The Mountains of Majipoor

by Robert Silverberg

  More than once his plan began to seem like a fool’s errand to him. A huge expeditionary force had gone up into the mountains: not only Korinaam and Harpirias and the entire military force of Skandars and Ghayrogs, but also King Toikella and the high priest Mankhelm and some thirty or forty warriors of the tribe. For this sparsely populated part of the world, that was an enormous army. Surely the Eililylal, watching such a horde make its way up the canyon trails from the village to the high country, would prudently take to their heels and scurry back to their own territory in the deep north until it seemed safe to venture into the vicinity of the Othinor again.

  But Harpirias was reckoning on two factors that he hoped would work in his favor. One was the mischief that the wild Shapeshifters had been up to among the king’s hajbaraks. He suspected that the killing of the first two, and the hurling of them into the Othinor village, had been only the prelude to some more elaborate hostile event that they were contemplating. Since that had not happened yet, they were probably still somewhere in the neighborhood.

  The other factor was sheer Eililylal malevolence: their obvious love of making trouble, their eagerness to do things like slaughtering the king’s sacred beasts and tossing them down into the village, or of dancing and capering obscenely on a high ridge when the king came up from the village to look for them, or the reception that they had provided for Korinaam. This bigger force, with its multitude of armed Othinor warriors and its array of great lumbering Skandars, might just tempt them to come forth again for an even livelier display of mockery than before.

  Which indeed proved to be the case.

  They appeared, finally, just when Harpirias had almost given up hope of finding them and King Toikella was beginning to study Korinaam in a sinisterly appraising sort of way. It was Mankhelm who saw them first. The gaunt high priest had gone off the trail by himself to perform some morning ritual on an outcropping ledge looking into a shallow side canyon; and suddenly he came rushing back all helter-skelter, trailing his holy ribbons and pouches of sacred powders casually from one hand, signaling wildly with the other, and crying loudly, “Eililylal! Eililylal!”

  They were arrayed along the upper crags of the opposite face of the little side canyon: a band of scrawny ragged-looking creatures, twenty, thirty, perhaps even fifty of them, perching on the rocks and quietly staring down at the army of the Othinor.

  The distance across to them was not great; it seemed possible almost to reach across and touch them. In the bright morning sunlight it was beyond question that they were Metamorphs. They had the long frail attenuated bodies, the minimal facial features, the pale green skins. They seemed to have set up a camp over there, with five or six crude tents of roughly dressed animal skins. Tools and what looked like simple weapons lay scattered around in front of them—spears, and bows and arrows, and, perhaps, blow-darts. Savages like the Othinor is what they are, thought Harpirias. Brutish primitive folk who lived dark and difficult lives in this pitiless land.

  They had two of Toikella’s hajbaraks with them. The big thick-furred quadrupeds lay on their sides with their hocks tethered together and gazed sadly into space. Very likely, Harpirias suspected, the Eililylal had been making ready to do some harm to the sacrosanct beasts for Toikella’s greater displeasure, but had halted when Mankhelm had come upon them.

  Harpirias glanced toward Korinaam and said, “Tell the king to send half his warriors around to the right and half to the left. It should be possible to get over to the other rim of this canyon not very far from here. They should take up positions flanking the Eililylal on either side and wait there for orders.”

  While Korinaam was relaying these instructions, Harpirias moved his own forces forward onto the ledge facing the Metamorphs, arraying them in a long line against the breast of the mountain with their energy-throwers armed and ready.

  “Now,” Harpirias told the Shapeshifter, “you go out to the edge of the outcropping and call across to your friends over there. Tell them in your own language that they are ordered in the name of all the gods of the Piurivars to depart from the territory of the Othinor at once.”

  “They won’t understand a word I’m saying.”

  “Very likely that’s so. Do it anyway. Tell them that the gods in their holy wisdom have assigned this territory to the Unchanging Ones, or whatever it is that you people call us, and that all Piurivars have to leave here right away.”

  “We do not exactly have gods in the sense that you—”

  “You have something that you regard as divine. Invoke it.”

  Korinaam sighed. “As you wish, prince.”

