Split Infinity

CHAPTER 16 - Blue

Stile emerged, as planned, just beyond the yellow fog that demarked the Yellow Demesnes. He could not, per his agreement and the curse Yellow had set against his return, enter that for himself—but he shouldn’t need to. He set down the cage containing the owl and donned his clothing. In the pockets were a folded null-weight wetsuit and a metalsaw: the one to protect against thrown potions, the other to sever the cage bars. He hoped Kurrelgyre or Neysa would have the common sense to saw out a bar-section and use it as a lever to break the locks of the other cages. If they didn’t, or if anything else went wrong—

Stile stifled that thought. He had to free his friends, one way or another. If he could not do it harmlessly, he would have to make arrangements to destroy the Yellow Adept—and he did not want to do that. She was not really a bad witch.

He stretched the pliant wetsuit into a cord and knotted it about the saw. He brought the owl out. “All right, owl. One service for me and you are free in this world, never again to serve man or to be caged.” This was a modified owl, of high intelligence for its kind; it understood him. “Take this and drop it in the cauldron inside the yellow house.” Stile presented the package of dry ice. “Take this and drop it in the unicorn’s cage.” He gave the bird the wetsuit-saw knot.

The owl blinked dubiously.

“Oh, you don’t know what a unicorn is? Like a horse with a horn.” The owl was reassured. “Then wing out of here—and out of there, quickly. You will be free. And if you should ever need me, let me know and I’ll help you.”

The owl took a package in each claw, spread its wings, and launched into the sky. “And don’t let any liquid touch you, there!” Stile called after it.

He watched it go, hoping for the best. This was a jury-rigged effort, the best he could think of under the pressures of the moment. He wasn’t sure what Proton artifacts would operate in Phaze, so was keeping it as simple as possible.

He was in luck. Soon he heard a scream from the witch. That would be the dry ice in the cauldron, making it bubble and steam through no agency of the Adept, interfering with the potion’s effectiveness and releasing the owl from its spell, as well as distracting Yellow. Next could come the delivery of the suit and saw. After that, with luck, hell would break loose.

He waited nervously. So many things could go wrong! Then he heard the trumpeting of Darlin’ Corey the pink elephant, and an increasing commotion among the captives. It grew into a considerable din, with bangings and crashes. Then at last shapes moved through the fog. A unicorn galloped toward Stile. It was Neysa —and she had a rider. Kurrelgyre, in man-form.

They arrived, and the werewolf dismounted. “My thanks to thee, fair mare. At such time as I may, I will return the favor.” Then he handed the sword to Stile and changed back into wolf-form.

Stile stood for a moment, assimilating this. Why hadn’t the werewolf simply run as a wolf, instead of performing the awkward, for him, feat of riding the unicorn? To carry the rapier, that he would otherwise have had to leave behind. His own clothing transformed with him, but the sword was foreign. He had wanted to return it to Stile. Why had Neysa tolerated this strange rider? Because she too had felt the need to return the sword. Yet it was no special weapon. It was the gift of her brother, belonging now to Stile—that was its only distinction. So they had both done it for him. Or so his present logic suggested. He was touched. “I thank you both. But I am chiefly glad you both are free without injury.”

Kurrelgyre made a growl, and Neysa a note of assent. Neither was talking much, it seemed. Was this because they had not liked the necessity of working so closely together—or because they had liked it? That could be a serious complication for hereditary enemies.

“The Yellow Adept—was she hurt?”

Kurrelgyre changed back to man-form. “The witch brought me forth from my cage, fathoming my disguise,” he said. “She claimed thou hadst sent her to me.

And I, knowing not whether she spoke truth or lie, had to play along with her until I knew thy fate, intending to kill her if she had done thee harm. But she showed me thy prints going through the curtain, and told me how thou wouldst try to rescue us from afar, and said she would lay no traps against thee if I—“

“Yellowette is some fair witch,” Stile said.

“I have been long absent from my were-bitch,” Kurrelgyre agreed. “Yellow performs her business, as do we all. But ere she moved me, the potion wore off. . . .” He shrugged. “So I returned to my cage, to await thine effort. I could not flee in wolf-form because her summoning potion would have brought me back, and my man-form no longer wished to slay her.”

