trees fell away to create a kind of natural amphitheater, completely without vegetation, running perhaps half a mile back from the highway. At its farther end a geyser was in eruption, but a geyser that was to the ones Valentine had seen at Hot Khyntor as a sea-dragon is to a minnow. This was a column of frothing water that seemed taller than the tallest tower in Dulorn, a white shaft rising five hundred feet, six hundred, possibly even more, roaring out of the ground with incalculable force. At its upper end, where its unity broke and gave way to streamers and spouts and ropes of water that darted off in many directions, a mysterious light appeared to glow, kindling a whole spectrum of hues at the fringes of the column, pinks and pearls and crimsons and pale lavenders and opals. A warm spray filled the air.
The eruption went on and on — an incredible volume of water driven by incredible might into the sky. Valentine felt his entire body massaged by the subterranean forces that were at work. He stared in awe and wonder, and it was almost with shock that he realized that the event was ending, the column now was shrinking, no more than four hundred feet, three hundred, now just a pathetic strand of white sinking toward the ground, now only forty feet, thirty, and then gone, gone, vacant air where that stunning shaft had been, droplets of warm moisture as its only revenant.
'Every thirty minutes,' Autifon Deliamber informed them. 'As long as the Metamorphs have lived on Majipoor, so it is said, that geyser has never been a minute late. It is a sacred place to them. See? There are pilgrims now.'
Sleet caught his breath and began making holy signs. Valentine put a steadying hand to his shoulder. Indeed Metamorphs, Shapeshifters, Piurivars, a dozen or more of them, gathered at a kind of wayside shrine not far ahead. They were looking at the travelers, and, Valentine thought, not in a particularly friendly way. Several of the aborigines in the front of the group stepped briefly behind others, and when they reappeared they looked strangely blurred and indistinct, but that was not all, for they had undergone transformations. One had sprouted great cannonballs of breasts, in caricature of Lisamon Hultin, and another had grown four shaggy Skandar- arms, and another was mimicking Sleet’s white hair. They made a curious thin sound which might have been the Metamorph version of laughter, and then the entire group slipped away into the forest.
Valentine did not release his grip on Sleet’s shoulder until he felt some of the tension ebb from the little juggler’s rigid body. Lightly he said, 'A good trick that is! If we could do that — perhaps grow some extra arms in the middle of our act — what do you say, Sleet, would you like that?'
'I would like to be in Narabal,' Sleet said, 'or Piliplok, or someplace else very far from here.'
'And I in Falkynkip, feeding slops to my mounts,' said Shanamir, who looked pale and shaken.
'They mean us no harm,' Valentine said. 'This will be an interesting experience, one that we will never forget.'
He smiled broadly. But there were no smiles about him, not even on Carabella, Carabella the inextinguishably buoyant. Zalzan Kavol himself looked oddly discomforted, as if perhaps he might now be having second thoughts about the wisdom of pursuing his love of royals into the Metamorph province. Valentine could not, by sheer force of optimistic energy alone, give his companions much cheer. He looked toward Deliamber.
'How far is it to Ilirivoyne?' he asked. 'It lies somewhere ahead,' the Vroon replied. 'How far, I have no idea. We will come to it when we come to it.' It was not an encouraging reply.
—12—
THIS WAS PRIMORDIAL COUNTRY, timeless, unspoiled, an outpost of time’s early dawn on civilized and housebroken Majipoor. The Shapeshifters lived in rain- forest land, where daily downpours cleansed the air and let vegetation run riot. Out of the north came the frequent storms, down into that natural funnel formed by Velathys Scarp and the Gonghars; and as the moist air rose in the ascent of the Gonghar foothills, gentle rains were released, that soaked the light spongy soil. Trees grew tall and slender-trunked, sprouting high and forming thick canopies far overhead; networks of creepers and lianas tied the treetops together; cascades of dark leaves, tapering, drip-tipped, glistened as if polished by the rain. Where there were breaks in the forest, Valentine could see distant green-cloaked mist-wrapped mountains, heavy-shouldered, forbidding, great mysterious bulks crouching on the land. Of wildlife there was little, at least not much that let itself be seen: an occasional red-and-yellow serpent slithering along a bough, an infrequent green-and-scarlet bird or toothy web-winged brown aeorlizard fluttering overhead, and once a frightened bilantoon that scampered delicately in front of the wagon and vanished into the woods with a flurry of its sharp little hooves and panicky wigwagging of its upturned tufted tail. Probably forest-brethren lurked here, since several groves of dwikka-trees came into view. And no doubt the streams were thick with fish and reptiles, the forest floor teemed with burrowing insects and rodents of fantastic hue and shape, and for all Valentine knew, each of the innumerable dark little lakes held its own monstrous submerged amorflbot, that arose by night to prowl, all neck and teeth and beady eyes, for whatever prey came within reach of its massive body. But none of these things made themselves apparent as the wagon sped southward over the rough, narrow wilderness road.
Nor were the Piurivars themselves much in evidence — now and then a well-worn trail leading into the jungle, or a few flimsy wickerwork huts visible just off the road, or a party of half a dozen pilgrims heading on foot up toward the shrine at the Fountain. They were, said Deliamber, a folk that lived by hunting and fishing, and collecting wild fruits and nuts, and a certain amount of agriculture. Possibly their civilization had once been more advanced, for ruins had been discovered, especially on Alhanroel, of large stone cities thousands of years old, that might have dated from early Piurivar times before the starships arrived — although, Deliamber said, there were some historians who maintained that the ruins were those of ancient human settlements, founded and destroyed in the turbulent pre-Pontifical period twelve to thirteen thousand years ago. At any rate the Metamorphs, if they had ever had a more complex way of life, now preferred to be forest-dwellers. Whether that was retrogression or progress Valentine could not say.
