Part 10 (2/2)
”You yourself are permitted to remain,” Korinaam said. ”The treaty negotiations will continue.”
”Without an interpreter? And who's going to lead us back to Ni-moya when this is over? Oh, no, no, Korinaam, we aren't going to let you be expelled!” An idea was beginning to spring to life in Harpirias's mind. He released his grip on Ivla Yevikenik and reached for the Metamorph instead, catching him by the loose fabric at his throat. ”What's going to happen instead is that you're going to go up into those mountains and find the Eililylal, and you're going to order them to clear out of the neighborhood. And you'll make it stick with whatever spooky Shapes.h.i.+fter magic you're able to command.”
Korinaam looked horror-stricken.
”What are you saying? Magic? I am no magician, prince! I am simply one who guides visitors that wish to see the north country. Find yourself some little Vroon, if wizardry is what you want. And as for ordering those people to do anything - how could I possibly do that?”
”You'll do it, all right, and that's all there is to it.” Harpirias let go of Korinaam's garment and shoved him a few paces away. To Ivla Yevikenik he said, ”Tell your father that we offer our services in ridding his land of the Eililylal. Do you follow me? Eililylal- out. We will do! Korinaam and I, with my soldiers! Yes? No more Eililylal. By my solemn oath. But the a.s.sistance of Korinaam is needed. Needed very much. Tell him that!”
The girl smiled, turned to her father, began to speak.
”Prince, what are you promising them?” Korinaam asked. His face was a study in anguish and despair.
”What I have in mind is this,” said Harpirias. ”I'm going to tell you and then, if you think you have your wits about you again, you'll explain it to the king for me. I want you to stand on your hind legs in front of him and let him know that you are a mighty sorcerer and that on his behalf you will devote all of your energies and powers to driving off the wild Shapes.h.i.+fters of the mountains, whom you loathe and despise. Is that clear? Tell him that the army of the Lord Coronal of Majipoor, led in person by me, will go back up into the high country in the morning and make a maximum show of force to impress the Eililylal while you are casting your spells; and in return for all this, once the Eililylal have been duly driven off, the king will free the hostages and we will take our leave of his village and everyone will live happily ever after. Tell him that, Korinaam.”
”Prince-this matter of casting spells-”
”Tell him what I want you to tell him,” Harpirias said ominously. ”Every word, just as I spoke it. Ivla Yevikenik will be listening, and she'll report to me on the accuracy of your translation. Nothing will help you if you try to trick me, Korinaam. I'll let the king know that it's fine with me if he wants to put you back on that altar and slit your throat, and I'll help tie you down myself. Is that understood, Korinaam? Is it?”
”Yes, prince. It is.”
”Good. Start talking, then.”
Finding the Eililylal, of course, was easier promised than accomplished. It took three days, three disagreeable days of marching hither and thither in the heights, while the north wind blew almost unceasingly and occasional sprinklings of light snow fell to remind Harpirias that the short Othinor summer was almost at its end.
More than once his plan began to seem like a fool's errand to him. A huge expeditionary force had gone up into the mountains: not only Korinaam and Harpirias and the entire military force of Skandars and Ghayrogs, but also King Toikella and the high priest Mankhelm and some thirty or forty warriors of the tribe. For this spa.r.s.ely populated part of the world, that was an enormous army. Surely the Eililylal, watching such a horde make its way up the canyon trails from the village to the high country, would prudently take to their heels and scurry back to their own territory in the deep north until it seemed safe to venture into the vicinity of the Othinor again.
But Harpirias was reckoning on two factors that he hoped would work in his favor. One was the mischief that the wild Shapes.h.i.+fters had been up to among the king's hajbaraks. He suspected that the killing of the first two, and the hurling of them into the Othinor village, had been only the prelude to some more elaborate hostile event that they were contemplating. Since that had not happened yet, they were probably still somewhere in the neighborhood.
The other factor was sheer Eililylal malevolence: their obvious love of making trouble, their eagerness to do things like slaughtering the king's sacred beasts and tossing them down into the village, or of dancing and capering obscenely on a high ridge when the king came up from the village to look for them, or the reception that they had provided for Konnaam. This bigger force, with its mult.i.tude of armed Othinor warriors and its array of great lumbering Skandars, might just tempt them to come forth again for an even livelier display of mockery than before.
Which indeed proved to be the case.
They appeared, finally, just when Harpirias had almost given up hope of finding them and King Toikella -was beginning to study Korinaam in a sinisterly appraising sort of way. It was Mankhelm who saw them first. The gaunt high priest had gone off the trail by himself to perform some morning ritual on an outcropping ledge looking into a shallow side canyon; and suddenly he came rus.h.i.+ng back all helter-skelter, trailing his holy ribbons and pouches of sacred powders casually from one hand, signaling wildly with the other, and crying loudly, ”Eililylal! Eililylal!”
They were arrayed along the upper crags of the opposite face of the little side canyon: a band of scrawny ragged-looking creatures, twenty, thirty, perhaps even fifty of them, perching on the rocks and quietly staring down at the army of the Othinor.
