Robot Adept

Chapter 9 Masquerade

After a horrendous three-day stint with Stile, operating from a hidden retreat and spying on demons who tended to stomp butterflies on sight, Bane made contact with Mach and learned that it was time to return Agape to Proton. He explained his own plan, and they agreed.

He returned to the Blue Demesnes to discover a change. There was an evanescent glow about the castle that could only signify a rare happiness. If the Lady Blue was happy, she surely had good reason. He could think of only one likely event that would have this effect.

Was that why his father had decided to pursue his investigation elsewhere, instead of returning to the Blue Demesnes at this time? Stile had withdrawn his opposition to Bane’s union with Agape, but the situation still prohibited it; perhaps Stile simply preferred to stay clear of the inevitable awkwardness.

“Anybody home?” he called.

His mother came out to meet him, smiling. With her was a young woman who looked like Fleta, but was not.

The woman stepped into his embrace. This was Agape, all right! He did not need to ask; he knew she accepted Phaze, now. He had not realized how important that acceptance was to him until this moment. This was his world; he wanted her to understand it and approve of it, however surprising her introduction to it.

He summarized the news of his spying as they entered the castle. His mother knew it, of course, but would not have said anything; she was not one to speak carelessly. He wanted Agape to know why he had neglected her all this time. “They mean to use thee as a lever against me,” he concluded.

“I know,” Agape said.

Then he went into more detail about his recent activities as a spy and butterfly, but she just hugged him and seemed satisfied with that.

But there was one thing he had to be sure she understood. He took her for a walk outside the castle, and explained. “Mach contacted me, while I was in the field,” he said. “Fleta be about to be shipped to Moeba.”

That got her attention. “She can’t go there! It’s an entirely different world!”

“Aye. So thou must return tomorrow. It be not a strange world to thee.” He took a breath. “And must needs I remain here. The Adverse Adepts watch me too closely; an they think Mach be back, their suspicion may diminish, so I can learn what we need.”

She nodded sadly, understanding. “And I will not see you, after that.”

“Nay, I joked not when I said I would visit thee there. Mach has been there, and promises to leave a program for me.”

“A program?”

“In his brain. He has compartments, and in them are programs for many things, such as the speaking of alien tongues or the application of special skills. With his program, I will know all he has learned, and can survive on thy home world. Thou hast experienced mine; now will I experience thine. Our acquaintance be not at an end.”

She hugged him again. Then: “We have been apart, and now have so little time together. I know this is not my own body, but—”

“I met thee in Mach’s body,” he reminded her.

“Do you think Fleta would mind, if—”

“Nay, she would mind not.” Then he conjured them both to the private glade where he had first exchanged with Mach, and made a small screened tent there, and they made love, first savagely, then again gently, and then they slept.

Next day he brought her to the proper spot. He held her closely as they overlapped their opposites in Proton, and sang the spell to transfer her back.

Her body did not change, but its nature did. In a moment he knew that it was Fleta he was holding.

He put his lips to her ear. “Filly, dost know me?” he whispered.

“Aye, Bane,” she whispered back. “I will help thee in thy quest.”

“Thou knowest they watch us.”

“Aye.” She drew back her head and gazed into his face as if in love with him. “Can you speak Protonese?” she murmured.

He stared at her. It was not that her words were unreasonable; it was that he had never imagined her using that mode. “I can,” he said. “But—”

“Methinks I can suffer this masquerade for a time, an thou canst,” she said. “I like it not, but my love asked me, an if it helps put things right…” Then she lifted her lips and kissed him.

He was startled again. Of course she would kiss Mach! If he was to play the part, he had to play it, and she did too. That was why her cooperation was essential. He just had not anticipated this aspect. His days of experimentation with Fleta were long over.

But, this being the case, he would have to make love to her too! It would be an early giveaway if he avoided this aspect of Mach’s relationship with her. But how did she feel about this? She had exchanged the triple Thee with Mach!

She brought her mouth close to his ear again. “I love another, but I hate thee not, and can play such games with thee as thy kind does. As I have done before.”

“Then it be but sex,” he whispered back. “Our hearts be in it not.”

“Aye.” Then she drew away from him. “But we dally, Mach!” she exclaimed brightly. “Didst thou not have enough o’ manstyle play w’ me in Proton?”

“I can never have enough,” he replied carefully. But he let her go.

“We have been long away from our sanctuary,” she said. “Let me carry thee there.” And she became her natural self, the unicorn.

“Yes, of course,” he agreed. He mounted her a trifle clumsily, as he judged Mach might. She set off westward. One thing about this: he did not have to say much or do much, so ran less risk of giving away his identity. The Adverse Adepts might be watching, but would soon become bored with this, and would not pay much attention.

While he rode, he pondered the plan that he and Stile had devised. Stile, in those last three days, had taught him an exotic technique that even most Adepts did not know: that of spiritual separation. This magic could send a person’s awareness out apart from his body, so that he could perceive things that his body could not. It required a different spell each time, of course, but Stile had worked out several that had worked for him, and should now work for Bane. The effect was limited in time and distance, so it was necessary to get physically within range before invoking the separation. This restricted its application—but if Bane could find a way to get close without suspicion, it could be invaluable.

That was why he had sought Mach’s cooperation.

Mach could not spy in this manner, lacking the magic, and would not if he could. But Mach could get close to the Adverse Adepts. This switch of seeming identities should enable Bane to get close enough so that he could learn what they needed to know. The dominance of the frame might depend on his success in this mission.

And Fleta, bless her, was cooperating! Mach had a good match in her; she might be an animal, but some animals were more substantial folk than some human beings, and she was an example. Her friend the werebitch Furramenin was another, and of course Suchevane—ah, the vampire was special indeed!

As evening approached, and the sun reddened behind a cloudbank before them, Fleta stopped, and Bane dismounted. She set about grazing, which was her most comfortable way to eat, while he foraged for nuts and fruits. He could have conjured food, but did not for two reasons: first, because Mach would not be good at such magic, and second, because magic was too valuable to waste on routine chores. If he was in danger of starving, then a conjuration would be in order; meanwhile, foraging would do.

