They reached the base of the mountain range. Flach galloped up the slope, dodging around trees and thick brush. The pace was amazing; Lysander realized that the boy must have enhanced his strength magically, because no natural unicorn should be able to move at this velocity with a rider. Indeed they were in a hurry!
A bat flashed ahead, evidently returning from some exploration. The unicorn turned to follow it into a depression cut by a mountain rill; the bed was dry now, and easier to traverse than the thickly wooded main slope. They plowed on through the saplings and slushy spots.
Lysander noticed that steam rose from the wet spots when the unicorn’s hooves touched them. Occasionally a spark was struck from a rock as a hoof hit it. Those hooves were burning hot! That must mean that the unicorn was dissipating excess heat through the hooves, rather than by sweating, for the hide was dry. Certainly there was plenty of heat being generated, because of the breakneck pace of this climb. Indeed, now he saw a thin flicker at the animal’s nostrils, that resembled the jet of a blowtorch. This creature could breathe fire, when exercised!
They climbed to a narrow pass and started down the south side. It looked as though there were a path to the side, but Flach didn’t seek it; he followed the guidance of the bats, finding natural openings instead. Lysander realized that the path might be watched, so it had to be cross country.
Through the foliage of the trees he saw down the mountainside, south. It opened into a dull, bare, slightly rolling plain which looked as hot as the unicorn’s hooves and breath. Could that be where they were going? What could be there?
It was odd that there were no great stirrings of wild creatures here, as they charged through. No harpies, no tusked boars, no aggressive serpents. Lysander had understood that there could be real danger for someone who came carelessly through the wilderness. But he realized that this was not just anyone; this was the Unicorn Adept, and he had magic that could probably pulverize any creature. Also, all of Phaze might know the nature if not the detail of his mission, and give him clearance to pursue it. For Lysander alone this trip would be dangerous, but it wasn’t that way in this company.
Another Hectare aircraft zoomed by. The search of this vicinity was resuming. That meant that they had caught the unicorns and discovered the ruse, and were now picking up where the prior search had left off. The two mares had bought them perhaps two hours, and the party had made excellent use of the time. Lysander would not have believed the progress they had made, if he had not participated in it.
They continued on down, evidently trying to get beyond the mountains. Indeed this seemed wise, because now the range began to rumble and shake. The Purple Mountains were, after all, the Purple Adept’s home range, and he had greater power here than elsewhere. No wonder Flach wanted to get past this region quickly! Lysander had thought this trip safe; he had forgotten about the pursuit.
Geysers of steam issued from the opening cracks. Rocks rolled down slopes. The mountains were coming alive, geologically, and soon they would be deadly. The moment the Purple Adept figured out the exact position of the intruders, things would get difficult indeed.
Flach sounded a single short note. Immediately the others came in close. The unicorn stopped, and Lysander slid to the ground. It was a relief; the bareback ride was chafing and fatiguing.
Flach reappeared. “Decoys,” he said.
Weva turned girl again, with her flute, and played her eerie, lovely melody. The other bat and the wolf became human and stood there, holding hands. The magic gathered.
Flach gestured, and the two were gone. “Where—?” the harpy screeched.
“To the Brown Demesnes,” Flach replied. “But this be not enough; the ships will watch here also. Thou must come with me, Oche; Lysander goes with Weva.”
Lysander realized that Weva had not stopped playing her flute when the conjuration was complete, this time. The magic was still being summoned, and fairly crackled in the air around them. He walked over to stand beside the bat girl. They must be getting close to their destination.
Suddenly the scene changed. Lysander discovered himself standing on the plain he had seen before, with the red-haired girl standing beside him.
“He conjured us here?” he asked, though the answer was obvious. “Why? Where are we going?”
“To the South Pole,” she said. “Get a move on thee, man; it be far.” She started walking south.
“Far? It must be thousands of miles! We can’t walk there!”
