Tales of Majipoor Read Online Free Page B

Stiamot. “The sea air will do you good, my lord. But I have a fine lodging waiting for you, and there will be an audience of notables tonight, and a state banquet tomorrow evening.”
    “An audience, yes. A banquet. Very good.” The Coronal seemed ten thousand miles away. Stiamot conducted him into town – the whole population had turned out, lining the one main street on both sides – and took him to the Residency, where Kalban Vond greeted him with embarrassing obsequiousness. The Coronal asked to be left alone in his chambers for an hour or two. Stiamot obliged. He was glad to be free of the Coronal’s oppressive presence for a little while. When he returned in late afternoon, Strelkimar seemed refreshed – he had had a bath and changed his clothes, a different black doublet, different black leggings, and he had even donned his crown, that slender shining circlet that was his badge of office and which most of the time he disdained to wear. But his lips were clamped, as ever, in that brooding scowl that he seemed never to shed.
    “Well, Stiamot, have you been keeping yourself amused here?”
    “This is hardly an amusing place, sir.”
    “I suppose not. Seen any Shapeshifters, have you?”
    Was that some sort of mocking jab? There was a strange glint in the Coronal’s dark eyes. Stiamot had been a member of the Coronal’s council the past seven years, and was as close to him, quite likely, as anyone. But he never could tell, even after so much time, quite where he stood with Lord Strelkimar. He came from a good family though not one of the great ones, and had risen very swiftly at court through diligence, loyalty, intelligence, and – to some degree – luck, a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Still, the Coronal was a mystery to him. Much of the time he still found Strelkimar an enigma, baffling, opaque, impenetrable. He said warily, “As a matter of fact, I have, my lord. One. Right in the center of town, crossing a street. We stopped and stared at each other for a moment or two. He did a quick little shapeshifting trick, or so I thought. And then he went walking away.”
    “Right out in the open,” the Coronal said. “So there are some actually living in this town?”
    “I don’t think so. But they’re in the forests all around, and I guess one of them comes drifting through, occasionally.”
    “And why is that?” said the Coronal, toying with the starburst decoration on the breast of his doublet.
    “I have no idea, sir. But I can try to find out. I’ve met a man here who knows a great deal about them – has lived with them, even, in the forests – and he’s been telling me something about them. I hope to learn more from him.”
    “Yes. Yes.” The Coronal peered at his knuckles as though he had never seen his hands before. “The Shapeshifters,” he murmured, after a time. “What an enigma they are, Stiamot. What a puzzle. I will never understand them.”
    Stiamot said nothing. An enigma contemplating an enigma was too much for him to deal with.
    Brusquely, in an entirely different tone of voice, the Coronal said, “And what time is this audience I’m holding supposed to happen?”
    “In two hours, my lord.”
    “Can you manage to make it any sooner? I’d like to get it over with.”
    “That would be difficult, sir. Some of the planters live a considerable distance from town. I don’t see any way we could—”
    “All right. All right, Stiamot.” There was another long pause. Then, suddenly, unexpectedly: “Tomorrow morning, bring me this forest-dweller of yours, this Shapeshifter expert. Maybe he can teach me a thing or two about them.”
    Getting Mundiveen to come to a private morning interview with the Coronal was not so easy to accomplish. The little man had already made it clear to Stiamot that he was anything but an early riser; and simply to locate him was a problem. But with the District Resident’s help he tracked Mundiveen to his lair, a little