"See, there, the first mouthplants," the giantess said. "Filthy things! If I had the keeping of this planet, I’d put the torch to all of them, but our Coronals tend to be nature-lovers, so it seems, and preserve them in royal parks. Pray that your friends have had the wisdom to stay clear of them!"
On the bare forest floor, in the open spaces between the trees, grew stemless plants of colossal size. Their leaves, four or five inches broad and eight or nine feet in length, sharp-toothed along their sides and metallic of texture, were arranged in loose rosettes. At the center of each gaped a deep cup a foot in diameter, half filled with a noxious-looking greenish fluid, out of which a complex array of stubby organs projected. It seemed to Valentine that there were things like knife-blades in there, and paired grinders that could come together nastily, and still other things that might have been delicate flowers partly submerged.
"These are flesh-eating plants," Lisamon Hultin said. "The forest floor is underlain by their hunting tendrils, which sense the presence of small animals, capture them, and carry them to the mouth. Observe."
She guided her mount toward the closest of the mouth-plants. When the animal was still at least twenty feet from it, something like a live whip suddenly began to writhe in the decaying forest duff. It broke free of the ground to coil itself with a terrifying snapping sound around the animal’s pastern just above the hoof. The mount, placid as usual, sniffed in puzzlement as the tendril began to exert pressure, trying to pull it toward the gaping mouth in the plant’s central cup.
The warrior-woman, drawing her vibration-sword, leaned down and sliced quickly through the tendril. It snapped back as the tension was released, almost to the cup itself, and at the same time a dozen other tendrils rose from the ground, flailing the air furiously on all sides of the plant.
She said, "The mouthplant lacks the strength to tug anything as big as a mount into its maw. But the mount wouldn’t be able to break free. In time it would weaken and die, and then it might be pulled in. One of these plants would live for a year on that much meat."
Valentine shuddered. Carabella, lost in a forest of such things? Her lovely voice stilled forever by some ghastly plant? Her quick hands, her sparkling eyes — no. No. The thought chilled him.
"How can we find them?" he asked. "It might already be too late."
"How are they called?" the giantess asked. "Shout their names. They must be near."
"Carabella!" Valentine roared with desperate urgency. "Sleet! Carabella!"
A moment later he heard a faint answering shout; but Lisamon Hultin had heard it first, and was already going forward. Valentine saw Sleet ahead, down on one knee on the forest floor, and that knee dug in deep to keep him from being dragged into a mouthplant by the tendril that encircled his other ankle. Crouching behind him was Carabella, her arms thrust through his and hooked tight around his chest in a desperate attempt to hold him back. All about them excited tendrils belonging to neighboring plants snapped and coiled in frustration. Sleet held a knife, with which he sawed uselessly at the powerful cable that held him; and there was a trail of skid-marks in the duff, showing that he had already been drawn four or five feet toward the waiting mouth. Inch by inch he was losing the struggle for his life.
"Help us!" Carabella called.
With a stroke of her sword Lisamon Hultin severed the tendril grasping Sleet. He recoiled sharply as he was freed, toppling backward and coming within an eye-blink of being seized around the throat by the tendril of another plant; but with an acrobat’s easy grace he rolled over, avoiding the groping filament, and sprang to his feet. The warrior-woman caught him about the chest and lifted him quickly to a place behind her on her mount. Valentine now approached Carabella, who stood shaken and trembling in a safe place between two sets of thrashing tendrils, and did the same for her.
She clung to him so tightly that his ribs ached. He twisted himself around and embraced her, stroking her gently, nuzzling her ear with his lips. His relief was overwhelming and startling: he had not realized how much she had come to mean to him, nor how little he had cared about anything just now except that she was all right. Gradually her terror subsided, but he could feel her still quivering at the horror of the scene. "Another minute," she whispered. "Sleet was starting to lose his foothold — I could feel him slipping toward that plant—" Carabella winced. "Where did she come from?"
"She took some shortcut through the forest. Zalzan Kavol has hired her to protect us on the way to Ilirivoyne."
