Valentine, not at all sleepy, re-enacted the Metamorph pantomime a hundred times in his mind. It had the quality of a dream, yes, but no dream was so immediate: he had been close enough to touch his Metamorph counterpart; he had seen, beyond all doubt, those shifts of features from fair to dark, dark to fair. The Metamorphs knew the truth, more clearly than he himself. Could they read souls, as Deliamber sometimes did? What had they felt, knowing they had a fallen Coronal in their midst? No awe, certainly: Coronals were nothing to them, mere symbols of their own defeat thousands of years ago. It must have seemed terribly funny to them to have a successor to Lord Stiamot tossing clubs at their festival, amusing them with silly tricks and dances, far from the splendors of Castle Mount, a Coronal in their own muddy wooden village. How strange, he thought. How much like a dream.
—15—
TOWARD DAWN HUGE ROUNDED mountains became visible, with a broad notch between them. Avendroyne could not be far. Zalzan Kavol, with a deference he had never shown before, came aft to consult Valentine on strategy. Lie low in the woods all day, and wait until nightfall to try to get past Avendroyne? Or attempt a bold daylight passage?
Leadership was unfamiliar to Valentine. He pondered a moment, trying to look far-seeing and thoughtful.
At length he said, "If we go forward by day, we are too conspicuous. On the other hand, if we waste all day hiding here, we give them more time to prepare plans against us."
"Tonight," Sleet pointed out, "is the high festival again in Ilirivoyne, and probably here also. We might slip by them while they’re merrymaking, but in daylight we have no chance."
"I agree," said Lisamon Hultin.
Valentine looked around. "Carabella?"
"If we wait, we give the Ilirivoyne people time to overtake us. I say go onward."
"Deliamber?"
The Vroon delicately touched tentacle-tips together. "Onward. Bypass Avendroyne, double back toward Verf. There’ll be a second road to the Fountain from Avendroyne, surely."
"Yes," Valentine said. He looked to Zalzan Kavol. "My thoughts run with Deliamber and Carabella. What of yours?"
Zalzan Kavol scowled. "Mine say, let the wizard make this wagon fly, and take us tonight to Ni-moya. Otherwise, continue on without waiting."
"So be it," said Valentine, as if he had made the decision single-handedly. "And when we approach Avendroyne, we’ll send scouts out to find a road that bypasses the town."
On they went, moving more cautiously as daybreak arrived. The rain was intermittent, but when it came now it was no gentle spatter, more an almost tropical downpour, a heavy cannonade of drops that rattled with malign force against the wagon’s roof. To Valentine the rain was welcome: perhaps it would keep the Metamorphs indoors as they went through.
There were signs of outskirts now, scattered wicker huts. The road forked and forked again, Deliamber offering a guess at each point of division, until finally they knew they must be close to Avendroyne. Lisamon Hultin and Sleet rode out as scouts, and returned in an hour with good news: one of the two roads just ahead ran right into the heart of Avendroyne, where festival preparations were under way, and the other curved toward the northeast, bypassing the city entirely and going through what looked like a farming district on the farther slopes of the mountains.
They took the northeast road. Uneventfully they passed the Avendroyne region.
Now, in late afternoon, they journeyed down the mountain pass and into a broad, thickly forested plain rain-swept and dark, that marked the eastern perimeter of Metamorph territory. Zalzan Kavol drove the wagon furiously onward, pausing only when Shanamir insisted that the mounts absolutely had to rest and forage; virtually tireless they might be, and of synthetic origin, but living things were what they were, and now and then they needed to halt. The Skandar yielded reluctantly; he seemed possessed by desperate need to put Piurifayne far behind him.
Toward twilight, as they went in heavy rain through rough, irregular country, trouble came suddenly upon them.
Valentine was riding in mid-cabin, with Deliamber and Carabella; most of the others were sleeping, and Heitrag Kavol and Gibor Haern were driving. There came a crashing, crackling, smashing sound from ahead, and a moment later the wagon jolted to a stop.
"Tree down in the storm!" Heitrag Kavol called. "Road blocked in front of us!"
