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II
The Book of the Metamorphs
—1—
THE GHAYROG CITY OF DULORN was an architectural marvel, a city of frosty brilliance that extended for two hundred miles up and down the heart of the great Dulorn Rift. Though it covered so huge an area, the city’s predominant thrust was vertical: great shining towers, fanciful of design but severely restrained in material, that rose like tapered fangs from the soft gypsum-rich ground. The only approved building material in Dulorn was the native stone of the region, a light, airy calcite of high refractive index, that glittered like fine crystal, or perhaps like diamond. Out of this the Dulornese had fashioned their sharp-tipped high-rise structures and embellished them with parapets and balconies, with enormous flamboyant flying buttresses, with soaring cantilevered ribs, with stalactites and stalagmites of sparkling facets, with lacy bridges far above the streets, with colo
Fourteen million people dwelled in Dulorn, making it one of the larger cities of Majipoor, although by no means the largest. On the continent of Alhanroel, so Valentine had heard, a city of this size would be nothing remarkable, and even here on the more pastoral continent of Zimroel there were many that matched or surpassed it. But surely no place could equal its beauty, he thought. Dulorn was cold and fiery, both at once. Its gleaming spires insistently claimed one’s attention, like chill, irresistible music, like the piercing tones of some mighty organ rolling out across the darkness of space.
"No country i
"Will Zalzan Kavol be so generous?" Valentine asked.
"Generous?" Carabella laughed. "He has no choice. Dulorn offers only luxury accommodations. If we sleep here, we sleep in the street or we sleep like dukes: there’s nothing between."
"Like dukes," Valentine said. "To sleep like dukes. Why not?"
He had sworn her, that morning before leaving the i
Deliamber said, "And who else knows of these matters?"
"Only Carabella. And I have her bound by the same pledge."
"You’ve said nothing to the Hjort?"
"Vinorkis? Not a word. Why do you ask?"
The Vroon replied, "He watches you too carefully. He asks too many questions. I have little liking for him."
Valentine shrugged. "It’s not hard to dislike Hjorts. But what do you fear?"
"He guards his mind too well. His aura is a dark one. Keep your distance from him. Valentine, or he’ll bring you trouble."
The jugglers entered the city and made their way down broad dazzling avenues to their hotel, guided by Deliamber, who seemed to have a map of every corner of Majipoor engraved in his mind. The wagon halted in front of a tower of splendid height and awesome fantasy of architecture, a place of minarets and arched vaults and shining octagonal windows. Descending from the wagon, Valentine stood blinking and gaping in awe.
"You look as though you’ve been clubbed on the head," Zalzan Kavol said gruffly. "Never seen Dulorn before?"
Valentine made an evasive gesture. His porous memory said nothing to him of Dulorn: but who, once having seen this city, could forget it?
Some comment seemed called for. He said simply, "Is there anything more glorious on all of Majipoor?"
"Yes," the gigantic Skandar replied. "A tureen of hot soup. A mug of strong wine. A sizzling roast over an open fire. You can’t eat beautiful architecture. Castle Mount itself isn’t worth a stale turd to a starving man." Zalzan Kavol snorted in high self-approbation and, hefting his luggage, strode into the hotel.
Valentine called bemusedly after him, "But I was speaking only of the beauty of cities!"
Thelkar, usually the most taciturn of the Skandars, said, "Zalzan Kavol admires Dulorn more than you would believe. But he’d never admit it."
"He admits admiration only for Piliplok, where we were born," Gibor Haern put in. "He feels it’s disloyal to say a good word for anyplace else."
"Shh!" cried Erfon Kavol. "He comes!"
Their senior brother had reappeared at the hotel door. "Well?" Zalzan Kavol boomed. "Why are you standing about? Rehearsal in thirty minutes!" His yellow eyes blazed like those of some beast of the woods. He growled, clenched his four fists menacingly, and vanished again.
An odd master, Valentine thought. Somewhere far beneath that shaggy hide, he suspected, lay a person of civility and even — who could tell? — of kindness. But Zalzan Kavol worked hard at his bearishness.
The jugglers were booked to perform at the Perpetual Circus of Dulorn, a municipal festivity that was in progress during every hour of the day and on every day of the year. The Ghayrogs, who dominated this city and its surrounding province, slept not nightly but seasonally, for two or three months at a time mainly in winter, and when they were awake were insatiable in their demand for entertainment. According to Deliamber they paid well and there were never enough itinerant performers in this part of Majipoor to satisfy their needs.
When the troupe gathered for the afternoon practice session, Zalzan Kavol a
Valentine was unhappy about that. This night in particular he was eager for the guidance that dreams might bring, after last night’s weighty revelations. But what chance could there be for useful dreams if he spent the most fertile hours of the night on stage?
"We can sleep earlier," Carabella observed. "Dreams come at any hour. Or do you have an appointment for a sending?"
It was a sly teasing remark, for one who had trembled in awe of him not so much earlier. He smiled to show he had taken no offense — he could see self-doubt lurking just beneath her mockery of him — and said, "I might not sleep at all, knowing that I must rise so early."
"Have Deliamber touch you as he did last night," she suggested.
"I prefer to find my own path into sleep," he said.
Which he did, after a stiff afternoon of practice and a satisfying di