  “I should tell you, also, in case you’re unaware of it, that Eskenazo Marabaud is fluent in the Piurivar language.” So far as Harpirias knew, that was untrue; but he doubted that Korinaam would call his bluff. “If he should notify me that you’ve said anything treacherous instead of what I’ve asked you to say, Korinaam, I’ll push you off that ledge with my own hands.”

  Icily the Shapeshifter said, “What treachery would be possible? I’ve told you already that those creatures over there are unfamiliar with any civilized language.”

  “You’ve told me that, yes. But can I be sure that it’s true?”

  Anger flared in Korinaam’s eyes. “I am here to do your bidding, prince, and nothing but your bidding. You may count on that.”

  “Good. Thank you. Now: after you’ve made your little speech about the will of the Piurivar gods, you’re going to start casting spells. You’ll make them up as you go along: I know you’re good at that. Cry out any sort of crazy mumbo-jumbo that comes to your mind. Just do it in an appropriately awesome incantatory tone. And while you’re doing it, I want you to screech and howl and dance around exactly as we saw the Eililylal doing the last time we were up here. But with five times as much frenzy and noise.”

  Korinaam gasped in astonishment. “Surely this is not a serious request!”

  “You’d be wise to treat it as one.”

  “Then you are asking a great deal of me. This is a clown’s work, prince. Do you take me for a performer? Someone from the Perpetual Circus of Dulorn, perhaps?”

  “You don’t need to be a stage actor in order to screech and howl, Korinaam. Just give it everything you’ve got, nothing held back, some nice wild shrieking and leaping around. Do you follow me? I want you to scare them. I want you to scare yourself. Give us the kind of act that would get somebody locked up if he did it on the streets of Ni-moya, do you understand? This is no time for being shy, Korinaam. Really put your heart in it. Or whatever it is you may have that passes for a heart.”

  “But this is humiliating, prince! What you ask me to do goes against my temperament, my character, the very integrity of my being!”

  “I take formal note of your objections,” said Harpirias calmly. “I remind you that there’s an altar waiting for you down in the village if you prefer not to cooperate.”

  Korinaam glared, but made no reply.

  “And while you’re casting your spells,” Harpirias went on, “you will also be making a series of highly dramatic changes.”

  “Changes?”

  “Changes, yes. Bodily metamorphoses. Shifting of shape. Piurivars are known to have that capability, I believe. You will do changes. Your entire repertoire, and possibly some that you have never done before. The stranger the better, do you know what I mean? I want you to make yourself into six kinds of monster. I want you to look demonic and horrifying. I want you to show those cousins of yours over there that you are an absolute master of sorcery and witchcraft and that if they don’t obey you you will bring down all the forces of darkness upon their heads. It will be your job to make yourself look just as frightening as anybody has ever looked upon this entire planet. A diabolical ogre. A thing out of everybody’s worst nightmares.”

  The Shapeshifter’s eyes were bright with fury.

  “What you require of me, prince, is—”

  “Is simply to do as you are told.”

  “I repea
t: I am not a clown. I am not an actor. Nor am I a savage, prince. To stand out there and howl and shriek idiotically, and above all to put myself through changes like that, in front of everyone, not just them but your own men, and the king of the Othinor as well, would shame me forever.”

  “Go, Korinaam. Time is wasting.”

  “Prince, I ask you—I beg you—”

  “The altar, Korinaam. Remember the altar. Go on. Quickly, now. There’s no shame in doing one’s duty. Your role will be essential today. Perform for us. Give us the best show that’s in you. You said that these people were like beasts. Well, give them some of the same stuff, only more so. Behave like a wild man. Out-beast them ten for one. Perform as though your life depends on it. It does, you know.”

  Korinaam offered no answer; but he shot Harpirias such a look of unalloyed abhorrence as could have thawed a glacier. Harpirias responded with a sweet smile and nudged the Shapeshifter gently toward the front of the outcropping.

  The jutting shelf of stone on which Korinaam stood was almost like a little stage. The Eililylal across the way seemed to stir in curiosity as the glowering Metamorph took up his position on it.

