The two men were locked in a bitter duel, and only one would come forth from the duel alive.

"Brother!" Valentine cried in shock and horror. "No!" He stirred and twisted and came swimming up to the surface of sleep, and hovered there for an instant. But his training lay too deep for that. One did not flee dreams, one did not reject them no matter how appalling. One entered fully into them and accepted their guidance; one came to grips with the unthinkable in dreams, and to avoid it then meant the inevitability of confronting it, and being defeated by it, in waking life.

Deliberately Valentine drove himself downward again, through the borderland between wakefulness and sleep, and felt stealing about him once more the malign presence of his enemy, his brother.

They were armed with swords, but the contest was unequal, for Valentine’s weapon was a flimsy rapier, the brother’s a massive saber. Through skill and agility Valentine tried desperately to slip his sword past his brother’s guard. Impossible. With slow weighty strokes the other parried steadily, sweeping Valentine’s frail blade aside and driving him inexorably backward over the rough gullied terrain.

Vultures circled overhead. Out of the sky came a hissing death-song. There would be blood spilling soon, and a life returning to the Source.

Step by step Valentine yielded, knowing that a ravine lay just behind him and further retreat soon would be forestalled. His arm was aching, his eyes pounded with fatigue, there was the gritty taste of sand in his mouth, his last strength ebbing. Backward— backward—

"Brother!" he cried in anguish. "In the name of the Divine—"

His plea drew harsh laughter and a sharp obscenity. The saber descended in a mighty swing. Valentine thrust out his blade and was shaken by a terrible body-numbing shiver as metal rang against metal and his light sword was snapped to a stump. In the same moment he tripped over a dry sand-scoured snag of wood and tumbled heavily to the ground, landing in a tangle of thorny creeping stems. The huge man with the saber reared above him, blotting out the sun, filling the sky. The death-song took on a murderous screeching intensity of timbre; the vultures fluttered and swooped.

The sleeping Valentine moaned and trembled. He turned again, huddled close against Carabella, took warmth from her as the dread cold of the death-dream enveloped him. It would be so easy to awaken now, to escape the horror and violence of these images, to swim to safety on the shores of consciousness. But no. With fierce discipline he thrust himself again into the nightmare. The giant figure laughed. The saber rose high. The world lurched and crumbled beneath his fallen body. He commended his soul to the Lady and waited for the blow to descend.

And the blow of the saber was awkward and lame, and with a foolish thud his brother’s sword buried itself deep in the sand, and the texture and thrust of the dream were altered, for no longer did Valentine hear the wailing hiss of death-songs, and now he found everything reversed, found currents of new and unexpected energy pouring into him. He leaped to his feet. His brother tugged at the saber, cursed, struggled to pull it from the ground, and Valentine snapped it with a contemptuous kick.

He seized the other man barehanded.

Now it was Valentine who commanded the duel, and his cowering brother who retreated before a shower of blows, sagging now to his knees as Valentine battered him, growling like a wounded bear, shaking his bloody head from side to side, taking the beating and offering no defense, murmuring only, "Brother . . . brother . . . " as Valentine pounded him to the sand.

He lay still and Valentine stood victor over him.

Let it be dawn, Valentine prayed, and released himself from sleep.

It was still dark. He blinked and clasped his arms to his sides and shivered. Violent frenzied images, fragmented but potent, swam in his troubled mind.

Carabella studied him thoughtfully.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"I dreamed."

"You cried out three times. I thought you would wake. A strong dream?"

"Yes."

"And now?"

"I’m puzzled. Troubled."

"Tell me your dream?"

It was an intimate request. And yet were they not lovers? Had they not gone down into the world of sleep together, partners in the night’s quest?

"I dreamed that I fought with my brother," he said hoarsely. "That we dueled with swords in a hot barren desert, that he came close to killing me, that at the last moment I rose from the ground and found new strength and — and — and I beat him to death with my fists."

Her eyes glittered like an animal’s in the darkness: she watched him like some wary beady-eyed drole.

"Do you always have such ferocious dreams?" she asked after a time.

"I don’t think so. But—"

"Yes?"

"Not only the violence. Carabella, I have no brother!"

She laughed. "Do you expect dreams to correspond exactly to reality? Valentine, Valentine, where were you taught? Dreams have a truth deeper than the reality we know. The brother of your dream could be anyone or no one: Zalzan Kavol, Sleet, your father, Lord Valentine, the Pontifex Tyeveras, Shanamir, even me. You know that unless they be specific sendings, dreams transform all things."

"I know, yes. But what does it mean, Carabella? To duel with a brother — to be killed, almost, by him — to slay him instead—"

"You want me to speak your dream for you?" she said, surprised.

"It speaks nothing to me except fear and mystery."

"You were badly frightened, yes. You were soaked with sweat and you cried out again and again. But painful dreams are the most revealing ones, Valentine. Speak it for yourself."

"My brother— I have no brother—"

"I told you, it doesn’t matter."

"Did I make war against myself, then? I don’t understand. I have no enemies, Carabella."

"Your father," she suggested.

He considered that. His father? He searched for a face that he could give to the shadowy man with the saber, but he found only more darkness.

"I don’t remember him," Valentine said.

"Did he die when you were a boy?"

"I think so." Valentine shook his head, which was beginning to throb. "I don’t remember. I see a big man — his beard is dark, his eyes are dark—"

"What was his name? When did he die?"

Valentine shook his head again.

Carabella leaned close. She took his hands in hers and said softly, "Valentine, where were you born?"

"In the east."

"Yes, you’ve said that. Where? What city, what province?"

"Ni-moya?" he said vaguely.

"Are you asking me or telling me?"

"Ni-moya," he repeated. "A big house, a garden, near the bend of the river. Yes. I see myself there. Swimming in the river. Hunting in the duke’s forest. Am I dreaming that?"

"Are you?"

"It feels like — something I’ve read. Like a story I’ve been told."

"Your mother’s name?"

He began to reply, but when he opened his mouth no name came.

"She died young too?"

"Galiara," Valentine said without conviction. "That was it. Galiara."

"A lovely name. Tell me what she looked like."

"She— she had—" He faltered. "Golden hair, like mine. Sweet smooth skin. Her eyes— her voice sounded like— it’s so hard, Carabella!"

"You’re shaking."

"Yes."

"Come. Here." Once again she drew him close. She was much smaller than he, and yet she seemed very much stronger now, and he took comfort from her closeness. Gently she said, "You don’t remember anything, do you, Valentine?"

"No. Not really."

"Not where you were born or where you came from or what your parents looked like or even where you were last Starday, isn’t that so? Your dreams can’t guide you because you have nothing to speak against them." Her hands roamed his head; her fingers probed delicately but firmly into his scalp.