But the Herd Stallion was free. He launched himself at the bars. "No!" Stile cried in alarm, knowing the stone was too strong for the animal to break. But the Stallion shifted in midair to roach-form, sailed between columns, and shifted on Stile's side to dragon-form. The dragon spread his wings, banked about, and fired forth a horizontal column of flame that seared the oncoming goblins. The stench of burnt flesh wafted back. Stile felt sorry for the goblins, then remembered how they had treated Clip, and stilled his sympathy. The creatures of the frame of Phaze conducted their business violently, and goblins were among the worst. Stile continued to concentrate on the healing, letting the Stallion guard him, and slowly the two parts of Clip's horn melded together. Stile felt the living warmth creep along the length of it, animating it. Soon all would be well.

A horde of goblins poured in from the far side of the prison. "Stallion!" Stile cried, and the Herd Stallion turned about, charged the bars, shifted into and out of roach form, and appeared on the other side in dragon-form again. Another burst of flame seared out, cooking more flesh.

But greater trouble was gathering. Stile could feel the rumble of the march of many feet as hundreds or thou sands of goblins closed in, traveling in unseen neighboring pa.s.sages. He knew he had alerted the enemy Adept, for he had performed Adept magic; that would further complicate the situation. Still he held on to the horn, waiting for the final inch to be restored to life so that Clip's full capacity would return. He would settle for nothing less.

There was a puff of fog. The White Adept stood beside Stile. Her hair was white, matching her eyebrows, and a sparkling white gown bedecked her somewhat stout form. "So it is thee. Blue, as we suspected," she said, her voice and gaze cold as ice. "Thou didst take the bait."

"I took it," Stile agreed grimly. He was not really surprised; his relations with the White Adept had always been chill. But why was she involved with the goblins? "I got tired of getting ambushed by the likes of thee." Would she tell him anything before making her move? If she started a spell-diagram before he was finished with Clip's horn, he would be in trouble; he would have to defend himself, for without him the unicorns could not escape. But White could have generated a spell that acted at a distance instead of facing him directly. Maybe she wanted to talk. The Herd Stallion turned from his endeavors, leaving a pile of scorched goblins rolled up like dehydrated bugs, and saw the witch. He braced for renewed action.

"Caution," Stile called. "She's Adept." The mighty animal stood still. He knew better than to attack an Adept in a situation like this. He also knew that Stile was not finished with Clip. For the moment it was an impa.s.se.

"I can not attack thee directly. Blue," the White Adept said. "And thou canst not attack me. Yet can our minions make mischief."

"Agreed," Stile said. "But why has mischief been made? I sought none."

"Abate thine onus for the moment and hear me out," she said. "Blue, I would reason with thee." In Stile's experience, those who claimed to want to reason with others were apt to have cases that were less than secure. Still, it was better to talk than to fight. Now at last Clip's horn had healed. Stile let go, and the unicorn backed away, blowing an experimental saxophone note. It was off-key, but strong. His coat seemed to be brightening under the grime; he had been restored to the joy of life. The White Adept had known what Stile was doing, and had not interfered. She had to be serious about her subject, and Stile seriously wanted to know what this was all about.

"Give thy word there will be no attack by Adept or goblin without fair warning," he said. "No treachery."

"I give it. Blue." There was a faint ripple in the air about her.

He had to accept that. Truth animated the very atmosphere and substance of Phaze. Adepts did not get along well with each other, but they honored the deals they made. "Then I will hear thy reason."

"Thou knowest that the end of Phaze draws nigh," she said. "The Purple Mountains have shaken, the Fore ordained is on the scene, the Little Folk ma.s.s as for war, and portents abound."

"Aye," he agreed. "They tell me I am involved. Yet all I sought was to honeymoon with my wife. Someone set traps for me, and one trap setter resembled thee."

"Merely to warn thee off," she said. "Thou art Adept and perhaps the strongest of us all. Thou hast suffered much, yet thou shouldst be the leader in our effort instead of opposing it."

"What effort?" Stile's interest intensified.

'To save Phaze."

"Of course I want to save Phaze! I love this land! I want to live and die here!"

"But not, methinks, before thy time."

Stile smiled grimly. "I wish not to die here among goblins, true. But I sought no quarrel with goblins. Thou didst kidnap my steed, and abused him, and forced this quarrel on me."

"Aye. Unable to strike effectively at thee or at thy Lady, or to warn thee off, we finally had to take thy steed. It is not a thing I like. Now thou canst have thy freedom with our apologies, and thine animals with thee, and leadership in the present order, if thou wilt but accept it."

