Part 11 (1/2)

”I repeat: I am not a clown. I am not an actor. Nor am I a savage, prince. To stand out there and howl and shriek idiotically, and above all to put myself through changes like that, in front of everyone, not just them but your own men, and the king of the Othinor as well, would shame me forever.”

”Go, Korinaam. Time is wasting.”

”Prince, I ask you - I beg you -”

”The altar, Korinaam. Remember the altar. Go on. Quickly, now. There's no shame in doing one's duty. Your role will be essential today. Perform for us. Give us the best show that's in you. You said that these people were like beasts. Well, give them some of the same stuff, only more so. Behave like a wild man. Out-beast them ten for one. Perform as though your life depends on it. It does, you know.”

Korinaam offered no answer; but he shot Harpirias such a look of unalloyed abhorrence as could have thawed a glacier. Harpirias responded with a sweet smile and nudged the Shape-s.h.i.+fter gently toward the front of the outcropping.

The jutting shelf of stone on which Korinaam stood was almost like a little stage. The Eililylal across the way seemed to stir in curiosity as the glowering Metamorph took up his position on it.

He was silent for a time, breathing deeply, staring at the ground. Then he raised his head and extended his arms to their full spread. He flicked his fingers outward two or three times, and made a small humming sound that could barely be heard even on this side of the canyon.

”Louder, Korinaam,” Harpirias said. ”Wilder. Start putting yourself through some changes.”

”Prince, this is ridiculous!”

”The altar, Korinaam. The altar.”

The Shapes.h.i.+fter nodded. He stretched out his arms again. Abruptly the boundaries of his shape wavered and his arms became long ropy tentacles that seemed to writhe of their own accord in agonized serpentine patterns. The Eililylal stirred and exchanged glances with one another.

”Very good,” Harpirias said. ”Now chant a spell.”

”Yes. Give me a moment, will you?”

Korinaam's body continued to change. His shoulders expanded and violently contracted; his skin grew puckered and spiny; his legs turned to hairy wheels; his arms, rigid again, became clubs, spears, long hooked rods.

”Dekkeret!” he cried suddenly. ”Tyeveras Kinniken Malibor Thraym!”

Harpirias smiled. So the Shapes.h.i.+fter knew some history after all! Those were the names of Coronals and Pontifexes of long ago, and Korinaam was making an incantation out of them!

”Good,” Harpirias murmured. ”Keep it up. Faster! Wilder!”

But there was little need for such encouragement. Korinaam seemed to have put all inhibition aside and was getting fully into things now. His form was going through such grotesque alterations as Harpirias could scarcely believe - drawing out to enormous length, then pulling sharply inward like a snapping piece of elastic until he was no more than a huddled cube, and then shooting out a hundred bright pink extensions at once that jerked and quivered with lunatic intensity. Bright blue eyes gleamed at the tip of each rubbery shaft of flesh. Whorls and loops of extruded plasm emerged from him. And all the while he continued to call off the names of ancient monarchs, now crooning them, now droning, now singing in an eerie high-pitched tone that slid between the conventional intervals of the scale with sinuous liberties that would drive any musician to immediate tears: ”Voriax! Valentine! Segilot! Guadeloom, Strain, Arioc! Grivvis! Husifoin! Prankipin, Hunzimar, Spurifon, Seoul!” Then, hissing the name in a truly terrifying way: ”Stiamot. Stiamot. Stiamot.” He accompanied the name of the conqueror of his race with a series of explosive body-s.h.i.+fts that jerked him about the outcropping in such a hectic manner that Harpirias feared for a moment that he would go over the side.

Evidently Korinaam had exhausted his memory of the names of Coronals now. He began to chant cities and places instead, while dancing back and forth in high frenzy: ”Bimbak, Dundilmir, Furible, Chi! Dulorn! Ni-moya! Falkyn-kip! Divone! Ilirivoyne, Kiridane, Mazadone, Nussimorn! Numinor! Pidruid! Piliplok! Gren!”

It was a brilliant performance. Even Harpirias was unsettled a little by the terrible intensity of Korinaam's percussive outcries and seemingly endless metamorphoses. He could almost believe that these were genuine spells that were being cast here, that the Shapes.h.i.+fter was working authentic Piurivar magic in the chill mountain air of this place.

As for the Eililylal across the -way, they were mesmerized by it. Perhaps they thought that Korinaam had taken leave of his senses, or perhaps they were taking his spellcasting seriously-who could say? They sat rigidly, watching, watching, watching.

But Harpirias knew that the show could not go on much longer. Surely the metamorphic capacities of any Piurivar's body were unable to keep up such a pace of changes; nor could Korinaam, however durable his slender body might be, continue to prance and cavort and shriek the way he was doing without totally expending his strength.

This was the time for the next phase. Harpirias signaled to his troops to prepare to open fire. They hefted their weapons and waited for the next command.

To Korinaam, then, he said, ”All right. Bring it to a climax. Everything you have. Everything, Korinaam!”

”Danipiur!” Korinaam roared. ”Pontifex! Coronal! Toikella! Majipoor!”

He rippled and flowed and pa.s.sed through the entire spectrum of colors, and went through a whole new tumultuous series of bodily changes, now taking on animal forms, now imitating rocks or trees, now presenting himself as pure geometry, now becoming an incomprehensible cl.u.s.ter of tentacles and clacking claws, and then emerging ultimately from the whole blinding welter of astonis.h.i.+ng metamorphoses wearing the semblance of King Toikella himself. But it was a Toikella far larger than life, a t.i.tanic Toikella, a mountainous Toikella a dozen feet high, identical down to the last degree with the genuine article, except in its size. It was a startling sight. The real Toikella, who had been standing to one side watching throughout the entire performance, now whirled, stared, grunted in amazement. Harpirias saw actual fear blossom in the king's eyes just then.