“I believe she was willing to let thee go,” Stile said. “But to save face, she could not do it until I launched mine effort. I suspect I owe her a favor.”

“It seems some Adepts are people too,” Kurrelgyre agreed grudgingly. “No animal harmed Yellow in the escape; they merely fled in different directions, and we too came here as soon as we winded thee.” He returned to lupine form.

“Yellow told me who I am,” Stile said.

The eyes of wolf and unicorn abruptly fixed on him.

“I am the Blue Adept.” Stile paused, but neither gave any sign, positive or negative. “I know neither of you approve, but I am what I am. My alternate self was Blue. And I must know myself, as the Oracle said. I must go and set things straight at the Blue Demesnes.”

Still they waited, not giving him any encouragement.

“I have freed you both from Yellow, as I had to,” Stile continued. “I could not leave you in her clutches after both of you got there because of me. But now that I know who I am, I can not ask either of you to help. I am the one that thou, Kurrelgyre, mayst not—“

The wolf shifted back into the man. “Too late, friend. I was lost when I met thee, knowing it not. The Oracle alone knew, when it told me to ‘cultivate Blue.’ I ask no favor of thee, but I will help thee investigate thine own situation. Perchance that which slew thine other self now lurks for thee at the Blue Demesnes, and a lupine nose will sniff it out in time.”

“I thank thee, werewolf. Yet will I do no magic, so can not assist thee in thine own concern. It is a one-sided favor thou dost—“ But Kurrelgyre had already reverted to wolf-form.

“And thee, Neysa,” Stile continued. “I—“

The unicorn made a musical blast of negation. She gestured marginally with her nose, indicating that he should mount. Relieved, Stile did so. He remained tired from the marathon, and it was a great comfort to be on Neysa again. Now he could relax, for a little while, recovering from that grueling run. He needed about two days off his feet, to recuperate, but the time simply wasn’t there. If he delayed his approach to the Blue Demesnes, Yellow might spread the word, and what- ever lurked there would be thoroughly prepared for his arrival. He had to get there first.

Should he ask for another sniff of wolfsbane? No—that magic might not work for him as well a second time, and in any event he preferred to ride out his problems with his own strength, not leaning on magic too often.

Stile did not know where the Blue Demesnes were, but Kurrelgyre did. He led Neysa eastward at a fast clip. They moved back along the route they had come originally, through forest and field and badlands, hardly pausing for rest or food. Stile explained along the way about his need to report back to Proton on the morrow, so the two creatures were determined to get him where he was going before he had to return to Proton. Kurrelgyre did not pause to hunt, and Neysa never grazed despite Stile’s urgings.

At length they passed the place where he had tamed the unicorn: the start of that wild ride. So short and yet so long a time ago! They proceeded without pause to the castle Stile had first seen from his survey from the tall tree. Back virtually to his starting point—had he but known!

Dawn was breaking in its unmitigated splendor as they approached the castle. Stile, asleep on Neysa, had missed the pretty moonrisings and settings of the night. He squinted at the castle blearily. He had barely four hours left before his match for Rung Five in Proton—and he hadn’t even settled the situation in Phaze yet. If only Blue hadn’t been so far from Yellow—

Stile had slept, but it seemed the tensions of his mission had prevented him from unwinding properly. If the Blue Adept had really been murdered, who had done the deed? If Blue’s magic had not saved him, how could Stile survive without the aid of magic? Yet this was the way it had to be. Even if magic had been permitted him, he would not be prepared with suitable verses.

Yet he still had to check this castle out. To know, finally, exactly what his situation was. Whatever it might be, whatever it might cost him. The Oracle had told him to know himself, and he believed it was good advice.

The environs of the Blue Demesnes were surprisingly pleasant. There was no black fog or yellow fog—not even any blue fog. Just the pure blue sky, and a lovely blue lake, and fields of bluebells and blue gentians and bluegrass. To Stile’s eye this was the most pleasant of places—not at all like the lair of an Adept.

Still, he could not afford to be deceived by superficialities. “I think it would be best to enter in disguise, as before,” Stile said. The animals agreed.

