Sirel and Nepe ran silently. The bitch held her pace back, because Nepe could not match it. Even so, Nepe was getting tired; she would have done better in human form, because she had had a great deal more practice in it, though it was no more natural to her than wolf form.
They reached the place where she had left the ardent couple. Sirel knew it well before Nepe did; her keen nose picked up the foreign scents. “They be not standing guard,” she said in growl-talk.
Nepe could understand the growls better than she could make them. “Love potion,” she explained.
“Aye, and strong!”
They made just a bit of noise approaching, so that the couple could disengage. Nepe suspected this would be a problem as they traveled; instead of sleeping at night, the two would be wasting their energies in amour. But it couldn’t be helped; it was part of the price of the mission.
Sirel blinked as they came in sight of the couple. Her nose made it plain that the man was there, but her eyes couldn’t find it. “Flach made him invisible,” Nepe explained.
“Should have made him unsmellable,” Sirel growled.
“This is the werebitch Sirelmoba,” Nepe said, introducing her to the couple. “And the android Lysander, and cyborg Echo,” for Sirel’s benefit. “We must travel together.”
Sirel growled assent, not wholly pleased. She would rather have traveled alone with Nepe—or better yet, with Flach. But she knew that the preference of any of them had little to do with it.
“We go to the West Pole,” Nepe said. “We have three days to make it, and we must all get there. If Citizen/Adept Purple catches on, he will try to stop us, and we will have to scatter and rejoin later, but we must keep moving. Sirel and Echo can sustain the pace, but Lysander and I can not, so we will have help. There will be one more member of our party who will not have a problem traveling.” But she realized that there could be a different problem there. She hoped they would be too busy traveling for that to manifest.
“The West Pole!” Sirel said, assuming her girl form, which was much like Nepe’s human form except that her hair was always dark. Nepe’s hair was whatever color she chose when she assumed the form; she had recently worn it neutral brown, and just long enough to cover her ears, so that she did not have to bother to form ears. “But there be naught there!”
“Maybe there will be something by the time we get there,” Nepe said, hoping that was the case.
“Well, there is still a portion of the day left,” Echo said. “Why don’t you folk start walking, and I will spy out the terrain ahead.”
“Thank you,” Nepe said.
“I’ll go with you,” Lysander’s voice came.
“I think not, handsome man!” Oche the harpy screeched, flapping up into the sky.
“Point made,” he agreed ruefully.
“I will range out the same on land,” Sirel said. “Not all can be seen from above.” She slid into the bush, disappearing in a moment.
Nepe started walking, trying not to limp; her temporary muscle structure was becoming uncomfortable.
“But Nepe, why can’t you assume some form that will enable you to travel more readily?” Lysander asked her.
“All my forms are unnatural,” she replied. “I would get tired in any, and waste time and energy changing between them.”
“But as Flach—”
“The others can change forms without trouble, as many times as they wish,” she explained, “because those forms are inherent in their natures. The werewolves are descendants of men and wolves, and the harpies have vulture and human ancestry. There is no significant magic splash when they change. But when Flach changes forms, other than his natural ones of unicorn and boy and maybe wolf, he has to use a new spell each time, and the splash is detectable throughout Phaze. Purple is watching for it, and would be here in a moment. So Flach has to be very limited in his magic. That, along with the problem of carrying the Hec seed—”
“I understand. You have amazing abilities in either aspect, but you have limits too. You are surprisingly candid about them.”
“If Purp closes in on us, you’ll have to help me get away, or you won’t learn what we’re up to.”
“Yet if you are the only one who knows how to implement the resistance ploy, then if you are stopped, it may be stopped too.”
“Unless I am the only one I know of who can implement it,” she said. “If there are others I don’t know about, you will never have a chance to stop them, unless you help me get together with them according to the plan.”
