Suchevane shook her head, and her hair swirled in a way Fleta had to envy. "Aye, they could stop him."

"But he could run away with thee-"

"Not after they tore him to bits."

Fleta stared at her. The vampiress was serious.

Suchevane shrugged. "Do what I do, 'corn. Be a private concubine, and seek no more. Accept thy place and live in peace. Haifa pint o' blood be better than none."

It was good advice, Fleta knew. But it gave her no comfort. She didn't want to love Mach in shame.

So she repaired south to the castle of the Red Adept. This was on a conical mountain, with a path spiraling up to it. But the Adept did not live in the castle, which he had inherited from his predecessor; he lived below it, inside the mountain. For he was Trool the Troll, elevated to Adept status by the action of Stile-and the Book of Magic. All other trolls were truculent and to be feared, but not this one. Not by the friends of Stile.

She blew a chord of query, seeking admittance. In a moment a hole opened in the base of the mountain, big enough for a unicorn. She trotted in.

There was eerie fungus light inside. She moved on down the tunnel and into the central chamber. There was the troll, as ugly as any of his kind, carving a figurine out of stone with his bare hands. For this was the talent of trolls, to manipulate stone as if it were clay, and to carve either tunnels or objects from it. Usually the objects were weapons, but sometimes they were artistic. Lovely statues and amulets filled the chamber, each individual and fascinating in its own right. Though any troll could, only Trool did; that artistry had distinguished him from the others of his kind. That, and his constancy of character.

"I fear I cannot help thee, Fleta," Trool said before she had even presented her case. "I cannot change the ways of entire species, and would not if I could. And my power extends not to the frame of science."

Somehow she had known Trool would be aware of her. The Book of Magic gave him extraordinary power, even for an Adept. "I think thou canst," she communicated. She used the horn-language of her kind, speaking in notes and harmonies. Few others understood it, but the Red Adept had no trouble.

"But I would not," he said.

"What better be there for me?" she demanded with sharp notes.

"Let me fashion thee a shape in his likeness, that the Brown Adept can animate as a golem."

"Nay!" Fortissimo.

"Stile be such an animation," he reminded her. For Stile's body had returned to Proton, animated by the Blue Adept, who had lost his own body. A golem body had been carved by the troll, and animated by the Brow Adept, and Stile's soul had infused it. In all things it h mimicked his natural body perfectly, except two: it lack-the bad knees of the original, and it could not reproduce Stile's son Bane had been sired before the change o bodies.

"But it be Stile's real soul," she played. "What thou dost offer me be merely Mach's appearance-and that exists already, in Bane. It be only Mach I want, none other."

"An the golem of Proton come again to Phaze, neither his kind nor thine would permit what thou dost desire," he said.

"Aye. So it be hopeless. Therefore must thou give me what I come for."

"How shall I face thy dam, an I do this?"

"Thou hast no need to tell her."

The Adept gazed at her sadly. "Since I can help thee not my way, must needs I help thee thy way. But I like it not. Choose thy form."

Fleta changed to girl form. "This be the form in which I came to love him," she said, speaking the human tongue for the first time.

"I fear I will do penance for this," Trool said. He handed her an amulet. "Invoke this, when thou art ready."

She took the amulet. "I invoke thee," she said immediately.

Nothing happened, physically. But she felt the magic of the amulet fasten about her, and knew it had done its work. She was now unable to change form.

"I thank thee, Adept," she said.

"I curse the need," he said.

She stepped forward and kissed him on his ugly cheek. "How be it a creature as nice as thou hast no companion?"

"I be alienated from mine own kind," he said gruffly.

Because he supported Stile's program of greater equality for the nonhuman creatures of Phaze, and of restraint in magic. The other trolls supported the Adverse Adepts. Of course he had the magic to capture and tame any female of any species, including troll or human, but he declined to use it that way. Thus his tragedy was like hers, in its fashion.

"Do thou ensure that none interfere," she said.

"Aye," he agreed glumly. "None save an Adept could, and none would."

Fleta turned and walked from the mountain. The ground opened to let her out, then closed again behind her. Now she was on her own.

