He took the full force of Faraataa's hatred and turned it aside, and offered in its place love, trust, faith, and had more hatred in return, implacable, unchanging, immovable.

— You give me no choice, Faraataa.

With a shrug Faraataa moved toward the altar on which the Metamorph queen lay bound. He raised high his dirk of polished wood.

"Deliamber?" Valentine said. "Carabella? Tisana? Sleet?"

They took hold of him, grasping his hands, his arms, his shoulders. He felt their strength pouring into him.

But even that was not enough. He called out across the world and found the Lady on her Isle, the new Lady, the mother of Hissune, and drew strength from her, and from his own mother the former Lady. And even that was not enough. But in that instant he went elsewhere. "Tunigorn! Stasilaine! Help me!" They joined him. He found Zalzan Kavol. He found Asenhart. He found Ermanar. He found Lisamon. Not enough. Not enough. One more: "Hissune? Come, you also, Hissune. Give me your strength. Give me your boldness."

— I am here, your majesty.

Yes. Yes. It would be possible now. He heard once more the words of old Aximaan Threysz: You will save us by doing that which you think is impossible for you to do. Yes. It would be possible now.

Faraataa!

A single blast like the sound of a great trumpet traveled out from Valentine across the world to Piurifayne. It made the journey in the smallest part of a moment and found its target, which was not Faraataa but rather the hatred within Faraataa, the blind, wrathful, unyielding passion to avenge, destroy, obliterate, expunge. It found it and expunged it, draining it from Faraataa in one irresistible draught.

Valentine drank all that blazing rage into himself, and absorbed it, and took from it its power, and discarded it. And Faraataa was left empty.

For a moment his arm still rose high above his head, the muscles still tense and poised, the weapon still aimed at the Danipiur's heart. Then from Faraataa came the sound of a silent scream, a sound without substance, an emptiness, a void. Still he stood upright, motionless, frozen. But he was empty: a shell, a husk.

The dirk dropped from his lifeless fingers.

— Go, said Valentine. In the name of the Divine, go. Go! And Faraataa fell forward and did not move again.

All was silent. The world was terribly still. You will save us, said Aximaan Threysz, by doing that which you think is impossible for you to do. And he had not hesitated.

The voice of the water-king Maazmoorn came to him from far away:

— Have you made your journey, Valentine-brother?

— Yes. I have made my journey now.

Valentine opened his eyes. He put down the tooth, he took the circlet from his brow. He looked about him and saw the strange pale faces, the frightened eyes: Sleet, Carabella, Deliamber, Tisana.

"It is done now," he said quietly. "The Danipiur will not be slain. No more monsters will be loosed upon us."