“Then thy roots are not here. Thou hast no other self here, so art not barred from crossing.”
“Oh. Fortunate for me, I suppose. Dost thou also have another self in Proton?”
“Nay. But if I crossed, I would be but a cur, unable to were-change. And the hunting is not good there.”
Clef had to laugh agreement. “All too true! Proton, beyond the force-field domes, is a desert. Nothing but pollution.”
“Aye,” she agreed, wrinkling her nose. “When men overrun a planet, they destroy it.”
“Yet Stile—the Blue Adept—he is also a serf in Proton, like me.”
“He was whelped on Proton. His root is here.”
Clef watched the dissipating grotesqueries of the cloud of smoke. “I’m glad I’m not his enemy!” He resumed slogging forward. At this rate he would be lucky to travel ten miles by dusk.
Actually, he realized, it might be just as well to take several days before reaching the Little Folk. There was a tremendous amount to learn about Phaze, and this slow trek was an excellent introduction. When he finally did arrive, he would have a much better comprehension of the frame, and know how to deport himself. With all the pitfalls of magic, he needed that experience.
The werebitch paced him uncomplainingly. She shifted from form to form at need, conversing when he wished, scouting when there was anything suspicious in the vicinity. Finally he asked her: “Is this not an imposition, Serrilryan, for thee, shepherding a novice while thy Pack is active elsewhere?”
“I am oath-friend to Neysa the unicorn,” she replied. “For her would I shepherd a snow-demon halfway to Hell.”
“Halfway?”
“At that point, the demon would melt.” She smiled tolerantly. “Besides which, this is easy duty for an old bitch. I am sure the Blue Adept has excellent reasons to convey thee to the Mound Demesnes.” She considered. “If I may inquire—?”
“I am to play the Platinum Flute for the Mound Folk, to enable them to ascertain whether I am the one they call the Foreordained. That is all I know—except that my life will have little purpose if I can not keep this ultimate instrument.”
“The Foreordained!” she exclaimed. “Then is the end of Phaze near!”
“Why? I consider it to be a pretentious, perhaps nonsensical title, to say the least, and of course there is no certainty that I am the one they seek. I am merely a fine musician and a rather good fencer. What have I to do with the fate of a land of magic?”
“That is all I know,” she admitted. “Be not affronted, Clef-man, if I hope thou art not he.”
“I take no affront from thee, bitch.” He had long since realized that the term he had considered to be uncomplimentary was the opposite here.
“Thou dost play the flute well?”
“Very well.”
“Better than Blue?”
“Aye. But I decline to play this particular instrument in the frame of Phaze until I meet the Mound Folk. It is said the mountain may tremble if—”
“Aye, wait,” she agreed. “No fool’s errand, this.”
“Dost thou like music, Serrilryan?”
“Some. Baying, belike, at full moon.”
“Baying is not my specialty. I could whistle, though.”
“That is music?” she asked, amused.
“It can be, properly executed. There are many types of whistles. Hand-whistling can resemble a woodwind.”
“Aye, with magic.”
“No magic, bitch. Like this.” He rubbed his hands together, convoluted his long fingers into the appropriate configuration, and blew. A fine, clear pipe note emerged. He adjusted his fingers as if tuning the instrument and blew again, making a different pitch. Then he essayed a minor melody.
The sound was beautiful. Clef had not exaggerated when he claimed to play well; he was probably the finest and most versatile musician on the planet. His crude hands produced prettier music than that of most other people using fine instruments.
Serrilryan listened, entranced, phasing back and forth between her forms to appreciate it in each. “That is not magic?” she asked dubiously when he paused.
“I know no magic. This is straight physical dexterity.”
“Never have I heard the like!” she exclaimed. “The Blue Adept played the Flute at the Unolympics, and methought that was the most perfect melody ever made. Now I think thou mightest eclipse it, as thou sayest. Canst thou do real whistling too?”
Clef smiled at her naïveté. He pursed his lips and whistled a few bars of classical music eloquently. She was delighted.
