Neysa spied him first and trotted over. She would always be his steed and his friend in spirit. Yet now she did not prance, for the pall of her brother’s fate hung over her.
She changed to girl-form and made one of her rare speeches: “The Stallion has news of Clip.”
“What kind?” Stile asked tightly.
“He is alive.” She shifted back to mare-form.
Stile vaulted to her back, and she trotted him over to the herd. He embraced the Lady Blue briefly.
The Herd Stallion awaited him in man-form. “Under the White Mountains, prisoner of the goblins. We must strike by night—tonight, ere they suspect.”
“Yes,” Stile agreed. “Thou and I alone, surgically.”
“They will be alert for Adept magic, and will kill Clip the moment they detect it. Thou canst not employ thy power until he is safe.”
“How am I to save him, then?” Stile asked, frustrated.
“I will save him. Then thou canst get us all out of danger.”
Stile was uncertain about this procedure, but had to agree. There was no use going on a rescue mission if his mere presence precipitated Clip’s murder.
“We start now,” the Stallion said. “It will be night ere we reach the mountains. I know an entrance to the goblin demesnes—but once underground, I will know the way no better than thou.”
Stile had an idea. “Suppose I make a spell to show the way? Will that continuing magic alert the goblins?”
The Stallion considered. “I know not, but think not. It is new magic that makes alarm; there are many ancient spells in the background, ignored.”
“I’d better risk it,” Stile said. He considered a moment, then played his harmonica and sang: “A star institute, to illumine our route.”
A pinpoint glow appeared to their north, shedding faint light on the ground.
“But the goblins will see it too!” the Stallion protested.
“See what?” the Lady Blue asked.
The Stallion smiled. “Ah—others see it not!”
“Others see it not,” Stile agreed. “I am not quite as foolish as I look.”
“Not quite,” the Stallion agreed, and shifted back to his natural form, pawing the ground. Stile took the hint and leaped to his back. This was much more of a challenge than it had been with Neysa, for the Herd Stallion stood four hands higher than she and massed twice as much. He was a lot of animal. Had they not had a clear understanding, Stile’s touch on his back would have precipitated an instant death struggle. It was a sign of the passions involved and the seriousness of the situation that the untamable Stallion submitted to this indignity.
Immediately they were off. Stile, the most skilled rider in this frame, suddenly had to hang on, lest he be dumped like a novice. Evidently some spirit of rivalry remained; the Stallion wanted him to know that he kept his perch only by sufferance. Stile had never been on a steed like this before; the Stallion was the mass of a huge work horse, but had the velocity of a racer. Stile had originally tamed Neysa by riding her against her will; he knew he could never have done it with this steed.
The scenery raced by. Wind tore at Stile’s clothing. The Stallion’s hooves pounded on the doubled drumbeat of a full gallop, and sparks flew up where the hard hooves struck, but the ride was smooth. The Stallion was not wasting energy in extra up-and-down motion; he was sailing straight ahead.
The pinpoint star remained fixed at about head-height, its spot of light brightening to a patch of ground. It slid to one side sometimes, guiding them around obstructions and bad footing, so that the Stallion never had to slow to scout the way. He was able to maintain cruising speed, faster than that of any horse, and he seemed tireless. As he warmed up, jets of flame blasted from his nostrils. This was the way that unicorns cooled themselves, since they did not sweat; the heat was dissipated from their breath and hooves.
After a time the ride became routine, then dull. Stile had nothing to do, since the Stallion knew the way even without the help of the little star. Stile could have slept, but was too keyed up; he wanted to rescue and restore Clip. He could do it, he was sure; his magic could cement the severed horn and heal the scars of its cutting. The only problem was getting to the unicorn without triggering the murder. And getting them all out, thereafter. Meanwhile, he just had to wait.
“I’ve been thinking,” he remarked. “Art thou amenable to conversation?”
The Stallion blew an affirmative accordion note. He, too, was bored by this stretch.