The distance across to them was not great; it seemed possible almost to reach across and touch them. In the bright morning sunlight it was beyond question that they were Metamorphs. They had the long frail attenuated bodies, the minimal facial features, the pale green skins. They seemed to have set up a camp over there, with five or six crude tents of roughly dressed animal skins. Tools and what looked like simple weapons lay scattered around in front of them - spears, and bows and arrows, and, perhaps, blow-darts. Savages like the Othinor is what they are, thought Harpirias. Brutish primitive folk who lived dark and difficult lives in this pitiless land.
They had two of Toikella's hajbaraks with them. The big thick-furred quadrupeds lay on their sides with their hocks tethered together and gazed sadly into s.p.a.ce. Very likely, Harpirias suspected, the Eililylal had been making ready to do some harm to the sacrosanct beasts for Toikella's greater displeasure, but had halted when Mankhelm had come upon them.
Harpirias glanced toward Korinaam and said, ”Tell the king to send half his warriors around to the right and half to the left. It should be possible to get over to the other rim of this canyon not very far from here. They should take up positions flanking the Eililylal on either side and wait there for orders.”
While Korinaam was relaying these instructions, Harpirias moved his own forces forward onto the ledge facing the Metamorphs, arraying them in a long line against the breast of the mountain with their energy-throwers armed and ready.
”Now,” Harpirias told the Shapes.h.i.+fter, ”you go out to the edge of the outcropping and call across to your friends over there. Tell them in your own language that they are ordered in the name of all the G.o.ds of the Piurivars to depart from the territory of the Othinor at once.”
”They won't understand a word I'm saying.”
”Very likely that's so. Do it anyway. Tell them that the G.o.ds in their holy wisdom have a.s.signed this territory to the Unchanging Ones, or whatever it is that you people call us, and that all Piurivars have to leave here right away.”
”We do not exactly have G.o.ds in the sense that you -”
”You have something that you regard as divine. Invoke it.”
Korinaam sighed. ”As you wish, prince.”
”I should tell you, also, in case you're unaware of it, that Eskenazo Maraband is fluent in the Piunvar language.” So far as Harpirias knew, that was untrue; but he doubted that Korinaam would call his bluff. ”If he should notify me that you've said anything treacherous instead of what I've asked you to say, Korinaam, I'll push you off that ledge with my own hands.”
Icily the Shapes.h.i.+fter said, ”What treachery would be possible? I've told you already that those creatures over there are unfamiliar with any civilized language.”
”You've told me that, yes. But can I be sure that it's true?”
Anger flared in Korinaam's eyes. ”I am here to do your bidding, prince, and nothing but your bidding. You may count on that.”
”Good. Thank you. Now: after you've made your little speech about the -will of the Piurivar G.o.ds, you're going to start casting spells. You'll make them up as you go along: I know you're good at that. Cry out any sort of crazy mumbo-jumbo that comes to your mind. Just do it m an appropriately awesome incantatory tone. And while you're doing it, I want you to screech and howl and dance around exactly as we saw the Eililylal doing the last time we were up here. But with five times as much frenzy and noise.”
Korinaam gasped in astonishment. ”Surely this is not a serious request!”
”You'd be wise to treat it as one.”
”Then you are asking a great deal of me. This is a clown's work, prince. Do you take me for a performer? Someone from the Perpetual Circus of Dulorn, perhaps?”
”You don't need to be a stage actor in order to screech and howl, Korinaam. Just give it everything you've got, nothing held back, some nice wild shrieking and leaping around. Do you follow me? I want you to scare them. I want you to scare yourself. Give us the kind of act that would get somebody locked up if he did it on the streets of Ni-moya, do you understand? This is no time for being shy, Korinaam. Really put your heart in it. Or whatever it is you may have that pa.s.ses for a heart.”
”But this is humiliating, prince! What you ask me to do goes against my temperament, my character, the very integrity of my being!”
”I take formal note of your objections,” said Harpirias calmly. ”I remind you that there's an altar waiting for you down in the village if you prefer not to cooperate.”
Korinaam glared, but made no reply.
”And while you're casting your spells,” Harpirias went on, ”you will also be making a series of highly dramatic changes.”
”Changes?”
”Changes, yes. Bodily metamorphoses. s.h.i.+fting of shape. Piunvars are known to have that capability, I believe. You will do changes. Your entire repertoire, and possibly some that you have never done before. The stranger the better, do you know what I mean? I want you to make yourself into six kinds of monster. I want you to look demonic and horrifying. I want you to show those cousins of yours over there that you are an absolute master of sorcery and witchcraft and that if they don't obey you you will bring down all the forces of darkness upon their heads. It will be your job to make yourself look just as frightening as anybody has ever looked upon this entire planet. A diabolical ogre. A thing out of everybody's worst nightmares.”
The Shapes.h.i.+fter's eyes were bright with fury.
”What you require of me, prince, is - ”
”Is simply to do as you are told.”
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