It was a longer journey than Eremoil expected, nearly two hours down the switchbacked road to the base of Zygnor Peak, then across the uneven sloping plateau to the foothills that ringed the coastal plain. The air was hotter though less smoky down there; shimmering heatwaves spawned mirages, and made the landscape seem to melt and flow. The road was empty of traffic, but he was stopped again and again by panicky migrating beasts, strange animals of species that he could not identify, fleeing wildly from the fire zone ahead. Shadows were beginning to lengthen by the time Eremoil reached the foothill settlements. Here the fire was a tangible presence, like a second sun in the sky; Eremoil felt the heat of it against his cheek, and a fine grit settled on his skin and clothing.
The places he had been checking on his lists now became uncomfortably real to him: Byelk, Domgrave, Bizfern. One was just like the next, a central huddle of shops and public buildings, an outer residential rim, a ring of farms radiating outward beyond that, each town tucked in its little valley where some stream cut down out of the hills and lost itself on the plain. They were all empty now, or nearly so, just a few stragglers left, the others already on the highways leading to the coast. Eremoil supposed that he could walk into any of these houses and find books, carvings, souvenirs of holidays abroad, even pets, perhaps, abandoned in grief; and tomorrow all this would be ashes. But this territory was infested with Shapeshifters. The settlers here had lived for centuries under the menace of an implacable savage foe that flitted in and out of the forests in masquerade, disguised as one's friend, one's lover, one's son, on errands of murder, a secret I quiet war between the dispossessed and those who had come after them, a war that had been inevitable since the early outposts on Majipoor had grown into cities and sprawling agricultural territories that consumed more and more of the domain of the natives. Some remedies involve drastic cautery: in this final convulsion of the straggle between humans and Shapeshifters there was no help for it, Byelk and Domgrave and Bizfern must be destroyed so that the agony could end. Yet that did not make it easy to face abandoning one's home, Eremoil thought, nor was it even particularly easy to destroy someone else's home, as he had been doing for days, unless one did it from a distance, from a comfortable distance where all this torching was only a strategic abstraction.
Beyond Bizfern the foothills swung westward a long way, the road following their contour. There were good streams here, almost little rivers, and the land was heavily forested where it had not been cleared for planting. Yet even here the months without rain had left the forests terribly combustible, drifts of dead fallen leaves everywhere, fallen branches, old cracked trunks.
'This is the place, sir,' the messenger said.
Eremoil beheld a box canyon, narrow at its mouth and much broader within, with a stream running down its middle. Against the gathering shadows he made out an impressive manor, a great white building with a roof of green tiles, and beyond that what seemed to be an immense acreage of crops. Armed guards were waiting at the mouth of the canyon. This was no simple farmer's spread; this was the domain of one who regarded himself as a duke. Eremoil saw trouble in store.
He dismounted and strode toward the guards, who studied him coldly and held their energy-throwers at the ready. To one that seemed the most imposing he said, 'Group Captain Eremoil to see Aibil Kattikawn.'
'The Kattikawn is awaiting Lord Stiamot,' was the flat chilly reply.
'Lord Stiamot is occupied elsewhere. I represent him today. I am Group Captain Eremoil, commanding officer in this district.'
'We are instructed to admit only Lord Stiamot.'
'Tell your master,' Eremoil said wearily, 'that the Coronal sends his regrets and asks him to offer his grievances to Group Captain Eremoil instead.'
The guard seemed indifferent to that. But after a moment he spun around and entered the canyon. Eremoil watched him walking unhurriedly along the bank of the stream until he disappeared in the dense shrubbery of the plaza before the manor-house. A long time passed; the wind changed, bringing a hot gust from the fire zone, a layer of dark air that stung the eyes and scorched the throat. Eremoil envisioned a coating of black gritty particles on his lungs. But from here, in this sheltered place, the fire itself was invisible.
Eventually the guard returned, just as unhurriedly.
'The Kattikawn will see you,' he announced.
Eremoil beckoned to his driver and his guide, the messenger. But Kattikawn's guard shook his head.
'Only you, captain.'
The driver looked disturbed. Eremoil waved her back. 'Wait for me here,' he said. 'I don't think I'll be long.'
He followed the guard down the canyon path to the manor-house.
From Aibil Kattikawn he expected the same sort of hard-eyed welcome that the guards had offered; but Eremoil had underestimated the courtesy a provincial aristocrat would feel obliged to provide. Kattikawn greeted him with a warm smile and an intense, searching stare, gave him what seemed to be an unfeigned embrace, and led him into the great house, which was sparsely furnished but elegant in its stark and ragged way. Exposed beams of oiled black wood dominated the vaulted ceilings; hunting trophies loomed high on the walls; the furniture was massive and plainly ancient. The whole place had an archaic air. So too did Aibil Kattikawn. He was a big man, much taller than the lightly built Eremoil and broad through the shoulders, a breadth dramatically enhanced by the heavy steetmoy-fur cloak he wore. His forehead was high, his hair gray but thick, rising in heavy ridges; his eyes were dark, his lips thin. In every aspect he was of the most imposing presence.
