“Is an excellent city, Ni-moya,” Viitheysp Uuvitheysp Aavitheysp remarked, as Thastain led him down the inland side of the palace. They were passing through a gallery linking one wing and the next that had one long window of clear quartz, affording a stunning view of the metropolitan core that rose in level upon level up into the hills. “Much have I heard concerning it. Is one of best cities in world, I think.”
Thastain nodded. “The best, they say. Nothing to rival it even on Castle Mount.” He slipped easily into his tour-guide mode. Somehow that eased the tensions that this unsettling stranger had evoked in him. “—Have you had much of a chance to see the place yet? That’s the Museum of Worlds, over on that hill up there. And the Gossamer Galleria, down there to the left. You can just barely make out the dome of the Grand Bazaar from here, with the beginning of the Crystal Boulevard beyond it.”
He felt almost like a native, casually pointing out the great attractions like that to this visitor from afar. In truth Thastain was as much in awe of Ni-moya and its wonders now as when the Five Lords had moved their capital here from the Gornevon desert many months before. But in his heart he liked to pretend that he was a genuine child of the great city, quick-witted and worldly-wise and sophisticated.
When they came to the end of the quartz gallery Thastain turned left and headed out onto the covered walkway that would bring them to the riverfront side of the palace, which was Mandralisca’s sector of the building. “We go this way,” Thastain said, as the visitor started to stray off into the private quarters of the Lord Gaviral. Officially the procuratorial palace now was Gaviral’s residence, but Mandralisca had taken half the southern wing, with the best river views, for his own uses. There had been a time when the Five Lords had treated Mandralisca more or less as they treated their servants, but that time was over now. It seemed to Thastain that these days Mandralisca gave the orders and the Five Lords did pretty much as he said.
Another guard waited at the end of the walkway: a Skandar, he was, none other than Thastain’s old nemesis Sudvik Gorn, who had made such a nuisance out of himself long ago when they had gone up north to burn the keep of the Vorthinar lord. Thastain gave him the merest glance, now. The course of time had raised Thastain up to become a member of Count Mandralisca’s inner circle of aides, and Sudvik Gorn was nothing but a hallway guard.
“Visitor for the Count,” Thastain told the Skandar. And, to Viitheysp Uuvitheysp Aavitheysp, once again: “We go this way.” He indicated a spiral ramp leading toward a dizzying series of elbow-bend staircases that went up and up and up.
At the beginning Thastain had feared he would never learn his way around inside the procuratorial palace. But, huge though it was, he had taken the measure of it by this time.
The first time he saw it from the river it had seemed as immense as he imagined the Coronal’s castle to be, but he knew now that much of the palace’s height came from the shining white pedestal that lifted it far above the riverfront level. The host of external galleries and staircases that one viewed from below gave the place the appearance of a formidable maze, but that was misleading. The building itself, a complex series of interlocking pavilions and balconies and porches, was certainly a vast one, but its interior plan was strikingly logical and Thastain had quickly mastered the routes that traversed its interior.
Mandralisca had taken for his office the magnificent chamber in which the Procurator Dantirya Sambail had lorded it in the days when he ruled with almost regal splendor over the continent of Zimroel. Dantirya Sambail had been dead more than twenty years now—longer than Thastain had been alive—but the presence of that larger-than-life man still seemed to linger in the enormous room. The splendor of its gleaming floor, a burnished slab of pink marble inlaid with crisscrossing swirling slashes of some dazzling jet-black stone, and the shining crescent arc of the great curving desk of crimson jade, and the brilliant white wall-hangings of thick rich steetmoy fur, all spoke eloquently of the Procurator’s fabled taste for luxury.
The entire wall of the chamber on its riverfront side was a single great bubble of quartz of the finest quality, as clear as air itself. Through it one had a view of the great sweeping curve of the River Zimr, which at this point was so wide that one was just barely able to see all the way across to the green suburbs on the farther bank. A string of huge brightly painted riverboats laden with passengers and freight coursed serenely along the river’s main channel. Directly below the window, a long row of low buildings with brilliantly tiled roofs and ornate mosaic ornaments on their walls lined the river quay for a considerable distance, glittering in the midday sun: humble customs-houses, they were, which Dantirya Sambail had had redecorated at a cost of many thousands of royals so that they would be more pleasing to his eye as he looked out on them from high overhead.
