Wizards like Tenoctris directed onto human affairs the forces which turned the very cosmos and which waxed and waned on a thousand year cycle. Their peaks were neither good nor evil in themselves, but they gave greater scope to wizards who attempted evil-and greater effect to the mistakes of wizards whose pride was greater than their knowledge.

As if responding to Sharina's thought, Tenoctris smiled wryly and said, "If all we had to worry about were a handful of conscious evildoers, life would be much simpler than it is in the present world of fools, wouldn't it? Though-" she frowned at her own comment "-I'm being needlessly unkind."

Tenoctris was the first to admit that she wasn't a powerful wizard, even now when powers were far greater than they'd been for a millennium. But she didn't make mistakes; and so far as Sharina was concerned, Tenoctris had every right to condemn the powerful fools whose blundering imperiled the kingdom.

A sailor-a petty officer wearing a broad leather belt over his kilt instead of a rope tie like the common seamen-ran out on the jib, shading his eyes with a hand as he peered into the sea ahead of them. He rode the ship's dips and risings with the practiced grace of a courtier making gestures in accordance with palace etiquette. He must have seen-or not seen-what he expected, because he turned and bellowed sternward, "Aye, we're clear, Master Lobon!"

"Such a lot of people," Cashel said, shaking his head in pleased amazement as his eyes swept the moles. "I never knew there were so many people in all the world."

The wealthy nobles of Carcosa would be on the quay to greet Prince Garric formally, but the common people had come out also. The nobles' retainers would keep them away from the quay, but by standing on the long, curving arms which enclosed the harbor they got an earlier view of the visitors. There were thousands of them-many thousands. Even as a shade of its former self, Carcosa remained a great city.