As complete darkness settled in, Fleta assumed girlform and came to him. The air was turning chill—but again, what point magic, when they could share body warmth? They removed their clothing, and spread her black cloak and his blue shirt and trousers over the two of them as blankets, and embraced. It made sense because of the warmth, and because they were supposed to be lovers. For all an observer could have told, they were being lovers now, and that was the impression they wanted to give. Bane intended merely to sleep.

But Fleta was as full of mischief as ever. “Canst guess how often I longed to get thee like this, an my heat approached?” she whispered.

Heat! Bane went rigid. When a mare came to that part of her cycle, she had to breed, or suffer terribly, and no mere man could satisfy her. “Thou’rt not—?”

“Nay, not this week,” she said. “But when I learned the human way of it, for pleasure rather than naughtiness, I came to like it any time.” She moved against him, breast against his chest, thigh over his thigh. She might be an animal, and a childhood friend, but she felt exactly like a woman at the moment.

“I made love to her, in thy body,” he said, hoping to divert her. “We thought thou wouldst not mind.”

“Nor do I,” she agreed. “Oft did I do the same with him in thy body.” She considered a moment. “How was my body?”

“Ne’er better,” he confessed. “Now stop thy teasing, and let me sleep.”

She decided she had gone far enough, and acceded. Her sexual urge was not at all the same as his; she just liked to demonstrate that she could make him react against his will. She had done that now, and was satisfied.

He relaxed. But he knew the time would come soon enough when, to preserve his secret, they would have to make it real. That might be just part of the game, to her, because animals had no proprietary concerns about sex, but it was no game to him. He felt guilty already for what would surely occur—and more guilty because he discovered that a part of him desired it. The act he could account for, when circumstance made it necessary; the desire he could not.

Bane had never been within the Translucent Demesnes before, and he found it fascinating. The underwater isle, the ancient creatures, the seeming ability to fly—what a realm the Adept had, here! He tried not to gawk as the unicorn carried him through the strange landscape to their refuge.

At last they passed through the dome-shaped curtain and walked on the “normal” land of the isle. All around this region the creatures of the archaic ocean could be seen.

“Must needs we tour the isle, to be sure naught be changed,” Fleta said brightly, shifting to girlform.

“Yes,” he said, keeping his language in character. This was her way of acquainting him with the details of this setting, so that he would not make any giveaway errors.

In this fashion she introduced him to the creatures she and Mach had come to know. “And here be Naughty, the same as ever!” she exclaimed as they encountered a creature like a squid in a shell longer than the length of a man. “Nay, chide me not, Mach; I know thou dost call him ‘Nautiloid’ from the Ordovician period o’ Earth! But to me he be Naughty, for all the times he blunders through to land and we needs must heave him back.” She reached through the dome-wall and petted the monster on the shell. A tentacle reached up and coiled briefly about her wrist, squeezing and letting go. Obviously the monster did remember her, and liked her.

In due course they completed the circuit of the isle. “All be in order,” Fleta announced. “Now let me graze and sleep.”

“But—” Bane started, concerned that he did not yet know enough about this region to avoid a blunder.

“Hast thou not had enough o’ sex on the way here?” she chided him. “Canst not let me sleep in peace, after carrying thee all this distance?”

Oh. She was giving him a pretext to leave her alone, so that the Translucent Adept, who surely watched, had no reason to be suspicious.

He foraged for his supper while she assumed her natural form and grazed on the rich grass growing here. She was catching up on sleep, too; she could graze while sleeping, which was a useful ability at times.

After he ate, he caught up on natural functions, then piled fragrant ferns and lay down, nominally to sleep. Actually he whispered the spell of separation. Stile had worked this out so that its evocation was virtually undetectable; it was largely internal magic, not the external magic that used enormous power. When he conjured himself from place to place, the magic made a splash that could readily be detected by those alert for it; when Stile conjured one of Bane’s butterfly forms to another spot, the splash occurred at the site of the conjuration, not of arrival, so there was no alarm. But he had done about all he could with butterflies; now he hoped to do more with his spirit.

He drifted out from his body. He could see, hear, smell and even feel, despite having a center of awareness that was insubstantial. He saw his body, seemingly sleeping; he saw Fleta grazing; he saw Naughty Nautiloid foraging in the nearby ocean.

He moved on through the water, looking for the Translucent Adept. The man was in a palace that appeared to be made out of water: bricks of water kept firm by magic, forming walls and arches, with beams of water supporting the upper levels. There were large windows with panes of water, and furniture shaped from yet more water.

Translucent was relaxing, watching a water-mirror in which an image of the isle was reflected. There was Bane sleeping, and Fleta grazing. So their suspicion was correct: they were under constant observation. Probably Translucent could hear their dialogue, too. The Adept had offered sanctuary for Mach and Fleta, and freedom, but had never guaranteed privacy. He did not interfere with their activities, but he knew of them, in every detail he cared to.

But watching the Adept watch the isle would not accomplish anything. Bane wanted to know the exact plans of the Adverse Adepts, so that his father could counter them specifically. He could not depend on overhearing significant conversations; he had to find records or other indications.

There seemed to be no records. Whatever Translucent knew or planned was in his head. That was a place Bane could not go.

His spying effort here was a failure. He could not even be sure that Translucent was planning any treachery; the limited evidence was that the other Adepts were planning it, for the time when Translucent’s more liberal policy of accommodation failed.

He passed the Adept again—and discovered that the water-screen had changed its picture. Now the Tan Adept was on it, talking to Translucent.

“…she’ll be there tomorrow afternoon,” the senior Tan was saying.

“I like this not,” Translucent answered. “I gave mine oath, and I mean to break it not.”

“An they be truly the rovot and the ‘corn, with their triple Thee, she will have no power o’er them,” Tan said. “An they be the other pair, thine oath applies not. My daughter can capture Bane, then, and the whole of it be ours.”

“I yield to thee on this point only to establish their legitimacy,” Translucent said, obviously irritated. “Thereafter, I want interference not from thee. There be a smell about this I like not.”

“Agreed.” The Tan Adept faded out.