This time Stile donned Neysa’s socks, while Kurrelgyre assumed man-form. Then the seeming man led the two seeming unicorns up to the castle gate.

The drawbridge was down across the small moat, and the gate stood open. An armed human guard strode forward, but his hand was not near his sword. He was, of course, garbed in blue. “What can we do for thee, man?” he inquired of Kurrelgyre.

“We come to see the Blue Adept,” the werewolf said.

“Thine animals are ill?”

Surprised, Kurrelgyre improvised. “One has bad knees.”

“We see not many unicorns here,” the guard observed. “But surely the Lady Blue can handle it. Come into the courtyard.”

Stile was startled. This was the first he had heard of a Lady Blue. How could she be the Adept, if the original had been a man, and was now dead? Unless she had been his wife. This complicated the picture consider-ably!

“But we wish to see the Adept himself,” the were-wolf protested.

“If thou’rt dying, thou seest the Adept,” the guard said firmly. “If thine animal hath bad knees, thou seest the Lady.”

Kurrelgyre yielded. He led his animals through the gate, along the broad front passage, and into the central court. This was similar to one of the courts of the palace of the Oracle, but smaller; it was dominated by a beautiful blue-blossomed jacaranda tree in the center. Beneath the tree was a deep blue pond fed by a rivulet from a fountain in the shape of a small blue whale that overhung one side. The Blue Adept evidently liked nature in all its forms, especially its blue forms. Stile found his taste similar.

There were several other animals in the yard: a lame jackrabbit, a snake with its tail squished, and a partly melted snow monster. Neysa eyed the last nervously, but the monster was not seeking any trouble with any other creature.

A maidservant entered the yard, wearing a blue print summer dress. “The Lady will be with thee soon,” she said to Kurrelgyre. “Unless thou art in immediate pain?”

“No pressing pain,” the werewolf said. He was evidently as perplexed by all this as Stile was. Where was the foul nature an Adept was supposed to have? If the Blue Adept were dead, where was the grief and ravage?

They might have had to fight their way into the castle; instead it was completely open and serene.

The girl picked up the snake carefully and carried it into the castle proper.

What was this. Stile wondered—an infirmary? Certainly it was a far cry from the Black or Yellow De-esnes, in more than physical distance. Where was the catch?

The girl came for the rabbit. The snake had not reappeared; was it healed—or dead? Why did the animals trust themselves to this castle? Considering the reputation of Adepts, these creatures should have stayed well clear.

Now another woman emerged. She wore a simple gown of blue, with blue slippers and a blue kerchief tying back her fair hair. She was well proportioned but not spectacular in face or figure. She went directly to the snow-monster. “For thee, a freeze-potion,” she said. “A simple matter.” She opened a vial and sprinkled its contents on the monster. Immediately the melt disappeared. “But get thee safely back to thy mountain fastness; the lowlands are not safe for the likes of thee,” she admonished it with a smile that illuminated her face momentarily as if a cloud had passed from the face of the sun. “And seek thee no further quarrels with fire-breathing dragons!” The creature nodded and shuffled out.

Now the woman turned to Kurrelgyre. Stile was glad he was in disguise; that daylight smile had shaken him. The woman had seemed comely but ordinary until that smile. If there were evil in this creature, it was extraordinarily well hidden.

“We see not many unicorns here, sir,” she said, echoing the sentiment of the guard at the gate. Stile was startled by the appellation, normally applied only to a Citizen of Proton. But this was not Proton. “Which one has the injured knees?”

The werewolf hesitated. Stile knew his problem, and stepped in. The unicorn costume was for sight only; any touch would betray the humanness of the actual body.

“I am the one with the knees,” he said. “I am a man in unicorn disguise.”

The Lady turned her gaze on him. Her eyes were blue, of course, and very fine, but her mouth turned grim. “We serve not men here, now. Why dost thou practice this deceit?”

“I must see the Blue Adept,” Stile said. “Adepts have not been hospitable to me, ere now. I prefer to be anonymous.”

“Thou soundest strangely familiar—“ She halted. “Nay, that can not be. Come, I will examine thy knees, but I can promise nothing.”

