boat. He was dizzy from the beating the alien had given him. Scar’s fore-tympanum had been cut in the attack. For a moment he lost track of himself. The pier was very strange—stone at first glance, but walled with a spongy black material he hadn’t seen since the Southseas; it should be brittle here… Where am I? I should be happy about something, some victory. He paused to regroup. After a moment both the pain and his thoughts sharpened; he would be like this for days yet, at least. Get help for the alien. Get it ashore.
King Woodcarver’s Lord Chamberlain was a mostly overweight dandy; Peregrine had not expected to see such at Woodcarvers. But the fellow became instantly cooperative when he saw the alien. He brought a doctor down to look at the Two-Legs (and incidentally, at Peregrine). The alien had gained strength in the last two days, but there had been no more violence. They got it ashore without much trouble. It stared at Peregrine out of its flat face, a look he knew was impotent rage. He touched Scar’s head thoughtfully… the Two-Legs was just waiting for the best opportunity to do more damage.
Minutes later, the travelers were in kherhog-drawn carriages, rolling up the cobblestone street toward the city walls. Soldiers cleared the way through the crowd. Scriber Jaqueramaphan waved this way and that, the handsome hero. By now Peregrine knew the shy insecurity that lurked within Scriber. This might be the high point of his whole life till now.
Even if he wanted it, Wickwrackscar could not be so expansive. With one of Scar’s tympana hurt, wild gestures made him lose track of his thoughts. He hunkered down on the carriage seats and looked out in all directions:
But for the shape of the outer harbor, the place was not at all what he remembered from fifty years ago. In most parts of the world, not much changed in fifty years. A pilgrim returning after such an interval might even be bored by the sameness. But this… it was almost scary.
The huge breakwater was new. There were twice as many piers, and multiboats with flags he had never seen on this side of the world. The road had been here before, but narrow, with only a third as many turnoffs. Before, the town walls had been more to keep the kherhogs and froghens in than any invaders out. Now they were ten feet high, the black stone extending as far as Peregrine could see… And there had been scarcely any soldiers last time; now they were everywhere. That was not a good change. He felt a sinking in the pit of Scar’s stomach; soldiers and fighting were not good.
They rode through the city gates and past a market maze that spread across acres. The alleys were only fifty feet wide, narrow where bolts of cloth, furniture displays, and crates of fresh fruit encroached. Smells of fruit and spice and varnish hung in the air. The place was so crowded that the haggling was almost an orgy, and dizzy Peregrine almost blacked out. Then they were on a narrower street that zigzagged through ranks of half-timbered buildings. Beyond the roofs loomed heavy fortifications. Ten minutes later they were in the castle yard.
They dismounted and the Lord Chamberlain had the Two-Legs moved to a litter.
“Woodcarver, he’ll see us now?” said Scriber.
The bureaucrat laughed. “She. Woodcarver changed gender more than ten years ago.”
Peregrine’s heads twisted about in surprise. Precisely what would that mean? Most packs change with time, but he had never heard of Woodcarver being anything but “he'. He almost missed what the Lord Chamberlain said next.
“Even better. Her whole council must see… what you’ve brought. Come inside.” He waved the guards away.
They walked down a hall almost wide enough for two packs to pass abreast. The chamberlain led, followed by the travelers and the doctor with the alien’s litter. The walls were high, padded with silver-crusted quilting. It was far grander than before… and again, unsettling. There was scarcely any statuary, and what there was dated from centuries before.
But there were pictures. He stumbled when he saw the first, and behind him he heard Scriber gasp. Peregrine had seen art all around the world: The mobs of the tropics preferred abstract murals, smudges of psychotic color. The Southseas islanders had never invented perspective; in their watercolors, distant objects simply floated in the upper half of the picture. In the Long Lakes Republic, representationism was currently favored, especially multiptychs that gave a whole-pack view.
But Peregrine had never seen the likes of these. The pictures were mosaics, each tile a ceramic square about a quarter inch on a side. There was no color, just four shades of gray. From a few feet away, the graininess was lost, and… they were the most perfect landscapes Peregrine had ever seen. All were views from hilltops around Woodcarvers. Except for the lack of color, they might have been windows. The bottom of each picture was bounded by a rectangular frame, but the tops were irregular; the mosaics simply broke off at the horizon. The hall’s quilted wall stood where the pictures should have shown sky.
“Here now, fellow! I thought you wanted to see Woodcarver.” The remark was directed at Scriber. Jaqueramaphan was strung out along the landscapes, one of him sitting in front of a different picture all down the hall. He turned a head to look at the chamberlain. His voice sounded dazed. “Soul’s end! It’s like being God, as if I have one member on each hilltop and can see everything at once.” But he scrambled to his feet and trotted to catch up.
The hall opened on one of the largest indoor meeting rooms Peregrine had ever seen.
“This is as big as anything in the Republic,” Scriber said with apparent admiration, looking up at the three levels of balconies. They stood alone with the alien at the bottom.
“Hmf.” Besides the chamberlain and the doctor, there were already five other packs in the room. More showed up as they watched. Most were dressed like nobles of the Republic, all jewels and furs. A few wore the plain jackets he remembered from his last trip. Sigh. Woodcarver’s little settlement had grown into a city and now a nation-state. Peregrine wondered if he—she—had any real power now. He trained one head precisely on Scriber and Hightalked at him. “Don’t say anything about the picture box just yet.”
Jaqueramaphan looked puzzled and conspiratorial all at once. He High Talked back, “Yes… yes. A bargaining card?”
“Something like that.” Peregrine’s eyes swept back and forth across the balconies. Most packs entered with an air of harried self-importance. He smiled to himself. One glance into the pit was enough to shatter their smugness. The air above him was filled with buzzing talk. None of the packs looked like Woodcarver. But then, she’d have few of her members from before; he could only recognize her by manner and bearing. It shouldn’t matter. He had carried some friendships far longer than any member’s lifespan. But with others the friend had changed in a decade, its viewpoints altering, affection turning to animosity. He’d been counting on Woodcarver being the same. Now…
There was a brief sound of trumpets, almost like a call to order. The pubic doors of a lower balcony slid open and a fivesome entered. Peregrine felt a twitchy thrill of horror. This was Woodcarver, but so… misarranged. One member was so old it had to be helped by the rest. Two were scarcely more than puppies, and one of those a constant drooler. The largest member was white-eyed blind. It was the sort of thing you might see in a waterfront slum, or in the last generation of incest.
She looked down at Peregrine, and smiled almost as if she recognized him. When she spoke, it was with the blind one. The voice was clear and firm. “Please carry on, Vendacious.”
The chamberlain nodded. “As you wish, Your Majesty.” He pointed into the pit, at the alien. “That is the reason for this hasty meeting.”
“We can see monsters at the circus, Vendacious.” The voice came from an overdressed pack on the top balcony. To judge from the shouting that came from all sides, this was a minority view. One pack on a lower balcony jumped over the railing and tried to shoo the doctor away from the alien’s litter.
The chamberlain raised a head for silence, and glared down at the fellow who had jumped into the pit. “If you please, Scrupilo, be patient. Everyone will get a chance to look.”
“Scrupilo” made some grumbling hisses, but backed off.
“Good.” Vendacious turned all his attention on Peregrine and Scriber. “Your boat has outrun any news from the north, my friends. No one but I knows anything of your story—and what I have is guard codes hooted across the bay. You say this creature flew down from the sky?”
An invitation to speechify. Peregrine let Scriber Jaqueramaphan do the talking. Scriber loved it. He told the story of the flying house, of the ambush and the murders, and the rescue. He showed them his eye-tools and