The Count Mandralisca was behind his desk when Thastain entered. The little helmet of bright metal mesh that he always kept close by him was at the Count’s elbow. His other two constant companions were beside him: to his left, sorting through a pile of documents, the little bandy-legged aide-de-camp Jacomin Halefice, and to his right that shifty-eyed Suvraelinu, Khaymak Barjazid, he who designed and built Mandralisca’s thought-helmets for him.
We three, Thastain told himself, are the only people in the world that Count Mandralisca trusts—as much as he trusts anyone at all.
“Well,” Mandralisca said, with the false joviality that he often liked to affect. “It is Duke Thastain. And who have you brought me this time, my good duke?”
Back in the earliest weeks of Thastain’s time in the service of Count Mandralisca, when he was nothing more than a green boy up from the provinces, the Count, in that darkly playful way of his that could sometimes seem so threatening, had arbitrarily bestowed an honorary title of nobility on him: Count of Sennec and Horvenar. And thereafter he would often address Thastain as “Count Thastain.” It was a meaningless thing, just another example of Mandralisca’s mocking, sardonic sense of humor. Thastain knew better than to be offended by it. That was simply Mandralisca’s style, cold and often cruel, and always capricious. Thastain had quickly come to see that for the Count, coldness and cruelty and capriciousness were simply useful ways of sustaining his power and authority. There was no way he could make people love him, but engendering fear through unpredictability could be just about as effective.
Lately, though, Mandralisca had taken to calling Thastain “duke” instead. More of his capriciousness, Thastain wondered, or was it something else? Perhaps it could be a sign that he was advancing in Mandralisca’s favor. Or maybe it was simply an indication that Mandralisca remembered only that once upon a time he had amused himself by giving the boy from Sennec a make-believe title, but had forgotten which title it was.
More likely the latter, Thastain decided: though he had reason to regard himself as one of Mandralisca’s special favorites, he knew it was foolish to believe that he had any more real significance for the Count than his leather boots or the cutlery he used at dinner. Thastain understood quite well by now that he was here simply as something for Mandralisca to use. The only person whose existence held any sustained importance in Mandralisca’s mind was Mandralisca himself.
“This is Viitheysp Uuvitheysp Aavitheysp,” declared Thastain, stumbling over the difficult name, though he tried his best to prolong and roll the double letters as the visitor had done. “Of Uulisaan.”
“Ah. From Uulisaan,” Mandralisca repeated, savoring the word with real delight. He seemed to disappear into a mood of meditative contemplation for a moment or two. Then, to Thastain:—“Do you know where Uulisaan happens to be, dear duke?”
Thastain kept his face expressionless. This duke thing was beginning to annoy him now.
“Not at all, your excellence.”
Mandralisca glanced toward Viitheysp Uuvitheysp Aavitheysp, who had remained just within the arching doorway, standing hunched up against the wall in that weird awkward stiff-bodied way of his. “It is in Piurifayne, is it not, my
friend? The southwestern part of the province, over on the Gonghar side?”
“That is correct, milord Mandralisca,” said Viitheysp Uuvitheysp Aavitheysp.
Piurifayne?
The word ran through Thastain’s mind like a fiery sword. Piurifayne was the province of the Metamorphs, the Shapeshifters, the race that had ruled the planet before the first human settlers arrived. Piurifayne, yes. Nobody ever went there; but everyone knew about it, that wild primordial rain forest in central Zimroel, lying between the mountains of the interior and the swift River Steiche, where the Shapeshifters had been compelled to live for the past seven thousand years. Lord Stiamot had ordered them to be penned up in there after completing his conquest of them in the Shapeshifter War; and there they remained, mysterious and aloof, dwelling completely apart from the other races that had come to colonize the planet that once had been theirs, and generally feared by them.