So they continued, and in the evening he serenaded her with a whistle concert. Squirrels and sparrows appeared in nearby trees, listening raptly. Clef had discovered how to relate to the wild creatures of this lovely wilderness world.
This night the werebitch had located a serviceable cave to sleep in. They piled straw and fern for a bed, and she curled up by the entrance. It was a good night. He was getting to like Phaze.
Stile woke again. “Time to go for the Game,” he mumbled.
“Not yet. Sleep,” Sheen said. She was a machine, indefatigable; she could sit up and hold him indefinitely and was ready to do so. She was his best and perhaps his only personal friend in this frame. She had saved his life on several occasions. He trusted her. He slept.
The third day Clef found his muscles acclimatizing, and he traveled better. But the world of Phaze seemed restless. There was the sound of horse or unicorn hooves pounding to the east, and a lone wolf passed nearby. “What’s going on?”
“The Red Adept has sprung a trap on the Blue Adept,” Serrilryan said, having somehow picked up this news from the pattern of baying and the musical notes of the distant unicorns. “He is badly injured but can not cross the curtain for magic healing, for that a basilisk has hold of him. It is very bad.” Indeed, she was worried and, when she returned to bitch-form, her hackles were ruffled. Clef, too, was concerned; he had known Stile only a few hours before their parting, but liked him well and wished him well. There seemed to be nothing he could do, however.
But later the situation eased. “They have saved him,” Serrilryan reported. “He is weak, but survives.”
Clef’s own tension abated. “I am exceedingly glad to hear that. He lent me the Platinum Flute, and for this marvelous instrument I would lay down my life. It was the sight of it that brought me here, though I am wary of the office it portends.”
“Aye.”
In the afternoon they heard a sudden clamor. Something was fluttering, squawking, and screeching. The sounds were hideous, in sharp contrast to the pleasure of the terrain.
Serrilryan’s canine lip curled. Quickly she shifted to human form. “Beast birds! Needs must we hide.”
But it was not to be. The creatures had winded them, and the pursuit was on. “Let not their filthy claws touch thee,” the werebitch warned. “The scratches will fester into gangrene.” She changed back to canine form and stood guarding him, teeth bared.
The horde burst upon them. They seemed to be large birds—but their faces were those of ferocious women. Clef’s platinum rapier was in his hand, but he hesitated to use it against these part-human creatures. Harpies—that was what they were.
They gave him little opportunity to consider. Three of them flew at his head, discolored talons extended. “Kill! Kill!” they screamed. The smell was appalling.
Serrilryan leaped, her teeth catching the grimy underbelly of one bird. Greasy feathers fell out as the creature emitted a shriek of amazing ugliness. Immediately the other two pounced on the wolf, and two more swooped down from above.
Clef’s misgivings were abruptly submerged by the need to act. There seemed to be no chance to reason or warn; he simply had to fight.
Clef was aware that the werewolf had taken his remark about his skill at fencing to be vanity, for he was hardly the warrior type. However, he had spoken the truth. The rapier danced before him. In seven seconds he skewerd four harpies, while Serrilryan dropped the fifth, dead
.
The remaining beast birds now developed some crude caution. They flapped and bustled, screeching epithets, but did not charge again. Their eyes were on the gleaming platinum weapon; they had suddenly learned respect.
Clef took a step toward them, and the foul creatures scattered, hurling back one-syllable words fully as filthy as their feathers. This threat had been abated.
“Thou art quite a hand with that instrument,” Serrilryan remarked appreciatively. “Never saw I a sword stab so swiftly.”
“I never used a rapier in anger before,” Clef said, feeling weak and revolted now that the brief action was over. “But those horrible creatures—”
“Thou didst withhold thy strike until they clustered on me.”
“Well, I couldn’t let them—those claws—”
“Aye,” she said, and went canine again.
But there was something wrong. She had tried to conceal it, but his reaction to this combat had made him more perceptive to physical condition. “Wait—thou hast been scratched!” Clef said. “Thy shoulder’s bleeding!”