So he had gained some information anyway! Tania was coming here tomorrow, to verify whether it was the right couple on the isle. The Adepts’ suspicion had been aroused, so now they were checking. Translucent was hewing to the letter of his word, and Bane respected him for that, but the man had to allow this test.

Bane did not want Tania to try her evil eye on him. He could counter it only by the full exercise of his own magic—and that would give away his identity on the spot, because Mach had only clumsy powers of magic. But if he did not counter her, he would fall prey to her, and that would be worse. They were in trouble!

He returned to his body. He had less than a day to figure out a way to pass this challenge.

He pondered for a while, and drifted off to sleep. He could not talk to Fleta, knowing he was being watched; he had to act completely naturally.

In the morning Fleta changed back to girlform and approached him for a kiss, as she would have done with Mach. “What news?” she whispered.

He nuzzled her ear. “We be watched, as we thought. Today Tania comes to test us.”

“The e’il eye!” she breathed, tickling his ear. “I like that not!”

“Mach’s triple Thee would be proof against it. But we be the wrong partners; that oath exists not between us.”

She drew back her head. “Not before breakfast, thou sex fiend!” she exclaimed. “Give me leave to think on’t.”

He let her go. How cleverly she answered him, without arousing suspicion!

They foraged for breakfast, and this time she remained in girlform and ate with him. As they finished, she leaned toward him. He caught the hint and grabbed her for another kiss. It would not do to have Translucent realize that only Fleta initiated such activity.

“Canst leave before?” she whispered.

He had thought of that, and rejected it. They were theoretically here so that they could love each other without restraint, in perfect security and comfort. They would not depart except for good reason—and they weren’t supposed to have any notion of the impending visit. “Would give us away,” he replied.

She wriggled away from his grasp. “Not before wash-up!” she protested.

Bane managed to convert a smile to a grimace. Any watcher would be convinced that he was constantly trying to get her into sex, while she was endlessly coquettish. Despite his knowledge of her rationale, he found himself responding, wanting her in the manner she pretended he did. Pretense of this nature could be treacherous!

They washed up at a freshwater spring on the isle. It was amazing how Translucent had set this up! They stripped, setting their apparel out of harm’s way. Fleta insisted on washing him, using her hands to splash the water on him and to rub him down. Naturally she brought him to arousal. This was not entirely mischief on her part; Mach would have reacted exactly this way.

“I think there be only one way to deceive Tania,” she whispered as she gaily splashed water at his eyes and ears. “We must be amidst it as she comes.”

“But that be only sex!” he protested. “Her power could still move me.”

“Why use it, an she sees how true we be to each other?”

And that just might be the answer. Magic was not cheap for any practitioner. Tania could only use a particular variant of her evil eye on a particular person once. She would not care to waste it on a subject likely to be immune—as Mach would be, because of his absolute love for Fleta. The triple Thee, vindicated as it was said his had been, could not be overridden; indeed, it had overridden Adept magic itself. So if Tania were satisfied that she saw Mach, she would let him pass unchallenged.

He had known that he would have to make love to Fleta, and had felt his mixed guilt about that. Now he realized that he would have to do it for an audience, and make it thoroughly convincing. His mission, and perhaps his freedom, depended on it.

“Aye,” he whispered.

She wrestled herself away, managing in the process to slide her slippery breasts almost the full length of his body. “Nay, Mach! Not till we be at the proper place!”

What a tease she was! Surely Translucent, if he were watching at this moment, was chuckling.

So it continued through the morning, Fleta always putting him off on one pretext or another, he always yielding with decent grace. Then it was time for lunch, and then for a nap, she claimed. But she kissed him, and whispered in his ear: “Canst see her coming, now? Needs must we know exactly when.”

He nodded. He fashioned a partial shelter from boughs and ferns so that the sun would hot burn him, though its light was filtered through the water above the dome and really was not fierce. Then he lay down for his “nap” and used a variant spell to separate his spirit again. He floated out to Translucent’s water-brick house—and there she was already! In only a few minutes she would be at the isle.

He hurried back to his body. How lucky that Fleta had had him check!

He stretched as if waking. Then he reached out and caught Fleta by the arm. “Damn it, filly—you have been teasing me all day!” he exclaimed. “Now you are going to get it!”

“Now?” she asked, her eyes nicking about as if searching.

“Any minute now,” he agreed. “Just let me get that cloak off you!”

“Nay!” she protested, laughing. “That were too brief a nap!”

“The hell with the nap!” he exclaimed, rather enjoying the Proton mode of swearing; it had a certain magic of its own. He wrestled with her, pulling ineffectively at her clothing.

“O, here, thou’lt ruin it,” she complained. She drew off her cloak herself. Then she undressed him.

But when he sought to embrace her, she resisted. “Thou didst teach me thy way, remember,” she said. “Not like my way, for when I be in heat and care not what member be in me, so long as I be bred. Slow, and with love.”

She was still stalling, for Tania had not yet shown up. But she was also correct: he had to play this scene convincingly, and that meant that sex was only part of it.

He looked into her eyes. “I love you,” he said. There was no ripple around them, of course; this was a line from a play. In fact, this was very like a game in the Tourney of Proton, in which the participants had to emulate a scene of perfect love-making. It was an open question whether two players ever got into such a match randomly.

“And I love thee,” she said, with similar lack of ripple. That was not necessarily cause for suspicion; the splash showed only at truly seminal declarations, and like other magic tended to fade with repetition.

Now he sought to embrace her more intimately, but still she demurred. “Hast forgotten thine own mode of play?” she inquired teasingly.

Was she still stalling, or trying for perfect realism? He wasn’t sure, but realized she was right either way. Tania still had not arrived, and regardless. Translucent was probably watching on his water-screen.

Translucent? Tania could be watching it too! Why should she come here physically, when she could learn what she needed at a distance?

He stroked her breasts. Oh, she was well formed! He had seldom really looked at her recently, and now appreciated in a rush how nicely she had shaped her girlform. He kissed them, then moved up to kiss her ear. “I think we be on stage now,” he whispered.

“Ah, Mach, how I have longed to hear thee say that!” she replied aloud with a straight face. Then she became an animal indeed, hugging him, kissing him, stroking him, rubbing her torso against his, wrapping her legs around him, mimicking the height of passion, human style.

