"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."