Blue Adept

CHAPTER 10 - Red

“And so I sent him on his way to the Mound Folk,” Stile concluded. “I do not know what they want of him, and hope there is no evil.”

“The Elven Folk are not evil,” the Lady Blue agreed. “They, like us, must follow their destinies. Yet their ways be not ours.”

“Now must I seek mine own destiny, coming at last to brace mine enemy and thine. I must slay the Red Adept; so have I sworn and so must it be.”

“So must it be,” she agreed pensively. As always, she was garbed in blue, and as always she was compellingly lovely. They were in a private chamber of the Blue Castle. Neysa was absent temporarily, seeing to the security of Clef on his trek to the Mound Folk. Kurrelgyre’s wolves ranged the vicinity, keeping an eye on whatever went on. There had been no move against the Blue Demesnes. “I know what this means to thee, this vengeance,” the Lady said. “And fain would I see my Lord avenged: I am no gentler than thee. Yet I mislike it. There is aught thou knowest not.”

“I hope we are not going to have another scene,” Stile said uneasily. “Dearly would I like thy favor, as thou knowest, but I shall not be swayed from—“

“Methinks we shall have a scene,” she said. “But not quite like the last. Shamed am I to have tested thee as I did. I agreed to support thine effort, and I shall not renege. I like not playing the role of the contrary advocate. But now I must inform thee of misinformation thou hast.”

“It is not the Red Adept who is mine enemy?” Stile asked, suddenly alarmed.

“Forget the Red Adept for the moment!” she snapped. “This relates to us.”

“Have I offended thee in some fashion? I apologize; there remain social conventions in this frame I do not—“

“Apologize not to me!” she cried. “It is I who have wronged thee!”

Stile shook his head. “I doubt thou’rt capable of that, Lady.”

“Listen to me!” she said, her blue eyes flashing in the way they had, momentarily brightening the curtains. “I have to tell thee—“ She took a breath. “That never till thou didst come on the scene was I a liar.”

Stile had not been taking this matter too seriously. Now he did. “Thou knowest I do not tolerate a lie in these Demesnes. I am in this respect the mirror of mine other self. Why shouldst thou lie to me? What cause have I given thee?”

The Lady Blue was obviously in difficulty. “Because I lied first to myself,” she whispered. “I denied what I wished not to perceive.” Now tears showed in her eyes. Stile wanted to comfort her, to hold her, but held him-self rigidly apart. She was not his to hold, whatever she might have done. Yet he recalled his own recent reluctance to recognize Clef as the one destined to receive the Flute, and knew how the Lady might similarly resist some noxious revelation. This was not necessarily the sort of lie he could completely condemn.

“Lady, I must know. What is the lie?” Once before a woman had lied to him, in kindness rather than malice, and that had cost him heartbreak and had changed his life. He could not even blame her, in retrospect, for from that experience had come his affinity with music. Yet the Lady Blue was more than that serf-girl had been, and her lie might wreak greater havoc. He knew she could not have done such a thing lightly.

She stood and faced away from him, ashamed. “When I said—when I told thee—“ She was unable to continue. Stile remembered now how Sheen had at first tried to deceive him about her nature. He had forced the issue, and regretted it. Associations relating to Sheen had led him to this world of Phaze, making another phenomenal change in his life.

Somehow it seemed that the greatest crises of his existence had been tied in to the lies of women. “Thou’rt so like my Lord!” the Lady Blue burst out, her shoulders shaking.

Stile smiled grimly. “By no coincidence. Lady.” He thought of how similar her alternate self in Proton, Bluette, was to her. Had Bluette escaped the robot? He hardly dared check on that. Bluette dead would be a horror to his conscience; Bluette alive—how could he deal with her, he for whom the trap had been set?

“When I said—“ The Lady Blue paused again, then forced it out. “I loved thee not.”

Stile felt as he had when declared the winner of the harmonica contest. Was he mishearing, indulging in a wish fulfillment? “Thou dost love thy Lord the real Blue Adept, whose likeness I bear. This have I always under-stood.”

“Thee,” she said. “Thee ... Thee.”

She had told him of that convention of love—but even if she had not done so, he would have understood. There was a ripple in the air and in the curtains of the window, and a tiny brush of wind touched his hair in passing. For a moment there was a blueness in the room. Then the effects faded, and all was as before.

Except for the lie, now demolished. For this was the splash the world of Fhaze made in the presence of deep truth. She had confessed her love—for him. Stile found himself inadequate to rise to the occasion in any fashion. He had been so sure that the Lady’s love, if it ever came, would be years in the making! There was an obvious rejoinder for him to make, but he found himself unable.

The Lady, her statement made, now began her documentation. “When thou didst prove thine identity by performing magic, and I saw the animals’ loyalty to thee, it was my heart under siege. I thought thou wouldst be either like the golem, all wood and lifeless and detestable, or that thou wouldst use thy magic as the Yellow Witch suggested, to force my will to thy design.”

“Nay, never that!” Stile protested. “Thou’rt thy Lord’s widow!”

“Always didst thou safeguard me, with Hulk or Neysa or the wolves or some potion. Even as my Lord did.”

“But of course! The Lady of the Blue Demesnes must ever be protected!”

“Wilt thou be quiet a moment!” she flared. “I am trying to tell thee why I love thee. The least thou canst do is listen.”

Stile, perforce, was silent.

“Three things distinguished my Lord,” she continued after a moment. “He was the finest rider in Phaze—and so art thou. He was the strongest Adept—and so art thou. And he was of absolute integrity—as so art thou. No way can I claim thou art his inferior. In fact—long have I fought against the realization, but no more shall I lie—thou art in certain respects his superior.”

“Lady—“

“Damn me not with thy modesty!” she cried fiercely, and Stile was suppressed again.

“Never did he actually ride a unicorn,” she continued. “Never did he enchant an entire assembly into friendship with one. Never did he win the active loyalty of the wolf-pack. I think he could have done these things, had he chosen, but he chose not. And so he was less than thee, because he exerted himself less. Always had he his magic to lean on; mayhap it made him drive less hard. Thou—thou art what he could have been. And I—I love what he could have been.”

Stile started one more protest, and once more she blocked him with a savage look. “When thou sworest friendship to Neysa, such was the power of that oath that its backwash enchanted us all. Thy magic compelled me—and I knew in that moment that never more could I stand against thee. The emotion thou didst feel for the unicorn became my emotion, and it has abided since, and I would not choose to be rid of it if I could. Always will Neysa be my friend, and I would lay down my life for her, and my honor too. Yet I know it was no quality in her that evoked this loyalty in me, though she has qualities that do deserve it. It was thy spell, like none before in this world. I love Neysa, and Neysa loves thee, and through her I too must love thee—“ Yet again Stile tried to interrupt, and yet again could not.

“I tell thee this to show that I know the extent to which thy magic has acted on me—and thus am assured it does not account for the fullness of my feeling. I love thee in part because I have experienced the depth of thy love for Neysa, and hard it is to deny feeling of that sincerity. Thou lovest well. Adept, and thereby thou dost become lovable thyself. But I do love thee more than I can blame on magic.”