“Wounds are nothing to wolves,” she said, phasing back. But it showed on her dame-form too, the blood now staining her shawl. “How much less, a mere scratch.”
“But thou didst say—”
“Doubtless I exaggerated. Bleeding cleans it.” She changed back again and ran ahead, terminating the dialogue.
Clef realized that she did not want sympathy for her injury, at least not from the likes of him. Probably it was unwolflike to acknowledge discomfort. Yet she had warned him about the poisonous nature of harpy scratches. He hoped nothing evil came of this.
That night they camped in a tree. Clef was now more accustomed to roughing it, and this was a hugely spreading yellow birch whose central nexus was almost like a house. Serrilryan curled up in bitch-form, and he curled up beside her, satisfied with the body warmth she radiated. The papery bark of the tree was slightly soft, and he was able to form a pillow of his bent arm. Yes, he was coming to like this life.
“This frame is just a little like Heaven,” he remarked as sleep drew nigh. “My frame of Proton is more like Hell, outside the domes, where nothing grows.”
“Mayhap it is Proton-frame I am destined for,” she said, shifting just far enough to dame-form to speak, not bothering to uncurl.
“Proton? Dost thou plan to cross the curtain, despite thy loss of magic there?”
She growl-chuckled ruefully. “Figuratively, man-person. When I die, it will be the real Hell I will see.”
“Hell? Thee? Surely thou wilt go to Heaven!” Clef did not believe in either region, but neither did he believe in magic.
“Surely would I wish to go to Heaven! There, belike, the Glory Hounds run free. But that is not the destiny of the likes of me. Many evils have I seen since I was a pup.” She shifted back to canine and slept.
Clef thought about that, disturbed. He did not believe this was an immediate issue, but feared that she did. He was bothered by her growing morbidity and her low estimate of self-worth. She might have seen evil, but that did not make her evil herself; sometimes evil was impossible to escape. It had been that way with the harpies. Yet what could he do to ease her depression?
Troubled, he slept.
“Strange dream,” Stile said. “Every time he sleeps, I wake. But I’m dreaming in minutes what he experienced in days.”
“How much farther does he have to go?” Sheen asked.
“He should reach the Elven Demesnes in two more days.”
“Then you sleep two more times. I want to learn how this ends.” Her fingers stroked his eyes closed.
Serrilryan’s wound was not healing. It was red and swollen, the blood refusing to coagulate properly. She limped now, when she thought he wasn’t looking, and her pace was slower. She was suffering—and he couldn’t comment for fear of embarrassing her.
The terrain became more hilly. Huge trees grew out of the slopes, some of their roots exposed by erosion. But the eager grass was covering every available patch of ground, and the turf was thick and spongy. Clef was soon breathless, ascending the steep, short slopes, drawing himself up by handholds on trees and branches and tangles of roots. Serrilryan followed, her familiarity with this region making up for her weakness, shifting back and forth between forms to take advantage of the best properties of each.
Something tugged at his hair. It was not the wind. Clef paused, fearing he had snagged it in a low branch—but there was no branch. He put his hand up, but there was nothing. Yet the tugging continued, and now there were little touches on his skin.
“Something’s here!” he exclaimed, alarmed.
The bitch sniffed the air and cocked her ears. She phased into woman-form. “Whistle,” she said.
Perplexed, he whistled. Oddly, the touchings abated. He whistled louder and with more intricacy, a medley of classical themes. He enhanced it with trills and double notes, warming to it, serenading the landscape.
Slowly, shapes appeared. They were little people, perching on branches and on the slope and even floating in air. All were listening raptly.
“Aye, the sidhe,” Serrilryan said, pronouncing it shee. “The Faerie Folk. They cause no harm, just idle mischief.”
Discovered, the sidhe moved into a dance, whirling in air. Their little lasses were, in the archaic measurement of this frame, about four feet tall, the lads not much larger. They moved prettily and smiled often—happy folk.
But when Clef stopped whistling, they faded out of sight again. “The sidhe associate not overmuch with other folk, but they do like music,” the werebitch said. “I am destined to see them three times before I die.”