  He was silent for a time, breathing deeply, staring at the ground. Then he raised his head and extended his arms to their full spread. He flicked his fingers outward two or three times, and made a small humming sound that could barely be heard even on this side of the canyon.

  “Louder, Korinaam,” Harpirias said. “Wilder. Start putting yourself through some changes.”

  “Prince, this is ridiculous!”

  “The altar, Korinaam. The altar.”

  The Shapeshifter nodded. He stretched out his arms again. Abruptly the boundaries of his shape wavered and his arms became long ropy tentacles that seemed to writhe of their own accord in agonized serpentine patterns. The Eililylal stirred and exchanged glances with one another.

  “Very good,” Harpirias said. “Now chant a spell.”

  “Yes. Give me a moment, will you?”

  Korinaam’s body continued to change. His shoulders expanded and violently contracted; his skin grew puckered and spiny; his legs turned to hairy wheels; his arms, rigid again, became clubs, spears, long hooked rods.

  “Dekkeret!” he cried suddenly. “Tyeveras Kinniken Malibor Thraym!”

  Harpirias smiled. So the Shapeshifter knew some history after all! Those were the names of Coronals and Pontifexes of long ago, and Korinaam was making an incantation out of them!

  “Good,” Harpirias murmured. “Keep it up. Faster! Wilder!”

  But there was little need for such encouragement. Korinaam seemed to have put all inhibition aside and was getting fully into things now. His form was going through such grotesque alterations as Harpirias could scarcely believe—drawing out to enormous length, then pulling sharply inward like a snapping piece of elastic until he was no more than a huddled cube, and then shooting out a hundred bright pink extensions at once that jerked and quivered with lunatic intensity. Bright blue eyes gleamed at the tip of each rubbery shaft of flesh. Whorls and loops of extruded plasm emerged from him. And all the while he continued to call off the names of ancient monarchs, now crooning them, now droning, now singing in an eerie high-pitched tone that slid between the conventional intervals of the scale with sinuous liberties that would drive any musician to immediate tears:

  “Voriax! Valentine! Segilot! Guadeloom, Struin, Arioc! Grivvis! Histifoin! Prankipin, Hunzimar, Spurifon, Scaul!” Then, hissing the name in a truly terrifying way: “Stiamot. Stiamot. Stiamot.” He accompanied the name of the conqueror of his race with a series of explosive body-shifts that jerked him about the outcropping in such a hectic manner that Harpirias feared for a moment that he would go over the side.

  Evidently Korinaam had exhausted his memory of the names of Coronals now. He began to chant cities and places instead, while dancing back and forth in high frenzy:

  “Bimbak, Dundilmir, Furible, Chi! Dulorn! Ni-moya! Falkynkip! Divone! Ilirivoyne, Kiridane, Mazadone, Nissimorn! Numinor! Pidruid! Piliplok! Gren!”

  It was a brilliant performance. Even Harpirias was unsettled a little by the terrible intensity of Korinaam’s percussive outcries and seemingly endless metamorphoses. He could almost believe that these were genuine spells that were being cast here, that the Shapeshifter was working authentic Piurivar magic in the chill mountain air of this place.

  As for the Eililylal across the way, they were mesmerized by it. Perhaps they thought that Korinaam had taken leave of his senses, or perhaps they were taking his spellcasting seriously—who could say? They sat rigidly, watching, watching, watching.

  But Harpirias knew that the show could not go on much longer. Surely the metamorphic capacities of any Piurivar’s body were unable to keep up such a pace of changes; nor could Korinaam, however durable his slender body might be, continue to prance and cavort and shriek the way he was doing without totally expending his strength.

  This was the time for the next phase. Harpirias signaled to his troops to prepare to open fire. They hefted their weapons and waited for the next command.

  To Korinaam, then, he said, “All right. Bring it to a climax. Everything you have. Everything, Korinaam!”

  “Danipiur!” Korinaam roared. “Pontifex! Coronal! Toikella! Majipoor!”