Zalzan Kavol muttered curses and tugged Lisamon Hultin awake. Valentine saw nothing but green ahead, the entire crown of some forest giant blocking the road. It might take hours or even days to clear that. The Skandars, hoisting energy-throwers to their shoulders, went out to investigate. Valentine followed. Darkness was falling rapidly. The wind was gusty, and shafts of rain swept almost horizontally into their faces.
"Let’s get to work," Zalzan Kavol growled, shaking his head in annoyance. "Thelkar! You start cutting from down there! Rovorn! The big side branches! Erfon—"
"It might be swifter," Valentine suggested, "to back up and look for another fork in the road."
The idea startled Zalzan Kavol, as if the Skandar would never in a century have conceived such a notion. He mulled it for a moment. "Yes," he said finally. "That does make some sense. If we—"
And a second tree, larger even than the first, toppled to the ground a hundred yards behind them. The wagon was trapped.
Valentine was the first to comprehend what must be happening. "Into the wagon, everyone! It’s an ambush!" He rushed toward the open door
Too late. Out of the darkening forest came a stream of Metamorphs, fifteen or twenty of them, perhaps even more, bursting silently into their midst. Zalzan Kavol let out a terrible cry of rage and opened fire with his energy-thrower; the blaze of light cast a strange lavender glow over the roadside and two Metamorphs fell, charred hideously. But in the same instant Heitrag Kavol uttered a strangled gurgle and dropped, a weapon-shaft through his neck, and Thelkar fell, clutching at another in his chest.
Suddenly the rear end of the wagon was ablaze. Those within came scrambling out, Lisamon Hultin leading the way with her vibration-sword high. Valentine found himself attacked by a Metamorph wearing his own face; he kicked the creature away, pivoted, slashed a second one with the knife that was his only weapon. That was strange, to inflict a wound. In weird fascination, he watched the bronze-hued fluid begin to flow.
The Valentine Metamorph came at him again. Claws went for his eyes. Valentine dodged, twisted, stabbed. The blade sank deep and the Metamorph reeled back, clutching at its chest. Valentine trembled in shock, but only for an instant. He turned to confront the next.
This was a new experience for him, this fighting and killing, and it made his soul ache. But to be gentle now was to invite a quick death. He thrust and cut, thrust and cut. From behind him he heard Carabella call, "How are you doing?"
"Holding — my — own—" he grunted.
Zalzan Kavol, seeing his magnificent wagon on fire, howled and caught a Metamorph by the waist and hurled it into the pyre; two more rushed at him, but another Skandar seized them and snapped them like sticks with each pair of hands. In the frantic melee Valentine caught sight of Carabella wrestling with a Metamorph, forcing it to the ground with the powerful forearm muscles years of juggling had developed; and there was Sleet, ferociously vindictive, pounding another with his boots in savage joy. But the wagon was burning. The wagon was burning. The woods were full of Metamorphs, night was swiftly coming on, the rain was a torrent, and the wagon was burning.
As the heat of the fire increased, the center of the battle shifted from the roadside to the forest, and matters became even more confused, for in the darkness it was hard to tell friend from foe. The Metamorph trick of shapeshifting added another complication, although in the frenzy of the fight they were unable to hold their transformations for long, and what seemed to be Sleet, or Shanamir, or Zalzan Kavol, reverted quickly to its native form.
Valentine fought savagely. He was slippery with his own sweat and the blood of Metamorphs, and his heart hammered mightily with the furious e
xertion. Panting, gasping, never still an instant, he waded through the tangle of enemies with a zeal that astonished him, never pausing for an instant’s rest. Thrust and cut, thrust and cut—
The Metamorphs were armed with only the simplest of weapons, and, though there seemed to be dozens of them, their numbers soon were dwindling rapidly. Lisamon Hultin was doing awful destruction with her vibration-sword, swinging it two-handed and lopping off the boughs of trees as well as the limbs of Metamorphs. The surviving Skandars, spraying energy-bolts wildly around the scene, had ignited half a dozen trees and had littered the ground with fallen Metamorphs. Sleet was maiming and slaughtering as if he could in one wild minute avenge himself for all the pain he fancied the Metamorphs had brought upon him. Khun and Vinorkis too were fighting with passionate energy.
As suddenly as the ambush had begun, it was over.
