The Mountains of Majipoor

7

The next day passed slowly and strangely. Hardly anyone was awake and about in the village when Harpirias went outside in the morning: only some nearly naked children, playing games of pursuit along the base of the high rocky wall that enclosed the settlement, and half a dozen women of the tribe laying out strips of freshly butchered meat to dry in the one narrow strip of sunlight that was able to penetrate the canyon. The meat was meant to be put away, he assumed, against the winter that would all too soon arrive.

Gradually the place came to life. The day was warm, the sky was bright and clear. A party of hunters assembled down near the palace and solemnly filed off toward the nearby cliffs. Some old women carried a stack of hides into the sunny part of the plaza and squatted in a circle to scrape them with bone knives. A limping musician came out of a house, knelt cross-legged on the ice, and played a single thin tune on a bone pipe for more than an hour, over and over.

At noon the gaunt-faced high priest — for so Harpirias had come to regard him — emerged from the royal palace and strode to a large flat slab of black stone, no doubt an altar of some sort, that rose a few inches above the icy floor of the plaza in the open space midway between the canyon entrance and the clustered buildings of the village. He was bearing a crudely painted clay jug, from which, once he had reached the altar, he drew seeds or nuts of some sort that he hurled toward the four corners of the world. An offering to the gods, Harpirias supposed.

Of the king and the other members of his court there was no sign all morning. "He is a late sleeper," Korinaam said.

"I envy him, then," Harpirias said. "I was awake at dawn, half sweltering and half freezing. When will the negotiating sessions begin, do you think?"

"Tomorrow, perhaps. Or the day after. Or the day after that."

"No sooner;

"The king is never in any hurry."

"But I am," said Harpirias. "I want to be out of here before the next winter begins."

"Yes," the Metamorph replied. "I don’t doubt that you do."

Something about the way he said that was not very encouraging.

Harpirias thought of the eight paleontologists — or perhaps there were ten; no one seemed quite sure — who at this moment were held prisoner somewhere not far from here. They knew what winter was like in Othinor country. They had spent a year living somewhere near here in dark frigid cages, probably, eating mush and acrid gruel, scraps of cold fatty meat, bitter roots, nuts. Very likely they were more than a little weary of this place by now. But the king was never in any hurry, said Korinaam. And Korinaam should know.

Harpirias tried to accommodate himself to the slow rhythms of the place. The life of the village, he had to admit, was fascinating in its way. Surely this was how primitive people had lived thousands of years ago, hundreds of thousands, really, in that almost mythical era when Old Earth had been the one and only home of mankind and the idea that human beings might journey to the stars was the wildest kind of fantasy. The daily routine, the hunting and gathering of food, the preparing and storing of it, the endless making of simple tools and weapons, the rituals and observances and little superstitious customs, the children’s games, the sudden inexplicable eruptions of laughter or singing or loud dispute that subsided just as suddenly — it all made Harpirias feel as though he had slipped backward in time to some distant epoch of mankind’s primeval past. He would very much rather have been among his friends on Castle Mount just now, drinking the rich potent wine of Muldemar and swapping lively tales of intrigue and chicanery among the dukes and princes of the Coronal’s entourage; but he had to admit that what he was experiencing here was something that was granted to very few, and which he might actually look back upon fondly and gratefully, some day far in the future.

The king came out of his palace, finally, late in the afternoon. Harpinas, who was playing a game of knucklebone in the plaza with Eskenazo Marabaud and a couple of the other Skandars, watched with amazement as the king paused, turned, peered blankly at them a moment with no sign of recognition or interest on his face, and moved along his way.

"As if he didn’t even notice us," Harpirias murmured.

"Maybe he didn’t," said Eskenazo Marabaud. "Kings see only what they want to see. Perhaps he doesn’t feel like seeing us today."

A shrewd observation, Harpirias thought. Yesterday Toikella had been all solicitude and generosity; today he took no more notice of the ambassador and his troops than he would have of a visiting parry of fleas. Was this the king’s way of letting the visitors from the outer world know that events unfolded only on Toikella time in the land of the Othinor?

Or — and this was a more troublesome possibility — had he taken offense at Harpirias’s crass and blunt rejection of his daughter’s favors?

Whatever the reason, there were no negotiations that day, nor any contact with the king whatsoever. The members of the embassy were left to amuse themselves all afternoon. No one spoke with them or even paid any particular attention to them as they wandered through the village.

Toward evening three Othinor women brought the visitors their dinner aboard heavy sleds that they dragged with evident effort across the plaza: a side of cold meat, a tub of the gray-black beer that had gone flat, a tangled mound of roasted roots, all of it obviously leftovers from last night’s feast. It was meager fare.

"I think there may be some trouble here," Harpirias said to Korinaam.

"Try to be more patient, prince. All this is normal. The king is establishing his control over us."

"But we can’t let him have control over us!"

"That doesn’t mean he won’t make the attempt. He is a king, after all."

"A barbarian king."

"A king all the same. In his own eyes he is the equal of the Coronal and the Pontifex together. You should never forget that, prince. He will speak with us in his own good time. This is only the first day."

"A day of idleness makes me restless."

