There were no Metamorphs in Stee or any of the other cities in the capital territory, of course, but Stiamot, traveling through the land on this or that mission for the Coronal, had had a few brief glimpses of them. And once, when the Coronal had journeyed down to the Labyrinth to confer with the senior monarch, the Pontifex Gherivale, Stiamot had taken the opportunity to visit the nearby ruins of the ancient Metamorph capital of Velalisier, and quite a wondrous time he had had among those stone temples and pyramids and sacrificial altars. Out here in the hinterlands he hoped for a chance to experience the Metamorph culture at close range. And perhaps the eccentric Dr. Mundiveen would consent to serve as his guide.
Stiamot’s first few days in Domgrave were spent arranging for the Coronal’s arrival, checking out the route he would travel for places of possible risk and seeing to it that the Coronal’s lodgings would be not only secure but appropriately comfortable. It was too much to expect luxury in these parts, but a certain degree of magnificence was necessary to remind the local grandees that the ruler of the world was among them. Kalban Vond, the District Resident, offered his own house for the Coronal’s use—no palace, but the closest thing to a stately house that Domgrave could provide, a many-balconied building three stories high with ornate moldings and handsome inlays of decorative woods—and Stiamot set about having it bedecked with such tapestries and carpets and draperies as this very provincial province could supply. He himself commandeered a smaller but nevertheless pleasant house not far from the main highway as his own headquarters. He met with wine-merchants and providers of meat and game. He sent messengers to the prime landholders of the territory, inviting them to the great banquet that the Coronal would hold. In the evenings he dined with the Resident, who managed to produce reasonable fare, if nothing on a par with what Stiamot had become accustomed to at court, and plied him with questions about the region, the climate, the predominant crops, the personalities of the heads of the leading families, and—eventually—about the Metamorph tribes of the forests.
The Resident, plump and slow-moving and at least twenty years older than Stiamot, was a conventional, cautious man, and beneath his caution Stiamot thought he could detect a weariness, a bleakness of spirit, a thwarted sense that he had hoped for more out of life than a career as District Resident in an unimportant and backward rural district. But he did not seem unintelligent. He listened carefully to Stiamot’s questions and responded in abundant detail, and when Stiamot had returned once too often to the subject of the Metamorphs Kalban Vond said, “You keep coming back to them, don’t you? They must interest you very much.”
“They do. It’s nothing of an official nature, you understand. Just my own curiosity. We could say that I’m something of a student of them.”
The Resident’s sleepy blue eyes turned suddenly bright. “A student? What interests you, may I ask, about those sneaky, nasty savages?”
Stiamot, startled, caught his breath. But he showed his displeasure only by the slightest quirk of his lips. “Is that how you see them?”
“Most of us do, out here.”
“Be that as it may, we have to consider that we share the planet with them. They were here first. We thrust ourselves down among them and shoved them aside.”
“So to speak,” said Kalban Vond primly. “Majipoor’s a big place. There’s plenty of room for both races, wouldn’t you say?” Stiamot managed a faint smile. “I wonder if they see it that way. But in any case, problems are brewing, and it’s necessary to give some thought to them. Our population is growing very rapidly, and I don’t just mean the human population. Ghayrogs—Hjorts—the other non-human groups also—”
“Room for all,” Kalban Vond said, sounding a little nettled. “A very big world. We’ve lived side by side with them fairly peacefully for thousands of years.”
“Side by side, yes. And fairly peacefully, I suppose. But, as I say, there are more of us than ever before. The world is big, but it isn’t infinite. And those thousands of years have gone by, and have they become our friends? Are we heading toward any sort of real rapport with them? You know as well as I do that there have been some very unpleasant incidents, and it’s my impression that those incidents are becoming more frequent. They hate us, don’t they? And we fear them. They put up with our settling on their world because they have no choice, and here in this valley you live next door to them wondering how long they’ll continue to maintain the peace. That’s so, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps you put it a bit extremely,” the Resident said. “Hate—fear—”
“A moment ago you called them ‘sneaky, nasty savages.’ Which one of us is being extreme? Is that how you usually speak of your friends, Resident?”
“I never claimed they were my friends, you know,” said Kalban Vond. “You’re the one who used the word.”
Stiamot could make no response to that. In the chilly silence that followed the Resident turned aside to open a second bottle of wine and refill their bowls. Something of a confrontational tone was creeping into the conversation, and perhaps this was meant as a calming gesture. They were drinking a surprisingly fine wine, a blue one from Stoienzar in the south. Stiamot had never expected to be offered anything so good here, or to have the Resident be so generous with it.
After a moment he said, a little more gently, “I think we both agree, at any rate, that we’re not making much progress toward developing a more harmonious relationship with them. Not making any at all, in fact. But we need to. As our population grows, so does their resentment of our presence here. If we don’t come to some sort of understanding with them soon, we’ll find ourselves in a state of constant collision with them. Warfare, in fact. I’ve heard the rumors.”
“Well, Prince Stiamot, at least here we agree.”
“It can’t be allowed to happen. We need to head it off.”
“And do you have a plan? Does Lord Strelkimar?”
“It’s not something his lordship has spoken of with me. But I assure you the Council has been discussing it.”
Kalman Vond sat up alertly, and his eyes were once again gleaming. All that weariness and self-pitying sadness had fallen from him in a moment. Stiamot saw the man’s unabashed eager excitement: it must seem to him that he was about to be made privy to intimate details of the deliberations of the Council. Sitting here sipping wine with one of the Coronal’s close advisors was surely the biggest thing that had happened to him in all the years since he had been posted to this dreary province, and the thought that he would very shortly be playing host to the Coronal himself in his very own home must be dizzying.
But no revelations of court deliberations were going to be forthcoming tonight. Stiamot said, “We’ve been speaking about the Metamorphs only in the most general way, so far. Everyone agrees that we need to examine the whole problem much more thoroughly than ever before. And, as I said, my interest in them is a matter of mere personal curiosity. They fascinate me. Now that I find myself in a district where Metamorphs actually live, I hope to get a chance to learn something more about them—some details of their culture, their governmental structure, their religious beliefs, their art—”