She paused, and this time Stile had the wit not to interrupt her. “When thou didst take me along on thy trip to the Mound Folk,” she continued, “and the Sidhe toyed with us, and thou didst dance with the Faerie-maid, then did I suffer pangs of jealousy. Then when thou didst dance with me, as my Lord used to do—“ She broke off and walked around the room.

“Ever was I a fool. I thought I could withstand thy appeal. But when I heard thee play the magic Flute—0 my Lord, that sound!—not since the days of mine other courtship have I heard the like! But then thou didst go to fight the Worm, and I cursed myself for my callousness to thee, swearing to make it up to thee an I should ever see thee again alive—and yet I hardened again when thou didst survive, telling myself it could not be. The lie was on me, and I could not cast it off. Then at the Unolympics when thou didst so readily defend me against the seeming slur of Yellow—alas, I am woman, I am weak, my heart swelled with gratitude and guilt. And I could not help myself, I had to hear thee play again, and so I betrayed thy possession of the Flute to Yellow. And saw thee nearly killed by the Herd Stallion. Yet again had I played the fool, even as Yellow knew. And then at last, when thou didst come to me suffering from thy loss of thy Game and of thy friend Hulk—I longed to comfort thee with all my being, but the lie lay between us like a festering corpse, making foul what would have been fair, adding to thy grief, making of me a fishwife—and yet in that adversity didst thou steer thy narrow course exactly as he would have done, and I knew that I was lost. And I feared that thou wouldst die before ever I had chance to beg the forgiveness I deserved not—“

“I forgive thee that lie!” Stile cried, and again the air shimmered and the things of the room rippled and the breath of breeze shook out her tresses. Now again she faced away from him, as though ashamed of what she had to say.

“I was a girlish fool when first the Blue Adept courted me. Somehow I took him not seriously, for that he resembled to my ignorant eye a child or one of the Little Folk. Even when I married him I withheld somewhat my love from him. When I learned of the geas against his siring a child by me, I mourned more for the lack of the child than for my Lord’s deprival. For years I dallied, and only slowly did I learn to love him truly—and only when he died did I realize how deep that love had grown. Fool I was; I loved him not with abandon until he was gone. I swore, once it was too late, never to be that kind of fool again. Yet was I trying to be that kind of fool with thee, even as I was with him. Now thou dost go yet again perhaps to thy doom, and I will deceive my-self or thee no longer. An thou must die, thou must suffer my love first. And that is the scene we must have.”

Now at last she gave him leave to speak unfettered. Stile could not doubt her sincerity. He loved her, of course; they had both known that all along. Yet he was not sure he wanted her love this way. “How did he die?” he asked. If this question struck her as irrelevant, she did not treat it so. “The golem in thy likeness walked to the Blue Castle during my Lord’s absence. At first I thought it was Blue, but very soon knew I better.

*I bring an amulet for Blue,’ the golem said, and gave me a little demon on a chain, the kind employed by frame-travelers to mock clothing when they have none.

“I encountered one of those!” Stile exclaimed. “When I invoked it, it tried to choke me with the chain!”

“Even so,” she agreed grimly. “All innocently did I relay it to my Lord, who took it for a message-amulet, perhaps an exchange for some favor. I begged him to invoke it with caution, lest there be some error, but he heeded me not. He put the chain about his neck and invoked it—“ She was unable to continue.

“And it strangled him so that he could utter no spell in self-defense,” Stile concluded. “He depended on magic to foil magic, and this time could not. Had he used physical means—“

“I could not heal a dead man,” the Lady sobbed. “Nor could I let it be known he was lost, lest the Demesnes suffer. The golem took his place, the hateful thing, and I had to cooperate—“ So nothing further was known about the motive for the murder. The Red Adept had dealt with the Brown Adept to obtain the golem, and used it without Brown’s knowledge for evil. Perhaps she had even been responsible for the original Brown’s death, to prevent him from interfering, leaving the innocent child as the new Brown Adept. The golem itself had not committed the murder of Blue; it had not been made for that. Probably Brown had been told it would serve as a double for Blue when the latter was indisposed to expose himself to public scrutiny, or when he wished to conceal his absence from the Castle. Exactly as the robot in Stile’s likeness had served in the frame of Proton.

“This curse of infertility—what of it?”

“After I married Blue, I went to the Oracle to inquire what kind of children I would have, wasting my lone question in girlish curiosity. The Oracle replied ‘None by One, Son by Two.’ I understood that not until my Lord died: that I would bear children not by my first husband. Oh, I grasped it in part, but did not realize that it was not truly a geas against fertility, but that he would die too soon. I thought he was cursed by sterility—“ Again she broke down, but almost immediately fought out of it. “Thou art my second husband—and before thou dost suicide in this awful mission of vengeance, thou must give me that son!” she concluded with determination.

“My son shall not be raised by a widow!” Stile said.

The Lady turned at last to face him. “I love thee. I have at last confessed it. Shame me not further by this denial. I must have at least this much of thee.”

But already Stile’s mind was working. He loved the Lady Blue, but this sudden force of her return love was too much for his immediate assimilation. He would be ready for it after due reflection; but now, this instant, it was too much like a windfall gift. He somehow feared it would be taken from him as rapidly as it had been bequeathed, and he wanted to protect himself against such loss before getting committed. Love did not make Stile blind; he had learned caution the hard way. So now he looked for the catch. He did not doubt the Lady’s sincerity, or question her desirability; he simply didn’t trust the magic vicissitudes of fate.

“The Oracle always speaks correctly.”

“Aye.” She looked at him questioningly. He was not reacting as her experience of him in two selves had led her to expect.

“Then I will not die until I have given thee thy son. Allow me to wait until I have disposed of the Red Adept, that I may have child and life with thee.”

Her lovely face was transformed by realization. “Yes! Thou must survive! There be no guarantee that thou mayest live one day after thou dost sire a child, unless the threat to thy life be abated before.”

That seemed to be the trap fate had set, the thing that would have made their union brief. Not her change of heart, but his death. Stile’s pause for thought could have saved his life.

But then the Lady Blue thought of something else. “Except that thou art not married to me. If thou dost desist, it may be fated that some other man—loathe the thought!-—will marry me and sire my son. It must be thee, I will not have it otherwise, and therefore—“ How fate wriggled to snare him anyway! Stile had almost missed that loophole.

“That is readily solved,” he said. He took her hands in his. “Lady of the Blue Demesnes, I beg thy hand in marriage.”

“Thou dost not say thou lovest me,” she complained.

“In good time.”

She fought him no longer. “I grant my hand and my heart to thee in marriage,” she agreed, radiant. They went outside. Neysa had returned from her mission, somehow knowing what was in the offing. “My friend,” he said to the unicorn. “I have proposed marriage to the Lady, and she has accepted my suit. Wilt thou be witness to this union?”

Neysa blew a single loud note on her horn. Immediately the wolfpack gathered, the werewolves charging in from all directions. Kurrelgyre changed to man-form. “The mare informs us thou hast won the Lady at last!” he exclaimed. “Congratulations!”

Stile marveled again at how much a unicorn could convey in one note. Then the wolves formed a circle, and Kurrelgyre stood before the couple, and Neysa stood between them in her natural form. There was no doubt in any creature what was happening. “By the authority vested in me as leader of the Pack, I perform this ceremony of mating,” Kurrelgyre said. “Neysa, as friend to each party, dost thou bear witness that this contract be freely sought by this man and this bitch?”