"Which is what he wants to achieve," said Korinaam. "Thus he puts you at a disadvantage. Patience, prince. Patience."

There was another strangeness after dinner, a considerable one. As Harpirias stepped out of the guest house for some fresh air, just when dusk was falling, he caught sight of a flare of brightness along the rim of the canyon wall, indeed at its highest point, far up over the side of the village where the royal palace was. It was as though someone had lit a beacon fire up there.

Perhaps this was something they did every night here, he thought. Sending some agile boy of the tribe to the top of the wall to ignite the torch of evening. But no, no, this had the appearance of an unusual event, for the plaza now was filling with tribesfolk, pointing, chattering. A girl ran into the palace to summon Toikella, and he came out in swift strides, all but naked in the evening chill, craning his neck and shading his eyes against the brightening moonlight as he stared upward.

Harpirias centered all his concentration on the place where he had seen that bright flare; and shortly it became clear to him that there were tiny dark figures up there, no bigger than insects at this distance, just next to the bonfire on the canyon rim. They appeared to be struggling with something that they were trying to push over the edge of the canyon, a big black bundle of some sort, very bulky and difficult to maneuver. After another few moments they succeeded: Harpirias watched it fall, rebounding off the side of the canyon two or three times as it plunged, striking a horn-shaped rocky knoll and catching there briefly, then coming free and plummeting straight to the canyon floor to land with a monstrous thudding sound practically in front of the palace.

The body of a huge animal, it was: a thick-legged coarse-furred thing with great crescent tusks, a giant grazing beast, perhaps, a descendant of the formidable mountain-dwelling creature which according to Metamorph myth had brought the primordial inhabitants of Majipoor into being by licking them out of an icy cliff.

It lay now on the ice of the plaza in a somber motionless heap — a vast shaggy black mound from which bright streams of blood were flowing. The king, muttering and frowning, walked around it and around again, prodding and tugging at it. Plainly he was deeply disturbed. Harpirias realized that the animal must have been deliberately mutilated before it was thrown over the cliff; not only had its throat been slashed but red slashes showed through the heavy fur along its flanks and belly where deep cuts had been made in geometrical patterns.

What must have been nearly the entire population of the village had assembled by now to inspect this phenomenon that had dropped from on high. The tiny figures were no longer visible along the rim of the canyon, and the bonfire, though still smoldering, was almost out.

Harpirias looked toward Korinaam. "Do you understand what any of this means?"

The Shapeshifter shook his head. "A mystery to me, prince. When I was here last year I never saw anything like it."

"Neither have they, apparently." Harpirias nodded toward Toikella, who was huddling with the high priest and a few of the other courtiers in a circle around the fallen animal. "Go over to them. See what you can find out."

But Korinaam had no success in gaining the attention of Toikella and his men. They seemed not even to hear him when he spoke to them. After a while he turned away and conferred briefly with one of the lesser tribesmen and then another before coming back to Harpirias.

"The animal," reported the Shapeshifter, "is called a hajbarak. It’s looked upon as a sacred beast. There’s a small herd of them that roams the mountains just back of here, and only the king is permitted to hunt them. For anyone else to kill one is an act of major sacrilege. The biggest of the bones from which his throne is made are hajbarak bones."

"What is this, then, a declaration of war from some hostile tribe?"

"So far as I know, no other tribes live in this region, hostile or otherwise."

"So far as you or anyone knew, the Othinor didn’t live here either, until somebody discovered them. Obviously there’s somebody else up there."

"Obviously," said Korinaam, with some testiness in his tone. "But whether the ones who threw the animal down here are from an enemy tribe, or are simply outcasts from this one, I have no idea. The first man I spoke to was so shocked that he didn’t seem capable of talking to me at all. The second one told me only that the animal was sacred and that this should not have happened. You are free to draw your own conclusions, prince."

But he had none to draw; nor was the Shapeshifter able to learn anything from the villagers the next day. They simply would not speak of what had happened.

The chief consequence of the evening’s strange event, so far as Harpirias was concerned, was that it produced an additional postponement of the opening of negotiations. The king was closeted in the palace all that day, and the next. The dead animal had been dragged away to the accompaniment of solemn choral chanting; the place where it had struck the ground had been cleansed of all blood; sentries were posted day and night in the plaza to watch the canyon rim for signs of new intrusion.

Then came a messenger to Harpirias in the morning with word that the king was ready at last to confer with him.

"You will tell him, as the very first topic of discussion, that I am not the Coronal Lord Ambinole," Harpirias said to the Metamorph as they crossed the plaza toward the palace.

"Not the very first thing, prince. Please."

"One of the first, then."

"Let me be the judge of the proper timing for this."

"The proper timing," Harpirias said, "was the very moment that the confusion began."

"Yes, perhaps that is so. But it was inappropriate to interrupt the king then to make the correction. And now—"

"I want this thing cleared up, Korinaam."

"Of course. As soon as it’s feasible."

"And from this moment on," Harpirias said, "whenever I address a remark of any sort to the king, I want you to translate it literally and exactly. Likewise I want an exact and literal translation of whatever the king may say to me."

