Smiling, Valentine said softly, "I think the trick might not work. I’ve left my crown elsewhere."

"Then have Deliamber witch her into yielding!"

That was a possibility. But Valentine disliked it: Namurinta had taken them on in good faith, and by rights was free to leave, and probably was correct that waiting here another day or two or three was pointless. Compelling her to yield by Deliamber’s powers was distasteful to him. On the other hand—

"Lord Valentine!" a woman’s voice called, far away.

"Here! Come!"

He looked toward the far end of the harbor. It was Pandelon, Gorzval’s carpenter, who had gone with Thesme and Rovorn to inspect what lay around the curve. She was waving, beckoning. He sprinted down toward her, the others following after a moment.

When he reached her she led him through the shallow water around a jutting fold of rock that concealed a much smaller beach. There he saw a single-story structure of pink sandstone that bore the triangle-within-triangle emblem of the Lady and was perhaps some sort of shrine. In front of it was a garden of flowering shrubs arranged in symmetrical patterns of red, blue, orange, and yellow blossoms. Two gardeners, a man and a woman, were tending it. They looked up without interest as Valentine approached. Awkwardly he made the sign of the Lady at them, and they returned it more adeptly.

He said, "We are pilgrims, and need to be told the way to the terraces."

"You come out of season," the woman said. Her face was wide and pale, with a sprinkling of pale freckles on it. There was nothing friendly in her voice.

"Because of our eagerness to enter into the Lady’s service."

The woman shrugged and returned to her weeding. The man, a thick-muscled, short-statured person with thinning gray hair, said, "You should have gone to Numinor at this time of year."

"We came from Zimroel."

That produced a minor flicker of attention. "Through the dragon-winds? You must have had a difficult crossing."

"There were some troublesome moments," Valentine said, "but they lie behind us now. We feel only joy at having reached this Isle at last."

"The Lady will comfort you," said the man indifferently, and he began to work with a pruning-shears.

After a moment of silence that grew swiftly dismaying, Valentine said, "And the way to the terraces?"

The freckled woman said, "You won’t be able to operate it."

"But will you help us?"

Silence again.

Valentine said, "It would be only a moment, and then we’d disturb you no more. Show us the way."

"We have our duties here," said the balding man. Valentine moistened his lips. This was leading nowhere; and for all he knew, Namurinta had left the other beach five minutes ago and was on her way back to Rodamaunt Graun, marooning them. He looked to Deliamber. Some wizardly compulsion might be in order. Deliamber ignored the hint. Valentine moved toward him and murmured, "Touch your tentacles to them and inspire them to cooperate."

"I think my sorceries are of little value on this holy Isle," said Deliamber. "Try wizardries of your own."

"I have none!"

"Try," said the Vroon.

Valentine confronted the gardeners once again. I am Coronal of Majipoor, he told himself, and I am the son of the Lady whom these two worship and serve. It was impossible to say any of that to the gardeners, but he could transmit it, perhaps, through sheer force of soul. He stood tall and moved toward the center of his being, as he would have done if he were preparing to juggle before the most critical of audiences, and he smiled a smile so warm it might have opened buds on the branches of the flowering shrubs, and after a moment the gardeners, looking up from their work, saw it and showed an unmistakable response, a reaction of surprise, bewilderment, and — submission. He bathed them in glowing love. "We have come thousands of miles," he said gently, "to give ourselves up to the peace of the Lady, and we beg you, in the name of the Divine that we both serve, to assist us on our pathway; for our need is great and we are weary of wandering."

They blinked, as if the sun had emerged from behind a gray cloud.

"We have our tasks," said the woman lamely.

"We are not supposed to ascend until the garden is cared for," the man said, almost in a mumble.

"The garden thrives," said Valentine, "and will thrive without your aid for a few hours today. Help us, before the darkness comes. We ask only that you point us on our way, and I tell you that the Lady will reward you for it."

The gardeners looked troubled. They glanced at one another, and then toward the sky, as though to see how late it was. Frowning, they rose and brushed the sandy soil from their knees, and, like sleepwalkers, moved to the water’s edge, and out into the light surf, and around the point to the greater beach, and down toward the foot of the cliff where that vertical path began its skyward climb.

Namurinta was still there, but she was nearly ready for departure. Valentine went to her.

"For your aid we thank you deeply," he said.

"You are staying?"

"We have found a way to the terraces."

She smiled in unfeigned pleasure. "I was not eager to abandon you, but Rodamaunt Graun was calling me. I wish you well as you make your pilgrimage."

"And I wish you a safe voyage home."

He turned away.

"One thing," the captain said.

"Yes?"

"When the woman called to you from down there," she said, "she hailed you as Lord Valentine. What was the meaning of that?"

"A joke," said Valentine. "Only a joke."

"Lord Valentine is how the new Coronal is named, so I have been told, the one that rules since a year or two past."

"Yes," Valentine said. "But he is a dark-haired man. It was only a joke, a play on names, for I am Valentine too. A safe journey, Namurinta."

"A fruitful pilgrimage, Valentine."

He walked toward the cliff. The gardeners had taken several of the floater-sleds from the shack, and had placed them in riding sequence on the thrusting-pad. Silently they gestured the travelers aboard. Valentine mounted the first sled, with Carabella, Deliamber, Shanamir, and Khun. The female gardener went into the shack, where, it seemed, the controls of the floaters must be located, for an instant afterward the sled drifted free of the pad and began the dizzying, terrifying ascent of the towering white cliff.

"You HAVE COME," said the acolyte Talinot Esulde, "to the Terrace of Assessment. Here you will be weighed in the balance. When it is time to move onward, your path takes you to the Terrace of Inception, and then to the Terrace of Mirrors, where you will confront yourself. If what you see is satisfactory to you and to your guides, you move inward to Second Cliff, where another group of terraces awaits you. And so you proceed until the Terrace of Adoration. There, if the favor of the Lady is upon you, you will receive your summons to Inner Temple. But I would not expect that to happen quickly. I would not expect that to happen at all. Those who expect to attain the Lady are the least likely to reach her."

Valentine’s mood darkened at that, for not only did he expect to attain the Lady, it was absolutely vital that he do so; and yet he understood what the acolyte was saying. In this holy place one made no demands on the fabric of existence. One surrendered; one gave up demands and needs and desires; one yielded, if one hoped to find peace. This was no place for a Coronal. The essence of a Coronal’s being was the wielding of power, wisely if he was capable of wisdom, but in any event steadfastly; the essence of a pilgrim was surrender. In that contradiction he might easily be lost. Yet he had no choice but to go to the Lady.

He had, at least, reached the outer fringes of the Lady’s domain. At the top of the cliff they had been greeted by unsurprised acolytes, plainly aware that out-of-season pilgrims were floating toward them. And now, looking pious and faintly absurd in the soft pale robes of pilgrims, they were gathered in a low long building of smooth pink stone near the crest of the cliff. Flags of the same pink stone formed a massive semicircular promenade that stretched for what appeared to be a great distance along the edge of the forest that topped the cliff: this was the Terrace of Assessment. Beyond it lay more forest; the other terraces were farther beyond; and deeper in, not visible from where they were now, rose the second chalk cliff atop the plateau that the outer one formed. A third cliff yet, Valentine knew, rose above the second somewhere hundreds of miles inland, and this was the holiest precinct, where Inner Temple was, where the Lady dwelled. For all that he had traveled so far, it seemed impossible that he would ever complete those last hundreds of miles.