not merely because it was a symbol of power and imperial grandeur that had been his, but mainly because it was such a fabric of the ages, such a living, breathing weave of history.
'The Castle is ours!' cried Elidath jubilantly as Valentine’s army burst through the unguarded gate.
But what good was that, Valentine thought, if death for all the Mount and its squabbling mortals lay just a few hours away? Already too much time had elapsed since the thinning of the atmosphere had begun. Valentine wanted to reach out, to claw the fleeing air and hold in back.
The deepening chill that now lay like a terrible weight on Castle Mount was nowhere more manifest than in the Castle itself, and those within it, already dazed and bewildered by the events of the civil war, stood like waxen figures, unblinking and numb, shivering and immobile while the invading parties rushed inward. Some, shrewder or quicker of wit than the others, managed to croak, 'Long live Lord Valentine!' as the unfamiliar golden-haired figure rode by; but most behaved as though their minds had already begun to freeze.
The hordes of attackers, flowing inward, moved swiftly and precisely toward the tasks Valentine had assigned. Duke Heitluig and his Bibiroon warriors had charge of seizing control of the Castle perimeter, flushing out and neutralizing any hostile forces. Asenhart and six detachments of valley people had the work of sealing all of the Castle’s many gates, so none of the usurper’s followers might escape. Sleet and Carabella and their troops went upward, toward the imperial halls of the inner sector to take possession of the seat of government. Valentine himself, with Elidath and Ermanar and their combined forces, set out on the spiraling lower causeway to the vaults where the weather-machines were housed. The rest, under command of Nascimonte, Zalzan Kavol, Shanamir, Lisamon Hultin, and Gorzval, went forth in random streams, spreading out over the Castle in search of Dominin Barjazid, who might be hiding in any of the thousands of rooms, even the meanest.
Down the causeway Valentine raced, until, in the murky depths of the cobbled passage, the floater-car could go no farther; and then on foot he sped toward the vaults. The cold was numbing against his nose and lips and ears. His heart pounded, his lungs worked fiercely in the thin air. These vaults were all but unknown to him. He had been down here only once or twice, long ago. Elidath, though, seemed to know the way.
Through corridors, down endless flights of wide stone stairs, into a high-roofed arcade lit by twinkling points far overhead — and all the time the air grew perceptibly more chilly, the unnatural night gripped the Mount more tightly—
A great arched wooden door, banded with thick metal inlays, loomed up before them.
'Force it,' Valentine ordered. 'Burn through it, if we must!'
'Wait, my lord,' a mild quavering voice said.
Valentine whirled. An ancient Ghayrog, ashen-skinned, his serpent hair limp in the cold, had stepped from a doorway in the wall and came shambling uncertainly toward them.
'The keeper of the weather-machines,' Elidath muttered.
The Ghayrog looked half dead. Bewilderedly he glanced from Elidath to Ermanar, from Ermanar to Valentine; and then he threw himself to the ground before Valentine, plucking at the Coronal’s boots.
'My lord— Lord Valentine— ' He stared up in torment. 'Save us, Lord Valentine! The machines — they have turned off the machines—'
'Can you open the gate?'
'Yes, my lord. The control-house is in this alley. But they have seized the vaults — his troops are in command, they forced me out — what damage are they doing in there, my lord? What will become of us all?'
Valentine pulled the quivering old Ghayrog to his feet. 'Open the gate,' he said.
'Yes, my lord. It will be only a moment—'
An eternity, rather, Valentine thought. But there came the sound of awesome subterranean machinery and gradually the sturdy wooden barrier, creaking and groaning, began to move aside.
Valentine would have been the first to dart through the opening, but Elidath caught him ungently by the arm and pulled him back. Valentine slapped at the hand that held him as though it were some bothersome vermin, some dhiim of the jungles. Elidath held firm.
'No, my lord,' he said crisply.
'Let go, Elidath.'
'If it costs me my head, Valentine, I will not let you go in there. Stand aside.'
'Elidath!'
Valentine glanced toward Ermanar. But he found no support there. 'The Mount freezes, my lord, while you delay us,' Ermanar said.
'I will not allow—'
'Stand aside!' Elidath commanded.
'I am Coronal, Elidath.'
'And I am responsible for your safety. You may direct the offensive from the outside, my lord. But there are enemy soldiers in there, desperate men, defending the last place of power the usurper controls. Let one sharp-eyed sniper see you, and all our struggle has been in vain. Will you stand aside, Valentine, or must I commit treason on your body to push you out of the way?'