“True.” He believed that she was the only one, but it could have been set up to give him that impression so that he would stop looking. Even the story of the prophecy could have been concocted to deceive him. It wasn’t safe to stop yet. “So I must continue to support the enemy, until the full nature of the resistance is known.”
“Meanwhile, you can love Echo,” she said. “And maybe by the time you know the whole thing, you won’t want to mess it up.”
“Maybe by then she will understand that I have to do what I have to do, and will join me in it.”
“And maybe even if she does, when the Hec ravage the planet the magic will go, and Oche will die, and then Echo will be nothing but a machine with a dead brain.”
It sounded as if someone had struck him in the gut. He stopped moving, and evidently leaned against a tree.
“I’m sorry, ‘Sander,” she said. “That was a mean thing to say.”
“You scored, Nepe.” He sounded out of breath. “I think I didn’t really believe the power of that potion! I do love her, and I couldn’t let that happen to her.”
“Maybe they’ll let you save a bit of Phazite for her, so she can be all right. It’s a chip of Protonite that runs her robot body, and that’s the same stuff. If you keep enough of that—”
“Why are you telling me this?” he asked, managing to resume his walking. “It’s not in your interest to do so.”
“Grandpa Blue taught me you can’t win a chess game by cheating. You can hide your strategy, but you have to tell your opponent when you put his king in check, and his queen too, if you want to be sure. We gave you a queen, and she’s in check.”
“That you did, and that she is,” he agreed.
“But it’s our whole world in check.”
“I appreciate your position.”
“If you had it to do over, would you go with Echo and take the potion?”
“I didn’t know about the potion until I was locked in with it.”
“But you didn’t really believe in it, so you didn’t try to escape. But now you know it works—if you could go back and avoid it—”
He walked for a while, pondering. “Alyc was just a diversion; she and I both knew that. Jod’e could have been real; I’m still sorry about the way Tan got her. I would change that if I could! Echo was nobody special. I just went with her because she had a way out, never expecting to love her. But now I have had the experience of loving her, and that is something I would not change. Before I had only my mission; now I have my mission and love, and that has made a dimension in my life that was not there before. So if I had known the whole of it, I would have proceeded exactly as I did. Love is too valuable to bypass.”
“I wasn’t teasing you,” Nepe said. “I just wanted to know. I like a lot of people, and I love my folks, especially Grandpa Blue, but I’ve never had romantic love. I figure if it’s not worth it, now is when you’ll know.”
“It’s worth it,” he said. “But I still have my mission. If you fell in love, you would still have yours.”
They walked on. Nepe thought about her relation with Troubot, and Flach’s with Troubot’s other self, Sirelmoba, and knew that these were friendships, not romantic love. She flirted with Alien or ‘Corn, but again, she knew this was a far cry from the kind of commitment she had seen in adults. The fact was that there was no person or creature of her generation that was like her: part alien, part human, and on Flach’s side, part unicorn and part machin
e. Or maybe he had the human lineage and she the machine; it was a matter of definition, since their fathers had used each other’s bodies. She was also a male/female mergence, which was fine for association with Sirelmoba/Troubot, but not with anyone else. Thus she was a complex creature, and in her fashion unique to the planet; no one else had her variety of affinities or abilities. If she could meet another like her, only different—
But how could she? It would require strenuous effort to make another like her, which was impossible in the face of the Hec conquest, and even then the result would be at least ten years younger than she. So she was alone in her special fashion.
“Why do I have the feeling that despite all your talents,” Lysander asked, “you have an emptiness like that of mine before love?”
“Because you know I’m one of a kind!” she snapped. “I’ll never have true love!”
“You don’t need another like you for love,” he protested “All you need is a suitable companion, and a love potion. I happen to know.”
She laughed, feeling better. Maybe he was right.
The harpy returned. She flapped clumsily down until close to the ground, then manifested as Echo. “Which side do the goblins serve now?”
“Ours,” Nepe said. “All the creatures are with us, because they’ll all die if Phaze is despoiled. But if they don’t know the importance of my mission, they may figure it’s business as usual.”