Neysa made a musical snicker.

“This mare—I mean, this woman,” the werewolf said quickly, finally getting it straight. The Lady Blue smiled; well she knew that the appellation “bitch” was no affront in the mouth of a wolf.

Now Neysa blew an affirmative note.

“Wolves and bitches of my pack, do you bear witness to the validity of this contract?” Kurrelgyre inquired rhetorically.

There was a general growl of assent, admixed by a yip or two of excitement. They were enjoying this. “Then I now proclaim the two of you man and mate. Wife,” Kurrelgyre said solemnly. Neysa stepped out from between them.

Stile and the Lady came together. Stile held her at half-distance one more moment. She remained in her blue dress, ordinary daywear, but she was the loveliest creature he could imagine. “Thee . . . Thee . . . Thee,” he said. Then he kissed her.

The shimmer of the oath surrounded them, stirring the Demesnes and touching the fur of the animals and momentarily coloring the grass. For a sweet eternity he embraced her, and when it ended she was in a light blue wedding dress, and a magic sparkle emanated from her.

“Now must I depart to brace the Red Adept,” Stile announced as they separated.

Astonishment was manifest among Neysa and all the wolves. There were growls and yips of confusion, and Ney-sa blew a volley of startled notes. “Not right at this hour!”

Kurrelgyre protested. “Tomorrow, mayhap—“

“Right this minute,” Stile said, vaulting to Neysa’s back.

“I shall see thee anon, wife.”

“Anon,” she agreed, smiling.

Neysa, responsive to his unspoken directive, set off at a canter eastward, toward the Red Demesnes. When they were well clear of the Castle, Neysa blew an insistent note of query. Stile laughed. “Since thou wilt have it from me at the point of thy horn if I tell thee not, I will answer. The Oracle told the Lady ‘None by One, Son by Two.’ Now I be Two, her second husband, and—“ Neysa’s laughter pealed musically forth. How readily she understood! How many Adepts could arrange the Oracle’s assurance that they would survive a life-and-death encounter to sire a son? Stile had cleverly made the prophecy work for him.

As they settled into the hours of travel. Stile concentrated on his spells. He needed a variety of general-purpose defenses and counters. He should survive this encounter, but he had no guarantee that he would win it. He could emerge crippled or blind, able to sire a son but then unable to live in health and independence. Oracle prophecies tended to be slippery, and he had to be on guard against some loophole he had not anticipated. Yet he understood why such predictions were often devious. A person fated to die at a certain place at a certain time would strive to avoid that situation if he could, so the prophecy would be self-negating if clearly stated. Absolute clarity and hundred percent accuracy could not always be simultaneously accommodated, by the very nature of it. Also, there could be a certain flexibility in a situation; a man could die in a dozen different ways, or survive at an expense worse than death. The Oracle had to make a brief statement that covered all prospects, and that was often necessarily ambiguous. So Stile fully intended to fight for the best possible interpretation of this particular prediction. The Oracle had not truly pronounced his fate; it had merely defined the broadest parameters. Interpretation was the essence of his specific fate.

Send this spell straight to Hell, he thought, careful not to vocalize. Would that work against an amulet? It should, if he willed it properly. As he understood it, from his limited experience, an amulet was a solidified spell, quiescent until invoked. Some, like the healing or clothing amulets, worked on a slow, sustained basis. Others, like the throttle-demon, took a few seconds to achieve full strength. Just so long as he had time enough to sing a prepared counterspell.

Maybe he could work out a number of easy variants that would lack full force but would suffice in a pinch. Send this spell into a dell, make this spell into a smell, make this spell fail to jell, banish this spell when I yell—all doggerel, but that was the way his magic worked. What he considered real poetry, where form, style and significance were more important than rhyme or meter, took time to create, and he was not sure how much time he would have. There 2was some evidence that better verse had more potent effect, for he deemed his verse-form oath of friendship to Neysa to have been a cut above doggerel—but he hardly had need of such potency in routine magic. So he kept working out his cheap spot rhymes, hoping to cover every contingency. They passed the Unolympic site, now deserted. “Thou didst put on a fine show, Neysa,” Stile murmured. “Thou didst do credit to thy Herd.” And she snorted contentedly. Winning was less important to her than recognition of her right to compete.

They were nearing the Red Demesnes by nightfall. Stile considered where they might camp, since he did not want to engage his enemy by night. There were too many imponderables. He could conjure a suitable shelter, but hesitated to employ his magic here. The Red Adept might be alert to magic in the vicinity, and he wanted his arrival to be as much of a surprise as possible.

But Neysa was already zeroing in on a location. She drew up before a large cave and blew a note. Bats sailed out of it to swirl around the visitors. Then they dropped to the ground and converted to men and women. “The vampires!” Stile exclaimed. “I didn’t realize they lived here!” But obviously Neysa had known; that was another reason he needed her along.

One came forward. It was Vodlevile, the one who had come to Stile during the Unolympics. “Adept! How goes my friend Hulk?”

Wrong question! “Alas, he was murdered in Proton-frame,” Stile said. “I seek vengeance of the Red Adept.”

“Dead?” the vampire asked, shocked. “But I met him only so recently! He was the nicest ogre I knew!”

“He was that,” Stile agreed. “Red killed him, in lieu of me.”

Vodlevile frowned. Now the cutting edges of his teeth showed. “We have ever lived at peace with Red. She never helped us, but hindered us not. I dared not make petition to her for a charm for my son, for fear she would simply claim my son. We hold Adepts in low esteem. Thou art the first who helped. And Yellow, because of thee.” He lifted his hand, and a small bat fluttered down to be caught. “My son,” Vodlevile said proudly.

Stile nodded. “I was glad to do it. May we camp here the night?”

“Indeed. Our resources are at thy disposal. Dost thou wish to join our evening repast?”

“I think not, meaning no offense. Thy ways are not mine, and this is my wedding night, which I must spend alone. Also, I would not wish to cause thy kind trouble with the Adept, should she survive me; best that it be not known I dallied here.”

“Thy wedding night—alone! Thou’rt correct—our ways are not thine! We shall honor thy desire to be alone, and shall see that none intrude on thee.”

So it was that Stile found himself ensconced in a warm cave guarded by bloodthirsty bats. He certainly felt secure here; very few creatures would even attempt to intrude, for fear the vampires would suck their blood. Neysa brought him some fruit she found, then went outside to graze. She slept while grazing at night; Stile had never quite figured out how she did that, but was used to it by now.

Before he slept, feeling extraordinarily lonely. Stile looked up to spy a small bat fluttering in. There was a manner of skulking about it. It converted to a lad about six years old. “Adept, I am not supposed to bother thee—but can I talk a moment?” the boy asked hesitantly.

“Thou’rt the one the potion helped,” Stile said, making an educated guess. “Welcome; I am glad to converse with thee.”

The lad smiled gratefully. “My father would cut off my blood, if he knew I bothered thee. Please don’t tell him.”

“Not a word,” Stile agreed. Children did not take adult rules as seriously as they took the prospect of punishment. “I’m glad to see thee flying.”

