Majipoor Chronicles

'You? Don't be silly.'

'My mind got into it. My way of seeing things.'

'I told you that the canvases are tuned to me alone. I could be in the midst of a thousand people and nothing of them would affect the painting.'

'But perhaps I distracted you, I swerved your mind somehow.'

'Nonsense.'

'I'll go for a walk. Paint another one while I'm gone.'

'No, Sarise. This one is splendid. The more I look at it, the more pleased I am. Come: let's go home, let's swim and eat some dwikka and make love. Yes?'

He took the canvas from its mount and rolled it. But what she had said affected him more than he would admit. Some kind of strangeness had entered the painting, no doubt of it. What if she had managed somehow to taint it, her bidden Metamorph soul radiating its essence into his spirit, coloring the impulses of his mind with an alien hue—

They walked downstream in silence. When they reached the meadow of the mud-lilies where Nismile had seen his first Metamorph, he heard himself blurt, 'Sarise, I have to ask you something.'

'Yes?'

He could not halt himself. 'You aren't human, are you? You're really a Metamorph, right?'

She stared at him wide-eyed, color rising in her cheeks. 'Are you serious?' He nodded.

'Me a Metamorph?' She laughed, not very convincingly. 'What a wild idea!'

'Answer me, Sarise. Look into my eyes and answer me.'

'It's too foolish, Therion.'

'Please. Answer me.'

'You want me to prove I'm human? How could I?'

'I want you to tell me that you're human. Or that you're something else.'

'I'm human,' she said.

'Can I believe that?'

'I don't know. Can you? I've given you your answer.' Her eyes flashed with mirth. 'Don't I feel human? Don't I act human? Do I seem like an imitation?'

'Perhaps I'm unable to tell the difference.'

'Why do you think I'm a Metamorph?'

'Because only Metamorphs live in this jungle,' he said. 'It seems — logical. Even though — despite—' He faltered. 'Look, I've had my answer. It was a stupid question and I'd like to drop the subject. All right?'

'How strange you are! You must be angry with me. You do think I spoiled your painting.'

'That's not so.'

'You're a very poor liar, Therion.'

'All right. Something spoiled my painting. I don't know what. It wasn't the painting I intended.'

'Paint another one, then.'

'I will. Let me paint you, Sarise.'

'I told you I didn't want to be painted.'

'I need to. I need to see what's in my own soul, and the only way I can know—'

'Paint the dwikka-tree, Therion. Paint the cabin.'

'Why not paint you?'

'The idea makes me uncomfortable.'

'You aren't giving me a real answer. What is there about being painted that—'

'Please, Therion.'

'Are you afraid I'll see you on the canvas in a way that you won't like? Is that it? That I'll get a different answer to my questions when I paint you?'

'Please.'

'Let me paint you.'

'No.'

'Give me a reason, then.'

'I can't,' she said.

'Then you can't refuse.' He drew a canvas from his pack. 'Here, in the meadow, now. Go on, Sarise. Stand beside the stream. It'll take only a moment—'

'No, Therion.'

'If you love me, Sarise, you'll let me paint you.'

It was a clumsy bit of blackmail, and it shamed him to have attempted it; and angered her, for he saw a harsh glitter in her eyes that he had never seen before. They confronted each other for a long tense moment.

Then she said in a cold flat voice, 'Not here, Therion. At the cabin. I'll let you paint me there, if you insist.'

Neither of them spoke the rest of the way home.

He was tempted to forget the whole thing. It seemed to him that he had imposed his will by force, that he had committed a sort of rape, and he almost wished he could retreat from the position he had won. But there would never now be any going back to the old easy harmony between them; and he had to have the answers he needed. Uneasily he set about preparing a canvas.

'Where shall I stand?' she asked.

'Anywhere. By the stream. By the cabin.'

In a slouching slack-limbed way she moved toward the cabin. He nodded and dispiritedly began the final steps before entering trance. Sarise glowered at him. Tears were welling in her eyes.

'I love you,' he cried abruptly, and went down into trance, and the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes was Sarise altering her pose, coming out of her moody slouch, squaring her shoulders, eyes suddenly bright, smile flashing.

When he opened his eyes the painting was done and Sarise was staring timidly at him from the cabin door.

'How is it?' she asked.

'Come. See for yourself.'

She walked to his side. They examined the picture together, and after a moment Nismile slipped his arm around her shoulder. She shivered and moved closer to him.

The painting showed a woman with human eyes and Metamorph mouth and nose, against a jagged and chaotic background of clashing reds and oranges and pinks.

She said quietly, 'Now do you know what you wanted to know?'

'Was it you in the meadow? And the other two times?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'You interested me, Therion. I wanted to know all about you. I had never seen anything like you.'

'I still don't believe it,' he whispered.

She pointed toward the painting. 'Believe it, Therion.'

'No. No.'

'You have your answer now.'

'I know you're human. The painting lies.'

'No, Therion.'

'Prove it for me. Change for me. Change now.' He released her and stepped a short way back. 'Do it. Change for me.'

She looked at him sadly. Then, without perceptible transition, she turned herself into a replica of him, as she had done once before: the final proof, the unanswerable answer. A muscle quivered wildly in his cheek. He watched her unblinkingly and she changed again, this time into something terrifying and monstrous, a nightmarish gray pock-marked balloon of a thing with flabby skin and eyes like saucers and a hooked black beak; and from that she went to the Metamorph form, taller than he, hollow-chested and featureless, and then she was Sarise once more, cascades of auburn hair, delicate hands, firm strong thighs.

'No,' he said. 'Not that one. No more counterfeits.'

She became the Metamorph again.

He nodded. 'Yes. That's better. Stay that way. It's more beautiful.'

'Beautiful, Therion?'

'I find you beautiful. Like this. As you really are. Deception is always ugly.'

He reached for her hand. It had six fingers, very long and narrow, without fingernails or visible joints. Her skin was silky and faintly glossy, and it felt not at all as he had expected. He ran his hands lightly over her slim, practically fleshless body. She was altogether motionless.

'I should go now,' she said at last.

'Stay with me. Live here with me.'

'Even now?'

'Even now. In your true form.'

'You still want me?'

'Very much,' he said. 'Will you stay?'