How could this man be from Piurifayne? No one but Shapeshifters lived in Piurifayne. And Shapeshifters were forbidden by ancient law to leave it, although it was common knowledge that from time to time they did, disguised as humans or sometimes as Ghayrogs, to move surreptitiously on shadowy errands through the cities of the settled world.
So that could only mean—
“Now do you understand, my good duke?” said Mandralisca, giving Thastain his most icy smile. And, to Viitheysp Uuvitheysp Aavitheysp: “Perhaps it would be more comfortable for you to take another form, my friend—”
“If it would be safe to do so here—” said the Metamorph, with quick glances toward Thastain, toward Jacomin Halefice, toward Khaymak Barjazid.
“They are my colleagues,” said Mandralisca grandly. “Have no fear.” And with that assurance Viitheysp Uuvitheysp Aavitheysp at once began to undertake the shift out of human guise.
It was something that Thastain had never seen before. He had never even dreamed that he would. Like nearly everyone he knew, he looked upon the Shapeshifters with horror and a kind of dread: terrifying, archaic creatures, unfathomable, unknowable, lurking out there in their jungles full of poisonous resentment of the people who had displaced them from their world, plotting who knew what ultimate revenge for that displacement. The thought of actually being in the same room with one made his flesh creep.
But he watched in astonishment, unable to turn his eyes away, as the Metamorph writhed and shivered within his odd, ill-fitting clothing like a creature preparing to molt its skin, and the features of his curious face seemed to grow soft and blurry and indistinct—they were actually flowing—and his hunched-up shoulders commenced a weird dance of their own, jerking and twisting about as though trying to turn at right angles to his spine—
A few moments more and the transformation was finished. The man whom Thastain had brought to this room was gone, and in his place was a different being, frail-looking, elongated and angular, with sallow, faintly greenish skin and inward-sloping eyes that had no pupils and knife-sharp cheekbones and slitlike lips and a tiny, almost invisible nose.
A Metamorph. A Shapeshifter.
Thastain still had trouble believing it: a creature out of forbidden Piurifayne, standing no more than a dozen feet away from him. Here in the office of Count Mandralisca, by express invitation of the Count himself.
The Vorthinar lord, up there in the north, had been in league with Shapeshifters—Thastain had seen one up there himself, walking patrol in front of the keep, the first and only time before this that he had. But that was one of the reasons, so he thought, that the Five Lords had deemed it desirable to break the Vorthinar lord’s power. One did not consort with Metamorphs. It was like allying oneself with demons. But now—Mandralisca himself—a Shapeshifter right here in the procuratorial palace—
Thastain looked toward Jacomin Halefice, and then toward Khaymak Barjazid. But they betrayed no signs of surprise or dismay. Either they had mastered the art of concealing such feelings in the presence of the Count, or they had already been aware of the identity of the mysterious visitor.
Mandralisca gathered the Barjazid helmet into his two cupped hands, the way one might gather up a little pile of treasured coins, and held it out in front of him. “This is our little weapon,” he said to the Metamorph, “the device with which we will free our continent from the grip of our Alhanroel masters. Our experiments with it have been quite fruitful so far.” He nodded across at Khaymak Barjazid. “We are indebted to this man for making it available to us.”
“And with this small device,” said Viitheysp Uuvitheysp Aavitheysp, “it is possible to reach into any mind in the world, you say?” The thick, contorted accent was gone, now that the Metamorph had resumed his own form. His voice had become silken-smooth. “And to wield power over that mind?”
“So it would appear.”
“The Coronal’s mind? The Pontifex’s?” The Metamorph paused. “Or the Danipiur’s, say?”
“It seemed to me altogether too dangerous, too provocative, to meddle with the minds of the Coronal or the Pontifex,” Mandralisca replied smoothly. “I assure you that I could do it if I chose; but I have not so chosen. I will tell you, though, that I’ve successfully reached the minds of certain members of the Pontifex’s family: his brother, his mother, his wife, his child. By way of letting him know our capabilities, so to speak.—You understand that this is in the strictest confidence, to be shared with no one other than the Danipiur herself. And as for the Danipiur—no, no, of course, I would never attempt to tamper with the mind of the great queen whose ambassador you are.”