By the light of the fires Valentine could see dead Metamorphs everywhere. Two dead Skandars lay among them. Lisamon Hultin bore a bloody but shallow wound on one thigh; Sleet had lost half his jerkin and had taken several minor cuts; Shanamir had clawmarks across his cheek. Valentine too felt some trifling scratches and nicks, and his arms had a leaden ache of fatigue. But he had not been seriously harmed. Deliamber, though — where was Deliamber? The Vroon wizard was nowhere to be seen. In anguish Valentine turned to Carabella and said, "Did the Vroon stay in the wagon?"
"I thought we all came out when it burst afire."
Valentine frowned. In the silence of the forest the only sounds were the terrible hissing and crackling of fire and the quiet mocking patter of the rain. "Deliamber?" Valentine called. "Deliamber, where are you?"
"Here," answered a high-pitched voice from above. Valentine looked up and saw the sorcerer clinging to a sturdy bough, fifteen feet off the ground. "Warfare is not one of my skills," Deliamber explained blandly, swinging outward and letting himself drop into Lisamon Hultin’s arms.
Carabella said, "What do we do now?"
Valentine realized that she was asking him. He was in command. Zalzan Kavol, kneeling by his brothers’ bodies, seemed stunned by their deaths and by the loss of his precious wagon.
He said, "We have no choice but to cut through the forest. If we try to take the main road we’ll meet more Metamorphs. Shanamir, what of the mounts?"
"Dead," the boy sobbed. "Every one. The Metamorphs—"
"On foot, then. A long wet journey it will be, too. Deliamber, how far do you think we are from the River Steiche?"
"A few days’ journey, I suspect. But we have no sure notion of the direction."
"Follow the slope of the land," Sleet said. "Rivers won’t lie uphill from here. If we keep going east we’re bound to hit it."
"Unless a mountain stands in our way," Deliamber remarked.
"We’ll find the river," Valentine said firmly. "The Steiche flows into the Zimr at Ni-moya, is that right?"
"Yes," said Deliamber, "but its flow is turbulent."
"We’ll have to chance it. A raft, I suppose, will be quickest to build. Come. If we stay here much longer we’ll be set upon again."
They could salvage nothing from the wagon, neither clothing nor food nor belongings nor their juggling gear — all lost, every scrap, everything but what had been on them when they came forth to meet the ambushers. To Valentine that was no great loss; but to some of the others, particularly the Skandars, it was overwhelming. The wagon had been their home a long while.
It was difficult to get Zalzan Kavol to move from the spot. He seemed frozen, unable to abandon the bodies of his brothers and the ruin of his wagon. Gently Valentine urged him to his feet. Some of the Metamorphs, he said, might well have escaped in the skirmish; they could soon return with reinforcements; it was perilous to remain here. Quickly they dug shallow graves in the soft forest floor and laid Thelkar and Heitrag Kavol to rest. Then, in steady rain and gathering darkness, they set out in what they hoped was an easterly direction.
For over an hour they walked, until it became too dark to see; then they camped miserably in a little soggy huddle, clinging to one another until dawn. At first light they rose, cold and stiff, and picked their way onward through the tangled forest. The rain, at least, had stopped. The forest here was less of a jungle, and gave them little challenge, except for an occasional swift stream that had to be forded with care. At one of those, Carabella lost her footing and was fished out by Lisamon Hultin; at another it was Shanamir who was swept downstream, and Khun who plucked him to safety. They walked until midday, and rested an hour or two, making a scrappy meal of raw roots and berries. Then they went on until darkness.
And passed two more days in the same fashion.
And on the third came to a grove of dwikka-trees, eight fat squat giants in the forest, with monstrous swollen fruits hanging from them.
"Food!" Zalzan Kavol bellowed.
"Food sacred to the forest-brethren," Lisamon Hultin said. "Be careful!"
The famished Skandar, nevertheless, was on the verge of cutting down one of the enormous fruits with his energy-thrower when Valentine said sharply, "No! I forbid it!"
Zalzan Kavol stared incredulously. For an instant his old habits of command asserted themselves, and he glared at Valentine as if about to strike him. But he kept his temper in check.
"Look," Valentine said.
Forest-brethren were emerging from behind every tree. They were armed with their dart-blowers; and seeing the slender apelike creatures encircling them, Valentine in his weariness felt almost willing to be slain. But only for a moment. He recovered his spirits and said to Lisamon Hultin, "Ask them if we may have food and guides to the Steiche. If they ask a price, we can juggle for them with stones, or pieces of fruit, I suppose."