This was the same body he had embraced when Agape occupied it. Now it became confused in his mind, and he feared he would cry out Agape’s name and betray himself.

“Mach! Mach!” she cried, but it sounded like “Bane, Bane!”

“Fleta!” he responded, keeping it straight. Then, overwhelmed by the passion of the moment, he took her, not quite caring in that instant who it might be.

And the guilt surged up as his passion ebbed. He had felt too much.

But it seemed that his demonstration had been effective. Time passed, and Tania did not show up. She must have been satisfied that he was Mach, after she saw his demonstration.

Fleta still lay in his embrace, and he could not tell her to go. He had to be consistent to his role. But what was that consistency costing him? What was it costing her?

Tormented by his uncertainty of feeling, he lay for a time, then drifted into sleep.

Later they woke. Fleta did not look happy, but in a moment she assumed a cheerful expression. “Mach, thou didst promise me a foal,” she said.

He was silent, not certain what she was leading up to.

“Now thou art back,” she insisted. “Now be it time to do it.”

“Fleta, this is no simple matter,” he demurred. Was she serious?

“I know thy magic be not yet great,” she continued. “But the Red Adept doth have the Book o’ Magic, and methinks a spell might be there. My time o’ heat be coming in due course, and if thou couldst breed me then—”

A pretext to visit Trool the Troll! Now he had the gist. “If I promised, I promised,” he said. “We shall ask the Red Adept for a spell.”

“Aye, I thank thee!” she exclaimed, and kissed him with such conviction that he realized this was no ploy. She really did want Mach’s baby, and thought she could get it.

On the following morning they set out, Fleta in her natural form, Bane riding. Translucent did not interfere; the Adept was satisfied that Mach was in his camp regardless where he might travel. That much was true, and when Mach returned, he would continue to represent the Adverse Adepts. Bane really had no quarrel with that—and none with Translucent, who was behaving decently. Had Tania caught Bane in his masquerade, it would have been fair play: he had tried a deception, and paid the price.

In Proton, Citizen Blue knew of the masquerade, but would not try to hold Mach captive; that was understood. This was a ramification of the truce: to let things be until they could be better resolved. Bane hoped that Mach was not having too much trouble maintaining the pretense with Agape.

And what if he was? It was no bad thing, making love to Agape! Bane could not hold that against his other self any more than Mach could hold Bane’s act with Fleta against him. It was understood that this was necessary.

Still, it bothered him. Not the act itself, but his attitude about it. He had tried to make himself believe that it was Agape he embraced, but he had known it was not. He had made love to Fleta, and it had been wonderful. That was the problem. Exactly why had it been so good?

She had been his companion in childhood, and in young adulthood. He had always liked her, and she had liked him. But he had never loved her. She was, after all, an animal.

Now Mach had fallen in love with her, and she with Mach. That caused Bane to see her differently. In what way was Fleta inferior to a human woman? He needed no thought to answer that: the answer was no way. Just as Agape was not inferior to a human woman. Perhaps he loved Agape as an unconscious analog to Fleta: the nonhuman creature who seemed human.

Now he was back with the original, his emotional barriers down. Had he merely done with her what he had always wanted to do? Had he used this masquerade as a pretext to do it?

What had he accomplished in his spying mission? Only the discovery of Tania’s threat—which would have been no threat at all, had Mach been with Fleta. In short, he had accomplished nothing—except sex with his alternate’s beloved.

So Bane’s thoughts ran, as he rode the unicorn from the Translucent Demesnes. He had no doubt of Fleta’s constancy; she had done only what she agreed to do, her heart not in it. But his own was suspect. He might as well have raped her.

No, even that was not the whole of it. The sex had been a concomitant of the mission, supposedly of little importance in itself. Certainly Fleta had no use for it, when not in heat, except as a way to please her lover or to maintain a masquerade. It should have been little more for him: a pleasure of the moment, done for other than emotion. Instead he had been eager for it, and had found it not only physically satisfying, but emotionally fulfilling. As though he had truly meant the words of love he had spoken to her.

Was he falling in love with Fleta?

Bane closed his eyes, trying to drive away the specter of that forbidden emotion, but could not. He knew he should never have undertaken this foolish spying mission; he should have stayed well away from his other self’s chosen. Now it was too late.

Fleta turned her head, glancing back at him with one eye. She was aware of the reactions of his body, and knew that something was bothering him.

And what could he tell her? Nothing! She was innocent; he could only bring her grief by expressing his illicit passion. So he simply petted her shoulder. “You are a truly good creature, mare,” he said. “I would not cause you harm for all the frame.” That much was true.

They camped for the night near a stream. Instead of grazing, this time, Fleta became the hummingbird and filled up on the nectar of flowers, while he made a fire and roasted wild potatoes he dug out. Then she assumed girlform and came to join him for sleeping.

“But I thought thou wouldst graze,” he protested weakly.

“Nay, I prefer to be with thee, Mach,” she said, removing her cloak and spreading it as a blanket for them.

Another night with her body warm against his? He owed it to her and to his other self to avoid that! But what could he say? The Adepts were surely still checking on them.

Unable to find sufficient reason to demur, and uncertain whether he even wanted to, he acceded. He lay down with her, and she embraced him, nuzzling his ear.

“There be spoor,” she whispered. “There be scent. We be followed.”

This was completely unexpected. She had had reason of her own to get close to him! Her attention, at least, was where it should be.

“Canst make love to an unconscious man?” he whispered back.

“Aye.” She chuckled.

He smiled. Any Adept watching them would have no concern; they would be obviously engaged in romance. Meanwhile, he would find out what was going on.

He murmured a spell of separation, and his spirit traveled up out of his body. He looked down: yes, it certainly looked like active sex from here! At least he need have no guilt for this; it was none of his doing.

He oriented, making a swift circuit of the region, and in a moment he spied it: a party of goblins camped not far away. But why hadn’t he been aware of them? He had not been paying proper attention.

