Definitely they were approaching a large settlement. The road was crowded with children and older Metamorphs, and dwellings were numerous. The children were an unsettling crew. They seemed to be practicing their immature skills at transformation as they walked along, and took many forms, most of them bizarre: one had sprouted legs like stilts, another had tentacular Vroonish arms that dangled almost to the ground, a third had swollen its body to a globular mass supported by tiny props. "Are we the circus entertainers," Sleet asked, "or are they? These people sicken me!"

"Peace," Valentine said softly.

In a grim voice Carabella said, "I think some of the entertainments here are dark ones. Look."

Just ahead were a dozen large wicker cages by the side of the road. Teams of bearers, having apparently just put them down, were resting beside them. Through the bars of the cages small long-fingered hands were thrust, and some prehensile tails coiling in anguish. As the wagon drew alongside, Valentine saw that the cages were full of forest-brethren, jammed three and four together, on their way to Ilirivoyne for — what? To be slaughtered for food? To be tormented at the festival? Valentine shivered.

"Wait!" Shanamir blurted, as they rode past the final cage. "What’s that in there?"

The last cage was bigger than the others, and what it held was no forest-brother, but rather some other sort of captive, a being of obvious intelligence, tall and strange, with dark blue skin, fierce and desolate purple eyes of extraordinary intensity and luminosity, and a wide, thin-lipped slash of a mouth. Its clothing — a fine green fabric — was ripped and tattered, and splotched with dark stains, possibly blood. It gripped the bars of its cage with terrible force, shaking and tugging at them, and cried out hoarsely at the jugglers for help in an odd, totally unfamiliar accent. The wagon went on.

Chilled, Valentine said to Deliamber, "That is no being of Majipoor!"

"No," Deliamber said. "None that I’ve seen before."

"I saw one once," Lisamon Hultin put in. "An offworlder, native to some star close by here, though I forget the name of it."

"But what would offworlders be doing here?" Carabella asked. "There’s little traffic between the stars these days, and few ships come to Majipoor."

"Still, some do," Deliamber said. "We’re not yet totally cut off from the starlanes, though certainly we’re considered a backwater in the commerce of the worlds. And—"

"Are you all mad?" Sleet burst out in exasperation. "Sitting here like scholars, discussing the commerce between the worlds, and in that cage is a civilized being crying for help, who probably will be stewed and eaten at the Metamorph festival? And we pay no attention to its cries, but ride blithely onward into their city?" He made a tormented sound of anger and went rushing forward to the Skandars on the driver’s seat. Valentine, fearing trouble, went after him. Sleet tugged at Zalzan Kavol’s cloak. "Did you see it?" he demanded. "Did you hear? The offworlder in the cage?"

Without turning, Zalzan Kavol said, "So?"

"You’ll ignore its cries?"

"This is no affair of ours," the Skandar replied evenly. "Shall we liberate the prisoners of an independent people? They must have some reason for arresting that being."

"Reason? Yes, to cook him for dinner! And we’ll be in the next pot. I ask you to go back and release—"

"Impossible."

"At least let’s ask of it why it’s caged! Zalzan Kavol, we may be riding blithely to our deaths! Are you in such a hurry to reach Ilirivoyne that you’ll ride right past someone who may know something about conditions here, and who is in such a plight?"

"What Sleet says has wisdom in it," Valentine remarked.

"Very well!" Zalzan Kavol snorted. He pulled the wagon to a halt. "Go and investigate, Valentine. But be quick about it."

"I’ll go with him," Sleet said.

"Stay here. If he feels he needs a bodyguard, let him take the giantess."

That seemed sensible. Valentine beckoned to Lisamon Hultin, and they got down from the wagon and strode back toward the place of the cages. Instantly the forest-brethren set up a frantic screeching and banging on their bars. The Metamorph bearers — armed, Valentine noticed now, with effective-looking short dirks of polished horn or wood — unhurriedly formed themselves into a phalanx in the road, keeping Valentine and Lisamon Hultin from a closer approach to the large cage. One Metamorph, plainly the leader, stepped forward and waited with menacing calmness for inquiries.

Valentine said quietly to the giantess, "Will he speak our language?"

"Probably. Try it."

"We are a troupe of roving jugglers," Valentine said in a loud, clear voice, "come to perform at the festival we hear you hold at Ilirivoyne. Are we near Ilirivoyne now?"

The Metamorph, half a head taller than Valentine, though much flimsier of build, seemed amused.

"You are in Ilirivoyne," was the cool, remote reply.

Valentine moistened his lips. These Metamorphs gave off a thin, sharp odor, acrid but not disagreeable. Their strangely sloped eyes were frighteningly expressionless. He said, "To whom would we go to make arrangements for performing in Ilirivoyne?"

"The Danipiur interviews all strangers who come to Ilirivoyne. You will find her at the House of Offices."

The Metamorph’s frosty self-contained manner was disconcerting. After a moment Valentine said, "One thing more. We see that in that large cage you keep a being of an unfamiliar sort. May I ask, for what purpose?"

"Punishment."

"A criminal?"

"So it is said," the Metamorph replied distantly. "Why does this concern you?"

"We are strangers in your land. If strangers are placed in cages here, we might prefer to find employment somewhere else."

There was a flicker of some emotion — amusement? contempt? — around the Metamorph’s mouth and nostrils. "Why should you fear such a thing? Are you criminals?"

"Hardly."

"Then you will not be caged. Pay your respects to the Danipiur and address further questions to her. I have important tasks to complete."

Valentine looked toward Lisamon Hultin, who shrugged. The Metamorph walked away. There was nothing more to do but return to the wagon.

The bearers were lifting the cages and fastening them to poles laid across their backs. From the large cage came a roar of anger and despair.

—13—

ILIRIVOYNE WAS NEITHER a city nor a village, but something intermediate, a forlorn concentration of many low, impermanent-looking structures of withes and light woods, arranged along irregular unpaved streets that seemed to stretch for considerable distances into the forest. The place had a makeshift look, as though Ilirivoyne might have been located elsewhere a few years ago and might be in an altogether other district a few years hence. That it was festival-time in Ilirivoyne was signaled, apparently, by fetish-sticks of some sort planted in front of almost every house, thick shaven stakes to which bright ribbons and bits of fur had been attached; also on many streets scaffolding had been erected, as for performances, or, thought Valentine uneasily, for tribal rites of some darker kind.

Finding the House of Offices and the Danipiur was simple. The main street opened into a broad plaza bordered on three sides by small domed buildings with ornately woven roofs, and on the fourth by a larger structure, the first three-story building they had seen in Ilirivoyne, with an elaborate garden of globular thick-stemmed gray-and-white shrubs in front of it. Zalzan Kavol drew the wagon into a clearing just outside the plaza.

"Come with me," the Skandar said to Deliamber. "We’ll see what we can arrange."

They were inside the House of Offices a long while. When they emerged, a female Metamorph of great presence and authority was with them, doubtless the Danipiur, and the three stood together by the garden in elaborate conversation. The Danipiur pointed; Zalzan Kavol alternately nodded and shook his head; Autifon Deliamber, dwarfed between the two tall beings, made frequent graceful gestures of diplomatic conciliation. Finally Zalzan Kavol and the Vroon returned to the wagon. The Skandar’s mood seemed brighter.