Valentine rose and looked about, perceiving the madness of the battlefield as though in a dream. A cordon of his people surrounded him, and someone — Sleet, he realized — was pulling at him, trying to get him to a safer place.
'No,' Valentine muttered. 'Let me fight—'
'Not out here, my lord. Would you share Khun’s fate? What of all of us, if you perish? The enemy troops are streaming toward us from Peritole Pass. Soon the fighting will grow even more furious. You should not be on the field.'
Valentine understood that. Dominin Barjazid was nowhere on the scene, after all, and probably neither should he be. But how could he sit snug in a floater-car, when others were dying for him, when Khun, who was not even a creature of this world, had already given his life for him, when his beloved Elidath, just beyond that rise in the plain, was perhaps in grave peril from Valentine’s own troops? He swayed in indecision. Sleet, bleak-faced, released him, but only to summon Zalzan Kavol: the giant Skandar, swinging swords in three arms and wielding an energy-thrower with the fourth, was not far away. Valentine saw Sleet conferring sternly with him, and Zalzan Kavol, holding defenders at bay almost disdainfully, began to fight his way toward Valentine. In a moment, Valentine suspected, the Skandar might haul him forcibly, crowned Power or not, from the field.
'Wait,' Valentine said. 'The heir presumptive is in danger. I command you to follow me!'
Sleet and Zalzan Kavol looked baffled by the unfamiliar title.
'The heir presumptive?' Sleet repeated. 'Who’s—'
'Come with me,' Valentine said. 'An order.'
Zalzan Kavol rumbled, 'Your safety, my lord, is—'
' — not the only important thing. Sleet, at my left! Zalzan Kavol, at my right!'
They were too bewildered to disobey. Valentine summoned Lisamon Hultin also; and, guarded by his friends, he moved rapidly over the rise toward the front line of the enemy.
His voice carried across half a league, so it seemed, and the sound of that mighty roar caused all action about him to cease for an instant. Past an avenue of motionless warriors Valentine looked toward Elidath, and as their eyes met he saw the dark-haired man pause, return to look, frown, shrug.
To Sleet and Zalzan Kavol Valentine shouted, 'Capture that man! Bring him to me — unharmed!'
The instant of stasis ended; with redoubled intensity the tumult of battle resumed. Valentine’s forces swarmed once more toward the hard-pressed and yielding enemy, and for a second he caught sight of Elidath, surrounded by a shield of his own people, fiercely holding his ground. Then he could see no more, for everything became chaotic again. Someone was tugging at him — Sleet, perhaps? Carabella? — urging him again to return to the safety of his car, but he grunted and pulled himself free.
'Elidath of Morvole!' Valentine called. 'Elidath, come to parley!'
'Who calls my name?' was the reply.
Again the surging mob opened between him and Elidath. Valentine stretched his arms toward the frowning figure and began to make answer. But words would be too slow, too clumsy, Valentine knew. Abruptly he dropped into the trance-state, putting all his strength of will into his mother’s silver circlet, and casting forth across the space that separated him from Elidath of Morvole the full intensity of his soul in a single compressed fraction of an instant of dream-images, dream-force—
—two young men, boys really, riding sleek fast mounts through a forest of stunted dwarfish trees—
—a thick twisted root rising like a serpent out of the ground across the path, a mount stumbling, a boy flung headlong—
—a terrible cracking sound, a white shaft of jagged bone jutting horridly through torn skin—
—the other boy reining in, riding back, whistling in astonishment and fright as he saw the extent of the injury—
Valentine could sustain the dream-pictures no longer. The moment of contact ended. Drained, exhausted, he slipped back into waking reality.
Elidath stared at him, bewildered. It was as though the two of them alone were on the battlefield, and all that was going on about them was mere noise and vapor.
'Yes,' Valentine said. 'You know me, Elidath. But not by this face I wear today.'
'Valentine?'
'No other.'
They moved toward each other. A ring of troops of both armies surrounded them, silent, mystified. When they were a few feet apart they halted and squared off uncertainly, as if they were about to launch into a duel. Elidath studied Valentine’s features in a stunned, astounded way.