"Certainly, prince. Certainly."

"You know, I’m actually not as stupid as you may think, and it’s not beyond my powers to start learning this language that they speak here myself. If I should discover that you haven’t been a totally honest interpreter, Korinaam, I’ll kill you."

The blunt word so startled Korinaam that he was galvanized into an involuntary moment of metamorphosis. The contours of his body blurred and fluttered, his fragile elongated form thickening and drawing into itself as if for protection; his color deepened from pale green to a dark shade of teal; his face sealed itself so that his eyes and lips could barely be seen. With a gasp and a shiver of his shoulders he recovered his normal semblance and said:

"Kill, prince?"

"Kill. The way I would kill an animal in the forest."

"I have not deceived you in any way," said the Shape-shifter. "Nor do I intend to do so hereafter."

"Better not even to think of it," Harpirias said.

He was surprised to find King Toikella in a jovial, even exuberant mood. The curious happening of a few nights before did not appear to be casting its shadow on him today. Nor was there any trace of the remoteness, the coldness, that he had displayed the one time he and Harpirias had encountered each other since the evening of the feast.

Toikella was down from his throne, energetically pacing around the great hall. As usual he was surrounded by his women — Harpirias noted uneasily the presence of the young princess who had come to his room to offer herself to him — and the king would pause from time to time in his restless perambulation to give this one a rough caress, to mutter something hoarse and perhaps affectionate into the ear of that one. When he saw Harpirias entering he whirled and called out a loud raucous salutation in which Harpirias detected the Othinor word helminthak — which from its context Harpirias had already come to think meant "majesty," "lordship," some such title of honor — and the words Coronal and Lord Ambinole once again.

Harpirias glowered at Korinaam. This error was becoming perpetuated and ever more difficult to eradicate.

But there was no chance now to do anything about it. The king, amidst deafening gusts of laughter, had thrown his arm about Harpirias and was bellowing a lengthy string of incomprehensible exclamations into his ear. After a time Harpirias extricated himself more or less tactfully from the big man’s smothering embrace and looked toward the Shapeshifter.

"What did he say?"

"He was welcoming you back to his court."

"There was more to it than that. There had to be."

Korinaam’s shape wavered just a little at the edges.

"I want an exact translation," Harpirias told him. "Or else." He drew one finger swiftly across his Adam’s apple.

"What the king was saying," the Shapeshifter replied, rolling his eyes, "is that he wonders what kind of race the Maji-poori can be, if they are ruled by such an effeminate king."

"What?"

"You asked for an exact translation, prince."

"Yes. I know that. But what does he mean, ‘effeminate’? He’s talking about me, isn’t he, and not the real Lord Ambinole? What possible reason could he have for believing—"

"I think," said the Metamorph cautiously, "that he is referring to your rejection of his daughter on the night of the feast."

"Ah. Ah. Of course. Tell him — tell him, first, that I am not the king of Majipoor, but simply the king’s ambassador. Thank him, then, for his kindness in sending his beautiful daughter to visit me the other night. And then let him know that I am not in any way effeminate, as he will see if he cares to take me hunting with him in the royal game preserves. But tell him also about the vow of chastity that I have taken, which separates me for a time from the embrace of women for the benefit of my soul."

Korinaam spoke briefly to the king — too briefly, Harpirias thought, considering all that he had asked him to say. Toikella laughed again, even more vociferously than before, and made a quick, blunt-sounding answer.

"Well?" Harpirias asked.

"The king says that he thinks you would do well to get yourself released from such a stupid and injurious vow."

"I can see where he would take that position. But at the present time I intend to continue living a life of bodily purity. Tell him that."

Korinaam spoke again. So did the king, for quite some time.

"He admires your determination, prince. But he says that a vow of chastity seems as strange to him as snow that falls upwards. He himself has eleven wives and makes love to at least three of them every night. More than a hundred of the citizens of the village are his children."

"My congratulations to him on his energy, and on his fertility also." Harpirias narrowed his gaze. "And how did he react when you told him I wasn’t the Coronal?"

More wavering at the edges. "I did not tell him that, prince."

"I recall instructing you to translate everything I say exactly, upon pain of death, Korinaam."

"Yes. Quite. I understand completely, prince. But how can I make you see that this is not something that I can simply drop into a conversation about other things? The king expected the Coronal to come in person. He believes that you are he. Telling him the contrary now could well wreck everything before it has even begun."

"Konnaam — !"

The Metamorph held up his hand. "Once again I beg you, prince, allow me to choose the proper time for setting this matter straight, and give me no more orders concerning the subject for now. Or threats," Korinaam added after a pause.

Harpirias closed his eyes a moment. It was essential to gain some control over these interchanges, or he was lost.

"Tell the king," Harpirias said sternly, even though Toikella was in the midst of speaking again, "that I would now like to discuss with him the issue of the hostages. In particular I request permission to visit them without further delay so that I can satisfy myself that they are in good condition."

"My good prince—"

"Tell him."

"I beg you—"

Harpirias made the finger-across-throat gesture again.

Korinaam gave him a sour look. Then he turned toward King Toikella and began once more to speak.