Majipoor Chronicles

had another way, dropping her gown and going to the pool. Her lean, supple body gleamed a moment in the starlight; then she dived, sliding nearly without a splash beneath the surface. She beckoned to him and quickly he joined her.

Afterward they embraced on a bed of close-cropped thick-bladed grass. It was almost as much like wrestling as love-making, for she clasped him with her long muscular legs, tried to pinion his arms, rolled over and over with him, laughing, and he was amazed at the strength of her, the playful ferocity of her movements. But when they were through testing one another they moved with more harmony, and it was a night of little sleep and much exertion.

Dawn was an amazement: without warning, the sun was in the sky like a trumpet-blast, roasting the surrounding hills with shafts of hot light.

They lay limp, exhausted. Dekkeret turned to her — by cruel morning light she looked less girlish than she had under the stars — and said abruptly, 'Tell me about this haunted desert. What spirits will I meet there?'

'How persistent you are!'

'Tell me.'

'There are ghosts there that can enter your dreams and steal them. They rob your soul of joy and leave fears in its place. By day they sing in the distance, confusing you, leading you from the path with their clatter and their music.'

'Am I supposed to believe this?'

'In recent years many who have entered that desert have perished there.'

'Of dream-stealing ghosts.'

'So it is said.'

'It will make a good tale to tell when I return to Castle Mount, then.'

'If you return,' she said.

'You say that not everyone who has gone into that desert has died of it. Obviously not, for someone has come out to tell the tale. Then I will hire a guide, and take my chances among the ghosts.'

'No one will accompany you.'

'Then I'll go alone.'

'And certainly die.' She stroked his powerful arms and made a little purring sound. 'Are you so interested in dying, so soon? Dying has no value. It confers no benefits. Whatever peace you seek, the peace of the grave is not it. Forget the desert journey. Stay here with me.'

'We'll go together.'

She laughed. 'I think not.'

It was, Dekkeret realized, madness. He had doubts of her tales of ghosts and dream-stealers, unless what went on in that desert was some trickery of the rebellious Shapeshifter aborigines, and even then he doubted it. Perhaps all her tales of danger were only ruses to keep him longer in Tolaghai. Flattering if true, but of no help in his quest. And she was right about death being a useless form of purgation. If his adventures in Suvrael were to have meaning, he must succeed in surviving them.

Golator Lasgia drew him to his feet. They bathed briefly in the pool; then she led him within, to the most handsomely appointed dwelling he had seen this side of Castle Mount, and gave him a breakfast of fruits and dried fish.

Suddenly in mid-morning she said, 'Must you go into the interior?'

'An inner need drives me in that direction.'

'Very well. We have in Tolaghai a certain scoundrel who often ventures inland by way of Khulag Pass, or so he claims, and seems to survive it. For a purse full of royals he'll no doubt guide you there. His name is Barjazid; and if you insist, I'll summon him and ask him to assist you.'

4

'Scoundrel' seemed the proper word for Barjazid. He was a lean and disreputable-looking little man, shabbily dressed in an old brown robe and worn leather sandals, with an ancient necklace of mismatched sea-dragon bones at his throat. His lips were thin, his eyes had a feverish glaze, his skin was burned almost black by the desert sun. He stared at Dekkeret as though weighing the contents of his purse.

'If I take you,' said Barjazid in a voice altogether lacking in resonance but yet not weak, 'you will first sign a quitclaim absolving me of any responsibility to your heirs, in the event of your death.'

'I have no heirs,' Dekkeret replied.

'Kinfolk, then. I won't be hauled into the Pontifical courts by your father or your elder sister because you've perished in the desert.'

'Have you perished in the desert yet?'

Barjazid looked baffled. 'An absurd question.'

'You go into that desert,' Dekkeret persisted, 'and you return alive. Yes? Well then, if you know your trade, you'll come out alive again this time, and so will I. I'll do what you do and go where you go. If you live, I live. If I perish, you'll have perished too, and my family will have no lien.'

'I can withstand the power of the stealers of dreams,' said Barjazid. 'This I know from ample tests. How do you know you'll prevail over them as readily?'