“I want only to see the Adept,” Stile protested. But she was already kneeling before him, finding his legs through the unicorn illusion. He stood there helplessly, letting her slide her fingers over his boots and socks and up under his trouser legs, finding his calves and then at last his knees. Her touch was delicate and highly pleasant. The warmth of it infused his knees like the field of a microwave therapy machine. But this was no machine; it was wonderfully alive. He had never before experienced such a healing touch.

Stile looked down—and met the Lady’s gaze. And something in him ignited, a flame kindled in dry tinder. This was the woman his alternate self had married.

“I feel the latent pain therein,” the Lady Blue said. “But it is beyond my means to heal.”

“The Adept can use magic,” Stile said. Except that the Blue Adept was dead—wasn’t he?

“The Adept is indisposed,” she said firmly. She released his knees and stood with an easy motion. She was marvelously lithe, though there were worry-lines about her mouth and eyes. She was a lovely and talented woman, under great strain—how lovely and how talented and under how much strain he was now coming to appreciate by great jackrabbit bounds. Stile believed he knew what the nature of that strain might be.

Kurrelgyre and Neysa were standing by, awaiting Stile’s decision. He made it: he bent carefully to draw off the unicorn socks, revealing himself undisguised.

“Woman, look at me,” he said.

The Lady Blue looked. She paled, stepping back. “Why comest thou like this in costume, foul spirit?” she demanded. “Have I not covered assiduously for thee, who deservest it least?”

Stile was taken aback. He had anticipated gladness, disbelief or fear, depending on whether she took him for her husband, an illusion, or a ghost. But this—

“Though it be strange,” the Lady murmured in an aside to herself. “Thy knees seemed flesh, not wood, and there was pain in them. Am I now being deluded by semblance spells?”

Stile looked at the werewolf. “Does this make sense to thee? Why should my knees not be flesh? Who would have wooden knees?”

“A golem!” Kurrelgyre exclaimed, catching on. “A wooden golem masquerading as the Adept! But why does she cover for the soulless one?”

The Lady whirled on the werewolf. “Why cover for thy henchman!” she exclaimed, her pale cheeks flushing now in anger. “Should I let the world know my love is dead, most foully murdered, and a monster put in his place—and let all the good works my lord achieved fall into ruin? Nay, I needs must salvage what I can, holding the vultures somewhat at bay, lest there be no longer any reprieve or hope for those in need. I needs must sustain at least the image of my beloved for these creatures, that they suffer not the horror I know.”

She returned to bear on Stile, regal in her wrath. “But thou, thou fiend, thou creature of spite, thou damned thing! Play not these gruesome games with me, lest in mine agony I forget my nature and ideals and turn at last on thee and rend thee limb from limb and cut out from thy charred bosom the dead toad that is thy heart!” And she whirled and stalked into the building.

Stile stared after her, bathed in the heat of her fury.

“There is a woman,” he breathed raptly.

Neysa turned her head to look at him, but Stile was hardly aware of the import of her thought. The Lady Blue—protecting her enemy from exposure, for the sake of the good work done by the former Blue Adept. Oh, what a wrong to be righted!

“I must slay that golem,” Stile said.

Kurrelgyre nodded. “What must be, roust be.” He shifted to wolf-form and sniffed the air. Then he led the way into the castle.

Stile followed, but Neysa remained in the courtyard. She had run almost without surcease for a day and night, carrying him, and her body was so tired and hot she could scarce restrain the flames of her breath. Kurrelgyre, unfettered, had fared better; but Neysa needed time by herself to recover.

No one sought to stop them from entering the castle proper. The guard at the gate had been the only armed man they encountered, and he was back at his station. There were a few household servants, going innocently about their businesses. There was none of the grimness associated with the demesnes of the other Adepts he had encountered. This was an open castle.

The wolf followed his nose through clean halls and apertures until they arrived at a closed door. Kurrelgyre growled: the golem was here.

“Very well, werewolf,” Stile said. “This needs must be my battle; go thou elsewhere.” Kurrelgyre, under-standing, disappeared.

Stile considered momentarily, then decided on the forthright approach. He knocked.