"Why should I not accept it?" Stile asked, not rhetorically.

"Because thou art prophesied to be the leader of the forces of the destruction of this order. The Foreordained is only part of it; thou art the other part."

"Obviously there's a loophole," Stile said. "Aside from the fact that I have no intention of harming Phaze, thou wouldst not be pressuring me if thou didst believe my destiny was fixed."

"There is a loophole. A dead man cannot lead."

Stile laughed ironically. "Kill me? My fate will survive thine effort, if it be truly set."

"Aye. Fate has indeed charmed thee, unlike thine other self. But we are not a.s.sured thou canst not be killed, only that if thou dost remain alive in Phaze, thou wilt destroy it. The charms that preserved thee so cleverly before are pa.s.sing. Thou hast already conceived thy son on the Lady Blue-"

"I have?" Stile asked, surprised.

"-which is why she joins thy former steed and accepts the protection of the animal herd. So fate no longer preserves thee for that. It preserves her. Still, her feeling for thee is such that she might not survive thy demise, so thou art indirectly protected yet. I warned the others of that, but they heeded me not; they thought they could vanquish thee before thou didst reach the West Pole."

"They?"

"The other Adepts. We all are patriots in the end. Blue. We all must needs try to save our land." She seemed sincere! "All the other Adepts are against me?" he asked incredulously.

"All except Brown; the child wavers. She likes thy steed."

Stile remembered how Neysa had given the little girl a ride. It seemed that kindness had paid a dividend. "What of Yellow?" Stile had had differences with the Yellow Adept, but recently had gotten along with her tolerably well. He could not believe she was his enemy.

"Dost thou want it from her own mouth?"

"Aye"

"Then let me bring her here." White made a diagram on the floor and tapped it three times. A puff of smoke formed and dissipated, and there stood the Yellow Adept in her natural hag-form.

"Oh, no!" Yellow exclaimed. "Let me just get changed for the occasion, my handsome bantam." She brought out a vial, tipped it to her lips, swallowed-and changed to a young, ravishingly pretty creature.

"White tells me that thou and the other Adepts think I will destroy Phaze, so are against me. Yellow," Stile said. "Can this be true?"

Yellow made a devastatingly cute moue. 'It is close enough. Blue," she said. "I am not thine enemy and will not oppose thee-but neither can I join thee, for that thou art indeed destined to wreak much mischief and overthrow the natural order."

"How is it I know nothing of this?" Stile demanded.

"The instruments of great events seldom know their destinies," Yellow said. "This prevents paradox, which can be an awkward complication and a downright nuisance."

"Nuisance, h.e.l.l! I was attempting to have my honey moon! Why should this represent a threat to anyone?"

"Thou didst bring the Foreordained, and then thou didst travel to the West Pole. These were elements of the prophecy."

"So the other Adepts decided to stop me from getting there," Stile said, grimacing. "Setting neat little magical traps."

"Some did. Green chose to stand aloof, as I did, disliking this. Sure enough, thou didst get there. Now the onrush of events is upon us, and if we do not get thee away from Phaze promptly, we all are doomed."

"So you propose to remove me by killing me?"

"Nay, we know that would not work," Yellow said. "At least White and Green and I suspected it would not. Black and Orange and Translucent did not partic.i.p.ate in the proceedings, and Brown opposed them. We had to suppress her, lest she warn thee."

So it now developed that the other Adepts were any thing but unanimous; most were at best neutral. That explained why they had not simply ma.s.sed their magic against him. Stile's expression turned hard. "Suppressed Brown? What dost thou mean by that?"

"A stasis-spell," White said quickly. "No harm was done her. It is hard indeed to do direct harm to an Adept; the spell is likely to bounce and strike down the speller. But slantwise action can be taken, as with the silence and confinement for thee."

"You froze the child in place?" Stile demanded. "Our truce is just about to come to an unkind end."

"She would have blabbed to thee," White repeated.

"Now I am blabbing to thee: release her." White's expression hardened, as was typical of those whose reason was only a front.

Yellow quickly interceded. "Provoke him not unnecessarily. White; he has power and friends we hardly know. We need hold Brown no longer. I shall go free her." She brought out another vial, sipped the potion, and vanished.

"Methinks thou hast won the heart of more than Brown," White grumbled. She viewed him critically, noting the mud caking his body and the awkward turban, loin cloth, and shoe structures. "It must be thy magic, rather than thy demeanor."

