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 amba.s.sadors 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 rea.s.suring 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.

Until now.

"I have no doubt of it," Korinaam said. "My eyesight is very keen, prince. The day we saw them, I watched them undergo their change."

"And so you decided to take off without authorization to visit them. Why?"

"They are of my blood, prince. For nearly nine thousand years now they have lived in these mountains without ever once coming face-to-face with others of their kind. I wanted to speak with them."

"And tell them what?"

"That the persecution is over, that we Piurivars are free to come and go as we please on Majipoor, that they can emerge at last from their hiding place amidst the snow and ice. Is that so difficult for you to understand, prince?"

"You could have told me what you intended to do, at least. You could have asked my permission."

"You would never have given it."

Harpirias was caught off guard by that. His face reddened. "Why do you say so?"

"Because," said Korinaam evenly, "I am a Piurivar, and this is a Piurivar affair, and why would any of that matter in the slightest to you, prince? You would have said that it was inconvenient for me to leave the village, because I was needed here as your interpreter. You would have told me that I could return to these mountains at another time, on my own, and look for my kinsmen then. Is that not so, prince?"

Suddenly Harpirias had difficulty meeting the Shape-shifter's implacable gaze. He could make no immediate reply. "Possibly it is," he said finally. "But even so: you still shouldn't have gone off without leaving some sort of message about where you were going. What would we have done if you had died up there?"

"I had no intention of dying up there." "It's a difficult climb in dangerous territory. There was a snowstorm during the time you were gone. A light one, but suppose it had been one like the one we rode through in the pa.s.s of the Twin Sisters? You aren't immortal, Korinaam."

"I know how to take care of myself in these mountains. As you see, I have returned, and only slightly the worse for wear." "Yes. So you have."

Korinaam offered no response. He continued to stare at Harpirias with undisguised animosity.

This was all becoming very uncomfortable. Somehow Korinaam had gained the upper hand in the discussion, though Harpirias was not quite sure when that had happened. It embarra.s.sed him deeply now that he had felt compelled to resort to arm-twisting in order to make the Shapeshifter speak.

He said, after an awkward pause, "Well? And did you succeed in having a talk with these long-lost relatives of yours, then?"

"Not exactly."

"What does that mean?"

"I talked to them," said Korinaam. "Not with them."

"Ah. To them but not with them. Meaning that you couldn't speak to them in a language they understood?"

Korinaam said, in a tense and ragged tone, "That is essentially what happened. -Do we really need to discuss this any further, prince?"

"Yes. We do. I want to know precisely what took place between you and those people."

"I've told you. For two days I searched for them, and then I found them, camped on a hillside across a ravine opposite the place where I was. It was impossible for me to get really close, but I tried to speak with them from where I stood; they didn't seem to comprehend anything I was saying; after a little while I gave up and headed back down the mountain."

"That's all?

"All, yes."

"Your shape is flickering around the edges, Korinaam. You can't hold yourself still, do you know that? What that says to me is that you're lying."

Hoa.r.s.ely the Metamorph replied, "I found them and I was unable to communicate with them in any useful way, and then I left and came back here. That's the whole story."

"I don't think it is," said Harpirias. "What else happened up there?"

"Nothing. Nothing." A ripple of change pa.s.sed swiftly across Korinaam's features, betraying inner turmoil. He was hiding something, something that had shaken him deeply during his meeting with his wild kinsmen of the high country. Harpirias had no doubt of that.

"Do you want me to get the Skandar back in here for a little more arm-twisting?"

Korinaam glared malevolently. "All right. There was something else."

"Go on."

"They threw rocks at me," he said in a bitter, husky tone.

"I can't say I'm surprised."

"I explained to them who I was. When I saw that they didn't understand my words I showed them that I was one of them by doing changes for them, prince. And they threw- rocks at me."

That moment of hesitation in Korinaam's voice aroused Harpirias's interest.

"That's all they did? Throw rocks?"

More flickerings, more ripplings.

"Tell me, Korinaam. I need to know what sort of creatures we're dealing with."

The Shapeshifter trembled. Words burst from him in an angry rush. "They spat at me also. And then they threw their - their dung at me. They picked it up in their hands and hurled it across the ravine. And while they did it they danced about and screamed at me like crazy people. Like devils." There was a terrible expression on his face. "They are loathsome things. They are worse than savages! They are animals." "I see."

"And now you have heard it all. Will you let me alone now, prince?"

"In a moment," said Harpinas. "First tell me this: will you make another attempt to communicate with them?"

"You can be certain that I have no intention of that."

"And why is that?"

"Are you a fool, prince? Can't you understand simple words? What I saw up there was utterly disgusting. It was hideous to be near them-to watch them capering like beasts - to listen to their revolting screeches-to think that they were actually-of Piurivar blood-that they and I-*"

Softly Harpirias said, "I understand all that, Korinaam. But even so: if I were to ask you to make another journey to see them, would you do it?"

Korinaam was silent for a time.

"If you ordered me to, yes."

"Only if I made it an order?"

"I have no desire to see those creatures again, none at all. But I am aware that I am in the service of the Coronal, whose representative you are, and it is not possible for me to defy your direct order, prince. You may rest a.s.sured of that." The Shapeshifter bowed deeply, giving Harpirias a harshly exaggerated salute of deference. "I am not eager to have my arm twisted a second time."

"I regret that it was necessary to do that, Korinaam."

"I'm sure that you do. It must have been extremely disagreeable for you. And quite distasteful for the Skandar too, I would think."

"I told you I regretted it. By the Divine, Korinaam, do you want me to get down and beg your forgiveness? You were being infuriatingly evasive. And insubordinate to boot. I needed to know where you had gone, and why." Harpirias made an impatient dismissive gesture. "Enough of this. Go, now. But in the future you're not to take a step anywhere outside of this village without permission. Is that clear?"

"Where would I want to go?" asked the Shapeshifter, rubbing his arm.

When he had gone, Harpirias called Eskenazo Marabaud back into the room and instructed him to keep watch on Korinaam's movements.