“It was Yellow’s potion, but thy behest, my father says. I owe thee—“

“Nothing,” Stile said quickly. “Thy father repaid any favor that might have been owing. He helped me match the unicorn Herd Stallion.”

“Yet thou didst lose, he says,” the lad insisted. “His help was not enough.”

“My skill was not enough,” Stile said. “All I wanted was a fair match, with shame on neither party. That I had. The unicorn was the better creature.”

The lad had some trouble grasping this. “In a pig’s eye—my father says. He says thou dost give away more than can ever be repaid, and dost gain more than can ever be reckoned thereby. Does that make sense?”

“None at all,” Stile said cheerfully.

“Anyway, methinks I owe thee, for that thou madest my life complete. Yet I know not what favor I can do thee.”

“Thou dost need do none!” Stile insisted. Then he saw that the lad was near tears. The vampire child was serious, and wanted to repay his debt as he perceived it.

“Uh, unless—“ Stile thought fast. “There is much I do not know, yet I am most curious about things. Canst thou keep an eye or an ear out for what might be of use to me, and tell me when thou findest it? Perhaps a sick animal I might heal, or something pretty I might fetch for my Lady.” Stile smiled reminiscently, and a little sadly. “Fain would I give my love something nice.”

The lad’s eyes brightened, and his little bloodsucking tusks showed cutely. “I’ll look, Adept!” he exclaimed happily. “Something important, something nice!” He changed to bat-form and zoomed from the cave.

Stile lay down again to sleep, satisfied. The lad would have a happy quest, until he forgot the matter in the press of other entertainments.

In the morning Stile bade the vampire colony parting.

“Thou dost understand,” Vodlevile said apologetically. “We dare not accompany thee to the Red Demesnes or help thee too directly on thy quest. If ever the Adept supposed we had taken action against her—“

“Well I understand,” Stile said. “This be not thy quarrel.”

“Not overtly. Yet when I remember the ogre—“

“Bide a while,” Stile said. “That may be avenged.” Vodlevile looked startled, but said nothing. Stile mounted Neysa, who was well fed and rested after her night of sleep-grazing, and they trotted off south to the Red Demesnes.

The Red Castle looked more like a crazy house. It perched atop a miniature mountain, with a narrow path spiraling up to the tiny hole that was the front entrance. It was obviously the home of an Adept; a faint glow surrounded it, like a dome of Proton.

A magic dome? Of course! This castle was probably situated on the curtain, so the Adept could pass freely across, unobserved, to do her mischief in either frame. That would explain much. The Blue Demesnes had not been constructed on the curtain because the Blue Adept had not been able to cross it.

They circled around the castle. It was so; Stile spied the curtain. Just to be certain, he spelled himself across. Sure enough, it was the same castle, with the force-field dome enclosing it. He willed himself back. “This is a sophisticated setup,” he told Neysa. “She’s been operating in both frames for years.”

The unicorn snorted. She did not like this. Neysa could not cross the curtain, probably because she was a magical creature, so could not protect him in the other frame. “All right,” Stile said. “She killed me by stealth. I shall kill her honorably.” He singsonged a spell: “Shake a leg, fetch a meg.” And a fine big megaphone appeared in his hand. It was not artificially powered, for that was no part of magic, but he was sure it would do the job. But first a precaution: “Sword and mail: Do not fail.” And he was clothed in fine light woven metal armor, with a small sharp steel sword swinging in its scabbard from his hip. The Platinum Flute would have been nice, but that was gone. An ordinary weapon would have to do. He raised the megaphone. “Red, meet the challenge of Blue.” The sound boomed out; it could hardly go unheard. There was no response from the Red Demesnes. Stile bellowed another challenge, and a third, but had no visible effect.

“Then we brace to meet the lioness in her den,” Stile said, not really surprised. The worst traps would be there. Neysa did not seem thrilled, but she marched gamely forward. It occurred to Stile that he might need more than armor to protect Neysa and himself. Suppose monsters hurled rocks or spears from ambush? He needed to block off any nonmagical attack. “Missiles spend their force,” he sang. “Return to their source.” That should stop that sort of thing. He wasn’t sure how far such spells extended, particularly when opposed by other Adept magic, but this precaution couldn’t hurt. The spells of Red could not be abated this way—but that was limited to amulets. He should have a fair fighting chance—and that was all he wanted. A fair match—so that he could kill the Red Adept without compunction.

Neysa walked up the spiraling path. There was no at-tack. Stile felt nervous; he really would have preferred some kind of resistance. This could mean that no one was home—but it could also mean an unsprung trap. A trap—like that of Bluette, in the other frame? Bluette herself had obviously known nothing of it; she had been cruelly used. Stile hoped she had managed to survive, though he knew he still would not follow that up; now that he was married to the Lady Blue, there could be no future in any association with Bluette. Meanwhile, his rage at the fate of Hulk burgeoned again, and Stile had to labor to suppress it. Hulk, a truly innocent party, sent by Stile himself to his doom. How could that wrong ever be abated?

There were a number of deep emotional wounds Stile bore as a result of the malicious mischief of the Red Adept; he could not afford to let them overwhelm them. His oath of vengeance covered it all. Once Red was dead, he could let the tide of buried grief encompass him. He simply could not afford grief—or love—yet. Not while this business was unfinished.

They rose up high as they completed the first loop. From a distance the castle had seemed small, but here it seemed extraordinarily high. The ground was thirty feet below, the building another sixty feet above. Magic, perhaps, either making the hill seem smaller than it was, when viewed from a distance, or making it seem higher than it was, from here.

Stile brought out his harmonica and began to play. The magic coalesced about him, making the castle shimmer—and the perspective changed. His gathering magic was canceling Red’s magic, revealing the truth—which was that the castle was larger than it had seemed, but the hill lower 2 than it now seemed. So it was a compromise effort, drawing from one appearance to enhance the other. Pretty clever, actually; the Adept evidently had some artistic sensitivity and sense of economy.

Now they arrived at the door. It was open, arched, and garishly colorful, like an arcade entrance. From inside music issued, somewhat blurred and off-key. It clashed with Stile’s harmonica-playing, but he did not desist. Until he understood what was going on here, he wanted his magic close about him.

They stepped inside. Immediately the music became louder and more raucous. Booths came alive at the sides, apparently staffed by golems, each one calling for attention. “How about it, mister? Try thy luck, win a prize. Everybody wins!”

This was the home of an Adept? This chaotic carnival?

Stile should have worn his clown-suit!

Cautiously he approached the nearest booth. The golem-proprietor was eager to oblige. “Throw a ball, hit the target, win a prize! It’s easy!”

Neysa snorted. She did not trust this. Yet Stile was curious about the meaning of this setup, if there was any meaning to it. He certainly had not expected anything like this! He had become proficient in the Game of Proton in large part because of his curiosity. Things generally did make sense, one way or another; it was only necessary to fathom that sense. Now this empty carnival in lieu of the murdering Red Adept—what did it mean? What was the thread that unraveled it?

This was, of course, dangerous, but he decided to take the bait. If he couldn’t figure out the nature of this trap by looking at it, he might just have to spring it—at his own convenience. He could certainly hit the target with the ball; he was quite good at this sort of thing. But true carnival games were traditionally rigged; the clients were suckers who wasted their money trying for supposedly easy prizes of little actual value. In the Proton variants, serfs had to use play-money, since there was no real money. Here—

“How much does it cost?”