“But you could, if you wanted to?”
“Very likely I could. But to what purpose? It would only offend and repel. The Piurivars are our friends. As you know, we regard you as allies in our great struggle.”
Thastain was as thunderstruck by that calm statement as he had been by the first revelation of the Shapeshifter’s identity. Allies? Was that what Mandralisca had in mind? Human and Metamorph, fighting side by side against the forces of the Pontifex and the Coronal?
He must, Thastain thought. Why else was this creature here? And why else would Mandralisca be speaking so respectfully of the Shapeshifter queen, or so politely calling the Shapeshifters by their own name for themselves?
“Would you like to see a little demonstration of our helmet?” Mandralisca asked pleasantly. He dangled the device in Thastain’s direction. “Here, Duke Thastain. Suppose you slip this over your head and show our friend how it functions.”
“Me?”
“Why not? You’re a quick-witted lad. You’ll pick up the trick of it in no time whatever. Here. Here.”
Thastain was aghast. He had never so much as touched the helmet. So far as he knew, no one but Mandralisca himself, and, he supposed, Khaymak Barjazid, was allowed to go near it. Using it required special training, and was said to be difficult and exhausting besides, and very risky for anyone inexperienced in its handling. He held up both his hands, palms facing outward, and said numbly, “I beg that you excuse me from this, your grace. I have no skill for such things.”
But Mandralisca was insistent. Once more he extended the hand holding the helmet toward Thastain. There was a chilly determination in his eyes that Thastain had seen all too many times before, but never aimed at him. “Here, my little duke,” Mandralisca said again. “Here.”
It would be suicide for him to put the helmet on. Was that what the Count was trying to achieve? Or was this merely one more of those little capricious games that he so very much enjoyed playing?
Thastain was still debating how to handle the situation when Khaymak Barjazid leaned toward Mandralisca and said, in a quiet, almost murmuring tone, “If I may interject something here, your grace, allow me to point out that it could be possible for a user unfamiliar with the helmet’s functions to damage it if he uses it improperly.”
That seemed to come as news to the Count. “Indeed, is that so? Well, then: we wouldn’t want to do any harm to our helmet, would we?” He caressed the little device in that fondling, lovi
ng way he had with it. “Perhaps we’ll skip the demonstration. I’m not in the mood for working with the helmet just now myself. Unless you, Barjazid—no, never mind. No demonstration.” To the Metamorph he said, “I’ll gratify your curiosity about our helmet another time. What I’ve asked you here to discuss today is the precise nature of the alliance I’ve proposed to the Danipiur.”
“She is eager to hear your offer,” said Viitheysp Uuvitheysp Aavitheysp.
Thastain listened in amazement verging on disbelief as Mandralisca swiftly set forth his plan for establishing the independence of the continent of Zimroel. He meant very shortly to issue a proclamation in the name of the Lord Gaviral, he said, dissolving the ancient bonds that linked Zimroel to the dominant eastern continent. At the same time a new constitution would be promulgated under which Zimroel would become a separate entity with Ni-moya as its capital and the heirs of the Procurator Dantirya Sambail as its monarchs. The Lord Gaviral would take the title of Pontifex of Zimroel, and one of his brothers, yet to be chosen, would be designated as Zimroel’s Coronal. The continent of Suvrael, Mandralisca added, would proclaim its own independence at the same time, and would institute a separate government for itself with Khaymak Barjazid as its first king.
It was, said Mandralisca, the Lord Gaviral’s great hope that the new governments of Zimroel and Suvrael would be swiftly recognized by the leaders of Alhanroel, and that peaceful relationships among the three continents would continue as they had since time immemorial. But the Lord Gaviral was not so naive as to think that men like Prestimion and Lord Dekkeret would greet the secession with any such benign response. On the contrary, Mandralisca continued: it was much more probable that the Alhanroel government would launch a military invasion of Zimroel and attempt to restore its supremacy by force.