Fuming, Valentine yielded, and watched in anger and frustration as Elidath and a band of picked warriors slipped past him into the inner vault. There was the sound of fighting almost at once within; Valentine heard shouts, energy-bolts, cries, moans. Though guarded by Ermanar’s watchful men, he was a dozen times at the brink of pulling away from them and entering the vault himself, but held back. Then a messenger came from Elidath to say that the immediate resistance was wiped out, that they were penetrating deeper, that there were barricades, traps, pockets of enemy soldiers every few hundred yards. Valentine clenched his fists. It was an impossible business, this thing of being too sacred to risk his skin, of standing about in an antechamber while the war of restoration raged all about him. He resolved to go in, and let Elidath bluster all he liked.
'My lord?' A messenger from the other direction, breathless, came running up.
Valentine hovered at the entrance to the vault. 'What is it?' he snapped.
'My lord, I am sent by Duke Nascimonte. We have found Dominin Barjazid barricaded in the Kinniken Observatory, and he asks you to come quickly to direct the capture.'
Valentine nodded. Better that than standing about idly here. To an aide-de-camp he said, 'Tell Elidath I’m going back up. He has full authority to reach the weather-machines any way he can.'
But Valentine was only a short distance up the passageways when Gorzval’s aide arrived, to say that the usurper was rumored to be in the Pinitor Court. And a few minutes later came word from Lisamon Hultin, that she was pursuing him swiftly down a spiraling passageway leading to Lord Siminave’s reflecting-pool.
In the main concourse Valentine found Deliamber, watching the action with a look of bemused fascination. Telling the Vroon of the conflicting reports, he asked, 'Can he be in all three places?'
'None, more likely,' the wizard replied. 'Unless there are three of him. Which I doubt, though I feel his presence in this place, dark and strong.'
'In any particular area?'
'Hard to tell. Your enemy’s vitality is such that he radiates himself from every stone of the Castle, and the echoes confuse me. But I will not be confused much longer, I think.'
'Lord Valentine?'
A new messenger — and a familiar face, deep coarse brows meeting in the center, a jutting chin, an easy confident smile. Another unit of the vanished past fitting itself back into place, for this man was Tunigorn, second closest of all Valentine’s boyhood friends, now one of the high ministers of the realm, and now looking at the stranger before him with bright penetrating eyes, as if trying to find the Valentine behind the strangeness. Shanamir was with him.
'Tunigorn!' Valentine cried.
'My lord! Elidath said you were altered, but I had no idea—'
'Am I too strange to you with this face?'
Tunigorn smiled. 'It will take some getting used to, my lord. But that can come in time. I bring you good news.'
'Seeing you again is good news enough.'
'But I bring you better. The traitor has been found.'
'I have been told already three times in half an hour that he is in three different places.'
'I know nothing of those reports. We have him.'
'Where?'
'Barricaded in the inner chambers. The last to see him was his valet, old Kanzimar, loyal to the end, who finally saw him gibbering with terror and understood at last that this was no Coronal before him. He has locked off the entire suite, from the throne-room to the robing-halls, and is alone in there.'
'Good news indeed!' To Deliamber Valentine said, 'Do your wizardries confirm any of this?'
Deliamber’s tentacles stirred. 'I feel a sour, malign presence in that lofty building.'
'The imperial chambers,' said Valentine. 'Good.' He turned to Shanamir and said, 'Send out the word to Sleet, Carabella, Zalzan Kavol, Lisamon Hultin. I want them with me as we close in.'
'Yes, my lord!' The boy’s eyes gleamed with excitement.
Tunigorn said, 'Who are those people you named?'
'Companions of my wanderings, old friend. In my time of exile they became very dear to me.'
'Then they will be dear to me as well, my lord. Whoever they may be, those who love you are those I love.' Tunigorn drew his cloak close about him. 'But what of this chill? When will it begin to lift? I heard from Elidath that the weather-machines—'
'Yes.'
'And can they be repaired?'
'Elidath has gone to them. Who knows what damage the Barjazid has done? But have faith in Elidath.' Valentine looked toward the inner palace high above him, narrowing his eyes as though he could in that manner see through the noble stone walls to the frightened shameless creature hiding behind them. 'This coldness gives me great grief, Tunigorn,' he said somberly. 'But curing it now is in the hands of the Divine — and Elidath. Come. Let’s see if we can pluck that insect from its