“Free, free!” the android—rather, the golem—cried.

“Everybody wins!”

“Fat chance,” Stile muttered. He did not dismount from Neysa; that might be part of the trap. He took the proffered ball gingerly, bracing for magic, but there was none. The ball seemed ordinary.

Experimentally, Stile threw. The ball shot across to strike the bull’s-eye. The booth went wild, with horns sounding so loudly as to drown out everything else. A metal disk dropped out of a slot. The golem picked it up and handed it to Stile. “Here’s the prize, sir! Good shot!” Stile hesitated. He had been aiming to miss the target; instead magic had guided the ball to score. Anyone else would have been deceived, thinking it was his own skill responsible. The golem had spoken truly: everybody won. The game was rigged for it. But why?

Stile looked at the disk. It was an amulet, obviously. He was being presented with it. Yet all this could not have been set up for him alone; he had come unexpectedly—and even it he had been expected, this was too elaborate. Why would visitors be treated to this?

He had an answer: the Red Adept, like most Adepts, was fundamentally paranoid and asocial, and did not like visitors. Power was said to tend to corrupt, and the Adepts had power—and tended to be corrupted. Since they had to live somewhere, they established individual Demesnes reasonably separated from each other, then guarded these Demesnes in whatever fashion their perverse natures dictated. Yet they could not kill intruders entirely randomly, for some were legitimate tradesmen with necessary services to offer, and others might be the representatives of formidable groups, like the unicorns or Little People. Sometimes, too, Adepts visited each other. So instead of random killing, they fashioned selective discouragements. The Black Adept had his puzzle-walls, so that few could find their way in or out of the labyrinth; the White Adept had her ice, and the Brown Adept her giant golems. Probably a serious visitor would ignore the beckonings of the barkers and booths. Those who were ignorant or greedy would fall into the trap. This amulet was surely a potent discouragement, perhaps a lethal one. It was best left alone.

But Stile was ornery about things like this. He was curious—and he wanted to conquer the Red Adept, magic and all. If he couldn’t handle one amulet, how could he handle the maker of amulets? So he sprang the trap. “Amulet, I invoke thee,” he said, ready for anything—he hoped. The disk shimmered and began to grow. Projections sprang from it, extending out and curving toward him. A metallic mouth formed in the center, with gleaming Halloween-pumpkin teeth. The projection arms sought to grasp him, while the mouth gaped hungrily. Of course his armor and protective spell should be proof against this, but there was no sense taking a chance. “Send this spell straight to Hell,” Stile sang, using the first of his prefabricated spells.

It worked. The expanding amulet vanished in a puff of smoke. His own magic remained operative here, as he had expected. He had now dipped his toe in the water. He nudged Neysa with his knees, and she walked on down the center aisle. They ignored the clamoring of the golems; there was nothing useful to be gained from them. The domicile seemed much larger from the inside, but there was not extensive floor space. Soon they were at the far side, looking out the back door. Where was the Red Adept?

“On another floor,” Stile muttered. “So do we play hide and seek—or do I summon her with magic?” Neysa blew a note. Stile could understand some of her notes. “You’re right,” he agreed. “Use magic to locate her, quietly.” He considered a moment. “Lead us to Red—where she has fled,” he sang.

A speck of light appeared before them. Neysa stepped toward it, and it retreated, circled around them, and headed back down the aisle they had come along. They followed. It made a square turn and advanced on one of the booths.

“Tour the sensational house of horrors!” the proprietor-golem called.

The light moved into the horror house doorway. The aperture was narrow, too tight for Neysa’s bulk. But they solved that readily enough; Stile dismounted, and she changed into girl-form in black denim skirt and white slippers. She was not going to let him meet the Red Adept alone.

Stile stepped into the aperture, Neysa close behind. He didn’t like this, for already he was partially separated from Neysa, but it seemed his best course. Trace the Red Adept quickly to her lair-within-this-Iair; maybe she was asleep. If so, he would wake her before finishing her. More likely she was at the very heart of her deadliest ambush, using herself as the bait he had to take. But he had to spring it—and he had to do it properly. Because it wasn’t enough to kill the Adept; he had to isolate her, strip her of her power, and find out why she had murdered his other self. He had to know the rationale. Only when he was satisfied, could he wrap it up.

The difficult part would not be the killing of her. Not after what he had seen of Hulk’s demise. The hard part would be satisfying himself about that rationale. Getting the complete truth. Or was he fooling himself? Stile had never, before this sequence of events that started with the anonymous campaigns against him in both frames, seriously contemplated becoming a murderer himself. But the things that he had learned—

It was dark inside the horror house. The passage folded back and forth in the fashion such things did; Stile had navigated many similar ones in the Game. Darkness did not bother him, per se. Neysa, too, could handle it, especially since her hearing was more acute than his. The light led them on through the labyrinth. A spook popped up, eyes glowing evilly: a harmless show. But it made Stile think of another kind of danger: the noose, choking him, preventing him from singing a defensive spell. That was how his other self had died. That was typical of the way the Red Adept attacked. One of these spooks could be a noose, that he would not see in the dark until it dropped over his head. He needed a specific defense against it. “Turn me loose against a noose,” he sang quietly.

A collar formed about his neck, a strong ring with sharp vertical ridges that would cut into any rope that tightened about it. Proof against a noose.

The maze-passage opened onto a narrow staircase leading up. Dim illumination came from each step, like phosphorescence, outlining its edge. A thoughtful aid from Pro-ton practice, so children would not trip and fall. Stile stepped out on the first step—and as his weight came on it, it slid down to floor level, like a downward-moving escalator. He tried again, and again the stair countered him. There did not have to be anything magical about this; it could be mounted on rollers. It could not be climbed. Yet the glow of light he had conjured to show the way was moving blithely up the stairway; that was where the Red Adept was.

“I think I’ll have to use magic again,” Stile said. He oriented on the stair and sang: “All this stair, motion for-swear.” Then he put his foot on the lowest step again. The step did not slide down. It buckled a bit, as if trying to move, but was fixed in place. Stile walked on up, each step writhing under his tread with increasing vigor, but none of the steps could slide down.

Then one step bit his foot. Stile looked down and discovered that the step had opened a toothy mouth and was masticating his boot. It was in fact a demon, compressed into step-form, and now it was resuming its natural shape. Stile had not had this sort of motion in mind when fashioning his spell, so it had not been covered. Neysa exclaimed behind him. She, too, was being at-tacked. All the steps were demons—and Stile and Neysa were caught in the center. The trap had sprung at last. Hastily Stile tried to formulate a spell—but this was hard to do with the distraction of his feet getting chewed. Neysa changed into firefly form and hovered safely out of reach of the demons. “Send this spell straight to Hell!” he sang.

Nothing significant happened. Of course not; he had already used that spell. He needed a variant. “Send this smell—ouch!” The teeth were beginning to penetrate, as the demons grew steadily stronger. “Put this spell—in a shell!” he sang desperately.

The shell formed, pretty and white and corrugated like the clamshell he had in his haste visualized, enclosing all the demons—and Stile and Neysa too. He had not helped himself at all.

