"You do the painting entirely with your mind?" she asked.

"Entirely. I fix the scene in my soul, I transform and rearrange and heighten, and then — you'll see."

"It's all right if I watch? I won't spoil it?"

"Of course not."

"But if someone else's mind gets into the painting—"

"It can't happen. The canvases are tuned to me." He squinted, made frames with his fingers, moved a few feet this way and that. His throat was dry and his hands were quivering. So many years since last he had done this: would he still have the gift? And the technique? He aligned the canvas and touched it in a preliminary way with his mind. The scene was a good one, vivid, bizarre, the color contrasts powerful ones, the compositional aspects challenging, that massive rock, those weird meaty red plants, the tiny yellow floral bracts at their tips, the forest-dappled sunlight — yes, yes, it would work, it would amply serve as the vehicle through which he could convey the texture of this dense tangled jungle, this place of shapeshifting—

He closed his eyes. He entered trance. He hurled the picture to the canvas.

Sarise uttered a small surprised cry.

Nismile felt sweat break out all over; he staggered and fought for breath; after a moment he regained control and looked toward the canvas.

"How beautiful!" Sarise murmured.

But he was shaken by what he saw. Those dizzying diagonals- — the blurred and streaked colors — the heavy greasy sky, hanging in sullen loops from the horizon — it looked nothing like the scene he had tried to capture, and, far more troublesome, nothing like the work of Therion Nismile. It was a dark and anguished painting, corrupted by unintended discords.

"You don't like it?" she asked.

"It isn't what I had in mind."

"Even so — how wonderful, to make the picture come out of the canvas like that — and such a lovely thing—"

"You think it's lovely?"

"Yes, of course! Don't you?"

He stared at her. This? Lovely? Was she flattering him, or merely ignorant of prevailing tastes, or did she genuinely admire what he had done? This strange tormented painting, this somber and alien work — Alien.

"You don't like it," she said, not a question this time.

"I haven't painted in almost four years. Maybe I need to go about it slowly, to get the way of it right again"

"I spoiled your painting," Sarise said.

"You? Don't be silly."

"My mind got into it. My way of seeing things."

"I told you that the canvases are tuned to me alone. I could be in the midst of a thousand people and nothing of them would affect the painting."

"But perhaps I distracted you, I swerved your mind somehow."

"Nonsense."

"I'll go for a walk. Paint another one while I'm gone."

"No, Sarise. This one is splendid. The more I look at it, the more pleased I am. Come: let's go home, let's swim and eat some dwikka and make love. Yes?"

He took the canvas from its mount and rolled it. But what she had said affected him more than he would admit. Some kind of strangeness had entered the painting, no doubt of it. What if she had managed somehow to taint it, her bidden Metamorph soul radiating its essence into his spirit, coloring the impulses of his mind with an alien hue—

They walked downstream in silence. When they reached the meadow of the mud-lilies where Nismile had seen his first Metamorph, he heard himself blurt, "Sarise, I have to ask you something."

"Yes?"

He could not halt himself. "You aren't human, are you? You're really a Metamorph, right?"

She stared at him wide-eyed, color rising in her cheeks. "Are you serious?" He nodded.

"Me a Metamorph?" She laughed, not very convincingly. "What a wild idea!"

"Answer me, Sarise. Look into my eyes and answer me."

"It's too foolish, Therion."

"Please. Answer me."

"You want me to prove I'm human? How could I?"

"I want you to tell me that you're human. Or that you're something else."

"I'm human," she said.

"Can I believe that?"

"I don't know. Can you? I've given you your answer." Her eyes flashed with mirth. "Don't I feel human? Don't I act human? Do I seem like an imitation?"

"Perhaps I'm unable to tell the difference."

"Why do you think I'm a Metamorph?"

"Because only Metamorphs live in this jungle," he said. "It seems — logical. Even though — despite—" He faltered. "Look, I've had my answer. It was a stupid question and I'd like to drop the subject. All right?"

"How strange you are! You must be angry with me. You do think I spoiled your painting."

"That's not so."

"You're a very poor liar, Therion."

"All right. Something spoiled my painting. I don't know what. It wasn't the painting I intended."

"Paint another one, then."

"I will. Let me paint you, Sarise."

"I told you I didn't want to be painted."

"I need to. I need to see what's in my own soul, and the only way I can know—"

"Paint the dwikka-tree, Therion. Paint the cabin."

"Why not paint you?"

"The idea makes me uncomfortable."

"You aren't giving me a real answer. What is there about being painted that—"

"Please, Therion."

"Are you afraid I'll see you on the canvas in a way that you won't like? Is that it? That I'll get a different answer to my questions when I paint you?"

"Please."

"Let me paint you."

"No."

"Give me a reason, then."

"I can't," she said.

"Then you can't refuse." He drew a canvas from his pack. "Here, in the meadow, now. Go on, Sarise. Stand beside the stream. It'll take only a moment—"

"No, Therion."

"If you love me, Sarise, you'll let me paint you."

It was a clumsy bit of blackmail, and it shamed him to have attempted it; and angered her, for he saw a harsh glitter in her eyes that he had never seen before. They confronted each other for a long tense moment.

Then she said in a cold flat voice, "Not here, Therion. At the cabin. I'll let you paint me there, if you insist."

Neither of them spoke the rest of the way home.

He was tempted to forget the whole thing. It seemed to him that he had imposed his will by force, that he had committed a sort of rape, and he almost wished he could retreat from the position he had won. But there would never now be any going back to the old easy harmony between them; and he had to have the answers he needed. Uneasily he set about preparing a canvas.

"Where shall I stand?" she asked.

"Anywhere. By the stream. By the cabin."

In a slouching slack-limbed way she moved toward the cabin. He nodded and dispiritedly began the final steps before entering trance. Sarise glowered at him. Tears were welling in her eyes.

"I love you," he cried abruptly, and went down into trance, and the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes was Sarise altering her pose, coming out of her moody slouch, squaring her shoulders, eyes suddenly bright, smile flashing.

When he opened his eyes the painting was done and Sarise was staring timidly at him from the cabin door.

"How is it?" she asked.

"Come. See for yourself."

She walked to his side. They examined the picture together, and after a moment Nismile slipped his arm around her shoulder. She shivered and moved closer to him.

The painting showed a woman with human eyes and Metamorph mouth and nose, against a jagged and chaotic background of clashing reds and oranges and pinks.

She said quietly, "Now do you know what you wanted to know?"

"Was it you in the meadow? And the other two times?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You interested me, Therion. I wanted to know all about you. I had never seen anything like you."

"I still don't believe it," he whispered.

She pointed toward the painting. "Believe it, Therion."

"No. No."

"You have your answer now."