The Mountains of Majipoor

by Robert Silverberg

For young Prince Harpirias, the journey into the frozen tundra of the remote borderlands of Majipoor might well have been a death sentence. But it was also the only way out of a petty bureaucrat's job in a provincial city, where he'd been exiled as punishment for a youthful indiscretion. Doomed to spend the rest of his days hopelessly separated from the Coronal's glittering court, he grasps at his only hope - a mission that could represent suicide or salvation. Somewhere beyond the nine guardian mountains of the Khyntor Marches, a party of paleontologists were captured while searching for the fossils of a fabled species of land-dwelling dragons. Their captors are a lost race of humans who, cut off from the majesty and civilization of Majipoor, have reverted to a primitive hunter-gatherer existence. Only one of the party has returned, a Shapeshifter named Korinaam, to bring back the terms for the release of the scientists. Harpirias sets out on a mission of negotiation and rescue with a