The warrior-woman, twice as tall as the forest-brethren, went into their midst and talked with them a long time. She was smiling when she returned.
"They are aware," she said, "that we are the ones who freed their brothers in Ilirivoyne!"
"Then we are saved!" cried Shanamir.
"News travels swiftly in this forest," Valentine said.
Lisamon Hultin went on, "We are their guests. They will feed us. They will guide us."
That night the wanderers ate richly on dwikka-fruit and other forest delicacies, and there was actually laughter among them for the first time since the ambush. Afterward the forest-brethren performed a sort of dance for them, a monkeyish prancing thing, and Sleet and Carabella and Valentine responded with impromptu juggling using objects collected in the forest. Afterward Valentine slept a deep, satisfying sleep. In his dreams he had the gift of flight, and saw himself soaring to the summit of Castle Mount.
And in the morning a party of chattering forest-brethren led them to the River Steiche, three hours’ journey from the dwikka-tree grove, and bade them farewell with little twittering cries.
The river was a sobering sight. It was broad, though nothing remotely like the mighty Zimr, and it sped northward with startling haste, flowing so energetically that it had carved out a deep bed bordered in many places by high rocky walls. Here and there ugly stone snags rose above the water, and downstream Valentine could see white eddies of rapids.
The building of rafts took a day and a half. They cut down the young slim trees that grew by the riverbank, trimmed and trued them with knives and sharp stones, lashed them together with vines. The results were hardly elegant, but the rafts, though crude, did look reasonably riverworthy. There were three altogether — one for the four Skandars, one for Khun, Vinorkis, Lisamon Hultin, and Sleet, and one occupied by Valentine, Carabella, Shanamir, and Deliamber.
"We will probably become separated as we go downriver," Sleet said. "We should choose a meeting-place in Ni-moya."
Deliamber said, "The Steiche and the Zimr flow together at a place called Nissimorn. There is a broad, sandy beach there. Let us meet at Nissimorn Beach."
"At Nissimorn Beach, yes," Valentine said. He cut loose the cord that bound his raft to the shore, and was carried off int
o the river.
The first day’s journey was uneventful. There were rapids, but not difficult ones, and they poled safely past them. Carabella showed skill at handling the raft, and deftly steered them around the occasional rocky patches.
After a time the rafts became separated, Valentine’s taking some subcurrent and moving rapidly ahead of the other two. In the morning he waited, hoping the others would catch up. But there was no sign of them and eventually he decided to depart.
On, on, on, for the most part swept easily along, with occasional moments of anxiety in the white-water stretches. By afternoon of the second day the course was becoming rougher. The land seemed to dip here, sloping downward as the Zimr drew near, and the river, following the line of descent, plunged and bucked. Valentine began to worry about waterfalls ahead. They had no charts, no notion of dangers: they took everything as it came. He could only trust to luck that this swift water would deliver them safely to Ni-moya.
And then? By boat to Piliplok, and by pilgrim-ship to the Isle of Sleep, and somehow procure an interview with the Lady his mother, and then? And then? How did one claim the Coronal’s throne, when one’s face was not the face of Lord Valentine the rightful ruler? By what claim, by what authority? It seemed to Valentine an impossible quest. He might be better remaining here in the forest, ruling over his little band. They, readily enough, accepted him for what he thought himself to be; but in that world of billions of strangers, in that vast empire of giant cities that lay beyond the horizon, how, how would he ever manage to convince the unbelievers that he, Valentine the juggler, was—
No. These thoughts were foolish. He had never, not since he had appeared, shorn of memory and past, on the verge overlooking Pidruid, felt the need to rule over others; and if he had come to command this little group, it was more by natural gift and by Zalzan Kavol’s default than out of any overt desire on his part. And yet he was in command, however tentatively and delicately. So it would be as he traveled onward through Majipoor. He would take one step at a time, and do that which seemed right and proper, and perhaps the Lady would guide him, and if the Divine so willed it he would one day stand again on Castle Mount, and if that was not part of the great plan, why, that would be acceptable also. There was nothing to fear. The future would unroll serenely in its own true course, as it had done since Pidruid. And—
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