“Thou art a powerful creature,” Stile said. “Surely the goblins will recognize thee as readily as me. I can be taken for an elf, but thou canst only be a unicorn, even in man-form. The snub-horn gives thee away.”
The Stallion blew another note of agreement. Unicorns could change form but retained vestigial horns in all forms. This was because the horn was the seat of the unicorn’s magic; without it the creature was no more than a horse, unable to play music or change form. If an alternate form lacked the horn, the unicorn would not be able to change back to equine form. This was plainly unacceptable; the human form was not one any self-respecting unicorn would care to be stuck in for long.
“Thy dragon-form is no better than thy man-form for concealment,” Stile continued. “True, it could penetrate the goblin demesnes—but would create great alarm, for no one ignores a dragon! When thou didst approach Clip, the little monsters would surely realize thy nature and intent.”
“Um,” the unicorn noted with a thoughtful chord.
“The thing is, thou art in all thy forms a mighty creature. Now this is no bad thing and ordinarily is altogether proper.” The phrasing of a suggestion was sometimes more important than the suggestion itself, particularly when addressed to a creature of pride. “But this time I wish thou didst possess an insignificant form, like Neysa’s firefly, that I could carry in unobserved.”
The unicorn ran on, considering. After a time he blew a new note. “Could.” The notes were not really words, but pitch and inflection conveyed definite meaning, and Stile could usually interpret them when he put his mind to it.
“Thou hast a fourth form?” he asked, surprised. “I thought three was the limit, and only one or two for some.”
Now came a proud blast. This was no ordinary unicorn; the Stallion could master a fourth form, if he chose.
“That’s great!” Stile exclaimed. “Couldst thou work it up in time for tonight? I know it takes a considerable act of discipline to implement a new form, and there is so little time—”
The Stallion was not foolishly optimistic. Any form was a challenge the first time, and a fourth one was special. But he thought he could manage it.
They discussed it as the miles and leagues rushed by. It developed that some forms were easier than others. Difficulty varied according to the necessary specialization and the change of size. Thus a unicorn could convert to a massive bear fairly readily, because the size was about the same. A man-form was harder, because the mass was less and because of the necessary specialization of the hands and voice. A man-form that could not tie a knot in string would not be very good, and one who could not talk would be worse. These things had to be done properly, or were not worth doing at all. Neysa’s firefly-form was a greater achievement than Clip’s hawk-form, because the fly was only a fraction of the mass. Neysa weighed about 850 pounds in her natural form, about 85 in her girl-form, and less than 85-hundredths of an ounce in firefly-form. It would be more than twice as hard for the Herd Stallion to get down to that size.
“But such size would be beyond suspicion,” Stile remarked. “No one would believe that a beast as noble as thou couldst hide in a form so small.” That accented the magnitude of the challenge, rather than the insignificance of the form.
Then there was the problem of flying, the unicorn explained in concerned notes. Flying was a specialization that had to be mastered by tedious practice, after the physical form had been achieved. The Stallion had learned it for his dragon-form, but would have to start all
over for an insect-form, since insects employed a different mode of flight. That could take days.
“Oh, I did not mean thou must fly,” Stile said. “It is the insignificance I am after, that none may suspect thee. Thou couldst go from dragon to roach, for that.”
Roach! the Stallion blasted, affronted. Never!
But Stile was struck by something else. Dragon—roach. His poem: the one he had used to win the Tourney in Proton. Had this provided him with a prophetic key?
Now he thought back, discovering parallels. He had referred to Gabriel’s horn—but there was also the unicorn’s horn. Clip’s horn had precipitated this venture. He had also referred to trying to cheat fate; but he had won his biggest bet because of cheating by another Citizen. How far did this go?
How far, indeed! The first four lines of that poem had matched his recent experience, deliberately. Then the key word: silence. And he had been struck by the silence-spell. Then love; and he had become betrothed to Sheen. That was not love, precisely, but related; she certainly wanted and deserved love.