"She’s already earned her fee," Carabella said.
"Follow me," Lisamon Hultin ordered.
She chose a careful route out of the mouthplant grove, but for all her care her mount was seized twice by the leg, and Valentine’s once. Each time, the giantess cut the tendril away, and in moments they were out into the clearing and riding back down the path toward the wagon. A cheer went up from the Skandars as they reappeared.
Zalzan Kavol regarded Sleet coldly. "You chose an unwise route for your departure," he observed.
"Not nearly so unwise as the one you’ve picked," said Sleet. "I beg you excuse me. I will go on toward Mazadone by foot, and seek some sort of employment there."
"Wait," Valentine said.
Sleet looked at him inquiringly.
"Let’s talk. Come walk with me." Valentine laid his arm over the smaller man’s shoulders and drew him aside, off into a grassy glade, before Zalzan Kavol could provoke some new wrath in him.
Sleet was tense, wary, guarded. "What is it, Valentine?"
"I was instrumental in getting Zalzan Kavol to hire the giantess. But for that, you’d be tidbits for the mouthplant now."
"For that I thank you."
"I want more than thanks from you," said Valentine. "It could be said that you’re indebted to me for your life, in a way."
"That may be."
"Then I ask by way of repayment that you withdraw your resignation."
Sleet’s eyes flashed. "You don’t know what you ask!"
"The Metamorphs are strange and unsympathetic creatures, yes. But Deliamber says they’re not as menacing as often reported. Stay with the troupe, Sleet."
"You think I’m being whimsical in quitting?"
"Not at all. But irrational, perhaps."
Sleet shook his head. "I had a sending from the King, once, in which a Metamorph imposed on me a terrible fate. One listens to such sendings. I have no desire to go near the place where those beings dwell."
"Sendings don’t always bear the literal truth."
"Agreed. But often they do. Valentine, the King told me I would have a wife that I loved more dearly than my art itself, a wife who juggled with me the way Carabella does, but far more closely, so much in tune with my rhythms that it was as if we were one person." Sweat broke out on Sleet’s scarred face, and he faltered, and almost did not go on, but after a moment he said, "I dreamed, Valentine, that the Shape-shifters came one day and stole that wife of mine, and substituted for her one of their own people, disguised so cunningly that I couldn’t tell the difference. And that night, I dreamed, we performed before the Coronal, before Lord Malibor that ruled then and drowned soon after, and our juggling was perfection, it was a harmony unequaled in all of my life, and the Coronal feasted us with fine meats and wines, and gave us a bedchamber draped with silks, and I took her in my arms and began to make love, and as I entered her she changed before me and was a Metamorph in my bed, a thing of horror, Valentine, with rubbery gray skin and gristle instead of teeth, and eyes like dirty puddles, who kissed me and pressed close against me. I have not sought the body of a woman," Sleet said, "since that night, out of dread that some such thing might befall me in the embrace. Nor have I told this story to anyone. Nor can I bear the prospect of going to Ilirivoyne and finding myself surrounded by creatures with Shapeshifter faces and Shapeshifter bodies."
Compassion flooded Valentine’s spirit. In silence he held the smaller man for a moment, as if with the strength of his arms alone he could eradicate the memory of the horrific
nightmare that had maimed his soul. When he released him Valentine said slowly, "Such a dream is truly terrible. But we are taught to use our dreams, not to let ourselves be crushed by them."
"This one is beyond my using, friend. Except to warn me to stay clear of Metamorphs."
"You take it too straightforwardly. What if something more oblique was intended? Did you have the dream spoken, Sleet?"
"It seemed unnecessary."
"It was you who urged me to see a speaker, when I dreamed strangely in Pidruid! I remember your very words. The King never sends simple messages, you said."
Sleet offered an ironic smile. "We are always better doctors for others than for ourselves, Valentine. In any event, it’s too late to have a fifteen-year-old dream spoken, and I am its prisoner now."
"Free yourself!"
"How?"
