A Time of Changes

Plot summary[edit]

Life in Velada Borthan is ruled by the Covenant, of which the most conspicuous trait is the denial of the self. Referring to oneself in the first person is forbidden. A selfbarer is someone who exposes his soul to others and as a result is ostracized.


The protagonist of the story is Kinnall Darival, a prince of the province of Salla, tormented by existential doubts and by his forbidden passion for his bondsister, Halum. (Bond siblings are an important institution of this society; though not biologically related, the incest taboo among them is as strong as among actual siblings). After his brother Stirron becomes Prime Septarch of Salla, Kinnall exiles himself to the neighboring province of Glin to avoid a direct clash with him. Following a more than cold reception in Glin, his monetary savings are sequestered by the Grand Treasurer of Salla, and he is declared an illegal alien, leaving him as a penniless fugitive. He finds a nice man who employs him for a year in a logging camp, but he is eventually recognized as the fugitive prince by a woman from Salla. On the road again, Kinnall takes shelter in Klaek, a miserable village in Glin, with a family of peasants. Longing for news from the "real world", Kinnall goes to Biumar and is engaged as a seaman on a merchant boat headed to the province of Manneran. Once there, he turns to his bondfather, Segvord, for a job which allows him an honest living in Manneran.


While becoming a powerful bureaucrat in Manneran, Kinnall marries Halum's look-alike and cousin Loimel - however, it turns out to be a loveless and unhappy relationship, as Loimel looks like Halum but has a different personality, and she could sense she is being used as a surrogate for somebody else.


Kinnall then meets the Earthman Schweiz with whom he begins to freely discuss his alienation from his own culture. Schweiz tells him about the wonderful drug available in the wild southern country of Sumara Borthan. Finally, both go to a country lodge and share the secret drug, causing their minds to become open to one another and creating a strong connection between them. Kinnall and Schweiz organize a small expedition to Sumara Borthan where they share the drug with the natives in a kind of social magic ritual.


Smuggling a large amount of the drug into Manneran, Kinnall starts to be the apostle of a new selfbaring cult, convincing many people to share the telepathic drug with him. Among them is his bondbrother Noim. Finally, betrayed and revealed, he seeks escape to Noim's estate in Salla. There he is visited by his beloved Halum, and they share the drug. She is so disturbed by the experience that she enters the pen of the voracious stormshields, who shred her to pieces. This is taken as evidence of drug being dangerous, and of Kinnall being a criminal for spreading it. Kinnall takes his last flight to the Burnt Lowlands where he ultimately is captured by the royal guards.


The book ends ambiguously. One possibility is that though Kinnal himself was executed or imprisoned for life, what he started developed into a widespread movement or cult, of which the book itself is in effect the Scriptures or basic document, and which eventually succeeded in overthrowing the established order. The other possibility is that all this was nothing more than a hallucination which Kinnal experienced under the influence of his drug, and that what he started ended with him. Both possibilities are left open—which evidently was Silverberg's deliberate intention.