“Mayhap we can ride a dragon, then,” she said. “Yon creature winds us now.”
Lysander looked. She was right: a dragon was sniffing in their direction. This hot region was the dragon’s natural breeding ground, it seemed. There wasn’t usually much prey here, but it was comfortable for the creatures as a resting area, and they could readily fly over the mountains for their hunting. However, they surely would snap up any creatures foolish enough to enter dragon country.
Suddenly it occurred to him that his usefulness to the planetary resistance effort might be over, and that he had been sent out here to die. The bat girl was hardly in danger; she could change form and fly away after verifying his death. Yet why should Flach have gone to such trouble to bring him this far, if that was the case? It would have been easier to dump him elsewhere.
“There be one!” Weva said. “Hurry!”
“What?” But she was already hurrying to the side.
He ran after her. She stopped at a small knob in the sand. “Pull it up. Quick!”
Lysander took hold of the knob and hauled on it. It was heavy, but it did come up, and with it a section of the ground. It was another trapdoor entrance to a tunnel or a cave!
“But it may be changed time!” he protested.
“Wouldst face the dragon instead?” she demanded as she scrambled down.
The dragon seemed quite ready to try the case; it was half running, half flying toward them, jets of smoke issuing from its snoot.
Lysander jumped down into the hole. His feet landed on a sloping surface, and he sat down. The surface leveled out quickly, and he was able to reach out and haul the lid closed before the dragon arrived.
There was light farther down. He crawled through to it, and found Weva there, in a chamber similar to the one he had shared with Echo, opening a chest. “We be in luck,” she said. “They left food.”
“Who left food? I thought there was nothing but dragons here!”
“Goblins, belike, or mayhap trolls. When they travel, they like rest stops, so they space them through. Methinks they will mind not our borrowing it.”
He could hear the dragon snuffling above, looking for the vanished prey. It was apt to be a while before it was safe to emerge. They might as well eat.
She handed him a chunk of dark bread, and bit into a similar chunk herself. “I would know thee better, Lysan,” she said.
She abbreviated his name the same way Flach/Nepe did. Suddenly he had a suspicion. Nepe could assume any form; was she up to something? Had he been deceived about whom he traveled with? Yet what would be the point? It seemed best to play it straight.
“I am curious about you, too, Weva,” he said. “I shall be happy to trade information while we wait and eat.”
“Aye, fair,” she agreed. “I be more than I may seem to thee. But before I reveal that, I would play with thee.”
“Play with me? A game? I know a number, as I am a games-man.”
She laughed. “Nay, ‘Sander! I mean as Echo does.” She shrugged out of her simple robe, showing a figure that was slender but aesthetically appealing. She was young, but woman rather than child. “Only go slowly, and explain, for I have done this not before.”
She had caught him entirely by surprise. “Then I have to say that such play is not so direct,” he said. “I have a commitment to Echo, and I love her, and have neither desire nor intent to have any similar relationship with any other woman. I’m sure that in due course you will be able to find a suitable vampire bat boy, after this crisi
s is over, if the planet survives.”
“I be not exactly a bat girl,” she said. Suddenly there was a wolf bitch in her place.
Not Nepe—but Flach, magically changing to his other forms! But to what point? “I don’t understand.”
“I be a creature o’ the West Pole,” Weva said, reappearing. “All my life, nigh thirteen years, I be ‘mongst the animal heads. They be good folk, but none can assume full man form. So I would try it with a full man.”
“I’m not a man!” Lysander protested. “I’m an android, with an alien brain.” If this was a variant of Flach/Nepe, this was no news; if it really was a girl of the Pole, the news would not hurt at this stage.
“Aye,” Flach said. “But thou dost be more human than I.”
“I think not. My brain is Hectare.”
“Then see this.” Suddenly there was a Hectare in her place.
Lysander gaped. The thing was genuine! He knew the details of the species and this was true in every particular.
“Illusion!” he exclaimed. “You are fooling me with illusion!”