There was, as he expected, no answer. Stile did not know much about golems, but did not expect much from a construct of inanimate materials. Yet, he re-minded himself, that was what the robot Sheen was. So he had to be careful not to underestimate this thing. He did not know the limits of magical animation. “Golem,” he called. “Answer, or I come in regardless. Thine impersonation is at an end.”

Then the door opened. A man stood there, garbed in a blue robe and blue boots. He was. Stile realized, the exact image of Stile himself. His clothing differed in detail, but a third party would not know the two of them apart.

“Begone, intruder, lest I enchant thee into a worm and crush thee underheel,” the golem said.

So golems could talk. Good enough.

Stile drew his rapier. For this had werewolf and unicorn labored so diligently to return his weapon to him! “Perform thy magic quickly, then, impostor,” he said, striding forward.

The golem was unarmed. Realizing this, Stile halted without attacking. “Take a weapon,” he said. “I know thou canst not enchant me. Dost thou not recognize me, thou lifeless stick?”

The golem studied Stile. The creature was evidently not too bright—unsurprising if its brains were cellulose—but slowly Stile’s aspect penetrated. ‘Thou’rt dead!” the golem exclaimed.

Stile menaced him with the sword. “Thou art dead, not I.”

The golem kicked at him suddenly. Its move was almost untelegraphed, but Stile was not to be caught oft guard in a situation like this. He swayed aside and clubbed the creature on the ear with his left fist.

Pain lanced through his hand. It was like striking a block of wood—as he should have known. This was a literal blockhead! While he paused, shaking his hand, the golem turned and butted him in the chest. Stile braced himself just in time, but he felt dull pain, as of a rib being bent or cartilage torn. The golem bulled on, shoving Stile against the wall, trying to grab him with hideously strong arms. Stile knew already that he could not match the thing’s power.

Unarmed? The golem needed no overt weapon! Its body was wood. Stile got his sword oriented and stabbed the torso. Sure enough, the point lodged, not penetrating. This thing was not vulnerable to steel!

Now he knew what he was up against. Stile hauled up one of his feet and got his knee into the golem’s body as it tried to butt again. His knee hurt as he bent it, but he shoved the creature away. The golem crashed against the far wall, its head striking with a sharp crack —but it was the wall that fractured, not the head. Stile took a shallow breath, feeling his chest injury, and looked around. Kurrelgyre was back, standing in the doorway, growling off other intruders. This would remain Stile’s own personal fight, like a Game in the Proton-frame. All he had to do was destroy this undead wooden dummy. Before it battered him into the very state of demise he was supposedly already in.

He no longer had qualms about attacking an un-armed creature. He studied the golem. The creature might be made of wood, animated by magic, but it still had to obey certain basic laws of physics. It had to have joints in its limbs, and would be vulnerable in those joints, even as Stile was. It had to hear and see, so needed ears and eyes, though these would probably function only via magic. Whoever had made this golem must have a real knack for this kind of sorcery. An-other Adept, most likely, specializing in golems.

The golem came—and Stile plunged the point of his rapier like a hypodermic into the thing’s right eye. The golem, evidently feeling no pain, continued forward, only twisting its head. The sword point, lodged in the wood, was wrenched about. It snapped off.

Stile had not been expert with this weapon, so this was less of a loss than it might have seemed. He aimed the broken end at the golem’s other eye. But the creature, aware of the danger, retreated. It turned and crashed through the window in the far wall.

Stile pursued it. He leaped through the broken window—and found himself back in the courtyard, where Neysa had been pacing restlessly, breathing out her heat. She paused, startled, at the appearance of the golem. Her eyes informed her it was Stile, with one eye destroyed, but her nose was more certain. She made an angry musical snort.

The golem cast about with its remaining eye. It spied the fountain-whale. It grabbed the statuary in both arms and ripped it from its mooring.

Neysa, alarmed, charged across the courtyard, her horn aimed at the golem. “Don’t stab it!” Stile cried. “The thing is wood; it could break thy horn!”

As he spoke, the golem heaved the whale at him. The statue was solid; it flew like a boulder. Neysa leaped at Stile, nosing him out of the way of it. The thing landed at her feet, fragmenting.

“Art thou all right, Neysa?” Stile cried, trying to get to his feet without bending his knees too far.