When he had poured bowls of some glistening amber wine and they had had the first sips, Kattikawn said, 'So you need to burn my lands?'
'We must burn this entire province, I'm afraid.'
'A stupid stratagem, perhaps the most foolish thing in the whole history of human warfare. Do you know how valuable the produce of this district is? Do you know how many generations of hard work have gone into building these farms?'
'The entire zone from Milimorn to Sintalmond and beyond is a center of Metamorph guerrilla activity, the last one remaining in Alhanroel. The Coronal is determined to end this ugly war finally, and it can only be done by smoking the Shapeshifters out of their hiding-places in these hills.'
'There are other methods.'
'We have tried them and they have failed,' Eremoil said.
'Have you? Have you tried moving from inch to inch through the forests searching for them? Have you moved every soldier on Majipoor in here to conduct the mopping-up operations? Of course not. It's too much trouble. It's much simpler to send out those fliers and set the whole place on fire.'
'This war has consumed an entire generation of our lives.'
'And the Coronal grows impatient toward the end,' said Kattikawn. 'At my expense.'
'The Coronal is a master of strategy. The Coronal has defeated a dangerous and almost incomprehensible enemy and has made Majipoor safe for human occupation for the first time — all but this district.'
'We have managed well enough with these Metamorphs skulking all around us, captain. I haven't been massacred yet. I've been able to handle them. They haven't been remotely as much of a threat to my welfare as my own government seems to be. Your Coronal, captain, is a fool.'
Eremoil controlled himself. 'Future generations will hail him as a hero among heroes.'
'Very likely,' said Kattikawn. 'That's the kind that usually gets made into heroes. I tell you that it was not necessary to destroy an entire province in order to round up the few thousand aborigines that remain at large. I tell you that it is a rash and shortsighted move on the part of a tired general who is in a hurry to return to the ease of Castle Mount.'
'Be that as it may, the decision has been taken, and everything from Milimorn to Hamifieu is already ablaze.'
'So I have noticed.'
'The fire is advancing toward Kattikawn village. Perhaps by dawn the outskirts of your own domain will be threatened. During the day we'll continue the incendiary attacks past this region and on south as far as Sintalmond.'
'Indeed,' said Kattikawn calmly.
'This area will become an inferno. We ask you to abandon it while you still have time.'
'I choose to remain, captain.'
Eremoil let his breath out slowly. 'We cannot be responsible for your safety if you do.'
'No one has ever been responsible for my safety except myself.'
'What I'm saying is that you'll die, and die horribly. We have no way of laying down the fire-line in such a way as to avoid your domain.'
'I understand.'
'You ask us to murder you, then.'
'I ask nothing of the sort. You and I have no transaction at all. You fight your war; I maintain my home. If the fire that your war requires should intrude on the territory I call my own, so much the worse for me, but no murder is involved. We are bound on independent courses, Captain Eremoil.'
'Your reasoning is strange. You will die as a direct result of our incendiary attack. Your life will be on our souls.'
'I remain here of free will, after having been duly warned,' said Kattikawn. 'My life will be on my own soul alone.'
'And your people's lives? They'll die too.'
'Those who choose to remain, yes. I've given then warning of what is about to happen. Three have set out for the coast. The rest will stay. Of their own will, and not to please me. This is our place. Another bowl of wine, captain?'
Eremoil refused, then instantly changed his mind and proffered the empty bowl. Kattikawn, as he poured, said, 'Is there no way I can speak with Lord Stiamot?'
'None.'
'I understand the Coronal is in this area.'
'Half a day's journey, yes. But he is inaccessible to such petitioners.'
'By design, I imagine.' Kattikawn smiled. 'Do you think he's gone mad, Eremoil?'
'The Coronal? Not at all.'
'This burning, though — such a desperate move, such an idiotic move. The reparations he'll have to pay afterward — millions of royals; it'll bankrupt the treasury; it'll cost more than fifty castles as grand as the one he's built on top of the Mount. And for what? Give us two or three more years and we'd have the Shapeshifters tamed.'
'Or five or ten or twenty,' said Eremoil. 'This must be the end of the war, now, this season. This ghastly convulsion, this shame on everyone, this strain, this long nightmare—'
'Oh, you think the war's been a mistake, then?'
Eremoil quickly shook his head. 'The fundamental mistake was made long ago, when our ancestors chose to settle on a world that was already inhabited by an intelligent species. By our time we had no choice but to crush the Metamorphs, or else retreat entirely from Majipoor, and how could we do that?'