Neysa came to the rescue. She shifted to unicorn-form. There was barely room for her on the stairway, but her hooves were to a certain extent proof against the teeth of the demons. She sucked in her barrel-belly somewhat, giving herself scant clearance, and blew a note of invitation to Stile.

Gratefully he vaulted back onto her back. Neysa did a dance, her four hooves smashing at the teeth below. Now it was the demons who exclaimed in pain; they did not like this at all.

Neysa moved on up until she reached the top landing, bursting through the shell he had made. Bits of the shell flew down to mix with the bits of teeth littering the stair. Stile dismounted and stood looking back. “Something I don’t quite understand here,” he murmured as the demons at last achieved their full natural forms, but were unable to travel because of his spell. “If she has demons, why did she hide them there instead of sending them after me? Why did they come to life when they did, instead of when I first touched them? There’s a key here—“ Neysa changed back to girl-form, which really was more comfortable in these narrow confines. “Amulets must be invoked,” she reminded him. One thing about Neysa: she never chided him for the time he took to work things out his own way. Whatever he did, she helped. She was in many respects the ideal woman, though she was really a mare.

“Ah, yes.” Amulets were quiescent until animated by the minor magic of a verbal command. So these step-demon-amulets had waited for that magic. But he had not invoked them. He had merely fixed them in place. Unless it was not the words, but any magic directed at the amulet that accomplished the invoking. So when he cast his spell of stability—yes.

But this meant he would have to be careful how he used his magic here. No amulet could hurt him unless he invoked it—but he could accidentally invoke quite a few. Any that were within range when he made a spell. In fact—suddenly a great deal was coming clear!—this could explain the whole business of this carnival-castle. If it was defended by amulets that had to be invoked by the 2 intruders, these amulets would be useless unless something caused them to be activated. So—they were presented as prizes, that greedy people would naturally invoke. Because an amulet was just a bit of metal until it was invoked, worth little. When the golem-barkers claimed that “every-body wins” that was exactly what they meant. Or, more properly, everybody lost, since the amulets were attackers. Stile had acted as projected—and had he not been Adept himself, and on guard, he could have been in serious trouble from that first “prize.”

But these steps had not been prizes. They were a defense against magic—and that, too, had been pretty effective. So he was really making progress because he was passing from the random traps to the serious ones. The steps, that would not remain firm without a spell that converted them to demons...

Could it be that the Red Adept herself could not invoke her amulets—or that they would attack her if she did? Like bombs that destroyed whoever set them off? So that the intruder had to be forced to bring his doom upon himself? If so, and if he resolutely refrained from invoking amulets either by word or by the practice of magic, he should have the advantage over—

Advantage? Magic was his prime weapon! If he couldn’t use that, how could he prevail?

A very neat trap, to deprive him of his chief power! But unlike his alternate self. Stile had had a lifetime to develop his nonmagic skills. He could compete very well without magic. So if his refusal to invoke the hostile amulets limited him, it also limited his enemy, and he had the net advantage. This was a ploy by the Red Adept that was about to backfire.

“I think I have it straight,” Stile told Neysa. “Any magic invokes the amulets—but they can’t affect me if I don’t invoke them. So we’ll fight this out Proton-fashion. It may take some ingenuity to get past the hurdles, but it will be worth it.”

Neysa snorted dubiously, but made no overt objection. The passage narrowed as it wended its way into a hall of minors. Stile almost walked into the first one, as it was angled at forty-five degrees to make a right-angle turn look like straight-ahead. But Neysa, somehow more sensitive to this sort of thing than he, held him back momentarily, until he caught on. After that he was alert to the mirrors, and passed them safely.

Some were distorting reflectors, making him look huge-headed and huge-footed, like a goblin, and Neysa like a grotesque doll. Then the mirrors reversed, making both resemble blown-up balloons. Then—

Stile found himself falling. Intent on the mirror before him, he had not realized that one square of the floor was absent. A simple trick, that he had literally fallen for. He reacted in two ways, both bad: first, to grab for the sides, which were too slick to hold, and second to cry a spell:

“Fly high!”

This stopped his fall and started his sailing upward through the air—but it also invoked the nearest amulets, which happened to be the mirrors. Now they themselves deformed, stretching like melting glass, reaching amoeba-like pseudopods toward him. Mirrors were everywhere, including the floor and ceiling; Stile had to hover in the middle of the chamber to avoid their silicon embrace. Neysa had gone to firefly-form, and was hovering beside him. But the ceiling mirrors were dangling gelatinous tentacles down toward him, making the chamber resemble a cave with translucent stalactites. Soon there would be no place to avoid them.

But the little glow of light showed the way out. They followed it down through the pit Stile had first fallen into and up again in another chamber whose amulets had not been invoked.

Stile was about to cancel his flying spell—but realized that would have taken another spell, which could start things going again. It was harder to stay clear of magic than he had thought! For now, it seemed best to remain flying; it was as good a mode as any.

They flew after the glow. It took them through a section of shifting floors—that had no effect on them now—and a forest of glistening spears that might be coated with poison, and a hall whose walls were on rollers, ready to close on whoever was unwary enough to trigger the mechanism by putting weight on the key panel of the floor. This was certainly a house of horrors, where it seemed only magic could prevail. But they had found a loophole; continuing magic did not trigger the amulets. Only the invoking of new magic did that. So they had a way through. Abruptly they flew through a portal and entered a pleasant apartment set up in Proton Citizen style: murals on the walls, rugs on the floor, curtains on the windows, a food dispenser, holo-projector, and a couchbed. The technological devices would not operate in this frame. Unless they had been spelled to operate by magic. Stile was not sure what the limits were, to that sort of thing. Did a scientific device that worked exactly as it was supposed to, by the authority of magic, become a—

Then Stile realized: on the couch reclined the Red Adept.

Stile floated to a halt. Red was not concealing her sex now. She was wearing a slinky red gown that split down the sides to show her legs and down the front to evoke cleavage. Her hair was luxuriously red, and settled about her shoulders in a glossy cloud. All in all, she was a svelte, attractive woman of about his own age—and a full head taller than he. She was certainly the same one who had been responsible for Hulk’s murder.

“Before we finish this. Blue,” she said, “I want to know just one thing: why?”

Stile, ready for instant violence, was taken aback.

“Thou, creature of evil, dost ask me why?”

“Normally Adepts leave each other alone. There is too much mischief when magic goes against magic. Why didst thou elect to violate that principle and foment so much trouble?”

“This is the very information I require from thee! What mischief did I ever do thee, that thou shouldst seek to murder me in two frames?”

“Play not the innocent with me, rogue Adept! Even now thou dost invade these my Demesnes, as thou didst always plan. I have heard it bruited about that thou dost consider thyself a man of integrity. At least essay some semblance of that quality now, and inform me of thy motive. I cannot else fathom it.”

There was something odd here. Red acted as if she were the injured party, and seemed to mean it. Why should she lie, when her crimes were so apparent? Stile’s certainty of the justice and necessity of this cause was shaken; he needed to resolve this incongruity, lest he always suffer doubt about the validity of his vengeance. “Red Adept, thou knowest I am here to destroy thee. It is pointless to hide the truth longer. Art thou hopelessly insane, or didst thou have some motive for thy murders?”