He moved close up—and discovered why. There was Adept magic protecting the party—a spell of concealment. Fleta, being a unicorn, was resistive to magic practiced on her, so had been able to pick up hints, while Bane had not. However, his spirit was not subject to the same limits as his body. He could perceive the shimmer of the magic force; indeed, he passed through it with extreme caution, for his presence could disturb it, alerting the Adept who had set it.

This party could only be here to spy on Mach and Fleta. The Adepts were not merely watching, they were keeping a force close by. Why?

He infiltrated the main tent. There was a goblin chief. He was settling down for the night. Goblins were more at home in the dark than the day, but since these were evidently following Bane and Fleta, they had to match their schedule to that of the day-dwellers; otherwise they would get no rest at all.

That meant there would be no real activity while he spied. He could not learn why these goblins were following him. Surely they had better reason than just keeping track of his whereabouts, that the Adepts could do more efficiently from a distance!

He considered a moment, then decided to go for double or nothing. The Adepts were taking an extraordinary step, having a physical presence near him, protected by their magic, so it had to be worth his trouble to find out why. Maybe they just wanted to protect Mach and Fleta from possible harm—but maybe they had some treachery on their minds.

He returned to Fleta. She was still working over his inert body. Well, almost inert; it seemed that certain reactions could occur even in the absence of consciousness, and she was evoking one of those.

“Fleta!” he said.

She did not hear: he had no voice in this state. But if he returned to his body to talk to her, he would lose the rest of his spell, which would be a waste of onetime magic.

He drew close and overlapped her head. “Fleta!” he said.

She jumped, looking wildly around.

“It’s me, Bane,” he said. “In spirit. I need thy help.”

She stilled. “Bane,” she whispered. “I hear thee.”

“A party of goblins is tracking us. I need to know why. Canst get up and cause them to react while I listen? Mayhap they will utter what I would hear.”

“Aye,” she whispered. “This body be not much fun, anyway.”

“Good thing, tease! Thou dost not want me in love with thee too.”

She looked thoughtful, and he feared he had said too much. Then she drew herself up, picking up her cloak. “Do thou wait here, beloved,” she said aloud. “Must needs I go do what none can do for me.” She became the unicorn.

“That way,” Bane said, overlapping her head again. “I think they mean us not harm, but push not thy luck. If thou canst make them stir, to avoid discovery—”

She made a nicker of acquiescence and set out for the goblin camp.

Bane hurried back to the camp ahead of her. In spirit form he could fly, for his spirit weighed nothing; whether he could travel more swiftly yet, but imagining himself there, he wasn’t sure, and wasn’t inclined to experiment at the moment. This was magic his father had devised: he did not grasp all its aspects.

He entered the chief goblin’s tent and hovered. Suddenly he wondered: could he overlap the goblin’s head, as he had Fleta’s, and read its thoughts? Probably not; he had not read Fleta’s. All he might do was give away his presence.

A goblin sentry burst into the tent. “Kinkear!” the sentry exclaimed. “The ‘corn be coming toward us!” Kinkear roused himself with a start. “Why?”

“She has a load to drop.”

“And she’s going to drop it here?” Kinkear cried. “What a mess, an she blunder across us by sheer chance! Our whole plan could be discovered! The spell be not effective an a ‘corn step straight into it!”

“Aye. What must we do?”

“Alert the others. Break camp instantly. Stay clear o’ her!”

The sentry disappeared. Kinkear hastily rolled up his bed and hauled down his tent. “Just my luck,” he muttered to himself. “She drops dung, and my mission be in deep manure! Tan’ll tan my hide, an I bungle his trap!”

So the Tan Adept was behind this! Already this device was paying off. But why should Tan be after Mach? His daughter had already verified Mach’s authenticity to her satisfaction; it was Bane she was after.

Now he heard Fleta. She was coming through the grass, evidently looking for just the right place to do her job. She sniffed the air. This camp was downwind from Bane’s body, by no coincidence, and the unicorn’s coming in this direction was no coincidence either; who wanted to spend the night in the breeze from her own manure?

“Get it o’er with, mare!” Kinkear muttered. “Return to thy stud, let him screw thee to the turf—and when he change back to his opposite, then shall we screw him to the turf.”

So it was Bane they were after! They wanted to be on hand after the exchange, and catch him. That was exactly the treachery he was looking for.

The goblins had dispersed through the field, leaving no sign of their camp. But in so doing some of them had strayed beyond the limit of the concealment spell. Fleta, with her sharp senses in the unicorn form, had to have spotted these, but she gave no sign.

She wandered over to a spot where one goblin cowered under a tangle of grass. For an instant it seemed she would stumble over him. Then she turned around, set herself—and let go her dung directly on top of him. He couldn’t even curse, lest he give away his presence.

Satisfied, perhaps in more than one sense, she walked back toward her camp.

The goblins busied themselves reforming their camp. They all had a good chuckle over the fate of the unlucky one. Their crisis was over.

Bane heard no more key remarks. But he had already heard enough. This effort of spying had been worth it!

He returned to his body. Fleta had changed back to girlform, and was lying with his body under her cloak.

“They be setting a trap for Bane, when he returns,” he whispered. “Tan be behind it.”

“Then mayhap will they conjure Tania to eye thee, in the moment thou dost return unguarded,” Fleta whispered back. “That must they do just then, for thou wouldst be else caught not. With Mach loving me, and thou loving Tania, then have they both.”

“Then have they both,” he agreed. “But how can I foil their plot?”

“An thou dost, will not they then know how thou didst know?”

Excellent point! “But an I foil it not, I be trapped, for I fear Tania’s power. She could not hold me long, but she might coerce me into what would compromise me.”

“Such as making love to one thou dost love not?” Fleta asked.

“Such can happen, on occasion,” he said wryly.

“An I be not in a position to know better, I could have thought thy words to me, a day agone, were true,” she said.

Did she suspect? “Just so the Adverse Adepts think so.”

“Aye.” Did she sound disappointed?

“But whate’er I said about thy body, that were true,” he said. “It be sheer delight.”

“Aye.” This time she sounded satisfied.

They did not resume their effort of love-making; the purpose of that had been accomplished. Bane relaxed, relieved on two accounts, concerned on the third. One: he had finally justified his spying effort by uncovering an enemy trap. Two: Fleta did not suspect his true feeling. Three: how could he withstand Tania, if his love for Agape was not secure?