"When a child has a dream that he is falling, and awakens in fright, what does his parent say? That falling dreams are not to be taken seriously, because one doesn’t really get hurt in dreams? Or that the child should be thankful for a falling dream, because such a dream is a good dream, that it speaks of power and strength, that the child was not falling but flying, to a place where he would have learned something, if he had not allowed anxiety and fear to shake him loose of the dream-world?"
"That the child should be thankful for the dream," said Sleet.
"Indeed. And so too with all other ‘bad’ dreams: we must not be frightened, they tell us, but be grateful for the wisdom of dreams, and act on it."
"So children are told, yes. Even so, adults don’t always handle such dreams better than children. I recall some cries and whimpers coming from you in your sleep of late, Valentine."
"I try to learn from my dreams, however dark they may be."
"What do you want from me, Valentine?"
"That you come with us to Ilirivoyne."
"Why is that so important to you?"
Valentine said, "You belong to this troupe. We are a whole with you and broken without you."
"The Skandars are masterly jugglers. It hardly matters what the human performers contribute. Carabella and I are with the troupe for the same reason as you, to comply with a stupid law. You’ll earn your pay whether I’m with you or not."
"I learn the art from you, though."
"You can learn from Carabella. She’s as skilled as I am, and is your lover besides, who knows you better than I ever could. And the Divine spare you," said Sleet in a suddenly terrifying voice, "from losing her to the Shapeshifters in Ilirivoyne!"
"It isn’t something I fear," said Valentine. He extended his hands toward Sleet. "I would have you remain with us."
"Why?"
"I value you."
"And I value you, Valentine. But it would give me great pain to go where Zalzan Kavol would have us go. Why is it so urgent for you to insist on my enduring that pain?"
"You might be healed of that pain," said Valentine, "if you go to Ilirivoyne and find that the Metamorphs are only harmless primitives."
"I can live with my pain," Sleet replied. "The price of that healing seems too high."
"We can live with the most horrible wounds. But why not attempt to cure them?"
"There is some other thing not being spoken here, Valentine."
Valentine paused and let his breath out slowly. "Yes," he said.
"What is it, then?"
With some hesitation Valentine said, "Sleet, have I figured in your dreams at all, since we met in Pidruid?"
"You have, yes."
"In what way?"
"How does this matter?"
"Have you dreamed," said Valentine, "that I might be somewhat unusual in Majipoor, someone of more distinction and power than I myself comprehend?"
"Your bearing and poise told me that at our first meeting. And the phenomenal skill with which you learned our art. And the content of your own dreams that you’ve shared with me."
"And who am I, in those dreams, Sleet?"
"A person of might and grace, fallen through deceit from his high position. A duke, maybe. A prince of the realm."
"Or higher?"
Sleet licked his lips. "Higher, yes. Perhaps. What do you want with me, Valentine?"
"To accompany me to Ilirivoyne and beyond."
"Do you tell me that there’s truth in what I’ve dreamed?"
"This I’m yet to learn," said Valentine. "But I think there’s truth in it, yes. I feel more and more strongly that there must be truth in it. Sendings tell me there’s truth in it."
"My lord—" Sleet whispered.
"Perhaps."
Sleet looked at him in amazement and began to fall to his knees. Valentine caught him hastily and held him upright. "None of that," he said. "The others can see. I want nobody to have an inkling of this. Besides, there remain great areas of doubt. I would not have you kneeling to me, Sleet, or making starbursts with your fingers, or any of that, while I still am uncertain of the truth."
"My lord—"
"I remain Valentine the juggler."
"I am frightened now, my lord. I came within a minute of a foul death today, and this frightens me more, to stand here quietly talking with you about these things."
"Call me Valentine."
"How can I?" Sleet asked.
"You called me Valentine five minutes ago."
"That was before."
"Nothing has changed, Sleet."
Sleet shook the idea away. "Everything has changed, my lord."
Valentine sighed heavily. He felt like an impostor, like a fraud, manipulating Sleet in this way, and yet there seemed purpose to it, and genuine need. "If everything has changed, then will you follow me as I command? Even to Ilirivoyne?"
"If I must," said Sleet, dazed.