“Motive!” she exclaimed. “Very well. Blue, since thou choosest to play this macabre game. I proffer thee this deal: I will answer truly as to my motive, if thou dost answer as to thine.”

“Agreed,” he said, still somewhat mystified. “I shall provide my motive before I slay thee. And if I am satisfied as to thy motive, I shall slay thee cleanly, without unnecessary torture. That is the most I can offer. I made mine oath to make an end of thee.”

“Then here is my rationale,” she said, as though discussing average weather. “The omens were opaque but disquieting, hinting at great mischief. The vamp-folk were restive, responding reluctantly to my directives. Indeed, one among them made petition to the Oracle, asking, ‘How can we be rid of the yoke of Red?’ And the Oracle answered, ‘Bide for two months.’ A vamp spy in fief to me reported that, so naturally I had to verify it personally. Indirect news from the Oracle can never be wholly trusted; there are too many interpretations. But there did seem to be a threat in two months concerning me—and that time, incidentally, is now nearly past. So I rode a flying amulet to the Oracle, and I asked it ‘What is my fate two months hence?’ and it replied ‘Blue destroys Red.’ Then I knew that I had to act. Never has the Oracle been known to be wrong, but I had no choice. I operate in both frames; I could be hurt in either. The Oracle said not that I would lose my life, only that I would be destroyed, which could mean many things. The only way to secure my position was to be rid of Blue before Blue took action against me. So I sent one of Brown’s golems with a demon amulet to Blue, while meanwhile I sought out Blue’s alternate self in Proton too, lest Blue die yet also destroy me. But someone warned thee, and sent a robot to guard thee, and I was unable quite to close that loop. Now must I do it here, or suffer the fate the Oracle decreed for me. Sure it is, I mean to take thee with me, an the Oracle prove true. Thou art the cause of all my woe.”

Still Stile was perplexed. “My motive is simple. Thou didst murder mine other self, rendered the Lady Blue bereft, attempted to slay me also in Proton and in Phaze, and slew my friend Hulk. For two murders I owe thee, and that debt shall be paid.”

She grimaced. “Thou claimest that we should have had no quarrel, but for my actions against thee?”

“As far as I know,” Stile said. “Mine other self, the Blue Adept, had no designs against thee as far as I know; his widow, now my wife, had no notion what enemy had murdered him, or why. As for me—I could never have crossed the curtain without the death of the Blue Adept, and I would not have left my profession as jockey had not my knees been lasered.” He paused. “Why were my knees lasered, and not my head? Had I been killed then, thou wouldst have suffered no vengeance from me.”

“The laser-machine I smuggled into the race was programmed against killing,” she said disgustedly. “Citizens like not fatal accidents, so machines capable of dealing death must have a safety circuit. Also, it is easier to destroy the narrow tissues of the tendons than to kill a man by a single beam through the thickness of his skull. Thou probably wouldst not have died regardless; thy brain would have cooked a little, and no more. And the Citizens would have reacted to such a killing by lowering a stasis field over the entire raceway, trapping me. I had to injure thee first, subtly, while I escaped the scene, then kill thee privately when thou wert stripped of Citizen protection. Except that the robot balked me.”

“The robot,” Stile said. “Who sent the robot?”

“That I do not know,” she admitted. “I thought thou knewest, that it was part of thy plan. Had I realized that thou didst have such protection, at the outset, then would I have planned that aspect more carefully. I thought the Blue Adept was the hard one to eliminate, rather than thee.”

Not an unreasonable assumption! Of such trifling misjudgments were empires made and lost. “There remain mysteries, then,” Stile said. “Someone knew of thy mission, and acted to protect me. Enemies we be, yet it behooves us both to learn who that person is, and why he or she elected to act anonymously. Hast thou some other enemy—perhaps one who could be identified as ‘Blue* though no Adept? Thou must surely have mistaken the Oracle’s reference, for I was innocent until that message generated a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now Blue will destroy Red, for there can be no forgiveness for thy crimes—but I would not be here now, if that Oracle had not set thee against me.”

“A hidden enemy, pitting Red against Blue,” she repeated. “Fool that I was, I queried not the identity of mine enemy, but only my two-month fate—and so the Oracle answered not what I thought it did. The Oracle betrayed me.”

“I think so,” Stile said. “Yet there must be a true enemy —to both thee and me. Let us make this further pact: that the one of us who survives this encounter shall seek that enemy, lest it pit other Adepts against each other similarly in future.”

“Agreed!” she cried. “We two are in too deep; we must settle in blood. But there is vengeance yet remaining for us each.”

“Could it be another Adept?” Stile asked. He was not letting down his guard, but he did not expect an attack until this was worked out. Enemies could, it seemed, have common interests. He had operated in ignorance of the forces that moved against him for so long that he was determined to discover whatever truth he could. “One who coveted thy power or mine?”

“Unlikely. Most Adepts cannot cross the curtain. I labored hard to cross myself, and paid a price others would not pay. I arranged to have mine other self dispatched, then I crossed over and took her place, hoping to be designated the heir to our mother the Citizen. But the wretch designated another, an adoptee, and I had to take tenure and practice for the Tourney.”

Stile was appalled at her methodology, but concealed it.

Her mode had always been to do unto others before they did unto her. That was why she had struck at the Blue Adept. Probably her Proton-self had been conspiring to do the same to Red. And, possibly. Red was now trying to put Stile offguard so she could gain an advantage. “Thou playest the Game?”

“That I do, excellently—and well I know thou art my most formidable opponent in the current Tourney.”

“I know not of thee on any ladder.”

“Never did I enter any ladder until the final moment. I practiced privately, in my Proton-Citizen mother’s facilities.”

“Even if the Oracle referred to my defeating thee in the Tourney, and thus destroying thy remaining chance for Citizenship,” Stile said slowly, “I had three years tenure remaining, and would not have entered this year’s Tourney but for thy intercession.”

“The Oracle betrayed me on many levels, it seems,” she said.

How right he had been to analyze the nature of the Oracle’s statements carefully! Yet the mischief of the Oracle was only in its confusing answers; it did not initiate things. Someone must have taken this into account. But what a devious plot this was! “Could anyone in Proton-frame seek revenge? A friend of thine other self, perhaps, avenging her demise?”

“She had no friends; she was like me. That was why she was disinherited. And no one knows she’s gone; they think I’m her.”

That had been a neat operation! “Someone in Phaze, then. Unable to attack an Adept here, so he interferes with thee there? Perhaps a vampire, able to cross the curtain in human guise—“ Suddenly Stile wondered whether Neysa, now hovering behind him, would be able to cross the curtain in girl-form. Had she ever tried it? Unicorns did not exist in Proton, but girls did, and if there was no girl parallel to—

“Why send a robot to defend thee, then? Why not simply send it to attack me? That’s one expensive robot thou hast; for that value, it would have been easy to send a competent execution squad after me. It is as likely that the attack was directed at thee, at thy magic self, with protection sent to thy Proton-self so that it could come after me.”

Food for thought! “There is that,” Stile agreed. “The Oracle must have known that despite thy attack on the Blue Adept, his alternate self would find thee. The key seems to lie in the unknown party who sent the robot. Find that party, and we may be on the trail of the true enemy. There does seem to be more afoot here than merely my convenience or thy demise; the plot be too convoluted to account for these.”