Fleta made good time, and on the third day they reached the Red Demesnes. The goblin party continued to track them, falling behind by day, catching up in early evening, evidently assisted by magic, for no goblin could keep pace with any unicorn otherwise. Apparently the goblins had to keep close enough to be able to pounce the moment Mach exchanged with Bane.

They had, it seemed, tried to capture Agape before; failing that, they were taking no chances with Bane.

A bat flew out to meet them as they approached the castle. In a moment lovely Suchevane stood before them. Fleta changed to girlform, giving Bane barely time to dismount. The two young woman forms embraced.

“Be thou Fleta?” the vampire asked.

“Dost know me not?” Fleta asked, laughing.

“Last I met Agape, in thy body. I owe her.”

“I know naught of this.”

Suchevane cast down her gaze, coloring slightly. “I be resident at the Red Demesnes, now. To assist the Adept.”

Fleta surveyed her, comprehending. “Thou dost have a thing for…?”

“Aye. It were Agape put me on it, speaking the common sense I saw not for myself. And now—”

Fleta hugged her again. “O, Suchy, how glad I be for thee!”

“And not for him?” Bane inquired. He knew the Red Adept to have been the strongest and most lonely of creatures, surely eager to have a creature like Suchevane near, if she but showed the slightest inclination.

They laughed. Then Suchevane escorted them into the castle.

Bane had not been here for some time, but he recognized improvement. Suchevane had evidently wasted no time in setting the castle in order. Even the old troll looked better; his red robe was clean, and he stood with a certain pride he had not evinced before, despite his enormous magic. A woman could do that for a man; Bane was in a position to know. He had never anticipated such a combination, but it seemed that Agape had engineered it.

“We come on business,” Bane said. “I be Bane, not Mach; we have maintained a masquerade to ascertain the threat posed against thy side by the Adverse Adepts. But Mach promised, and so did I, to seek a way that Fleta might breed with a man and bear a foal. Fleta has helped me in my mission; now I would help her in her desire, and for this I ask thy help.”

“Thou shallst have it,” Trool said. “What be the threat against us?”

“They mean to smite me with the evil eye, and enamor me of the Tan Adept’s daughter, that I may change sides and work with Mach for them. They know not that I be not Mach, at the moment.”

“Thou hast practiced deception,” Trool said. “That were a violation of thy truce.”

“I think not,” Bane said. “I be on thy side; I made no deal with Translucent. Mach still honors that.”

“Thou art on my side, agreed,” Trool said. “Therefore to me falls responsibility for this abridgement o’ the truce.”

“But they be abridging it also, by setting a trap for me!” Bane protested.

“Aye.” Trool walked in a circle, pondering. “I had thought not Translucent would do that.”

“Translucent agreed only to let Tania test me,” Bane said. “I think he be not part o’ this scheme.”

“If I may comment?” Suchevane said cautiously.

“Always,” Trool told her, not bothering to conceal the delight he had in her presence.

“Methinks it best to know exactly where the guilt lies,” she said. “An Bane go into the trap, and spring it, then mayhap those behind it will be revealed. Then will we know who keeps the truce, and who does not.”

“Aye,” the troll said. “Then can I deal with those who kept it, to make it right.”

To Bane it seemed that this was quibbling over a technicality. But Trool was vital to the cause, so he said nothing. He would have to face Tania. The others assumed that he could withstand her, because his love for Agape was true; how could he tell them otherwise?

“Now will I research on breeding,” Trool said. He shuffled from the chamber.

“He will be a while,” Suchevane said. “Come, eat, rest; I will see to the amenities meantime.”

She did so, and their comfort was complete. They no longer had to maintain the pretense of being lovers.

But Bane’s gloom continued. Not only was he uncertain about his emotion, he was now in doubt about his integrity. He and his father had worked out the masquerade, to spy on the plotting of the Adverse Adepts. This had seemed justified—but it was evident that the Red Adept did not consider it so. The more Bane mulled it over, the more it seemed to him that he had allowed his standard of integrity to be governed by that of his enemy, and the less he liked it. Yet had he not spied, they would not have known about the enemy’s marshaling of forces for physical action, or about the plot against him personally. Could it be right to hold to a standard that ensured defeat?

Tormented by the ethical riddle, he went to see Trool. The troll was deep in the Book of Magic, doing the research he had promised. “If I may…”

The troll looked up. “It be possible for dissimilar species to breed, but not easy,” he said. “I be on the details now.”

“That be gratifying, but that were not my concern.”

Trool merely looked at him.

“I came to apologize for putting thee in an awkward position,” Bane said. “I thought what I did to be right, but now I fear it be not. I would make amend, an I knew how.”

Trool nodded. “I be of a species with a little concept o’ right,” he said. “It fell to me to make up for wrongs done by my kind. I did it only by dedicating my life to the right I perceived. Do thou that likewise, and thou hast no further apology to make.”

“I know not whether I can,” Bane said.

Trool closed the book. “The mare?”

“I know not whom I love,” Bane said. “It were Mach who swore the triple Thee to Fleta; I ne’er did to Agape. Not in Phaze, where the splash—”

“The mare loves thee not,” Trool said.

“Aye. She be true to her own. But I—what o’ me?”

“Love be not a thing I understand,” Trool said. “It be yet too new to me. Still, I suspect that love unreturned cannot be true, and must needs be based on other than it seems.”

“But I must face Tania, who will strike at my emotion,” Bane said despairingly. “An my love for Agape not be true, I be vulnerable! Mine inconstancy can doom me—and our side.”

Trool nodded. “I tell thee again, I be no expert in this realm. I thought no woman would care to associate with me, and least of all the loveliest. But it be in my mind that thy doubt of heart be not normal. I met Agape, and if there be one who be the match o’ Fleta, it surely be she.”

“Aye, Agape be more alien than Fleta, and a fine person, and I do love her. I feel great guilt at this doubt, that I know should not exist.”

“Exactly. Do thou allow me then to test thee for a geas.”

“A geas? I have no geas!”