The Hectare extended a tentacle. Lysander touched it, expecting to feel a human finger instead. But it was real, unless the illusion extended also to touch.
This was a challenge. He remembered how he had tried to verify Jod’e, in the early game. How could he verify this?
By the codes. The patterns were inherent; Hectare used them to communicate in the planted stage, before they developed sonics. A tentacle could tap the ground, communicating with other rooted individuals, exchanging information.
He tapped the floor with a knuckle and a heel, in the GREETING, STRANGER pattern.
Two tentacles tapped in response: ACKNOWLEDGMENT, STRANGER.
It was a valid response!
The tentacle tapped again. YES, I AM GENUINE. I AM THE SEED YOU BROUGHT FROM THE CITY.
Suddenly it fell into place. They had grown a Hectare hybrid! They had merged it with bat, wolf, and human stock, all of which had been brought to the Pole.
“I believe you,” he said, awed. “But what is the point?”
Weva the girl reappeared. “I have told thee much about me. Dost not feel thou shouldst respond in the manner I asked?”
“I will tell you all you wish to know about me. But as I said, my love is elsewhere.”
“That can I change.” She brought out her flute, played it briefly, and gestured. “Now that love be gone.”
“Of course it isn’t!” he exclaimed. “You can’t just—”
But he had to stop, for he realized it was true. He no longer cared particularly for Echo.
“You have a potion?” he asked. “A null-love potion?”
“Nay, merely mine Adept magic skill—Wouldst prefer I make thee love me?” She lifted her flute.
“No! Please!” He realized that he was in the presence of a creature who could twist him any way it chose, and it frightened him. “I see you have power, but I ask you not to use it on me further. Just tell me what you want of me.”
She nodded. “I see we understand each other. I would convert thee to our cause—the cause o’ Phaze—for I be a creature o’ Phaze. But Flach tells me the prophecy would be invalidated then, so this may not be. I ask thee only this: e’en as I spare thee humiliation and loss o’ forced love, though I could do these without stopping the prophecy, so must thou consider carefully whe’er thy side be the correct one.”
“I am a Hectare agent. I must fulfill my mission.”
“Yet there may be ways and ways to see thy mission. Canst keep thy mind open to that extent?”
“I can try. But—”
“Then let us go from here; it be time.” She pulled her robe back up and crawled toward the entrance.
He crawled after her, his mind whirling. This creature—part bat, part wolf, part human, part Hectare—was indeed something special! Thirteen years in the making, but only a little over a month in his time. He had helped Nepe get the Hectare seed, never dreaming how it would be used! Now Weva combined the Hectare intellectual power with the human imagination and the Adept magic. She was surely the tool the Adepts intended to use against the Hectare investment. But how could she change anything? And how was Lysander needed to complete it?
Thirteen—and she had tempted him sexually, just to demonstrate her power, it seemed. She had convinced him; there was no way he could oppose her directly. He had demurred mainly on instinct, in effect capitulating and begging for mercy. Now in his mind’s eye he saw her slender body nested in the open robe, her nascent but well-formed breasts. It would have been easy to, as she put it, play with her, despite his relation with Echo.
Echo! Weva had deprived him of his love for Echo—and now there was a void. He was out of love!
Weva pushed up the lid. There was a roar, as the watching dragon spied the motion and charged.
“Begone, beast,” Weva said crossly.
The noise cut off. Weva drew herself out of the hole. Amazed, Lysander followed.
The dragon was lumbering away, having lost interest in them. Weva had changed its mind with a mere two words and no music! But if she could do that, why hadn’t she done it before?
Because she had wanted to make her little demonstration to him. The supposed need to hide from the dragon had been a pretext. Now that he knew exactly where he stood, she could get about her business of going where she was going.
What would she have done, if he had agreed to play with her? Probably she would have done it, being genuinely curious and perhaps without scruple. Though that was odd, because of her Hectare component.