She walked all day northwest, toward the center of the great White Mountain range. Her human legs grew tired, for she was not hardened to such travel in this form, but it was the only way, now. However long it took, she could afford.

No creatures bothered her along the way. She knew that Trool had seen to that. He had not helped her to travel there, because he did not like her purpose, but he had agreed to protect her from interference during the interim.

It took several days. At last she reached the mountains, and climbed the foothills, and then the main slopes. As evening closed, she made her way to a gra.s.sy ledge overlooking a deep chasm.

It was the ledge where her dam, Neysa, had stood, twenty years before, when ready to leap off rather than suffer Stile to conquer her. Neysa had not intended suicide; she would have changed in midair to her firefly form, and flown away, leaving Stile to fall to his death below. But he, not realizing that, had freed her instead- and in that act had captured her after all. Thereafter she had given him everything. Later he had made to her that Oath of friendship that had subtly changed the relationship of men, unicorns and werewolves, and whose power still was felt, twenty years later. But that Oath had its root at this site, where he had taken that first step.

Fleta stood at the brink. Neysa had not contemplated suicide-but Fleta did. Had she come here ordinarily, she could have leaped-but would have changed to bird form involuntarily, rather than die. So she had had herself enchanted. Now, when she jumped, she would not be able to change her mind.

This act would solve the problem. She would be beyond caring, and Mach, if he ever learned of it, would know that there was no longer anything to distract him from his other business. She was freeing him-from her. From the temptation and distraction of the impossible.

"Mach!" she cried, letting her love for him overflow at last, letting the mountains hear it. Indeed they heard, for they echoed it back. At the snowy heights the snow-demons emerged from their ice caves, marveling at that echoing word. A ripple pa.s.sed through the air: the splash of conviction.

Now she had uttered it. Now she was committed.

Then she made a swan-dive off the ledge.

15 - Blue

Bane found himself back in a Proton cell, this time clamped to a wall so that he could not move. Evidently Mach had not been able to free himself. But had he been successful in freeing Agape? That was what really counted.

He tuned himself out, knowing that there was nothing he could do at the moment, and that there was nothing the Contrary Citizens could do to him, since without him they would have no avenue to Phaze. Since this machine body had no so-called natural functions, his immobility did not generate discomfort. Obviously something had happened, to make the Citizen wary of his prisoner's freedom. What had Mach done?

A screen came on before him. It was set in the wall opposite, and his head was locked into place facing it; he could tune it out in his mind, but could not look at anything else. It seemed his captor wanted him to watch it.

The picture was of the interior of a house or suite.

The furnishings were in shades of blue. "Pay attention, robot," Citizen Purple's voice came. "You thought you were pretty clever, springing the amoeba, but watch how we get her back."

So the Citizen didn't know that Bane had returned to Proton. He thought he was addressing Mach. Thus he was inadvertently providing the very information Bane most desired: the news that Agape had escaped. Mach had done his job!

But if she had escaped, she should have gone to Citizen Blue. The picture showed blue, suggesting that this was his residence. Was she here?

Indeed she was; in a moment she entered, in the company of a lovely older serf woman. They sat on the couch, unaware that they were being observed.

"We have to free Mach," the older woman said earnestly. "They can no longer put pressure on him by threatening you, which is one reason he arranged to free you first. He could have used my friends to free himself, but he didn't want to leave you in their power."

"Your friends?" Agape asked.

"The self-willed machines. I am one, of course; our form matters less than our brain."

"Your whorish robot mother must have taught you those tricks," Purple muttered. Evidently his commentary was separate, directed to Bane alone.

"But why didn't they save him too?" Agape was asking.

"They could have-but that would have alerted your captor to your own escape, and he might have intercepted you before you got clear. So Mach used himself as a diversion, distracting the Citizen's attention from you, giving you the time you needed."

"The b.i.t.c.h machine is right," Purple said. "We were watching you. But that trick won't work again. I have eliminated all the self-willed machines from my employ, and acted to prevent you from using any more cute little parts of yourself to do mischief."

So that was what Mach had done! Bane would never have thought of that. He kept silent; he was doing well enough this way.