”Fire!” Harpirias cried.

Three loud cracking reports echoed through the thin, cold mountain air, and then three more, and another, and another. Bolts of purple energy lanced across the canyon, striking high up in the ice-tipped crags far above the ledge where the little band of Eililylal stood watching. Chunks of tawny stone the size of sea-dragons broke loose overhead and tumbled down with ear-shattering impact. They split apart spectacularly as they hit and sent huge showers of fist-sized particles cascading into the depths of the canyon. A low moan of terror went up from the Eililylal.

”Again,” Harpirias said. ”Aim a little lower.”

A second volley of energy bolts crossed the canyon. The purple shafts of force smashed into the rocky walls just below the scars of the first round and carved great sheets of stone from them. Another deafening rain of slabs and boulders descended. Harpirias felt the vibration through the soles of his feet: it was like an earthquake. The entire mountain range seemed to quiver. He thought the world might break asunder.

”All right,” he said. ”Hold it.”

Gradually the sound of the second rockfall died away. A few last pebbles clattered into the chasm, faintly resounding as they fell, and then all was still. Supreme silence followed: the terrible silence of the morning of the world's creation. Through the clear crisp air drifted little sun-gilded puffs of rock dust. Across the way, the Eililylal stood stunned, petrified, frozen by terror into statues.

In that awful moment of utter quiet Harpirias turned to Korinaam and said, ”What I want you to do now is tell the king that he needs to - ”

But then he saw that finis.h.i.+ng the sentence was useless.

Exhausted by his immense effort, emptied entirely of strength, the Shapes.h.i.+fter-once again in his proper form-had collapsed into a huddled heap, his arms drawn tight against his sunken chest, his entire body shaking in what seemed to be the final extremity of fatigue. Harpirias knew that there was no more service to be had from him just now.

He looked toward the king himself. But once again he was unable to find the Othinor phrases he needed. ”Your warriors,” he said, urgently pantomiming a band of men with spears. ”Send them now. Against the Eililylal. Now! Now!” He acted out the motions of an attack and a ma.s.sacre.

Toikella merely stared at him. The king, of course, had no -way of understanding the Majipoori words that Harpirias had spoken; but that was not the problem. Toikella appeared to be as paralyzed by astonishment and fear as his enemies across the canyon. He looked as though he had been clubbed. His jaw hung slack, his eyes were gla.s.sy. There could be no question that Korinaam's bizarre performance had had a deep effect on him, especially at its climax; but plainly it was the destruction that Harpirias's squadron of energy-throwers had meted out that had stupefied him. Nothing in Toikella's experience had prepared himself for the sight of modern Majipoor weaponry in action.

Mankhelm was in no better shape. He was on his knees, looking dazed, fumbling with the holy bones and amulets that dangled on a leather cord around his neck.

Nor in any case was there an Othinor army on the far side of the canyon to mop up the Eililylal, Harpirias realized. The warriors whom Toikella had sent over there to await the order to attack now were coming slinking back in twos and threes, white-faced, shaken. Harpirias threw up his hands in exasperation. ”No!” he shouted. ”Go across again! Across! Across! Over there! By the Lady, go after the Eililylal now, while you have the chance!”

Mute, bewildered, understanding nothing, they simply gaped at him.

Then Harpirias looked across the way, and with one glance he knew that no attack would be necessary. The Eililylal were gone. They had broken from their terrified stasis and fled pell-mell over the rocky mountain trails, leaving behind their packs, their tents, their weapons and tools, everything they had brought with them from their home encampment somewhere in the farthest north. The two tethered hajbaraks still lay where they had been, unharmed.

It would be an extremely long time, Harpirias suspected, before the wild Metamorphs of the mountains returned to trouble King Toikella's people again.

He walked over to Korinaam and rested his hand lightly on the Shapes.h.i.+fter's thin shoulder.

”You did very well,” Harpirias said quietly. ”You were magnificent. Perfect. If the mountain-guide business ever falls off, you could set up shop as a sorcerer and make a fortune.”

Korinaam only shrugged.

”Are you very tired?” Harpirias asked.

”What do you think?” His voice carried a freight of anger and embarra.s.sment and, above all else, a deadly, numbing weariness.

”Rest, then. Rest as long as you like. But first tell the king that I've done what I promised. That his enemies have run away, that the war is over. It's safe for him to send his men across the canyon to set free those hajbaraks.”

When the details of the treaty had been worked out at last, one of Harpinas's Ghayrog soldiers, who fancied himself something of a calligrapher, inscribed its text in duplicate on broad scrolls of bleached leather that Ivla Yevikenik had provided. It was very fine leather, almost of the quality of parchment. Although the treaty was in fact extremely concise, a mere six clauses, the job of lettering it out took three full' ”days, much to Harpirias's annoyance. That seemed an inordinate time to waste on such a frill. But the Ghayrog was quite particular about his craft.

”And what good will all this pretty lettering do, anyway?” Harpirias demanded of Korinaam when the finished copies were at last brought to him. ”The king can't read a single word of Majipoori. What's written here isn't going to seem any more important to him than bird-scratchings in the snow. Shouldn't we at least have drawn up a copy of it in Othinor also?”