"We’ve come just in time," he announced. "The festival has already begun. Tomorrow night is one of the major holidays."

"Will they pay us?" Sleet asked.

"So it would seem," said Zalzan Kavol. "But they will supply us with no food, and no lodging either, for Ilirivoyne is without hostelries. And there are certain specified zones of the city that we may not enter. I have had friendlier welcomes in other places. But also less friendly ones now and then, I suppose."

Crowds of solemn, silent Metamorph children trailed after them as they moved the wagon from the plaza to an area just back of it where they could park. In late afternoon they held a practice session, and though Lisamon Hultin did her formidable best to clear the young Metamorphs from the scene and keep them away, it was impossible to prevent them from slipping back, emerging between trees and out of bushes to stare at the jugglers. Valentine found it unnerving to work in front of them, and he was plainly not the only one, for Sleet was tense and uncharacteristically awkward, and even Zalzan Kavol, the master of masters, dropped a club for the first time in Valentine’s memory. The silence of the children was disturbing — they stood like blank-eyed statues, a remote audience that drained energy and gave none in return — but even more troublesome was their trick of metamorphosis, their way of slipping from one shape to another as casually as a human child might suck its thumb. Mimicry was their apparent purpose, for the forms they took were crude, half-recognizable versions of the jugglers, such as the older Metamorphs had attempted earlier at Piurifayne Fountain. The children held the forms only briefly — their skills seemed feeble — but in the pauses between routines Valentine saw them now sprouting golden hair for him, white for Sleet, black for Carabella, or making themselves bearish and many-armed like the Skandars, or trying to imitate faces, individual features, expressions, everything done in a distorted and unflattering way.

The travelers slept crammed aboard the wagon that night, one packed close upon the other, and all night, so it seemed, a steady rain fell. Valentine only occasionally was able to sleep; he dropped into light dozes, but mainly he lay awake listening to Lisamon Hultin’s lusty snoring or the even more grotesque sounds coming from the Skandars. Somewhere in the night he must have had some real sleep, for a dream came to him, hazy and incoherent, in which he saw the Metamorphs leading a procession of prisoners, forest-brethren and the blue-skinned alien, up the road toward Piruifayne Fountain, which erupted and rose above the world like a colossal white mountain. And again toward morning he slept soundly for a time, until Sleet woke him by shaking his shoulder a little before dawn.

Valentine sat up, rubbing his eyes. "What is it?"

"Come outside. I have to talk."

"It’s still dark!"

"Even so. Come!"

Valentine yawned, stretched, got creakily to his feet. He and Sleet picked their way carefully over the slumbering forms of Carabella and Shanamir, went warily around one of the Skandars, and down the steps of the wagon. The rain had stopped, but the morning was dark and chilly, and a nasty fog rose from the ground.

"I have had a sending," Sleet said. "From the Lady, I think."

"Of what sort?"

"About the blue-skinned one, in the cage, that they said was a criminal going to be punished. In my dream he came to me and said he was no criminal at all, but only a traveler who had made the error of entering Shapeshifter territory, and had been captured because it’s their custom to sacrifice a stranger in Piurifayne Fountain at festival-time. And I saw how it is done, the victim bound hand and foot and left in the basin of the Fountain, and when the explosion comes he is hurled far into the sky."

Valentine felt a chill that did not come from the morning mist. "I dreamed something similar," he said.

"In my dream I heard more," Sleet went on. "That we are in danger too, not perhaps from sacrifice but in danger all the same. And if we rescue the alien, he will help us to safety, but if we leave him to die, we will not leave Piurivar country alive. You know I fear these Shapeshifters, Valentine, but this dream is something new. It came to me with the clarity of a sending. It ought not be dismissed as more fears of foolish Sleet."

"What do you want to do?"

"Rescue the alien."

Valentine said uneasily, "And if he really was a criminal? By what right do we meddle in Piurivar justice?"

"By right of sending," said Sleet. "Are those forest-brethren criminals too? I saw them also go into the Fountain. We are among savages, Valentine."

"Not savages, no. But strange folk, whose way is not like the ways of Majipoor."

"I’m determined to set the blue-skinned one free. If not with your help, then by myself."

"Now?"

"What better time?" Sleet asked. "It’s still dark. Quiet. I’ll open the cage; he’ll slip off into the jungle."

"You think the cage is unguarded? No, Sleet. Wait. This makes no sense. You’ll jeopardize us all if you act now. Let me try to find out more about this prisoner and why he’s caged, and what’s intended for him. If they do mean to sacrifice him, they’d do it at some high point of the festival. There’s time."

"The sending is on me now," Sleet said.

"I dreamed a dream something like yours."

"But not a sending."

"Not a sending, no. Still, enough to let me think your dream holds truth. I’ll help you, Sleet. But not now. This isn’t the moment for it."

Sleet looked restless. Clearly in his mind he was already on the way to the place of the cages, and Valentine’s opposition was thwarting him.

"Sleet?"

"Yes?"

"Hear me. This is not the moment. There is time."

Valentine looked steadily at the juggler. Sleet returned his gaze with equal steadfastness for a moment; then, abruptly, his resolve broke and he lowered his eyes. "Yes, my lord," he said quietly.

During the day Valentine tried to gain information about the prisoner, but with little success. The cages, eleven holding forest-brethren and the twelfth holding the alien, now had been installed in the plaza opposite the House of Offices, stacked in four tiers with the alien’s cage alone on high, far above the ground. Piurivars armed with dirks guarded them.

Valentine approached, but he was only halfway across the plaza when he was stopped. A Metamorph told him, "This is forbidden for you to enter."

The forest-brethren began frantically to rattle their bars. The blue-skinned one called out, thickly accented words that Valentine could barely understand. Was the alien saying, "Flee, fool, before they kill you too!" or was that only Valentine’s heightened imagination at work? The guards held a tight cordon around the place. Valentine turned away. He attempted to ask some children nearby if they could explain the cages to him; but they looked at him in obstinate silence, giving him cool blank-eyed stares and murmuring to one another and making little partial metamorphoses that mimicked his fair hair, and then they scattered and ran as though he were some sort of demon.

All morning long Metamorphs entered Ilirivoyne, swarming in from the outlying forest settlements. They brought with them decorations of many sorts, wreaths and buntings and draperies and mirror-bedecked posts and tall poles carved with mysterious runes; everyone seemed to know what to do, and everyone was intensely busy. No rain fell after sunrise. Was it by witchcraft, Valentine wondered, that the Piurivars provided a rare dry day for their high holiday, or only coincidence?

By mid-afternoon the festivities were under way. Small bands of musicians played heavy, pulsating, jangling music of eccentric rhythm, and throngs of Metamorphs danced a slow and stately pattern of interweavings, moving almost like sleep-walkers. On certain streets races were run, and judges stationed at points along the course engaged in intricate arguments as the racers went past them. Booths apparently constructed during the night dispensed soups, stews, beverages, and grilled meats.