“How many times hast thou seen them so far?”
“This is the third time.”
“Then I should not have whistled them into sight!”
She made a gesture of unconcern. “I am old; my pace is slowing. My teeth are no longer sharp. The Pack will not let me live much longer anyway. Glad am I to have seen the lovely Faerie Folk once more.”
“But this is barbaric! The other wolves have no right—”
“Question not the way of the Pack. I have killed others in my day; always I knew my turn would come. Perhaps it would have come ere now, had I not been fated to guide thee. I am content, Clef-man.”
Clef shook his head, not commenting further. Obviously there was violence along with the beauty and literal magic of this frame.
They marched on. Later another phenomenon occurred—a kind of sweeping of an unbreeze through the forest, dissipation of nonexistent clouds in the sky, and revivification of things that had not been dead. A hidden tension had been released, an obligation expiated. “What is it?” Clef asked.
“The lifting of a geis,” Serrilryan said.
“I don’t think I understand.”
“The abatement of an oath. It hung over the forest; now it is done.”
“What oath is this?”
“The Blue Adept swore vengeance against the Red Adept.”
“Um, yes. But I thought he was getting married. He is also moving through the Proton Tourney. Isn’t this an awful lot of activity for such an occasion?”
“There is no comprehending the ways of Adepts.”
That seemed to be the case. The Blue Adept evidently had a lot more power, and was involved in more great events, than Clef had realized. It was mildly odd that so small a man had so large an impact on this frame.
By nightfall they reached the marker for the Platinum Demesnes, indicated by a sign saying PT 78.
“The path within is treacherous,” the werebitch said. “Morning is better for it.”
“Yes, certainly.” Clef wasn’t sure, now that he was this close, that he really wanted to reach these mysterious elves. If he were not the Foreordained, they would take the Flute from him, for it belonged to them.
Serrilryan knew of an existing shelter nearby, and they spent the night there. “I want thee to know,” he told her, “how I appreciate the trouble
thou hast taken on my behalf. This all may come to naught, yet it has been worthwhile for me.”
“I thank thee, man,” she said. “It has been nice talking with thee and hearing thy music. Few among the Pack have time or courtesy for the old.”
She did not look well at all. It was evident that pain was preventing her from relaxing. Clef whistled, filling the air with melody, and after a time the werewolf fell into a troubled slumber. Then Clef himself relaxed.
“I didn’t know there were harpies in that vicinity,” Stile said, waking. “I should have given him better protection. Though the way he used that rapier—” He shrugged and returned to sleep himself, secure in the robot’s embrace.
In the morning Clef woke before the werebitch. She was breathing in pants and whining slightly in her sleep. The bad shoulder bulged with swelling, and the fur was falling out. This was obviously a severe infection. A good antibiotic could abate it—but this was Phaze, the frame of magic, where antibiotics were not available and perhaps would not work anyway.
Magic was what was needed—but he could not perform it. Unless the Flute—but no, he had resolved to play it only for the Mound Folk, because of the potential significance of the rendition. Still, maybe its magic could help. He laid the instrument against her body, as close to the wound as he could.
Her whining stopped; she was drawing comfort from the propinquity of this powerful talisman. Still, she was shivering, though the morning was warm. He had nothing with which to cover her.
Clef began to whistle again; it was all he could do. This time he selected a merry folk-song melody. He whistled it well; the joyous notes rippled through the forest, abolishing sadness. The bitch’s shivering eased, and she slept peacefully at last.
For an hour he whistled. At last she turned and woke. She made a growl of displeasure at the lateness of the hour, but Clef wasn’t fooled. She had needed that extra rest.
Breakfast was no problem. Squirrels and birds had dropped nuts and berries as offerings of appreciation, and these were excellent. This was a world that liked music. Clef, in return, was becoming quite fond of this world. Yet it had its dark side, as Serrilryan’s ailment showed.
They mounted the steep trail leading to the Mound Demesnes. Clef was now better able to manage than the werewolf. He wished he could help her, but all he could do was slow his pace to make it easier for her, leaving her pride intact.