“Then we had better steer around the goblin camp to our west,” Echo said.
They steered around, cutting north. But as they followed a path beside a streamlet, they heard a commotion ahead. There was a crash and a yipe, as of an animal getting snared.
“Sirel!” Nepe exclaimed, as Flach recognized the sound. “She’s in trouble!”
They charged forward, and soon were there. Sure enough, the werewolf was caught in a raised net, that had evidently been set to spring up around anyone who stepped where it was hidden across the trail. This was goblin mischief!
The net had formed a bag, that gave Sirel no purchase for escape. It closed into a rope above, that passed over a fork in a medium small tree and back down to the ground. The tree had been tied down, and when released had carried up the net, closing it about the prey. It was a clever enough device, the kind that goblins had been proficient at for centuries. All that was required for release was to untie the knot at ground level.
But the goblins were as fast as their party had been. Five of the tough little creatures charged up from the opposite extension of the path. “Dinner!” one cried exultantly. “Bitch stew!”
“Keep quiet, ‘Sander,” Nepe warned. “Echo, you talk.” She hoped they understood: the goblins must not learn the full nature of this party.
“No you don’t!” Echo cried. “That’s my wolf!”
The squat goblin chief paused, looking at her. “Thy wolf be at thy side,” he said.
“Both be mine. Cut the bitch loose, or we shall have a reckoning.”
The four other goblins began to move forward, hefting their knobby clubs. “Methinks we shall eat e’en better than we thought,” the chief said.
“I will use my talent to hurt you,” Echo threatened.
“Ye be Protonite,” the chief replied. “No magic.” Meanwhile, the four were coming close.
Echo pointed at the chief’s head. “Hurt!” she cried.
Something struck the big head. The goblin blinked, but seemed surprised rather than hurt. He brought his club around.
“Hurt!” Echo repeated, pointing to his feet.
Something crunched down on the chief’s big toes. This time he reacted more vehemently. “Ooooff!” He danced on one foot, holding the other.
Now Nepe understood what was happening. Invisible Lysander had gotten close, and was striking the goblin at Echo’s command. First on the head, which was relatively impervious, then stomping a foot, which wasn’t.
“Now cut down my wolf, or it will go hard with you,” Echo said.
“Listen, bitch—” the goblin started, and since his kind had no respect for wolves, this was no compliment.
Then his eyes goggled. He squirmed a moment, as if suffering some kind of seizure. Lysander was putting some kind of hold on him.
“Let her go,” the chief wheezed.
The four, about to attack Echo, were puzzled. “But Chief—”
“I changed my mind,” the chief said, wincing. “We want bitch stew not.” He winced again. “We’ll hunt for something else.”
“Well, I want bitch stew!” one of the four said. He took a step forward.
But Nepe, standing quietly, had extended a tendril along the path, making it the same shade of brown as the forest floor. It had reached the goblin’s foot and fastened to it. When he took his step, she yanked—and he crashed down on his ugly face.
Echo strode forward herself, brushing past the three surprised goblins. One tried to swing at her, and she touched his shoulder with her hand, seemingly lightly. But there was the force and hardness of metal in that soft-looking hand, and the goblin jumped, bruised.
Echo caught the rope that supported the net. She started to untie it.
“Hey, thou canst not—” the chief started. Then he winced again, and was silent.
Echo completed the job, and the rope separated. She clung to it, so that her weight counterbalanced the smaller weight of the wolf, and let Sirel down gently to the ground. The net fell open, and Sirel got to her feet and scrambled out.
The chief made one more effort to protest, but failed again. They walked past him and on down the path. When they were at a bend, the goblin gave an exclamation and crashed into the brush. They heard feet pounding.
“Let’s get away from here!” Nepe said. They ran, and the pounding feet ran after them, gaining. None of them wanted to be close when the goblin chief recovered his composure. He surely had not lost his taste for bitch stew.