"But Mach-what of him, now?" Agape asked. "I never meant to leave him prisoner!"

"My husband will rescue him," the woman said. "But we must make absolutely sure they do not get hold of you again because you represent their best lever against him. So I think we must send you back to your home planet, at least until my son is safe."

"Yes, of course," Agape agreed. "I have caused you too much trouble already."

"Your partic.i.p.ation in the problem was coincidental," the woman, who Bane realized was Sheen, Mach's mother, said gently. "Your support to him has been invaluable. We feel that no blame attaches to you. But now that you have become a key figure, we must keep you out of their hands. We are arranging to take you directly to the ship leaving today for Moeba."

Was this to keep her safe-or to eliminate her as a factor in Mach or Bane's life? Bane wasn't sure. Yet perhaps it was best; he would rather have her on another planet than at risk of torture here.

"Guess what's going to happen," Purple said.

Suddenly Bane realized: they were watching a private dialogue! The enemy Citizen had used one of his pseudomagic devices to spy on Citizen Blue, and knew what was being planned. "No!" he cried.

"You thought all you needed was to spring her loose, boy? The game isn't over till the blubber-lady sings."

They were going to recapture Agape-and what would Bane do then? He couldn't let her suffer!

Maybe it was a bluff. A charade, with actors in a setting resembling the home of Citizen Blue. After all, how could such a spying eye be placed without Blue knowing? Certainly Bane's father, Stile, in Phaze, could not be spied on in such manner!

Yet Agape looked so genuine! He was sure it was her!

"We'll bring her in to see you," Purple said. "Little reunion; you'll like that, won't you! So take it easy, machine; you'll be sure enough it's her when she arrives."

Bane was all too certain that was true.

The screen dimmed out, and he tuned out. But later he was roused by the screen again. This time it showed an atmospheric flyer, similar to the one that had picked up Bane and Agape. It was cruising across the foggy desert. Beside it was another, and a third; a small fleet of them.

"They figured to sneak her out on a routine supply flight," Purple's voice came. "We figure to pluck it like a plum." He laughed coa.r.s.ely. "A d.a.m.ned purple plum! Blue's got a lot of wealth, but precious little common sense! Here he's trying to figure out how to get you back, and he's losing his own high card!"

Bane watched, mortified, as the supply craft came into sight. The attack-craft intercepted it, surrounding it.

'They're signaling for help," Purple remarked. "Doesn't matter; by the time it comes, the prize'll be ours."

Indeed, the attacking craft brought the supply craft to the sand. Suited men sprang out and swarmed to it. Soon they hauled a figure out, and Bane could tell by the way it moved that it was Agape.

They shoved her into one craft. The screen changed to show the face of a serf. "Sir, we have the alien," the man said.

"Put her on the screen," Purple said. "I want to see her myself."

They hauled Agape up to the camera. She remained in the suit, but now her helmet was off. Her features were slightly melted around the edges, because of her distress. She was still struggling, but ineffectively.

Bane felt his nonexistent heart sinking. They did indeed have her.

"Now you know I don't care about the amoeba," Citizen Purple said. "And maybe you don't too. But you bet your other self does."

What use pretense? "I be the other," Bane said.

"Oho! You switched back already?"

"Aye. Mach be free in Phaze; I be captive here."

"Yeah? How do you figure he's free?"

"I used magic to free the unicorn. Thine other self was about to slay me, but the Translucent Adept took me instead, and let me go. I returned to find out about Agape."

"Translucent, eh? Yeah, that's like him. He uses the soft sell, but he always wins in the end. But how do you figure the machine is free now?"

"Translucent gave his word."

"Translucent's one of us!"

"I know. But he honors his word."

"So do I, boy. And I promise you this: that creature of yours is going to suffer if you don't cooperate. I want your word: no more tricks."

Bane was silent.

"Well, we'll do it the hard way, then," Citizen Purple said grimly.

Bane tuned out again, as there wasn't much else to do. What would happen, would happen.

He resumed awareness when people approached his cell. It was the Citizen-and Agape. She was tearful and dispirited, and her details were blurred by trace melting. It was evident that she lacked the will to muster her proper human appearance.