know!"

"And I of him, milady. But even so, I believe I was on the other side during the rebellion,"

"You only believe that you were? You aren't sure?"

Something that could have been a spasm of pain passed across his face. He tried to turn it into a wry smile. "I told you, no memory of the war remains to me, or to any of us, except for Prestimion and Septach Melayn and Gialaurys. But I was at the Castle when the war broke out, that much I know. Even though the manner of Korsibar's coming to the throne would have to have been unusual and irregular, I still would have regarded him, I think, as the true Coronal, simply because he had been anointed and crowned. So if I had been asked to fight on his behalf-and certainly Korsibar would have asked me-I would have done so. Korsibar was at the Castle, and Prestimion was off in the provinces, raising armies from the local people. Most of the Castle princes would necessarily have served as officers in what would have been regarded as the legitimate royal army. I know that Navigorn did.

And I, being Prince Serithorn's nephew, would surely not have defied my powerful uncle by going off to join Prestimion."

Varaile's head was swimming. "Serithorn was on Korsibar's side too?"

"You ask me about things I no longer remember, lady. But yes, I think he was, at least some of the time. It was a very complicated period. It was not easy to know who was on which side, much of the time. 7 He half-rose, suddenly, wincing.

"Akbalik, are you all right?"

"It's nothing, mi a y. Nothing. e e ing process-a little painful, sometimes-" Akbalik managed another unconvincing smile. "Let us finish with the war, shall we? -Do you see, now, why Lord Prestimion wiped it all from our minds? It was the wisest thing. I would rather be his friend unto death than his former enemy; and now I have no recollection of ever having been his enemy, if indeed I ever was. Nor has Navigorn. Septach Melayn has told me that Navigorn was Korsibar's most important general; but all that is forgotten, and Prestimion trusts him implicitly in all things. The war is gone from us. Therefore the war can never be a factor in our dealings with one another. And therefore-"

Another groan came from him now, one that he was altogether unable to conceal. Akbalik's eyes rolled wildly in his head, and sweat seemed to burst from his every pore, coating his face with a bright sheen. He started to rise, spun about, fell back against the cushion of his seat, shivering convulsively.

"Akbalik-Akbalik!"

"Milady," he murmured. But he seemed lost in delirium, suddenly.

"The leg-I don't know-it-it-"

She seized a pitcher of water, poured some for him, forced the glass between his lips. He gulped it and nodded faintly for more. Then he closed his eyes. For a moment Varaile thought he had died; but no, no, he still was breathing. A very sick man, though. Very sick. She dipped a cloth in the water and mopped his burning forehead with it.

Then, hastening to the fore cabin, she rapped on the frame of the door to get the driver's attention. The driver, a brown-furred Skandar named Varthan Gutarz, who wore amulets of some Skandar cult around the meaty biceps of three of his four arms, was hunched over the floater's controls, but he looked up quickly.

"Milady?"

"How long before we're in Sisivondal?"

The Skandar glanced at the instruments. "Six hours, maybe, milady."

"Get us there in four. And when you do, head straight for the biggest hospital in town. Prince Akbalik is seriously ill."

Sisivondal appeared to be a thousand miles of outskirts. The flat dry central plain went on and on, practically treeless, now, the emptiness broken only by little clusters of tin-roofed shacks, then more emptiness, then another small group of shacks, perhaps twice as many as before, and then emptiness, emptiness, emptiness, with some scattered warehouses and repair shops after that. And gradually the outskirtscoalesced into suburbs, and then into a city, a city of great size.

And great ugliness. Varaile had seen few ugly places in her recent travels about the world, but Sisivondal was somber indeed, a commercial city with no beauty of any sort. Many major roads met here. Much of the merchandise being shipped from Alaisor port to Castle Mount or to the cities of northern Alhanroel had to pass through Sisivondal. It was a starkly functional city, mile after mile of gigantic warehouses fronting broad plain boulevards. Even the plants of Sisivondal were dull and utilitarian: stubby purple-leaved camaganda palms that could stand up easily to the interminable months of Sisivondal's long rainless season , which lasted most of the year, and massive lumma-lummas, which could be mistaken for big gray rocks by the casual eye, and the tough prickly rosettes of garavedas, which took a whole century to produce the tall black spike that bore their flowers.

It looked as though the boulevard that had brought them in from the west would take them straight to the center of town. Varaile saw now that the incoming roads were like the spokes of a great wheel, linked by circular avenues that diminished in sweep as they movedinward. The public buildings would be at the center. There had to be a major hospital among them.

Akbalik was dying. She was certain of that now.

He was only intermittently conscious. Very little of what he said made sense. He had one lucid moment in which he opened his eyes and said to her that the swamp-crab's poison must finally have reached his heart; but the rest of the time he babbled of things that she could not comprehend, jumbled accounts of tournaments and duels, hunting trips, even fist-fights-boyhood memories, perhaps. Sometimes she heard the name of Prestimion, or that of Septach Melayn, or even Korsibar's. That was odd, that he would be speaking of Korsibar. But her father had done the same in the throes of his madness, she reminded herself.

The hospital, at last. To her dismay Varaile found that the chief doctor was a Ghayrog, a terribly alien thing to encounter at such a time. He was dour-faced and aloof, remarkably unimpressed at finding the wife of the Coronal standing before him and urging him to drop everything he might be doing so that he could look after the nephew of Prince Serithorn.

The forked reptilian tongue moved in and out with disconcerting rapidity. The gray-green reptilian eyes displayed little compassion. The calm and measured voice might have been that of a machine. "You come at a very difficult moment, milady, 'The operating rooms are all in use now. We have been overwhelmed with all manner of unusual problems here, which-"

Varaile cut him off. "I'm sure that that's so. But have you heard of Prince Serithorn of Sainivole, doctor? By the divine, have you heard the name of Lord Prestimion? This man is Serithorn's nephew. He is a member of the Coronal's inner circle. He needs immediate treatment."

"The Messenger of the Mysteries is among us today, milady. I will ask him to intercede with the gods of the city on behalf of this man."

And the Ghayrog beckoned to a mysterious, sinister figure in the hallway , a man who wore a strange wooden mask, that of a yellow-eyed hound with long pointed ears.