The troll rose and fetched an amulet from a crowded collection on a shelf. “Do thou hold this a moment.”

Bane took it. The small carved charm resembled a wooden flower, intricately carved. But as he held it, it glowed.

“There it be,” Trool said. “There be a geas on thee.”

“But I be near-Adept! How can there be magic on me, and I not know it?”

Trool took back the charm. “I think thou dost know it.”

“A love-geas!” Bane exclaimed. “Only partially effective, because of my own power, but insidious! Enough to—”

“The Adverse Adepts have set a trap for thee when thou dost return to Phaze. Could they not have prepared it before?”

“And when it worked not well enough, they set a worse one!” Bane said. “When I exchanged before, with Agape—”

“Whom they thought would be Fleta,” Trool finished.

“I thought her Fleta!” Bane said. “At first. Then did I learn she was not.”

“So the impact of the spell was blunted, leaving thee with a partial passion of Fleta that thou didst not recognize. But the geas remained there, drawing thee toward her.”

“And mayhap I devised this masquerade, that I might—”

“A geas can be insidious.”

Bane nodded, immensely relieved. “Canst banish it?”

“Aye.” Trool brought another finely Grafted amulet; the troll had a real talent for carving. This one resembled a wooden heart. “Invoke it as thou willst.”

Bane took it. “I invoke thee!”

The amulet flashed brightly. The light encompassed him, and drew in to him, centering on his heart.

“Wouldst take Fleta to bed?” Trool asked.

“Aye, an it be required.”

“Dost love her?”

Bane smiled. “As a person, aye. As a lover, nay. I respect her and cherish her, but I would not seek her to wife.”

“And Agape?”

“I seek her to wife.”

“Then the geas be abated,” Trool said. “Thou canst now face Tania.”

“Aye!” Bane said with his first real confidence. “Ah, Adept, I thank thee! What a burden thou has lifted from mine heart!”

“I do it because it be right to do,” the troll said. “But it pleases me that it also assures the welfare of the one who helped me gain mine own love.”

“But that she must hide aboard her own planet, to escape the Contrary Citizens,” Bane said, sobering.

“Until an accommodation be achieved. Mayhap that will come soon.”

“Soon,” Bane agreed fervently. “Ah, long I to be with her again!” Then his thought turned to another aspect. “Which Adept put that geas on me?”

“It seems to have been an elixir-spell. There be deep enchanted springs in the mountains, and if the Purple Adept had cause to oppose thee—”

“He did! And he could have had a demon or goblin deliver the elixir the moment we exchanged, and depart unseen.”

“And when they learned that Agape exchanged with thee, they thought the geas lost,” Trool said.

“So they set up for a more effective ploy. Now at last does it all make sense!”

Trool smiled. “I shall have thine other answer tomorrow.”

Bane took the hint. “I thank thee for both, Adept!” He retreated from the chamber as Trool reopened the Book of Magic.

Next day Trool presented that answer: “The mating must be done thrice, once in each of the ‘corn’s forms, when she be in heat. A spell o’ fertility must be invoked at each occasion. The forms o’ the breeders must match. Their love must be true, and their desire for offspring true. In this manner can crossbreeding be accomplished.”

“Mine heat comes upon me in mere days!” Fleta exclaimed. “Must needs I have Mach back in time!”

“Aye, it be time to exchange back,” Bane agreed. “But I fear thou canst not achieve it on this occasion.”

“Why not?” she demanded.

“I have just learned the manner of form-changing. It be Adept-quality magic. I fear it be beyond Mach.”

“O, aye,” Fleta agreed, crushed.

“But mayhap in time can he master it,” Suchevane put in.

“In time,” Fleta agreed, brightening somewhat. “Yet would I be with him for mine heat. It be the only time I truly crave what delights him always.”

“Aye,” Suchevane murmured, understanding exactly.

“But that must come only after the mock-exchange, to seem to bring me to Phaze,” Bane reminded her.

She smiled somewhat perfunctorily. “Aye; we have labored at a masquerade to deceive the Adverse Adepts! How glad I be to see the end o’ that!”

“Aye,” Bane breathed, knowing that his own relief was other than hers.

“But must needs I confess,” she continued after a moment, “that an I could, I would return to Protonframe for the Tourney.”

“The Tourney!” Bane exclaimed, amazed. “What would a unicorn do in such a thing?”

“Ah, what indeed!” she agreed, sighing. “Yet have I a foolish longing for the thrill I found in that contest, so like the Unilympic yet so different too. At first I liked Proton not, but as I came to know it…” She spread her hands. “Grazing the plains be just not the same, anymore.”

So she, too, had been struck by a certain illicit longing! That made Bane feel better.

Bane located Mach, coming toward the Red Demesnes, and knew that his other self was ready for the exchange. He approached a rendezvous with mixed emotions. He knew that this would spring the trap, and that the goblins would not seek to harm him or Fleta, but that when Tania appeared his love would be truly tested. The abolition of the geas had returned his emotional strength to him, and abated his gnawing guilt and doubt—but how strong was his love for Agape? He would soon know, and if it faltered even a little—

Mach had cried out the triple Thee to Fleta, and removed all doubt from all the frame of his commitment. But even in the absence of the geas, Bane feared his own love to be of lesser merit. What tragedy could befall them all, if—?

But he had to put it to this test. It was the only way to play out the masquerade, and to stop the Adverse Adepts without revealing how he had spied on them. If he prevailed, their chances against the Adverse Adepts and the Contrary Citizens would still be no better than even. If he did not, then all that his father had worked for in Phaze, and all that Citizen Blue had worked for in Proton, was in peril.

But he had to put aside such speculation. He had a lot to explain to Mach, in a very brief interval!

Bane elected to make the contact almost in sight of the red castle, so that Trool’s appearance would not be questioned, when the trap manifested. He walked to an open spot with Fleta, who was in girlform. He could feel the near approach of Mach. It was time.

He embraced Fleta. “I will return to you when I can, beloved,” he said, playing the role of Mach. Her body was as lovely as ever, and he liked her as well as ever, but the guilty tinge of sexual and possessive desire was gone; she was only his animal friend, as she had always been.