Dekkeret helped himself to a new serving of Barjazid's tea, a rich infusion brewed from some potent shrub of the sandhills. The two men squatted on mounds of haigus-hide blankets in the musty backroom of a shop belonging to Barjazid's brother's son: it was evidently a large clan. Dekkeret sipped the sharp, bitter tea reflectively and said, after a moment, 'Who are these dream-stealers?'

'I cannot say.'

'Shapeshifters, perhaps?'

Barjazid shrugged. 'They have not bothered to tell me their pedigree. Shapeshifters, Ghayrogs, Vroons, ordinary humans — how would I know? In dreams all voices are alike. Certainly there are tribes of Shapeshifters loose in the desert, and some of them are angry folk given to mischief, and perhaps they have the skill of touching minds along with the skill of altering their bodies. Or perhaps not.'

'If the Shapeshifters have closed two of the three routes out of Tolaghai, the Coronal's forces have work to do here.'

'This is no affair of mine.'

'The Shapeshifters are a subjugated race. They must not be allowed to disrupt the daily flow of life on Majipoor.'

'It was you who suggested that the dream-stealers were Shapeshifters,' Barjazid pointed out acidly. 'I myself have no such theory. And who the dream-stealers are is not important. What is important is that they make the lands beyond Khulag Pass dangerous for travelers.'

'Why do you go there, then?'

'I am not likely ever to answer a question that begins with why' said Barjazid. 'I go there because I have reason to go there. Unlike others, I seem to return alive.'

'Does everyone else who crosses the pass die?'

'I doubt it. I have no idea. Beyond question many have perished since the dream-stealers first were heard from. At the best of times that desert has been perilous.' Barjazid stirred his tea. He began to appear restless. 'If you accompany me, I'll protect you as best I can. But I make no guarantees for your safety. Which is why I demand that you give me legal absolution from responsibility.'

Dekkeret said, 'If I sign such a paper it would be signing a death warrant. What would keep you from murdering me ten miles beyond the pass, robbing my corpse, and blaming it all on the dream-stealers?'

'By the Lady, I am no murderer! I am not even a thief.'

'But to give you a paper saying that if I die on the journey you are not to be blamed — might that not tempt even an honest man beyond all limits?'

Barjazid's eyes blazed with fury. He gestured as though to bring the interview to an end. 'What goes beyond limits is your audacity,' he said, rising and tossing his cup aside. 'Find another guide, if you fear me so much.'

Dekkeret, remaining seated, said quietly, 'I regret the suggestion. I ask you only to see my position: a stranger and a young man in a remote and difficult land, forced to seek the aid of those he does not know to take him into places where improbable things happen. I must be cautious.'

'Be even more cautious, then. Take the next ship for Stolen and return to the easy life of Castle Mount.'

'I ask you again to guide me. For a good price, and nothing more about signing a quitclaim to my life. How much is your fee?'

'Thirty royals,' Barjazid said.

Dekkeret grunted as though he had been struck below the ribs. It had cost him less than that to sail from Piliplok to Tolaghai. Thirty royals was a year's wage for someone like Barjazid; to pay it would require Dekkeret to draw on an expensive letter of credit. His impulse was to respond with knightly scorn, and offer ten; but he realized that he had forfeited his bargaining strength by objecting to the quitclaim. If he haggled now over the price as well, Barjazid would simply terminate the negotiations.

He said at length, 'So be it. But no quitclaim.'

Barjazid gave him a sour look. 'Very well. Not quitclaim, as you insist.'

'How is the money to be paid?'

'Half now, half on the morning of departure.'

'Ten now,' said Dekkeret, 'and ten on the morning of departure, and ten on the day of my return to Tolaghai.'

'That makes a third of my fee conditional on your surviving the trip. Remember that I make no guarantee of that.'

'Perhaps my survival becomes more likely if I hold back a third of the fee until the end.'

'One expects a certain haughtiness from one of the Coronal's knights, and one learns to ignore it as a mere mannerism, up to a point. But I think you have passed the point.' Once again Barjazid made a gesture of dismissal. 'There is too little trust between us. It would be a poor idea for us to travel together.'

'I meant no disrespect,' said Dekkeret.

'But you ask me to leave myself to the mercies of your kinfolk if you perish, and you seem to regard me as an ordinary cutthroat or at best a brigand, and you