'Can it be?' he asked finally. 'Such a witchery, is it possible?'
'We rode together in the pygmy forest under Amble-morn,' said Valentine. 'I never felt such pain as on that day. Remember, when you moved the bone with your hands, putting it in its place, and you cried out as if the leg were your own?'
'How could you know such things?'
'And then the months I spent sitting and fuming, while you and Tunigorn and Stasilaine roamed the Mount without me? And the limp I had, that stayed with me even after I was healed?' Valentine laughed. 'Dominin Barjazid stole that limp when he took my body from me! Who would have expected such a favor from the likes of him?'
Elidath seemed like one who walked in dreams. He shook his head, as though to rid it of cobwebs.
'This is witchery,' he said.
'Yes. And I am Valentine!'
'Valentine is in the Castle. I saw him but yesterday, and he wished me well, and spoke of the old times, the pleasures we shared—'
'Stolen memories, Elidath. He fishes in my brain, and finds the old scenes embedded there. Have you noticed nothing strange about him, this past year?' Valentine’s eyes looked deep into Elidath’s and the other man flinched, as if fearing sorcery. 'Have you not thought your Valentine oddly withdrawn and brooding and mysterious lately, Elidath?'
'Yes, but I thought — it was the cares of the throne that made him so.'
'You noticed a difference, then! A change!'
'A slight one, yes. A certain coldness — a distance, a chill about him—'
'And still you deny me?'
Elidath stared. 'Valentine?' he murmured, not yet believing. 'You, really you, in that strange guise?'
'None other. And he up there in the Castle has deceived you, you and all the world.'
'This is so strange.'
'Come, give me your embrace, and cease your mumbling, Elidath!' Smiling broadly, Valentine seized the other man and pulled him close, and held him as friend holds friend. Elidath stiffened. His body was as rigid as wood. After a moment he pushed Valentine away and stepped back a pace, shivering.
'You need not fear me, Elidath.'
'You ask too much of me. To believe such—'
'Believe it.'
'I do, at least by half. The warmth of your eyes — the smile — the things you remember—'
'Believe the other half,' Valentine urged passionately. 'The Lady my mother sends you her love, Elidath. You will see her again, at the Castle, the day we hold festival to mark my restoration. Turn your troops around, dear friend, and join us as we march up the Mount.'
There was warfare on Elidath’s face. His lips moved, a muscle in his cheek twitched violently. In silence he confronted Valentine.
Then at last he said, 'This may be madness, but I accept you as what you claim.'
'Elidath!'
'And I will join you, and may the Divine help you if I am misled.'
'I promise you there will be no regretting this.'
Elidath nodded. 'I’ll send messengers to Tunigom—'
'Where is he?'
'He holds Peritole Pass against the thrust we expected from you. Stasilaine is there too. I was bitter, being left in command here in the plain, for I thought I’d miss all the action. Oh, Valentine, is it really you? With golden hair, and that sweet innocent look to your face?'
'The true Valentine, yes. I who slipped off with you to High Morpin when we were ten, borrowing the chariot of Voriax, and rode the juggernaut all day and half the night, and afterward had the same punishment as you—'
'—crusts of old stajja-bread for three days, indeed—'
'—and Stasilaine brought us a platter of meat secretly, and was caught, and he ate crusts with us too the next day—'
'—I had forgotten that part. And do you remember Voriax making us polish every part of the chariot where we had muddied it—'
'Elidath!'
'Valentine!'
They laughed and pounded each other joyously with their fists.
Then Elidath grew somber and said, 'But where have you been? What has befallen you all this year? Have you suffered, Valentine? Have you—'
'It is a very long story,' Valentine said gravely, 'and this is not the place to tell it. We must halt this battle, Elidath. Innocent citizens are dying for Dominin Barjazid’s sake, and we cannot allow that. Rally your troops, turn them around.'
'In this madhouse it won’t be easy.'
'Give the orders. Get the word to the other commanders. The killing has to stop. And then ride with us, Elidath, onward to Bombifale, and then past High Morpin to the Castle.'