In fact, those key words aligned beautifully with his experience—almost like a prediction of the Oracle. Yet the words had become the random product of the Game Computer. No magic there! So it must be coincidence. It was possible to make seeming sense of almost anything, as those two poems had shown. Still—
Why not? Stile decided to go for it. “That is one form no goblin would suspect. The nether passages must be overrun with roaches. What Herd Stallion would go to the enormous effort to achieve so lowly a form? It is beneath consideration—therefore the safest of all forms for the accomplishment of such a hazardous mission.”
“Um,” the Stallion blew, heeding the logic but not the aesthetics.
“Actually, some roaches are quite elegant,” Stile commented innocently. “When I was a serf in Proton, I had to deliver a horse to the dome of a Citizen who specialized in exotic creatures. He had a roach farm with some quite beautiful specimens. I remember some deep red ones, huge and sleek—surely the royalty of roaches. And others were frilly, like butterflies, only without wings—”
“Enough!” the unicorn snorted. He veered to a tight copse of trees and slowed. When he stopped inside, Stile was glad to dismount; they had been traveling for hours, and he was cramped and hungry and suffered the urgent calls of nature.
There was a convenient nut tree in the copse—unicorns generally had good taste about such things—so Stile could eat without using magic. There was also a small spring. This was really an oasis, probably known to every wild creature. There was a real advantage of traveling with such an animal—not only protection, but also the convenience of familiarity with the terrain. Stile had now traveled with three unicorns—Neysa, Clip, and the Herd Stallion—and this aspect was the same with each one. Stile had always liked horses; he knew he would always like unicorns better.
He had dreamed for more than fifteen years of becoming a Citizen of Proton, perhaps setting up his own racing stable. Now he was a Citizen—and all he really wanted was to stay here in Phaze, on any basis. He liked magic—not merely his ability to perform it, but more importantly, the very framework in which magic existed. He liked the verdant hills, the little streams, the various features of this irregular landscape. He liked the whole sweet outdoors, with its fresh air and unpredictable weather and feeling of freedom. Oh, there were horrors here—but even so, it was a better world than Proton. Three centuries of unrestricted development and narrow exploitation had destroyed the environment of Proton, so that comfort now existed only within the force-field domes. Stile liked civilization, but, after encountering Phaze, he feared it was at too great a price.
Stile became aware of a warm sensation on the left side of his face. Oh, yes—his spell to trace the sender of the message that had brought him Sheen was still in operation. Old spells never died, and faded away only slowly—which inertia was fortunate, since any given spell was effective only once. The warmth was faint, indicating that he was far from the source, but at least he could still trace it down. He would do so the moment Clip was safe.
He heard a musical groan, as of someone stepping on an accordion. The Stallion writhed, shimmered—and shrank to a gross, many-legged lump of flesh.
A spell leaped to Stile’s lips. But he choked it back, realizing that this was not a magic attack. It was the Stallion’s effort to master a new form.
Stile ambled over, peering down at the grotesque caricature of a roach. “Now that is the ugliest insect I’ve ever seen,” he remarked. “But certainly the biggest.” Indeed, it was almost the size of a man.
The monstrous bug waved its feelers, thrashed its legs about, and blew a furious peep from the miniature horn on its snout. Then it swelled rapidly into Stallion-form again, snorting fire from the effort.
“Oh, it’s thou!” Stile exclaimed innocently. “I was about to step on it.”
The Stallion glared and gave a snort that singed the hairs of Stile’s arms. Then he tried again. This time he got the size right, but not the shape. He became a miniature unicorn. “I’m afraid that won’t do,” Stile said around a mouthful of nuts. “The goblins know that’s not a normal ’corn size.”
The Stallion re-formed, pawing the ground. Obviously he was putting forth terrific effort; his hooves were beginning to glow red, and wisps of smoke rose from his ears.
A third time he tried. This time he got it right—normal-sized roach, with a silvery body and golden head. The bug took one step—and exploded back into the Stallion. He just had not been able to hold it for more than two seconds.