Stile relaxed marginally. Ugly things were happening, and he knew it wasn't over. So far there had been attacks against him, the Lady Blue, Clip, and the Brown Adept. An organization of Adepts had formed against him. He needed to know the rest of it.

"Let's have it. White. Exactly what is the threat to Phaze, and what dost thou want of me?" For he knew her suggestion about giving him a place of leadership was wrong; how could he lead, if his presence meant the end?

"We want thee to leave Phaze voluntarily, so that the dangers of Adept confrontations are abated. Thou canst take Lady Blue and aught else thou wishest. Cross the curtain, embark on a Proton s.p.a.ceship, and depart for the farthermost comer of the universe as that frame knows it, never to return."

Stile had no intention of doing that. Apart from the complication of the Lady Blue's official nonexistence in the other frame, where the Records Computer took such things more seriously than people did in Phaze, there was the matter of the robot Sheen. How could he marry her, with his other wife in Proton? And how could he leave his friends the unicorns and werewolves and vampires? Phaze was the world of his dreams and nightmares; he could never leave it.

"Nay."

"The applicable portion of the prophecy is this: 'Phaze will never be restored till the Blue Adept is forever gone.' Thou canst not remain."

"I have had some experience with misrepresented predictions," Stile said. "Restoration of Phaze after my departure is hardly synonymous with my destruction of it-which I maintain is no intent of mine. Thou hast answered only a fraction of my question, and deviously at that."

"I am getting to it. Blue. The goblins guard an apparatus from the other frame, protecting it from all threats. The end of Phaze will come when that device is returned. The goblins guard it blindly from harm; we would prefer to destroy it."

"So the collusion of Adepts with goblins is rife with internal stress," Stile observed. "Doubtless the goblins know not of this aspect."

"Doubtless they suspect, however," White said.

"Surely the ma.s.sed power of the Adepts can prevail against mere goblins," Stile said, pushing at her verbally. "Any one of us could enchant the entire species of goblin into drifting smoke."

"Thou might. Blue. Few others could. But this device is a special case and can not be attacked directly."

"Anything can be attacked!" Stile said. "Some things with less success than others, though, as seems to be the case when Adepts attack Adepts."

"Nay. This device is what is called in the other frame a computer."

"A computer can't operate in Phaze! No scientific device can." Except, he remembered, near the West Pole.

"This one has a line running to the West Pole." Parallel thoughts!

"Maybe. If it could figure out how to use magic in its circuits."

"Aye. It functions partially, and has many thoughts. Some concern thee-which is why we did not wish thee to make connection with it at the Pole."

"How canst thou know this if the goblins let thee not near it? In fact, why do the goblins allow Adepts in their demesnes, seeing the likes of thee would destroy what they endeavor to guard from harm?"

"The goblin-folk are not unduly smart," she said with a fleeting smile. "But smart enough to keep Adepts away from the device. They cooperate with us to some extent because they know that we oppose thee-and thou art one who will take the contraption from them and return it to Proton-frame, where it seems it will wreak all manner of mischief on both frames. So it is an uneasy alliance, but it will do. All of us. Adept and goblin alike, wish to save Phaze."

"And I wish to destroy Phaze," Stile said. "Or so you other Adepts choose to believe. Because of some fouled-up prophecy. No matter that I love Phaze; you believe that not."

"Nay, Blue, this one is not distorted. Thou wilt return the thing to Proton and thereby destroy Phaze, and only thy departure can alleviate that."

Stile was annoyed by this insistence. There had to be some flaw in the logic. "How dost thou know the prophecy is true?"

"The computer itself made it."

"And what relevance can the guess of an other-frame contraption have? Thou dost credit it with the accuracy of the Oracle!" She nodded, and Stile's mouth dropped open. "Oh, no!" he exclaimed.

"It is so," she affirmed. "The computer is the Oracle. That is how it defends itself from the likes of us. Any thrust we can conceive against it, it antic.i.p.ates and foils. Its means are devious but effective. We dare not attack it directly."

"Now let me back up," Stile said. "Thou didst offer me peace and fortune in Phaze, then told me I have to get out of Phaze forever or be killed, so that I won't destroy it. Surely thou perceivest the contradiction. Where is the lie?"

"Nay, Blue!" she said. "We Adepts differ some amongst ourselves about our manner of dealing with thee, so there may be seeming contradictions. It is a fair offer-it thou dost but accept it. Cooperation or exile. We fear thou wilt not."

'Try me. White."

Her glance played across the cavern, indicating the unicorns and goblins, all waiting for the settlement of Adepts. "Needs must we have greater privacy than this," she said.

"Thy spell or mine?"

