"Yes, prince. It is."
"Good. Start talking, then."
16
Finding the Eililylal, of course, was easier promised than accomplished. It took three days, three disagreeable days of marching hither and thither in the heights, while the north wind blew almost unceasingly and occasional sprinklings of light snow fell to remind Harpirias that the short Othinor summer was almost at its end.
More than once his plan began to seem like a fool’s errand to him. A huge expeditionary force had gone up into the mountains: not only Korinaam and Harpirias and the entire military force of Skandars and Ghayrogs, but also King Toikella and the high priest Mankhelm and some thirty or forty warriors of the tribe. For this sparsely populated part of the world, that was an enormous army. Surely the Eililylal, watching such a horde make its way up the canyon trails from the village to the high country, would prudently take to their heels and scurry back to their own territory in the deep north until it seemed safe to venture into the vicinity of the Othinor again.
But Harpirias was reckoning on two factors that he hoped would work in his favor. One was the mischief that the wild Shapeshifters had been up to among the king’s hajbaraks. He suspected that the killing of the first two, and the hurling of them into the Othinor village, had been only the prelude to some more elaborate hostile event that they were contemplating. Since that had not happened yet, they were probably still somewhere in the neighborhood.
The other factor was sheer Eililylal malevolence: their obvious love of making trouble, their eagerness to do things like slaughtering the king’s sacred beasts and tossing them down into the village, or of dancing and capering obscenely on a high ridge when the king came up from the village to look for them, or the reception that they had provided for Konnaam. This bigger force, with its multitude of armed Othinor warriors and its array of great lumbering Skandars, might just tempt them to come forth again for an even livelier display of mockery than before.
Which indeed proved to be the case.
They appeared, finally, just when Harpirias had almost given up hope of finding them and King Toikella was beginning to study Korinaam in a sinisterly appraising sort of way. It was Mankhelm who saw them first. The gaunt high priest had gone off the trail by himself to perform some morning ritual on an outcropping ledge looking into a shallow side canyon; and suddenly he came rushing back all helter-skelter, trailing his holy ribbons and pouches of sacred powders casually from one hand, signaling wildly with the other, and crying loudly, "Eililylal! Eililylal!"
They were arrayed along the upper crags of the opposite face of the little side canyon: a band of scrawny ragged-looking creatures, twenty, thirty, perhaps even fifty of them, perching on the rocks and quietly staring down at the army of the Othinor.
The distance across to them was not great; it seemed possible almost to reach across and touch them. In the bright morning sunlight it was beyond question that they were Metamorphs. They had the long frail attenuated bodies, the minimal facial features, the pale green skins. They seemed to have set up a camp over there, with five or six crude tents of roughly dressed animal skins. Tools and what looked like simple weapons lay scattered around in front of them — spears, and bows and arrows, and, perhaps, blow-darts. Savages like the Othinor is what they are, thought Harpirias. Brutish primitive folk who lived dark and difficult lives in this pitiless land.
They had two of Toikella’s hajbaraks with them. The big thick-furred quadrupeds lay on their sides with their hocks tethered together and gazed sadly into space. Very likely, Harpirias suspected, the Eililylal had been making ready to do some harm to the sacrosanct beasts for Toikella’s greater displeasure, but had halted when Mankhelm had come upon them.
Harpirias glanced toward Korinaam and said, "Tell the king to send half his warriors around to the right and half to the left. It should be possible to get over to the other rim of this canyon not very far from here. They should take up positions flanking the Eililylal on either side and wait there for orders."
While Korinaam was relaying these instructions, Harpirias moved his own forces forward onto the ledge facing the Metamorphs, arraying them in a long line against the breast of the mountain with their energy-throwers armed and ready.
"Now," Harpirias told the Shapeshifter, "you go out to the edge of the outcropping and call across to your friends over there. Tell them in your own language that they are ordered in the name of all the gods of the Piurivars to depart from the territory of the Othinor at once."
"They won’t understand a word I’m saying."
"Very likely that’s so. Do it anyway. Tell them that the gods in their holy wisdom have assigned this territory to the Unchanging Ones, or whatever it is that you people call us, and that all Piurivars have to leave here right away."
"We do not exactly have gods in the sense that you—"
"You have something that you regard as divine. Invoke it."
Korinaam sighed. "As you wish, prince."
"I should tell you, also, in case you’re unaware of it, that Eskenazo Maraband is fluent in the Piunvar language." So far as Harpirias knew, that was untrue; but he doubted that Korinaam would call his bluff. "If he should notify me that you’ve said anything treacherous instead of what I’ve asked you to say, Korinaam, I’ll push you off that ledge with my own hands."
Icily the Shapeshifter said, "What treachery would be possible? I’ve told you already that those creatures over there are unfamiliar with any civilized language."
"You’ve told me that, yes. But can I be sure that it’s true?"
Anger flared in Korinaam’s eyes. "I am here to do your bidding, prince, and nothing but your bidding. You may count on that."
"Good. Thank you. Now: after you’ve made your little speech about the will of the Piurivar gods, you’re going to start casting spells. You’ll make them up as you go along: I know you’re good at that. Cry out any sort of crazy mumbo-jumbo that comes to your mind. Just do it m an appropriately awesome incantatory tone. And while you’re doing it, I want you to screech and howl and dance around exactly as we saw the Eililylal doing the last time we were up here. But with five times as much frenzy and noise."
Korinaam gasped in astonishment. "Surely this is not a serious request!"
"You’d be wise to treat it as one."
"Then you are asking a great deal of me. This is a clown’s work, prince. Do you take me for a performer? Someone from the Perpetual Circus of Dulorn, perhaps?"
"You don’t need to be a stage actor in order to screech and howl, Korinaam. Just give it everything you’ve got, nothing held back, some nice wild shrieking and leaping around. Do you follow me? I want you to scare them. I want you to scare yourself. Give us the kind of act that would get somebody locked up if he did it on the streets of Ni-moya, do you understand? This is no time for being shy, Korinaam. Really put your heart in it. Or whatever it is you may have that passes for a heart."
"But this is humiliating, prince! What you ask me to do goes against my temperament, my character, the very integrity of my being!"
"I take formal note of your objections," said Harpirias calmly. "I remind you that there’s an altar waiting for you down in the village if you prefer not to cooperate."
Korinaam glared, but made no reply.
"And while you’re casting your spells," Harpirias went on, "you will also be making a series of highly dramatic changes."