By mid-afternoon the sound of Piurifayne Fountain could no longer be heard behind them, and the forest was more open, more thickly settled. The road was unmarked, and, unexpectedly, it forked in a place where no clues were to be had to anything beyond. Zalzan Kavol looked for guidance to Deliamber, who looked to Lisamon Hultin.
'Damn my gut if I could say,' the giantess boomed. 'Pick one at random. We’ve got a fifty-fifty chance of getting to Ilirivoyne on it.'
But Deliamber had a better idea, and knelt down in the mud to cast an inquiry-spell. He took from his pack a couple of cubes of a wizardy incense. Shielding them from the rain with his cloak, he ignited them to create a pale brown smoke. This he inhaled, while waving his tentacles in intricate curlicues.
The warrior-woman snorted and said, 'It’s only a fraud. He’ll wiggle his arms for a while and then he’ll make a guess. Fifty-fifty for Ilirivoyne.'
'The left fork,' Deliamber announced eventually. It was good sorcery or else lucky guessing, for shortly signs of Metamorph occupation increased. There were no more isolated scatterings of lonely huts, but now little clumps of wickerwork dwellings, eight or ten or more close together every hundred yards, and then even closer. There was much foot traffic too, mainly aboriginal children carrying light burdens in slings dangling from their heads. Many stopped as the wagon went by, and stared and pointed and made little cluttering sounds between their teeth.
Definitely they were approaching a large settlement. The road was crowded with children and older Metamorphs, and dwellings were numerous. The children were an unsettling crew. They seemed to be practicing their immature skills at transformation as they walked along, and took many forms, most of them bizarre: one had sprouted legs like stilts, another had tentacular Vroonish arms that dangled almost to the ground, a third had swollen its body to a globular mass supported by tiny props. 'Are we the circus entertainers,' Sleet asked, 'or are they? These people sicken me!'
'Peace,' Valentine said softly.
In a grim voice Carabella said, 'I think some of the entertainments here are dark ones. Look.'
Just ahead were a dozen large wicker cages by the side of the road. Teams of bearers, having apparently just put them down, were resting beside them. Through the bars of the cages small long-fingered hands were thrust, and some prehensile tails coiling in anguish. As the wagon drew alongside, Valentine saw that the cages were full of forest-brethren, jammed three and four together, on their way to Ilirivoyne for — what? To be slaughtered for food? To be tormented at the festival? Valentine shivered.
'Wait!' Shanamir blurted, as they rode past the final cage. 'What’s that in there?'
The last cage was bigger than the others, and what it held was no forest-brother, but rather some other sort of captive, a being of obvious intelligence, tall and strange, with dark blue skin, fierce and desolate purple eyes of extraordinary intensity and luminosity, and a wide, thin-lipped slash of a mouth. Its clothing — a fine green fabric — was ripped and tattered, and splotched with dark stains, possibly blood. It gripped the bars of its cage with terrible force, shaking and tugging at them, and cried out hoarsely at the jugglers for help in an odd, totally unfamiliar accent. The wagon went on.
Chilled, Valentine said to Deliamber, 'That is no being of Majipoor!'
'No,' Deliamber said. 'None that I’ve seen before.'
'I saw one once,' Lisamon Hultin put in. 'An offworlder, native to some star close by here, though I forget the name of it.'
'But what would offworlders be doing here?' Carabella asked. 'There’s little traffic between the stars these days, and few ships come to Majipoor.'
'Still, some do,' Deliamber said. 'We’re not yet totally cut off from the starlanes, though certainly we’re considered a backwater in the commerce of the worlds. And—'
'Are you all mad?' Sleet burst out in exasperation. 'Sitting here like scholars, discussing the commerce between the worlds, and in that cage is a civilized being crying for help, who probably will be stewed and eaten at the Metamorph festival? And we pay no attention to its cries, but ride blithely onward into their city?' He made a tormented sound of anger and went rushing forward to the Skandars on the driver’s seat. Valentine, fearing trouble, went after him. Sleet tugged at Zalzan Kavol’s cloak. 'Did you see it?' he demanded. 'Did you hear? The offworlder in the cage?'
Without turning, Zalzan Kavol said, 'So?'
'You’ll ignore its cries?'
'This is no affair of ours,' the Skandar replied evenly. 'Shall we liberate the prisoners of an independent people? They must have some reason for arresting that being.'
'Reason? Yes, to cook him for dinner! And we’ll be in the next pot. I ask you to go back and release—'
'Impossible.'
'At least let’s ask of it why it’s caged! Zalzan Kavol, we may be riding blithely to our deaths! Are you in such a hurry to reach Ilirivoyne that you’ll ride right past someone who may know something about conditions here, and who is in such a plight?'
'What Sleet says has wisdom in it,' Valentine remarked.
'Very well!' Zalzan Kavol snorted. He pulled the wagon to a halt. 'Go and investigate, Valentine. But be quick about it.'
'I’ll go with him,' Sleet said.
'Stay here. If he feels he needs a bodyguard, let him take the giantess.'
