"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."
"I know you're human. The painting lies."
"No, Therion."
"Prove it for me. Change for me. Change now." He released her and stepped a short way back. "Do it. Change for me."
She looked at him sadly. Then, without perceptible transition, she turned herself into a replica of him, as she had done once before: the final proof, the unanswerable answer. A muscle quivered wildly in his cheek. He watched her unblinkingly and she changed again, this time into something terrifying and monstrous, a nightmarish gray pock-marked balloon of a thing with flabby skin and eyes like saucers and a hooked black beak; and from that she went to the Metamorph form, taller than he, hollow-chested and featureless, and then she was Sarise once more, cascades of auburn hair, delicate hands, firm strong thighs.
"No," he said. "Not that one. No more counterfeits."
She became the Metamorph again.
He nodded. "Yes. That's better. Stay that way. It's more beautiful."
"Beautiful, Therion?"
"I find you beautiful. Like this. As you really are. Deception is always ugly."
He reached for her hand. It had six fingers, very long and narrow, without fingernails or visible joints. Her skin was silky and faintly glossy, and it felt not at all as he had expected. He ran his hands lightly over her slim, practically fleshless body. She was altogether motionless.
"I should go now," she said at last.
"Stay with me. Live here with me."
"Even now?"
"Even now. In your true form."
"You still want me?"
"Very much," he said. "Will you stay?"
She said, "When I first came to you, it was to watch you, to study you, to play with you, perhaps even to mock and hurt you. You are the enemy, Therion. Your kind must always be the enemy. But as we began to live together I saw there was no reason to hate you. Not you, you as a special individual, do you understand?"
It was the voice of Sarise coming from those alien lips. How strange, he thought, how much like a dream.
She said, "I began to want to be with you. To make the game go on forever, do you follow? But the game had to end. And yet I still want to be with you."
"Then stay, Sarise."
"Only if you truly want me."
"I've told you that."
"I don't horrify you?"
"No."
"Paint me again, Therion. Show me with a painting. Show me love on the canvas, Therion, and then I'll stay."
He painted her day after day, until he had used every canvas, and hung them all about the interior of the cabin, Sarise and the dwikka-tree, Sarise in the meadow, Sarise against the milky fog of evening, Sarise at twilight, green against purple. There was no way he could prepare more canvases, although he tried. It did not really matter. They began to go on long voyages of exploration together, down one stream and another, into distant parts of the forest, and she showed him new trees and flowers, and the creatures of the jungle, the toothy lizards and the burrowing golden worms and the sinister ponderous amorfibots sleeping away their days in muddy lakes. They said little to one another; the time for answering questions was over and words were no longer needed.
Day slipped into day, week into week, and in this land of no seasons it was difficult to measure the passing of time. Perhaps a month went by, perhaps six. They encountered nobody else. The jungle was full of Metamorphs, she told him, but they were keeping their distance, and she hoped they would leave them alone forever.
One afternoon of steady drizzle he went out to check his traps, and when he returned an hour later he knew at once something was wrong. As he approached the cabin four Metamorphs emerged. He felt sure that one was Sarise, but he could not tell which one. "Wait!" he cried, as they moved past him. He ran after them. "What do you want with her? Let her go! Sarise? Sarise? Who are they? What do they want?"
For just an instant one of the Metamorphs flickered and he saw the girl with the auburn hair, but only for an instant; then there were four Metamorphs again, gliding like ghosts toward the depths of the jungle. The rain grew more intense, and a heavy fog-bank drifted in, cutting off all visibility. Nismile paused at the edge of the clearing, straining desperately for sounds over the patter of the rain and the loud throb of the stream. He imagined he heard weeping; he thought he heard a cry of pain, but it might have been any other sort of forest-sound. There was no hope of following the Metamorphs into that impenetrable zone of thick white mist.