Valentine stared. The temple gleamed like a solitary white eye set in the dark forehead of the cliff.
It was the fourth month of the grand processional now, or the fifth, or perhaps the sixth: days and weeks, cities and provinces, everything had begun to blur and merge. This day he had arrived at the great port of Alaisor, far up the northwestern coast of Alhanroel. Behind him lay Treymone, Stoienzar, Vilimong, Estotilaup, Kimoise: city upon city, all flowing together in his mind into one vast metropolis that spread like some sluggish many-armed monster across the face of Majipoor.
Sambigel, a short swarthy man with a fringe of dense black beard around the edge of his face, droned on and on, bidding the Coronal welcome with his most sonorous platitudes. Valentine’s eyes felt glazed; his mind wandered. He had heard all this before, in Kikil, in Steenorp, in Klai: never-to-be-forgotten occasion, love and gratitude of all the people, proud of this, honored by that. Yes. Yes. He found himself wondering which city it was that had shown him its famous vanishing lake. Was it Simbilfant? And the aerial ballet, that was Montepulsiane, or had it been Ghrav? The golden bees were surely Beilemoona, but the sky-chain? Arkilon? Sennamole?
Once more he looked toward the temple on the cliff. It beckoned powerfully to him. He yearned to be there at this very moment: to be caught on the fingertip of a gale; and swept like a dry leaf to that lofty summit.
—Mother, let me rest with you awhile!
There came a pause in the lord mayor’s speech, or perhaps he was done. Valentine turned to Tunigorn and said, “Make arrangements for me to sleep at that temple tonight.”
Sambigel seemed nonplussed. “It was my understanding, my lord, that you were to see the Tomb of Lord Stiamot this afternoon, and then to go to the Hall of Topaz for a reception, followed by a dinner at—”
“Lord Stiamot has waited eight thousand years for me to pay homage to him. He can wait one day more.”
“Of course, my lord. So be it, my lord.” Sambigel made a hasty flurry of starbursts. “I will notify the hierarch Ambargarde that you will be her guest tonight. And now, if you will permit, my lord, we have an entertainment to offer you—”
An orchestra struck up some jubilant anthem. From hundreds of thousands of throats came what he did not doubt were stirring verses, though he could not make out a syllable of them. He stood impassively, gazing out over that vast throng, nodding occasionally, smiling, making contact now and then with the eyes of some awed citizen who would never forget this day. A sense of his own unreality came over him. He did not need to be a living man, he thought, to be playing this part. A statue would do just as well, some cunning marionette, or even one of those waxworks things that he had once seen in Pidruid on a festival night long ago. How useful it would be to send an imitation Coronal of some such sort out to these events, capable of listening gravely and smiling appreciatively and waving heartily and perhaps even of delivering a few heartfelt words of gratitude—
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Carabella watching him worriedly. He made a little gesture with two fingers of his right hand, a private sign they had between them, to tell her he was all right. But the troubled look did not leave her face. And it seemed to him that Tunigorn and Lisamon Hultin had edged forward until they stood oddly close to him. To catch him if he fell? Confalume’s whiskers, did they think he was going to collapse the way he had in the Labyrinth?
He held himself all the more erect: wave, smile, nod, wave, smile, nod. Nothing was going to go wrong. Nothing. Nothing. But would this ceremony ever end?
There was half an hour more. But at last it was over, and the royal party, leaving by way of an underground passage, quickly made its way toward the quarters set aside for the Coronal in the lord mayor’s palace on the far side of the square. When they were alone Carabella said, “It seemed to me you were growing ill up there, Valentine.”
He said as lightly as he could, “If boredom is a malady, then I was growing ill, yes.”
She was silent a moment. Then she said, “Is it absolutely essential to continue with this processional?”
“You know I have no choice.”
“I fear for you.”
“Why, Carabella?”
“There are times I scarcely know you any longer. Who is this brooding fretful person who shares my bed? What has become of the man called Valentine I knew once in Pidruid”
“He is still here.”
“So I would believe. But hidden, as the sun is hidden when the shadow of a moon falls upon it. What shadow is on you, Valentine? What shadow is on the world? Something strange befell you in the Labyrinth. What was it? Why?”
“The Labyrinth is a place of no joy for me, Carabella. Perhaps I felt enclosed there, buried, smothered—” He shook his head. “It was strange, yes. But the Labyrinth is far behind me. Once we began to travel in happier lands I felt my old self returning, I knew joy again, love, I—”
“You deceive yourself, perhaps, but not me. There’s no joy in it for you, not now. At the beginning you drank in everything as if you couldn’t possibly get enough of it—you wanted to go everywhere, behold everything, taste all that is to be tasted—but not anymore. I see it in your eyes, I see it on your face. You move about like a sleepwalker. Do you deny it?”
“I do grow weary, yes. I admit that.”
“Then abandon the processional! Return to the Mount, which you love, where you always have been truly happy!”
“I am the Coronal. The Coronal has a sacred duty to present himself to the people he governs. I owe them that.”
“And what do you owe to yourself, then?”
He shrugged. “I beg you, sweet lady! Even if I grow bored, and I do—I won’t deny it, I hear speeches in my sleep now, I see endless parades of jugglers and acrobats—nevertheless, no one has ever died of boredom. The processional is my obligation. I must continue.”
“At least cancel the Zimroel part of it, then. One continent is more than enough. It’ll take you months simply to return to Castle Mount from here, if you stop at every major city along the way. And then Zimroel? Piliplok, Ni-moya, Til-omon, Narabal, Pidruid—it’ll take years, Valentine!”
He shook his head slowly. “I have an obligation to all the people, not only the ones who live in Alhanroel, Carabella.”
Taking his hand, she said, “That much I understand. But you may be demanding too much of yourself. I ask you again: consider eliminating Zimroel from the tour. Will you do that? Will you at least give it some thought?”
“I’d return to Castle Mount this very evening, if I could. But I must go on. I must.”
“Tonight at the temple you hope to speak in dreams with your mother the Lady, is that not so?”
“Yes,” he said. “But—”
“Promise me this, then. If you reach her mind with yours, ask her if you should go to Zimroel. Let her advice guide you in this, as it has so well in so many other things. Will you?”
“Carabella—”
“Will you ask her? Only ask!”
“Very well,” he said. “I will ask. That much do I promise.”
She looked at him mischievously. “Do I seem a shrewish wife, Valentine? Chivvying and pressing you this way? I do this out of love, you know.”
“That I know,” said he, and drew her close and held her.
They said no more, for it was time then to make ready for the journey up Alaisor Heights to the temple of the Lady. Twilight was descending as they set out up the narrow winding road, and the lights of Alaisor sparkled behind them like millions of bright gems scattered carelessly over the plain.
The hierarch Ambargarde, a tall, regal-looking woman with keen eyes and lustrous white hair, waited at the gateway of the temple to receive the Coronal. While awed acolytes looked on gaping, she offered him a brief and warm welcome—he was, she said, the first Coronal to visit the temple since Lord Tyeveras had come, on his second processional—and led him through the lovely grounds until the temple itself came into view: a long building a single story in height, built of white stone, unornamented, even stark, situated in a spacious and open garden of great simplicity and beauty. Its western face curved in a crescent arc along the edge of the cliff, looking outward to the sea; and, on its inner side, wings set apart from one another at narrow angles radiated toward the east.