She gave a musical blast of alarm. Stile whirled. The golem was bearing down on him with a whale fragment, about to pulp his head.

Neysa lifted her head and snorted a jet of flame that would have done credit to a small dragon. It passed over Stile and scored on the golem.

Suddenly the golem was on fire. Its wood was dry, well-seasoned, and filled with pitch; it burned vigorously. The creature dropped the whale fragment and ran madly in a circle, trying to escape its torment. Blows and punctures might not bother it, but fire was the golem’s ultimate nemesis.

Stile stared for a moment, amazed at this apparition: himself on fire! The golem’s substance crackled. Smoke trailed from it, forming a torus as the creature continued around its awful circle.

And Stile, so recently out to destroy this thing, experienced sudden empathy with it. He could not let it be tortured in this fashion. He tried to quell his human softness, knowing the golem was a literally heartless, unliving thing, but he could not. The golem was now the underdog, worse off than Stile himself.

“The water!” Stile cried. “Jump in the pond! Douse the fire!”

The golem paused, flame jetting out of its punctured eye to form a momentary halo. Then it lurched for the pool, stumbled, and splashed in. There was a hiss and spurt of steam.

Stile saw Neysa and Kurrelgyre and the Lady Blue standing spaced about the courtyard, watching. He went to the pond and kneeled, carefully. The golem floated face down, its fire out. Probably it didn’t need to breathe; still—

Stile reached out and caught a foot. He hauled it in, then wrestled the body out of the pond. But the golem was defunct, whether from the fire or the water Stile could not tell. It no longer resembled him, other than in outline. Its clothing was gone, its painted skin scorched, its head a bald mass of charcoal.

“I did not mean it to end quite this way,” Stile said soberly. “I suppose thou wast only doing thy job, golem, what thou wert fashioned for, like a robot. I will bury thee.”

The gate guard appeared. He looked at the scene, startled. “Who is master, now?”

Startled in turn. Stile realized that he should be the master, having deposed the impostor. But he knew things weren’t settled yet. “Speak to the Lady,” he said.

The guard turned to her. “A wolf comes, seeking one of its kind.”

Kurrelgyre growled and stalked out to investigate. “Speak naught of this outside,” the Lady Blue directed the guard. Then she turned to Stile. “Thou’rt no golem. Comest thou now to destroy what remains of the Blue Demesnes?”

“I come to restore it,” Stile said.

“And canst thou emulate my lord’s power as thou dost impersonate his likeness?” she asked coldly.

Stile glanced at Neysa. “I can not. Lady, at this time. I have made an oath to do no magic—“

“How convenient,” she said. “Then thou needst not prove thyself, having removed one impostor, and thou proposest to assume his place, contributing no more to these Demesnes than he did. And I must cover for thee, even as I did for the brute golem.”

“Thou needst cover for nobody!” Stile cried in a flash of anger. “I came because the Oracle told me I was Blue! I shall do what Blue would have done!”

“Except his magic, that alone distinguished my lord from all others,” she said.

Stile had no answer. She obviously did not believe him, but he would not break his oath to Neysa, though he wanted above all else to prove himself to the Lady Blue. She was such a stunning figure of a woman—his alternate self had had tastes identical to his own.

Kurrelgyre returned, assuming man-form. “A member of my pack brings bitter news to me,” he said. “Friend, I must depart.”

“Thou wert always free to do so,” Stile said, turning to this distraction with a certain relief. “I thank thee for thy help. Without seeking to infringe upon thy prerogatives, if there is aught I can do in return—“

“My case is beyond help,” the werewolf said. “The pack leader has slain mine oath-friend, and my sire is dying of distemper. I must go slay the pack leader—and be in turn torn apart by the pack.”

Stile realized that werewolf politics were deadly serious matters. “Wait briefly, friend! I don’t understand. What is an oath-friend, and why—?”

“I needs must pause to explain, since I shall not be able to do it hereafter,” Kurrelgyre said. “Friendship such as exists between the two of us is casual; we met at random, part at random, and owe nothing to each other. Ours is an association of convenience and amicability. But I made an oath of friendship with Drowltoth, and when I was expelled from the pack he took my bitch—“

“He stole thy female?” Stile cried.

