Robert Silverberg - The Mountains of Majipoor

The interior of yet another building where crude wooden boxes were stacked smelled of incense and dust: Harpirias lifted the lid of one box and saw dried human skulls inside, old ones, yellowed and crumbling.

He asked Ivla Yevikenik about that.

"A very holy place," she said. "You must not go in there again."

Whose skulls were they? Those of former kings? Dead priests? Defeated foes? Harpirias realized that he would probably never find out. But what did it matter, anyway? He hadn’t come here to carry out an anthropological study of these people, but only to wrest a pack of fatuous fossil-hunters from their grasp — which perhaps he might never accomplish, for another light snowfall had occurred on the third day of Konnaam’s absence. Harpirias was convinced now that the Shapeshifter must have perished somewhere in the high country. His body was lying hidden beneath a blanket of snow; in all likelihood it would never be found.

And so it well might be, Harpirias reflected, that he was going to spend the rest of his days in this miserable little icebound village at the far edge of the world, living on charred roots and half-cooked chunks of meat. Was it possible that the skulls in those boxes were those of previous distinguished ambassadors from the outer world, and that his own was destined to rest among them, one of these days?

These endless idle hours seemed interminable. He felt like a prisoner here, like one of those miserable sequestered men in their ice cave high up the canyon wall. At night, lying in the arms of Ivla Yevikenik, he prayed for some reassuring dream. If only the blessed Lady of the Isle, whose spirit roved the world at night bringing welcome balm and surcease to the troubled, would favor him with some sending that would soothe his soul!

But of her sweet mercy Harpirias received no token. Very likely the icy kingdom of the Othinor was beyond the reach even of the Lady.

On the evening of the fourth day since the disappearance of Korinaam, Harpirias was dozing alone in his room when word came that the Shape-shifter had at last returned.

"Bring him to me," he told Eskenazo Marabaud.

Korinaam looked pale and haggard from his adventure. His robe was soiled and torn, his slit-like lips were tightly compressed, ‘his eyelids were swollen, hooding his eyes so that they could hardly be seen at all. He held himself in a tense, edgy way, as though he might be thinking of undergoing transformation into some other guise and making an escape. Harpirias imagined Korinaam turning himself suddenly into a long serpentine ribbon, swiftly gliding out of the room while he sought in vain to catch hold of him. "Do you want me to stay?" the Skandar asked. Perhaps something along those same lines had occurred to him.

Harpirias nodded. To Korinaam he said coldly, "Where have you been?"

Korinaam was slow to reply.

"On a little reconnaissance mission," he said at length.

"I don’t remember asking you to undertake any such mission. Where were you performing this reconnaissance?"

"Around. About."

"Be more specific."

"It was a private matter." There was a note of defiance in the Metamorph’s tone.

"I realize that," said Harpirias. "I still want to know the details."

He signaled to Eskenazo Marabaud. "Hold him, will you? I don’t want him vanishing on me."

The Skandar, who was standing behind Korinaam, wrapped two of his arms around the Shapeshifter’s chest. Korinaam looked amazed. His eyes opened as wide as Harpirias had ever seen them, and he glared at Harpirias in unconcealed hatred.

"Now," Harpirias said coolly. "Once more, Korinaam. Tell me where you went."

The Shapeshifter remained silent for a time. Then he said, reluctantly, "To the heights overlooking the village."

"Yes. I rather thought so. And just why did you go there?"

Korinaam seemed ready to burst with indignation. "Prince, I demand that you order your Skandar to let go of me! You have no right—"

Harpirias cut him off. "I have every right. You happen to be here in the employment of the Coronal and you’ve chosen to go off on an unauthorized side journey at a time when your services were needed. I want an explanation. Again: what were you looking for up there, Korinaam?"

"I refuse to discuss my private affairs with you."

"You have no private affairs in this place. — Twist his arm a little, Eskenazo Marabaud."

"This is an absolute outrage!" Korinaam cried. "I am a free citizen of—"

"Yes. Of course you are. No one denies that. — Twist it a little harder, will you, Eskenazo Marabaud? Until he yelps a little. Or until he gives me the answers I want. Don’t worry, it won’t break. You can’t break a Shapeshifter’s arm, you know. The bones simply give with the stress, like rubber. But you can hurt him, all the same. It will be quite all right to hurt him if he doesn’t cooperate. Yes, that’s the way. — What were you looking for up there, Korinaam?"

Silence. Harpirias looked toward the Skandar and made a twisting gesture with his hands.

"I was looking for the people we saw on the ridge the day of the hunt," Korinaam said sullenly.

"Ah. I’m not surprised to hear that. And why did you want to find them?"

Silence.

"Twist," Harpirias told the Skandar.

Kormaam said, "Are you aware that this is interrogation under torture? It’s barbaric! It’s unthinkable!"

"You have my sincerest apologies," said Harpirias. "Will your arm break after all, I wonder, if he twists it far enough? We don’t really want to find out, do we, Kormaam? Tell me: Who were those people we saw on the ridge?"

"That’s what I was trying to find out."

"No. You already know who they are, don’t you? Tell me. Tell me, Korinaam. Who are they?"

"Piurivars," Korinaam murmured, looking down toward the ground.

"Are they, now? Cousins of yours?"

"So to speak. Distant cousins. Very distant."

Harpirias nodded. "Thank you. — You can let go of him, Eskenazo Marabaud. He seems to be more cooperative now. Wait outside, will you?" To the Metamorph he said, once the Skandar had gone, "All right. Tell me what you know about these distant cousins, Korinaam."

But Korinaam claimed to know very little about them, and Harpirias had the feeling that for once he was sincere.

There were, Korinaam said, old legends among his people to the effect that one branch of the Metamorph race had settled in the far north in the time of Lord Stiamot, many thousands of years ago — Piurivars who had escaped, as Harpirias had already guessed, from the genocidal war that Lord Stiamot had launched against the aboriginal inhabitants of the planet.

While all the rest of the surviving Metamorphs had been rounded up and confined in the reservation set aside for them in the jungles of Zimroel — so the tale went — these free Piurivars had continued to dwell in isolation and independence, following the ancient nomadic ways of their people in the snowy and mountainous country beyond the nine great peaks of the Khyntor Marches. Like the Othinor, they had lived as a people apart, unknown to the other inhabitants of Majipoor and perhaps, after all this time, equally unaware of them. There had never been any communication between them and other Metamorphs, not even during Valentine’s reign, when the great Piurivar uprising against human rule had taken place. Their very existence had become a matter of conjecture and speculation.

Now and again a sighting was reported by one of the Shapeshifters who, like Korinaam, lived in Ni-moya or some other city bordering on the Marches and made their livings providing guide service to hunters or explorers that wished to venture into the north country. But none of those sightings had ever led to anything. It was impossible for the Metamorph guides even to be sure that what they were seeing — always at a great distance, for just a fleeting moment — were people of their own kind.