"Mine," he said. He played a bar of harmonica music, then sang: "Give us a globe that none may probe." And about them formed an opaque sphere that cut off all external light and sound.

In a moment light flared, as the witch made a spell of her own. "Now before we suffocate," she said, "I'll give it to thee without artifice. We want thee to destroy the Oracle. Only thou canst do it, for thou art its tool. It will admit thee to its presence, if thou canst get somehow past the goblins, and thy power is great enough to do the deed. Destroy that evil machine. Blue, and Phaze will be saved. This is the loophole we dare not voice aloud. Only if it returns operative to Proton can it act to destroy Phaze, and it can not foresee its own demise. Do this. Blue, and all other prophecies are null; we then shall have no onus against thee, and thou canst govern in Phaze."

"Thou art asking me to betray a-a consciousness that trusts me," Stile said, disturbed. "That has never been my way."

"Agreed. Thou hast ever been honorable. Blue, which is why I trust myself to thy power here. It is no fault in thee that causes us to oppose thee; it is only that it is in thy power to save or finish Phaze. Save our land and suffer our grat.i.tude; try to destroy it and suffer our opposition; or vacate the frame so that we have no need to fear thee. These are thy choices. Blue. Thou knowest our determination; we are fighting for our lives and world. We are not limited by thy scruples, and our ma.s.sed magic is stronger than thine. Thus united, we can attack thee directly. Oppose us not gratuitously."

It was a fair ultimatum. But Stile found he could not take the easy way out. "I love Phaze," he repeated. "I want never to leave it. In addition, I am now a Citizen in Proton, with considerable wealth. I shall not sacrifice my place in both frames by forever departing the planet. That leaves me with two choices: join thee or oppose thee. I know nothing of these prophecies thou dost speak of. Why should I try to destroy a device that has done me no harm?"

"No harm!" she flared, her white hair seeming to darken and melt with the heat. "Thou trusting fool! That device killed thee once and imperiled thy life again by setting us against thee."

"That last I perceive," Stile agreed. "Yet the business of the Oracle is making prophecies and being correct. If I am to be the leader of the forces of destruction of Phaze by helping this computer to return to Proton-though the reason remains opaque as to why it should wish ill to Phaze or how it could harm this frame from Proton-and some one inquires about that, the Oracle can but answer truth fully. Naturally that imperils me, and I like it not-but neither can I fault it for that answer. Truth is often unpleasant. Rather should I inquire in what way I am to do a deed whose nature appalls me. Were I sure the Oracle would destroy Phaze, I would not help it, and surely it is aware of that. There must be circ.u.mstances I know not and that you other Adepts know not. Better that I at least talk with the Oracle to ascertain the rationale."

"Of course," she said. "That is thy sensible response, and surely the machine is expecting thee to come to it. That makes it possible for thee to destroy it."

"Or to help it to destroy Phaze," Stile said wryly. "At the moment I intend to do neither evil, and can not see what rationale would sway me either way."

"Then consider this. Blue. It was the Oracle who hinted at the doom of the Red Adept and started her mischief against thee. She killed thine other self and attacked thee in Proton-but it was the Oracle who motivated her. If thou dost seek vengeance for the murder of the Blue Adept, seek it at the source-the infernal Oracle. This is no sweet contraption like thy golem mistress. Blue. It plays the game savagely."

"But all its predictions were true!" Stile protested, experiencing a trace of doubt. "I can not blame it for fulfill ng that role!"

"Fool! Dost thou not realize it was a self-fulfilling prophecy? Red attacked thee because the Oracle fingered thee, no other reason. The Oracle knew what would happen. It alone generated that murder-and knew that also." Stile was shaken. He was conversant with the bypaths of logic. White was right; the Oracle had initiated the campaign against him. A lesser ent.i.ty might have made a mistake, but the Oracle had to have known what it was doing. It had murdered Stile's other self, caused Stile's knee misery, and set him on the horrendous path he had followed on the way to Phaze and to vengeance against the Red Adept.

Yet he remembered also that the original Blue Adept had accepted his own murder. Why?

"But why should the Oracle do this to me?" he asked plaintively, seeking to resolve this part of the mystery. Maybe if he knew the Oracle's motive, he could fathom his alternate self's strange acquiescence. His mind was, after all, identical.

"I suggest thou dost go ask it," White said. "Ask also why it should seek to use thee to destroy Phaze. Then must thou do what thou shalt see fit to do." It all did seem to add up, at least to this incomplete extent. He had to settle with the Oracle. "I will go ask the machine and then do what I see fit to do."