“Nay. What is a bitch, compared to oath-friendship? He took her as a service to me, that she be not shamed before the pack. Now, over a pointless bone, the leader has slain him, and I must avenge my friend. Since I am no longer of the pack, I may not do this legitimately; therefore must I do it by stealth, and pay the consequence, though my sire die of grief.”

Oath-friendship. Stile had not heard of this before, but the concept was appealing. A liaison so strong it pre-empted male-female relations. That required absolute loyalty, and vengeance for a wrong against that friend, as for a wrong against oneself. Golden rule.

Yet something else nagged him. Stile pursued it through the tangled skein of his recent experience, integrating things he had learned, and caught it.

“There is another way,” he said. “I did not grasp it before, because this frame evidently has a more violent manner of settling accounts than I am used to. Here, perhaps, it is proper to kill and be killed over minor points of honor—“

“Of course it is!” the werewolf agreed righteously.

“Just so. My apology if I misinterpret thine imperatives; I do not wish to give offense. But as I perceive it, thou couldst rejoin thy pack. Thou hast only to kill thy sire—“

“Kill my sire!” Kurrelgyre exclaimed. “I told thee—“

“Who is dying anyway,” Stile continued inexorably. “Which death would he prefer—a lingering, painful, ignominious demise by disease, or an honorable, quick finish in the manner of his kind, as befits his former status, by the teeth of one he knows loves him?”

The werewolf stared at Stile, comprehending.

“And thus thou’rt restored to thy pack, having done thy duty, and can honorably avenge thine oath-friend, without penalty,” Stile concluded. “And take back thy bitch, who otherwise would be shamed by the loss of both wolves she trusted.”

“The Oracle spoke truly,” Kurrelgyre murmured. “I did cultivate Blue, and Blue hath restored me to my heritage. I thought it was the anathema of Adept magic I was fated to receive, but it was the logic mine own canine brain was too confused to make.”

“It was only an alternate perspective,” Stile demurred. “I have yet to grasp the full import of mine own Oracular message.”

“I will gnaw on that,” the werewolf said. ‘Perhaps I shall come upon a similar insight. Farewell, meantime.” And he shifted to wolf-form and moved out.

Stile looked at the sun. The day was three hours advanced. The challenge of Rung Five—in just one hour! He barely had time to get there. Fortunately, he knew exactly where the curtain was, and where his original aperture was. He had to move!

Yet he was hardly finished in this frame. He had slain the golem, with Neysa’s help, but had little idea how to proceed here; he might do best to remove him-self from this frame for a while, hoping for insights. Hoping to know himself better. What did he really want? That depended, in part, on how things fell out on Proton.

“I, too, have business elsewhere,” Stile said. “I must reach the curtain quickly, and get someone to spell me through.”

Neysa brightened. She stepped up to him. She would handle it.

He mounted, and they galloped off. Neysa was still hot from her prior exertions, but knew Stile’s deadline. In moments she had carried him into the pasture where they had first met.

“Neysa, I think it would be best if thou shouldst stay at the Blue Demesnes while I visit the other frame. I’d appreciate it if thou wouldst inform the Lady Blue about Proton, as thou hast heard it from the werewolf and from me; I don’t think she knows.” He felt a momentary deja vu, and placed it: this was similar to the manner he was having Sheen tell Hulk about Phaze.

Neysa stiffened. “Is something wrong?” Stile asked.

She blew a note of negation, and relaxed. Stile, intent on the precise location of the curtain-site, did not pursue the matter. Such a short time to reach the Game-annex!

They reached the place in the forest where Stile had Erst entered this frame. The curtain was there, shimmering more strongly than before. Perhaps he had simply become better attuned to it. Stile divested himself of his clothes. “I will return to the Blue Demesnes within a day, I hope. If thou wilt spell me through now—“

She made a musical snort—and he was through the curtain, emerging in the service area behind the food machines. Only then did he wonder about the unicorn’s reticence. Something was bothering Neysa—and now it was too late to ask her about it.

Well, he was sorry, but he was in a hurry. He had twenty minutes to reach the Game-annex, or forfeit.