“That’s for sure! It isn’t much, but it will have to do.” She raised her right hand. “On thy mark, get set, go! End of truce.” And she threw an object at him. Stile dodged the object. It looked like a small knife, a stiletto—which it could be. But it was also an amulet, and he didn’t want to invoke it. It stuck in the wall behind him and remained there, a bomb awaiting detonation. Red threw another object. This one resembled a ball. When Stile dodged it, the thing bounced off the wall and settled to a stop near his feet. He was floating a few inches off the floor, since his flying spell remained in operation, so the ball did not touch him.

She threw a third. It was like a beanbag, dropping dead behind him. But none of them could hurt him as long as he didn’t invoke them.

Then Red invoked one herself. She held the amulet in her hand, spoke to it, and dropped it on the floor. It formed into a hissing snake with glistening fangs. “Go for that man,” she told it.

The snake crawled rapidly toward him. Rather than flying upward as Red might want. Stile drew his sword and decapitated the reptile.

Already she was activating another amulet—a bat. Stile did not want to kill it, because it might be a member of the vampire tribe who had given him safe lodging for the night. A captive of the cruel Adept, bound to do her bid-ding. Yet if it attacked him—

It did. Its little eyes gleamed insanely, and droplets of viscous saliva fell from its teeth. It could be rabid. There was no help for it; he had to use magic.

“Bat—scat!” he sang. The bat vanished.

But now the three inert amulets near him animated. One was turning into a demon resembling a goblin, growing larger each second. Another was hissing out some kind of greenish vapor, perhaps a toxic gas. The third was catching fire, becoming a veritable ball of flame. Stile could not ignore any of these. For the moment he floated clear of all three—but all were expanding, and there was not any great clearance, and the ceiling was festooned with amulets. If he flew high, and banished them with his own spells, hell would break loose from that ceiling. Red had more amulets than Stile had immediately available spells, so this sequence could be disastrous. That was the disadvantage of bracing the Adept in her own Demesnes; her power was overwhelming here. It would be better to deal with the three activated threats some other way.

The Red Adept, smiling wickedly, was already throwing more amulets. Stile had either to act or to retreat—and to retreat would be tantamount to defeat, for he surely would have more trouble passing her defenses a second time.

Now was the moment of decision,

Neysa, who had been hovering as the firefly, shifted to mare-form. She speared the demon on her horn, then shoved it into the green vapor. The demon screamed in agony, then expired. That was poison, all right! Neysa backed off, the demon still impaled on her horn. She did not dare touch that vapor with her nonmagical flesh. Meanwhile, the ball of fire blazed fiercely, and it was floating up toward Stile.

Stile had an inspiration. He began playing his harmonica. The music filled the room, summoning his magic—but he did not sing any spell. He just kept playing. He knew now that the music-magic could have a certain effect itself, without any specific spell, if he directed it with his mind. So he willed it to suppress other magic. If this had the force of new magic itself, the effect would be opposite, and he would be in twice as much trouble as before; but if it worked—

The fireball guttered and dimmed and sank, finding itself slowly stifled. The green vapor ceased its expansion and lost some of its color. None of the new amulets were activated. Phew! The gamble had paid off.

Neysa approached the vapor cautiously, seeing it be-come denatured. She used the dead demon on her horn as a crude broom to shove the vapor into the fire. The two joined instant battle, destroying each other. Stile broke off is music, and the battle intensified as its compass narrowed: the fire tried to bum up the vapor before the vapor could smother it. But the vapor was stronger; soon the fire was out.

Neysa mopped up the remaining vapor on the demon. Then with a strong motion of her head she hurled the demon directly at the Red Adept.

The woman was caught by surprise. She scrambled off her couch just before the sodden demon landed. Her collected amulets scattered across the floor like so much jewelry. The green vapor sank into the material of the couch, rendering it uninhabitable, while the demon lay on it as if asleep.

Stile had another inspiration. He had noticed that Red was careful which amulets she threw and which she kept. Obviously some amulets served the invoker, while others attacked the invoker. Benign and malign spells, as it were. If he could get hold of some of the benign amulets, he could use them against her. That should turn the tide. But she was alert to the threat. She dived for the spilled collection, reaching it before Stile got there. Stile reacted with a spot decision he hoped he would not regret. “Each spell farewell!” he sang, willing all the amulets within range out and away from the castle. Since he had been playing his harmonica, his magic should be strong enough to affect most of them.

The result was confusion. His act of magic invoked all the nearby amulets—but it also banished them. They tried to animate and depart simultaneously. Since there were many of them, their magic outmassed his. Thus they were coming to life faster than they were moving out.

Rapidly-forming things and creatures were scrambling for the exits. One resembled a squid, crawling on its tentacles. Another was like a yellow sponge, rolling along, leaving a damp trail that stank of putrefaction. Several were bats or other flying creatures. Some were colored clouds and some were blazes of light or darkness. One was a small flood of water that poured down through the crevices; an-other was a noisy string of exploding firecrackers. Stile had to keep dodging and ducking to stay clear of them. His incantation had also abated his flying spell; he was con-fined to the floor again, where he didn’t really want to be. For one thing, the Red Adept was there, avoiding creatures with equal alacrity. At the moment she was trying to brush a swarm of tiny red spiders out of her hair. Both Red and Blue were now too busy to concentrate properly on each other.

Why was he fooling with all these incidental spells, when he could solve the whole thing by simply abolishing the Red Adept herself? Maybe he had held back at the notion of killing a human being, despite his oath. But he thought again of the way Hulk had died, and his resolve firmed. “Red be dead!” he sang.

There was a kind of soundless implosion and explosion centering on the woman. Her clothing burst into smoke. But in a moment she stood naked—and alive. “Fool!” she spat. “Knowest thou not that no Adept can be destroyed readily by magic alone? Only the unguarded and vulnerable succumb.”

“But thy amulet killed the Blue Adept!” he protested.

“It never would have worked, had he been properly paranoid. He was a trusting fool. Even so, I am surprised he did not save himself; methinks he could have had he tried hard enough.”

As Stile had saved himself from the same spell, by fighting hard enough. He should have known it could not be that easy to abolish her. Otherwise, he could simply have uttered his spell from the sanctity of the Blue Demesnes, and let Red die in her sleep. Many things were difficult against a person on guard. One stab with a knife could kill—but if that person were alert, the knife would never score, or would be turned against its wielder. Also, the White Adept had said his spells could not really hurt her. He had thought that mere bravado, but evidently it was not. Still, with the local amulets clearing out of the way, he had another option.

Stile drew his sword. “Then shall I slay thee without magic.”

Quickly she snatched a similar weapon from its place on the wall. “Thinkest thou I am untrained in such arts? Look to thyself, midget!”

They engaged. She was proficient, and she had a longer reach than he. She was in superb physical condition, and had a fiery will to win. Yet this was the broadsword. Stile’s preferred weapon. In this he was more than proficient; he was expert. He fenced with her, foiling her attacks readily, setting up for his proper opening. He could take her. Red realized this. Suddenly she stepped back into an opening behind the couch and disappeared. Stile plunged after her. But a panel slammed across, blocking him off. He hacked at it with his sword, and wood splintered—but by the time he cleared it, the Red Adept was gone.