  He rippled and flowed and passed through the entire spectrum of colors, and went through a whole new tumultuous series of bodily changes, now taking on animal forms, now imitating rocks or trees, now presenting himself as pure geometry, now becoming an incomprehensible cluster of tentacles and clacking claws, and then emerging ultimately from the whole blinding welter of astonishing metamorphoses wearing the semblance of King Toikella himself. But it was a Toikella far larger than life, a titanic Toikella, a mountainous Toikella a dozen feet high, identical down to the last degree with the genuine article, except in its size. It was a startling sight. The real Toikella, who had been standing to one side watching throughout the entire performance, now whirled, stared, grunted in amazement. Harpirias saw actual fear blossom in the king’s eyes just then.

  “Fire!” Harpirias cried.

  Three loud cracking reports echoed through the thin, cold mountain air, and then three more, and another, and another. Bolts of purple energy lanced across the canyon, striking high up in the ice-tipped crags far above the ledge where the little band of Eililylal stood watching. Chunks of tawny stone the size of sea-dragons broke loose overhead and tumbled down with ear-shattering impact. They split apart spectacularly as they hit and sent huge showers of fist-sized particles cascading into the depths of the canyon. A low moan of terror went up from the Eililylal.

  “Again,” Harpirias said. “Aim a little lower.”

  A second volley of energy bolts crossed the canyon. The purple shafts of force smashed into the rocky walls just below the scars of the first round and carved great sheets of stone from them. Another deafening rain of slabs and boulders descended. Harpirias felt the vibration through the soles of his feet: it was like an earthquake. The entire mountain range seemed to quiver. He thought the world might break asunder.

  “All right,” he said. “Hold it.”

  Gradually the sound of the second rockfall died away. A few last pebbles clattered into the chasm, faintly resounding as they fell, and then all was still. Supreme silence followed: the terrible silence of the morning of the world’s creation. Through the clear crisp air drifted little sun-gilded puffs of rock dust. Across the way, the Eililylal stood stunned, petrified, frozen by terror into statues.

  In that awful moment of utter quiet Harpirias turned to Korinaam and said, “What I want you to do now is tell the king that he needs to—”

  But then he saw that finishing the sentence was useless. Exhausted by his immense effort, emptied entirely of strength, the Shapeshifter—once again in his proper form—had collapsed into a huddled heap, his arms drawn tight against his sunken chest, his entire body shaking in what seemed to be the final extremity of fatigue. Harpirias
knew that there was no more service to be had from him just now.

  He looked toward the king himself. But once again he was unable to find the Othinor phrases he needed. “Your warriors,” he said, urgently pantomiming a band of men with spears. “Send them now. Against the Eililylal. Now! Now!” He acted out the motions of an attack and a massacre.

  Toikella merely stared at him. The king, of course, had no way of understanding the Majipoori words that Harpirias had spoken; but that was not the problem. Toikella appeared to be as paralyzed by astonishment and fear as his enemies across the canyon. He looked as though he had been clubbed. His jaw hung slack, his eyes were glassy. There could be no question that Korinaam’s bizarre performance had had a deep effect on him, especially at its climax; but plainly it was the destruction that Harpirias’s squadron of energy-throwers had meted out that had stupefied him. Nothing in Toikella’s experience had prepared himself for the sight of modern Majipoor weaponry in action.

  Mankhelm was in no better shape. He was on his knees, looking dazed, fumbling with the holy bones and amulets that dangled on a leather cord around his neck.

  Nor in any case was there an Othinor army on the far side of the canyon to mop up the Eililylal, Harpirias realized. The warriors whom Toikella had sent over there to await the order to attack now were coming slinking back in twos and threes, white-faced, shaken. Harpirias threw up his hands in exasperation. “No!” he shouted. “Go across again! Across! Across! Over there! By the Lady, go after the Eililylal now, while you have the chance!”

  Mute, bewildered, understanding nothing, they simply gaped at him.

  Then Harpirias looked across the way, and with one glance he knew that no attack would be necessary. The Eililylal were gone. They had broken from their terrified stasis and fled pell-mell over the rocky mountain trails, leaving behind their packs, their tents, their weapons and tools, everything they had brought with them from their home encampment somewhere in the farthest north. The two tethered hajbaraks still lay where they had been, unharmed.