“Maybe you’d better let it rest a while,” Stile suggested. “Give your system time to acclimatize to the notion. We’re not at the goblin demesnes yet.”
The Stallion played an affirmative chord. Stile conjured ten pounds of fine oats for the equine repast, then stood abashed. He should not have used his magic here. But it seemed no one had been paying attention; maybe that was not the kind of spell the enemy was looking for. In due course he remounted, and they were off again. The strength of this unicorn was amazing; having run for hours and struggled to master a difficult new form, he was, after this brief respite, galloping at unreduced speed. Neysa and Clip were good unicorns, but neither could have maintained this velocity so long.
By nightfall the grim White Mountains were near. The Stallion had been moving toward them at a slant, northwest, circling the demesnes of the ogres. No need for any ogre trouble, this trip! Actually, Stile had settled with the ogres, establishing that he was not their enemy, but ogres were not too bright and there could still be trouble.
Now the sun was dropping below the horizon. The Stallion galloped along west, parallel to the mountain range, then stopped. Stile saw the guiding star to their north, showing them to the entrance to the goblins’ somber nether world.
But the region was guarded. Goblins patrolled the cliff-like fringe of the mountain range. How could they get in?
Stile had the answer to that. He was larger than a goblin, but close enough so that some stooping in the dark should enable him to pass. He scraped up handfuls of dirt and rubbed it over his face and arms, then removed his clothing and coated his bare body too. Goblins wore little clothing; Stile’s Proton underpants sufficed for a costume. Goblin feet and hands, however, were far larger than his own, while their limbs were shorter. Stile experimented and finally fashioned a framework for each foot from small branches and dirt, making his extremities seem goblin-sized. He did the same for his head. Magic would have been much easier for disguising himself, either physically or by means of illusion, but he did not dare use that here. He was facile with his hands and knew how to improvise; his head was actually expanded by a gross turban fashioned from his former clothing.
“Grotesque,” the Herd Stallion said, eyeing Stile in man-form. “The human shape is ugly enough to begin with, but thou hast improved on it.”
“Just do thine own shape-change,” Stile said. “And keep it stable.”
?
??I can but try,” the Stallion said grimly. He shifted back to ’corn-form, gathered himself, and phased down to bug-form. This roach was not handsome, but it did seem to be stable. Stile watched it take a step, moving all its legs on one side, followed by those on the other side. The thing trembled and started to expand, then got hold of itself and squeezed back into bug shape. It seemed it would hold.
Stile put down his open hand. The roach hesitated, then crawled on, moving clumsily. It evidently took special coordination to handle six legs, and it was hard for the Stallion to do this while hanging on to this awkward little size. Perhaps it was like juggling six balls in the air while walking a tightrope. As it happened, Stile had done such tricks in the past—but it had taken him time to master them. “Just don’t lose control and convert to equine form on my head,” Stile murmured as he set the roach on the framework he had wound there. “Don’t drop anything, either.”
The roach, catching the reference to droppings, began to shake with laughter. It expanded to triple roach size, emitted several little sparks, wrestled with itself, and recovered control. Stile decided not to make any more jokes.
The darkness was almost complete now. Stile nerved himself and walked forward, following the flash of light projected on the ground by his little guiding star. He hunched down as well as he could, making himself humpbacked and shorter. Stile was an experienced mimic, and this was another Game talent that served him in good stead now. He walked like a goblin, swung his arms like a goblin, and glared about like a goblin. Almost, he began to hate the world the way a goblin would.
The dark hole of the cave entrance loomed close. Stile shuffled boldly toward it. But a goblin guard challenged him. “Where the hell art thou going, dirtface?”
For an instant Stile’s heart paused. But he had to assume that goblins normally insulted each other, and that the guard did not realize that Stile’s face really was concealed by dirt. “What the hell business is it of thine, stink-rump?” he demanded in the grating tone of a goblin, and pushed on. He felt the Stallion-roach quaking with suppressed mirth again, enjoying the exchange.