He found the Regent pacing back and forth like a restless bear in front of the relief map of the world opposite Lord Valentine’s desk. Stasilaine was with him, seated at the council table. He looked grim, and acknowledged Hissune’s arrival only with the merest of nods. In an offhand, preoccupied way Elidath gestured to Hissune to take a seat beside him. A moment later Divvis arrived, formally dressed in eye-jewels and feather-mask, as though the summons had interrupted him on his way to a high state ceremony.
Hissune felt a great uneasiness growing in him. What reason could Elidath possibly have for calling a meeting like this so suddenly, in such an irregular way? And why just these few of us, out of all the princes? Elidath, Stasilaine, Divvis—surely those were the three prime candidates to succeed Lord Valentine, the innermost of the inner circle. Something major has happened, Hissune thought. The old Pontifex has died at last, perhaps. Or perhaps the Coronal—
Let it be Tyeveras, Hissune prayed. Oh, please, let it be Tyeveras!
Elidath said, “All right. Everyone’s here: we can begin.”
With a sour grin Divvis said, “What is it, Elidath? Has someone seen a two-headed milufta flying north?”
“If you mean, Is this a time of evil omen, then the answer is that it is,” said Elidath somberly.
“What has happened?” Stasilaine asked.
Elidath tapped a sheaf of papers on the desk. “Two important developments. First, fresh reports have come in from western Zimroel, and the situation is far more serious than we’ve realized. The entire Rift sector of the continent is disrupted, apparently, from Mazadone or thereabouts to a point somewhere west of Dulorn, and the trouble is spreading. Crops continue to die of mysterious blights, there’s a tremendous shortage of basic foods, and hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps millions, have begun migrating toward the coast. Local officials are doing their best to requisition emergency food supplies from regions still unaffected—apparently there’s been no trouble yet around Tilomon or Narabal, and Ni-moya and Khyntor are still relatively untouched by the farming troubles—but the distances are so great and the situation so sudden that very little’s been accomplished so far. There is also the question of some peculiar new religious cult that has sprung up out there, something involving sea-dragon worship—”
“What?” said Stasilaine, astonishment bringing color to his face.
“It sounds insane, I know,” Elidath said. “But the report is that the word is spreading that the dragons are gods of some sort, and that they’ve decreed that the world is going to end, or some such idiocy, and—”
“It’s not a new cult,” said Hissune quietly.
The other three all turned to face him. “You know something about this?” Divvis asked.
Hissune nodded. “I used to hear of it sometimes when I lived in the Labyrinth. It’s always been a secret shadowy sort of thing, very vague, never taken too seriously so far as I ever knew. And strictly lower class, something to whisper about behind the backs of the gentry. Some of my friends knew a little about it, or maybe more than a little, though I was never mixed up in it. I remember mentioning it once to my mother long ago, and she told me it was dangerous nonsense and I should keep away from it, and I did. I think it got started among the Liimen, a long time ago, and has gradually been spreading across the bottom levels of society in an underground sort of way, and I suppose now is surfacing because of all the troubles that have begun.”
“And what’s the main belief?” Stasilaine asked.
“More or less as Elidath said: that the dragons will come ashore some day and take command of the government and end all misery and suffering.”
“What misery and suffering?” Divvis said. “I know of no great misery and suffering anywhere in the world, unless you refer to the whining and muttering of the Shapeshifters, and they—”
“You think everyone lives as we do on Castle Mount?” Hissune demanded.
“I think no one is left in need, that all are provided for, that we are happy and prosperous, that—”
“All this is true, Divvis. Nevertheless there are some who live in castles and some who sweep the dung of mounts from the highways. There are those who own great estates and those who beg for coins in the streets. There are—”
“Spare me. I need no lectures from you on social injustice.”
“Forgive me then for boring you,” Hissune snapped. “I thought you wanted to know why there were people who wait for water-kings to deliver them from hardship and pain.”
“Water-kings?” Elidath said.
“Sea dragons. So they are called by those who worship them.”
“Very well,” said Stasilaine. “There’s famine in Zimroel, and a troublesome cult is spreading among the lower classes. You said there were two important new developments. Are those the two you meant?”
Elidath shook his head. “Those are both parts of the same thing. The other important matter concerns Lord Valentine. I have heard from Tunigorn, who is greatly distressed. The Coronal, he says, has had some sort of revelation during his visit with his mother on the Isle, and has entered a mood of high elevation, a very strange mood indeed, in which he appears almost totally unpredictable.”
“What sort of revelation?” Stasilaine asked. “Do you know?”
“While in a trance guided by the Lady,” said Elidath, “he had a vision that showed him that the agricultural troubles in Zimroel indicate the displeasure of the Divine.”
“Who could possibly think otherwise?” Stasilaine cried. “But what does that have to—”
“According to Tunigorn, Valentine thinks now that the blights and the food shortages—which as we now know are much more serious than our own first reports made them seem—have a specifically supernatural origin—”
Divvis, shaking his head slowly, let out his breath in a derisive snort.
“—a specifically supernatural origin,” Elidath continued, “and are, in fact, a punishment imposed upon us by the Divine for our mistreatment of the Metamorphs down through the centuries.”
“But this is nothing new,” said Stasilaine. “He’s been talking that way for years.”
“Evidently it is something new,” Elidath replied. “Tunigorn says that since the day of the revelation, he’s been keeping mainly to himself, seeing only the Lady and Carabella, and sometimes Deliamber or the dream-speaker Tisana. Both Sleet and Tunigorn have had difficulty gaining access to him, and when they do it’s to discuss only the most routine matters. He seems inflamed, Tunigorn says, with some grandiose new idea, some really startling project, which he will not discuss with them.”
“This does not sound like the Valentine I know,” said Stasilaine darkly. “Whatever else he may be, irrational he is not. It sounds almost as though some fever has come over him.”
“Or that he’s been made a changeling again,” Divvis said.
“What does Tunigorn fear?” Hissune asked.
Elidath shrugged. “He doesn’t know. He thinks Valentine may be hatching some very bizarre idea indeed, one that he and Sleet would be likely to oppose. But he’s giving no clues.” Elidath went to the world globe, and tapped the bright red sphere that marked the Coronal’s whereabouts. “Valentine is still on the Isle, but he’ll sail shortly for the mainland. He’ll land in Piliplok, and he’s scheduled to head up the Zimr to Ni-moya and then keep going into the famine-stricken regions out west. But Tunigorn suspects that he’s changed his mind about that, that he’s obsessed with this notion that we’re suffering the vengeance of the Divine and might be planning some spiritual event, a fast, a pilgrimage, a restructuring of society in a direction away from purely secular values—”