"No harm of the kind you fear will come to you among the Metamorphs. You’ll emerge from their country healed of the pain that has racked you. You do believe that, don’t you, Sleet?"
"It frightens me to go there."
"I need you by me in what lies ahead," said Valentine. "And through no choice of mine, Ilirivoyne has become part of my journey. I ask you to follow me there."
Sleet bowed his head. "If I must, my lord."
"And I ask you, by the same compulsion, to call me Valentine and show me no more respect in front of the others than you would have shown me yesterday."
"As you wish," Sleet said.
"Valentine. "
"Valentine," said Sleet reluctantly. "As you wish — Valentine."
"Come, then."
He led Sleet back to the group. Zalzan Kavol was, as usual, pacing impatiently; the others were preparing the wagon for departure. To the Skandar Valentine said, "I’ve talked Sleet into withdrawing his resignation. He’ll accompany us to Ilirivoyne."
Zalzan Kavol looked altogether dumfounded. "How did you manage to do that?"
"Yes," said Vinorkis. "What did you say to him, anyway?"
With a cheerful smile Valentine said, "It would be tedious to explain, I think."
—8—
THE PACE OF THE journey now accelerated. All day long the wagon purred along the highway, and sometimes well into the evening. Lisamon Hultin rode alongside, though her mount, sturdy as it was, needed more rest than those that drew the wagon, and occasionally she fell behind, catching up as opportunity allowed: carrying her heroic bulk was no easy task for any animal.
On they went through a tamed province of city after city, broken only by modest belts of greenery that barely obeyed the letter of the density laws. This province of Mazadone was a place where commercial pursuits kept many millions employed, for Mazadone was the gateway to all the territories of northwestern Zimroel for goods coming from the east, and the chief transshipment point for overland conveyance of merchandise of Pidruid and Til-omon heading eastward. They passed quickly in and out of a host of interchangeable and forgettable cities, Cynthion and Apoortel and Doirectine, Mazadone city itself, Borgax and Thagobar beyond it, all of them subdued and quiescent duri
ng the mourning period for the late duke, and strips of yellow dangling everywhere as sign of sorrow. It seemed to Valentine a heavy thing to shut down an entire province for the death of a duke. What would these people do, he wondered, over the death of a Pontifex? How had they responded to the premature passing of the Coronal Lord Voriax two years ago? But perhaps they took the going of their local duke more seriously, he thought, for he was a visible figure, real and present among them, whereas to people of Zimroel, thousands of miles separated from Castle Mount or Labyrinth, the Powers of Majipoor must seem largely abstract figures, mythical, legendary, immaterial. On a planet so large as this no central authority could govern with real efficiency, only symbolic control; Valentine suspected that much of the stability of Majipoor depended on a social contract whereby the local governors — the provincial dukes and the municipal mayors — agreed to enforce and support the edicts of the imperial government, provided that they might do as they pleased within their own territories.
How, he asked himself, can such a contract be upheld when the Coronal is not the anointed and dedicated prince, but some usurper, lacking in the grace of the Divine through which such fragile social constructs are sustained?
He found himself thinking more and more upon such matters during the long, quiet, monotonous hours of the eastward journey. Such thoughts surprised him with their seriousness, for he had grown accustomed to the lightness and simplicity of his mind since the early days of Pidruid, and he could feel a progressive enrichment and growing complexity of mental powers now. It was as if whatever spell had been laid upon him was wearing thin, and his true intellect was beginning to emerge.
If, that is, any such magic had actually befallen him as his gradually forming hypothesis required.
He was still uncertain. But his doubts were weakening from day to day.
In dreams now he often saw himself in positions of authority. One night it was he, not Zalzan Kavol, who led the band of jugglers; on another he presided in princely robes over some high council of the Metamorphs, whom he saw as eerie fog-like wraiths that would not hold the same shape more than a minute at a time; a night later he had a vision of himself in the marketplace at Thagobar, dispensing justice to the clothsellers and vendors of bangles in their noisy little disputes.
Lord Valentine's Castle m-1 Page 19