Valentine gasped in astonishment. "Tunigorn? Elidath?"

It seemed impossible: a dream, a fantasy. Tunigorn at this moment should still have been in Piliplok, dealing with routine administrative chores. And Elidath? How could this be Elidath? Elidath belonged thousands of miles away, atop Castle Mount. Valentine no more expected to encounter him in this dark forest on Piurifayne's border than he would his own mother the Lady.

Yet that tall man with the heavy brows and the deep-cleft chin was surely Tunigorn; and that other, taller still, he of the piercing eyes and the strong, broad-boned face, was surely Elidath. Unless—unless—

The wind grew more powerful. It seemed to Valentine that thin gritty pennons of sand now rode upon it.

"Are you real?" he demanded of Elidath and Tunigorn. "Or just a pair of cunning Shapeshifter imitations?"

"Real, Valentine, real, altogether real!" cried Elidath, and held forth his arms toward the Coronal.

"By the Divine, it is the truth," Tunigorn said. "We are no counterfeits, and we have traveled day and night, my lord, to overtake you in this place."

"Yes," Valentine said, "I think you are real."

He would have gone toward Elidath's outstretched arms, but his own guards uncertainly interposed themselves. Angrily Valentine waved them aside and pulled Elidath into a close embrace. Then, releasing him, he stepped back to survey his oldest and closest friend. It was well over a year since last they had met; but Elidath seemed to have aged ten years for one. He looked frayed, worn, eroded. Was it the cares of the regency that had ground him down in this way, Valentine wondered, or the fatigue of his long journey to Zimroel? Once he had seemed to Valentine like a brother, for they were of an age with one another and of much the same cast of soul; and now Elidath was suddenly transformed into a weary old man.

"My lord, the storm—" Sleet began.

"A moment," Valentine said, brusquely gesturing him away. "There's much I must learn." To Elidath he said, "How can it be that you are here?"

"I came, my lord, to beg you not to go further into peril."

"What gave you to think I was in peril, or entering more deeply into it?"

"The word came to me that you were planning to cross into Piurifayne and speak with the Metamorphs,"

said Elidath.

"That decision was only lately taken. You must have left the Mount weeks or even months before the idea came into my mind." In some irritation Valentine said, "Is this your way of serving me, Elidath? To abandon your place at the Castle, and journey unbidden halfway round the world to interfere with my policies?"

"My place is with you, Valentine."

Valentine scowled. "Out of love for you I bid you greeting and offer my embrace. But I wish you were not here."

"And I the same," said Elidath.

"My lord," said Sleet insistently. "The storm is coming upon us now! I beg you—"

"Yes, the storm," Tunigorn said. "A Gihorna sandstorm, terrible to behold. We heard it raging along the coast as we set out after you, and it has followed us all the way. An hour, half an hour, perhaps less, and it will be here, my lord!"