Its nostril is elongated,
and answers to the purpose of a hand. Its toes are undivided, and it
lives two hundred years. Africa breeds elephants, but India produces the
largest."
The mirror now had melted into a dark warm fluid which oozed between his
fingers, dripping to the ground. But Manuel held tightly to what
remained between his palms, and he felt, they say, that in the fluid was
struggling something small and soft and living, as though he held a tiny
minnow.
Said Manuel, "A straight line is the shortest distance between two
points."
Of a sudden the fire became an ordinary fire, and the witches of Amneran
screamed, and Morven was emptied of sorcery, and Count Manuel was
grasping the warm soft throat of a woman. Instantly he had her within
the enclosure of peeled willow wands that had been spread with butter
and tied with knots of yellow ribbon, because into such an enclosure the
power and the dominion of Freydis could never enter.
All these things Manuel did precisely as King Helmas had directed.
XIV
They Duel on Morven
So by the light of the seven candles Dom Manuel first saw Queen Freydis
in her own shape, and in the appearance which she wore in her own
country.
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