A shape loomed ahead. It was a bat. It flew down to the path, and took the form of a boy Nepe’s age. “If I’d known thou wast having so much fun, Nepe, I’d have hurried!” he said, running with them.
“Alien!” she exclaimed. “You found us!”
“How could I miss thee? As a wolf thou be laughable!”
They slowed, satisfied that the goblins were not in close pursuit. “Echo, Sirel, ‘Sander, this is Alien, the next of our party,” Nepe gasped. “The Red Adept’s son, and”—she paused, not just for breath—“my boyfriend, when Troubot is not around.”
“We’ve met,” Sirel said. Troubot was her other self, in Proton. “But mine accounting be with Flach, an my season come.”
Nepe changed the subject. “Some of us can’t travel well at night, so we must find a place to camp. We’ll have to forage for some food, and maybe Alien can keep watch—”
“So long as I get to sleep by day,” Alien agreed.
Echo assumed her harpy form again and flew ahead to scout for a good camping site. The others walked at a relatively sedate pace. “What happened?” Nepe asked Sirel.
Sirel assumed human form again. “I spied the goblin camp, so circled around, and had almost completed the loop. Became I careless then.” She flushed in the human fashion; it was most embarrassing, even for a half-grown pup.
Soon Oche returned. “There be fruit trees near,” she screeched. “And a field full o’ rabbits.”
“Excellent!” Nepe said. Her legs were so tired now that she could hardly wait to dissolve into a relaxed puddle.
In the morning, somewhat refreshed, they set off anew. Nepe assumed her human form, with an especially thick mass of hair, and Alien clung to it and slept. He preferred to hang upside down, but could manage in any position when the need arose. Sirel and Echo, both in human form, walked beside each other, and Lysander brought up the rear, still invisible. At the rate they were going, they would never make it to the West Pole in time, but Nepe wasn’t concerned about that. Their rate would change.
Then the last two members of their party intercepted them.
A blue heron flew slowly overhead, and immediately Echo turned harpy and flapped up to hail it. The heron followed her down, and manifested as Belle, the purple unicorn with the iridescent mane. There was a healing scar on her rump. From her back a firefly flew, and manifested as Neysa, the black unicorn with white socks.
“Grandam Neysa!” Nepe exclaimed happily, hardly caring about the technicality that she was Flach’s grandam.
Now Nepe rode Neysa, and Lysander rode Belle, whom he had met before. Oche perched on Belle’s rump, careful not to dig in her claws, and Alien continued to snooze on Nepe’s hair. Sirel resumed wolf form and ranged beside them. Their party of seven was complete, and ready to move swiftly.
The two unicorn mares were old, but were ready for this effort; their strength and endurance had been magically enhanced. They set off like fillies, achieving a hard gallop that covered the ground in a manner few other creatures could match. Nepe relaxed; they knew where they were going, and they knew the terrain. There should be no problems.
The unicorns were indeed prepared. They pounded ahead not only through the day, but through the night, pausing only for natural-function breaks. Sirel was unable to maintain the pace; she assumed girl form and joined Nepe on Neysa; the two together weighed about what Lysander did, so the unicorn was not overburdened.
It was not dull, riding for hours without surcease. The unicorns played music to the beat of their hooves, Neysa’s harmonica and Belle’s bells merging in extemporaneous melodies and harmonies. Along their route the little animals came out to listen and watch, for the sound and sight of traveling unicorns was always special. These mares might be old, but they remained glorious in their motion.
So it was that on the third day, in plenty of time, they approached the West Pole. There was nothing fancy about it; it was just a place on an island. The water had posed a small problem, but four of them had flying forms, and the other three simply swam across. The two unicorns could have taken to the water to spear any creature who threatened the swimmers; perhaps aware of that, the predators had stayed clear. It was also possible that even the predators realized that this was a very special party, on a very special mission that would benefit every creature of Phaze.