Tales of Majipoor (collection)

Prologue

They came from Old Earth. They found an enormous planet, a gigantic world which, huge as it was, was suitable for human settlement because of its low gravitational pull. Life abounded there, life of all sorts, including a sparse population of aboriginal humanoids, mysterious shapeshifting forest-dwellers. To the settlers from Old Earth, those natives—the Piurivars, they called themselves, but the Earthmen called them Shapeshifters or Metamorphs—did not seem important. Surely there was room among them on this vast planet for colonists from another world.

And so the colony was planted. Settlements sprouted and grew, first on the continent called Alhanroel, then on the wild secondary continent of Zimroel, and even some on the desert continent of Suvrael in the sun-blasted south. Life was easy on fertile Majipoor. In the kindly tropical and subtropical climates, the human population grew and grew and grew, and over the course of time other settlers from different worlds came, the reptilian Ghayrogs and the burly four-armed Skandars and the small many-tentacled Vroons, and others besides. What had become a population of thousands expanded to millions—to billions—

As their little towns grew into large cities and the cities into vast metropolises, the settlers felt the need of a worldwide governmental system. They devised one: a double monarchy, the Pontifex and the Coronal, an emperor and a king, with each Pontifex choosing his successor when his turn came to ascend to the senior title. The Pontifex reigned from a subterranean Labyrinth and rarely was seen by ordinary mortals. His younger colleague, the Coronal, was the public face of the monarchy, eventually coming to establish his court at a sprawling castle atop the colossal peak known as Castle Mount. Somehow the system worked, mostly.

The years passed. Thousands of years. A civilization of unique complexity evolved on Majipoor.

There were problems, of course—