“Take care of thyself, Mach,” she replied. Then, with an impish smile: “And be not distracted by alien creatures.”

He had to laugh. That was the least of his worries! “You remain here, while I exchange,” he told her, disengaging. “We don’t want another four-way crossover!”

“Or to find ourselves in the wrong lover’s arms.” She was being very pointed. He nodded, and turned, and walked about fifty feet, coming to the spot where Mach waited. Then he slowed, as if not quite sure of the exact spot, and passed through it without stopping.

Mach! he thought as they intersected. Exchange not yet. There be a trap for me here I needs must spring. Then he was out of phase.

He turned, as if reorienting, and walked back into Mach. Understood, Mach replied. I will wait.

Bane stopped just beyond intersection, spread his arms as if in discovery, and put a dazed expression on his face. He blinked, and began to lose his balance. Then he looked up, as if reorienting on the landscape of Phaze after being in a chamber of Proton. He opened his mouth.

Tania appeared immediately before him. “Bane,” she said. Then she hit him with her power.

The effect was emotional rather than physical, but it was potent. Suddenly she seemed to glow, to become the ultimate and eternal woman, perfect of form and feature, phenomenally desirable. Her tan tresses shone with a golden luster, and her tan eyes bore on his magnetically. It was as if the entire frame were dissolving, becoming unreal; the only reality was here.

And she was beautiful. He could not deny that, objectively. She was not creating the illusion of appeal where none existed, she was enhancing a formidable base. Her face had seemed relatively plain, but her body was excellent, and now that her expression was animated, even her face was good. But that was merely physical. He had seen her destroy the little bird; he had seen her cruelty. He knew she was no prize.

More important, he was not vulnerable. His love was not uncertain or compromised. “Agape,” he murmured. And saw the faint splash.

The ripple spread outward, almost invisible. But when it passed Tania, she screamed. She knew in that moment that she had lost, and that the trap had been for nothing. She had tried to exert her power on a man whose love was true.

The Translucent Adept appeared, floating in his watery bubble. “What be this?” he demanded, staring at Tania.

“That wench tried to fascinate me,” Bane said. “Be this the way thou does honor the truce?”

“I had no part in this!” Translucent cried angrily. “I knew of it not, nor was it mine intent.” There was another faint splash as he spoke, vindicating him. “The wench was to test only Mach’s identity, lest there be deceit; thereafter she was to have no part of this.”

The Red Adept appeared. “There was deceit on both sides,” he said. “The Adverse Adepts set goblins to track the couple, to capture Agape, and to bring Tania to catch Bane. This be the proof o’ that.”

“Then be mine oath compromised,” Translucent said grimly.

“But it were Bane who went last to thy Demesnes, and spied on thee,” Trool continued. “Thus be mine own oath compromised, by the dealing of mine associates. I learned o’ this late.”

Translucent gazed at him. “Dost proffer offsetting injuries?”

“Aye.”

“Accepted. Let us have no more o’ this.”

“No more o’ this,” Trool agreed. “Needs must we fashion an end to this standoff, that the issue be decided fairly and openly.”

“Aye. But how?”

“The Tourney!” Fleta called.

Both Adepts glanced at her in surprise. “What dost thou know o’ that, mare?” Translucent asked.

“It be the fairest way in Proton to settle an issue,” she said stoutly. “First be the Grid played, wherein be strategy, but none may know ahead what game can come o’ it, then be the game played, and the victor be determined by skill or luck or agreement as may be, but none may know ahead for sure who will prevail. Settle the issue with a tourney!”

“But this be Phaze,” Translucent protested. “There be no tourney here.”

“There be contests,” Fleta said. “The Unilympics, the Werelympics—”

“Animal shows,” the Adept said disparagingly. “But in any event, this be a matter between frames, not to be settled by a contest in one. And we can not have a contest between frames.”

“We could,” Tania said, speaking for the first time since her failure.

Translucent turned on her a look of irritation. “Be thankful I banish thee not to the depth of the sea, wench!” he snapped. “I’ll have no input from thee!”

“I cheated too,” Fleta said. “I knew I was with Bane, not Mach, in thy Demesnes. I be guilty as she.”

“Then let her speak,” Trool said, intrigued. “There be only two who can communicate between frames,” Tania said. “Or maybe four, but only two on their own. One sides with us, the other with Stile’s forces. They be alternate selves, inherently even. Let them vie with each other, one in each frame. Let the loser join the side o’ the victor.”

Translucent looked at Trool, who looked equally amazed.

“And let their loves assist them,” Fleta said.

Trool spoke to Bane. “Dost thou concur?”

“I be not apt at the game,” Bane said.

“But thy potential be Mach’s, in his body,” Fleta said. “And his be thine, in thy body. An we exclude not magic from the games, with Mach a duffer there—”

“Training,” Translucent said. “Go to experts of Proton for training. They will do their honest best.”

“Better yet,” Trool said. “Go to the Oracle.”

Now Bane was stunned. The legendary Oracle! The magical entity that had guided his father’s career in Phaze. The Oracle knew everything—and it was now in Proton, in the guise of a computer, guiding Blue’s dominance of that frame. If he could not prevail with the Oracle’s help, he could not do so at all. “Aye.”

“But the equivalent in Phaze be the Book of Magic,” Translucent said. “And that be not in our power.”

“An Bane be trained by the Oracle,” Trool said, “I will lend thee the Book of Magic, for the training o’ Mach only.”

This time it was the Translucent Adept who was stunned. “That be the mainstay o’ thy power!”

“Aye. Canst make oath to abuse it not?”

Translucent considered, and there was a faint shimmer about him. “Nay. Canst give me access to it in thy Demesnes?”

Now Trool the Troll considered, and the shimmer was about him. “Aye,” he said at last.

“Then can I agree,” Translucent said. “Troll, we be on different sides, but I would be friends with thee.”

“Aye,” Trool said.

Translucent stepped out of his bubble, and it dissolved into vapor. He walked across to Trool, extending his hand. The troll accepted it.

Then Trool turned back to Bane. “Does Mach agree?”

“Ask him,” Bane said. He stepped back into overlap. New challenge, he thought. They will explain. Then they made the exchange.