“But it is still a long way to the South Pole!” he said. “We’ll need transport.”
“Aye. It be nigh.”
Coming toward them was a huge manlike figure. Its heavy tread shook the ground. It seemed to be made of tree trunks and cables.
“That’s a wooden golem!” Lysander protested. “The Brown Adept now serves the Hectare!”
“Aye. But she has spot control not. She sends them out on their missions, and knows not what they do till they return.”
“But they do her will! That thing will haul us right back to the Brown Demesnes! And you can’t interfere with Adept magic without signaling our location.”
“Aye. I dare not use my power. But illusion be lesser magic, making no splash, as be emotion control.”
As the monster golem came close, Weva signaled it by waving her arms. It bore down on them.
“What by thy name, golem?” she asked as it loomed close and halted.
“Franken,” it said, though it did not breathe.
“Well, Franken, what thou seekst be at the South Pole,” Weva said to it. “Carry us swiftly there.”
“Aye, Brown,” it said.
What?
The golem reached down with a giant wood hand and closed it gently around Weva. It lifted her up over its shoulder and set her in a storage box mounted on its back. Then it reached for Lysander and did the same for him.
They rode standing in the box, whose sides came a bit above waist level on Lysander. There were handholds. Evidently this was a standard setup for transporting human beings. Their heads could see over the wood bole that was the golem’s head. The thing was now striding south at a horrendous rate; it was almost like flying.
“But you neither look nor sound anything like Brown!” he whispered.
“To it I do, and that be what counts. Thou needst whisper not; it hears only when addressed.”
“But you’ve never even met Brown! You can’t—”
“Dost love me still, Lysander?” she asked.
Startled by the change in her voice, he looked at her. She was Echo! The sound and look were identical. Had he not known that there was no way it could be true, he would have been sure it was her.
“Point made,” he said. “And you probably don’t resemble Echo to the golem, just to me.”
“Aye.”
“You miss on only one thing: Echo is Protonite. She speaks as I do
.”
“Oops!” she exclaimed, chagrined. Then: “Do you still love me, Lysander?” This time the emulation was perfect. Weva was a very quick study!
“No I don’t, as you know, Weva,” he said. “You took that from me. Are you going to give it back?”
“And play my game with you, to wile the time as we travel?” she inquired. She still resembled Echo exactly, her brown fluffy hair blown back by the breeze of their swift travel, her breasts shaking under the robe with the rocking of each big golem tread.
That made him pause. Maybe he should leave well enough alone, lest this provocative woman/child entertain herself at the cost of his future with Echo.
But that thought opened others. There would be no future at all, if his mission succeeded. The Magic Bomb would destroy the planet. So what was the point of being true to Echo? She would be better off if he were untrue to her—and to his mission. And he—he was objective now, no longer blinded by a potion-inspired love. Did he really want that love back? He could function better without it.
If he did not take back that love, he could do as he wished with Weva. She was young, but the way of this planet made physical age of little account; a robot was adult from the moment of its creation, unless otherwise programmed, and the creatures of Phaze let nature be their guide. If a female was mature enough to desire sex, she could indulge as she chose, requiring only an amenable male. That was probably seldom a problem. So Weva’s notion of playing with him was valid on her terms. She could do it in the semblance of Echo, or Jod’e, or Alyc, or in her own; she would have control of the situation regardless. If the planet was soon to be destroyed anyway, why not enjoy the time remaining?
Yet Echo had shared the love potion, and her love had not been nullified. She was a good creature; he could appreciate her qualities with clear vision now. He would never of his own choice have taken up with a woman who could turn harpy, and whose body even in her human state was fashioned of metal and plastic, but his experience had shown him better. He had been in love with a good woman, who had returned his love; it had been an excellent state. She had the mind of a harpy in the body of a robot; he had the mind of an alien creature in the body of an android. They were a good match, and he would be satisfied to let it stand.