They came to a place the bitch deemed suitable for camping. She sniffed it thoroughly, then had them crawl under a thick thorny bush and nestle together out of sight of the trail. “Needs must I hunt,” she announced. “An danger come, hide; an it sniff ye out, bay for me. An I came not in time, scatter.” Then she was gone.
They were packed in nose-to-tail, but in a moment Fo and Te made room on either side, and Si assumed human form beside Flach. “Change, oath-friend,” she told him in a low tone. “We would learn o’ thee.”
Flach changed, finding himself jammed against her, because their human forms were larger than their pup forms. She was a girl of about his size, which meant also his age, because the werewolves matured at the rate of their slow component, the human one. It was now too dark for him to see her, but he felt her human mane, soft and fluffy as her fur, and the snug clothing she wore in human form.
“What wouldst thou learn o’ me?” he asked, speaking no louder than she. He realized that she had been chosen, or had chosen herself, to interrogate him; the other two were listening with their superior ears.
“We saw thee shift from bat to wolf. Ne’er have we known o’ a were also a bat. Be thou a crossbreed?”
“We be oath-friends now,” he reminded them. “An I tell ye three, you must tell not other.”
“Aye,” Si agreed, and the two others growled assent. “I be descended o’ the bitch Serrilryan, who gave her life that the Adept Clef might come to Phaze. An I tell thee aye, I honor aye.”
He had heard of the Adept Clef, the one who played the famed Platinum Flute. Si had impressive ancestry, and surely could be trusted. “I be grandchild o’ Adept Stile, and o’ Neysa Unicorn. I be thus ‘corn with more forms, and little Adept.”
There was a concerted reaction. “No true wolf?” the little bitch asked.
“I be wolf now,” he said. “But also other.”
“Thou willst fight for us, an we do for thee?”
“Aye.”
“And do magic for we three alone?”
“Nay. An I do magic other than were form changing, they will know, and seek me out. I may not be other than werewolf, till it be safe.”
Si made a little sigh of disappointment. “This be less fun than we hoped.”
Flach felt the need to repay them for the fun they had anticipated, because their Oaths of Friendship bound them to far greater risk than they would otherwise have known. “I can tell you o’ the other frame,” he offered.
“Thou dost know o’ it?” Si asked, excited. “How so?”
“I commune with my self-sister Nepe in Proton,” he explained. “She tells me o’ her frame, and I tell her o’ mine. But we can commune only when our sires commune, so the trace o’ our magic be covered by theirs.”
“Then how canst thou know when?” Si asked, intrigued.
“We feel it. Our sires must align in place to commune, but we need that not. We talk when they do, and only then. Last time, did I tell her to hide.”
“She has to hide too?” Si asked, awed.
“Aye. ‘Cause an they catch one of us, they will make that one tell where the other be, and catch both. So we both must hide, and ne’er get caught.” He found that it eased his void somewhat to tell of this.
“But why didst thou not stay with thy Pack?”
“ ‘Cause the Adverse Adepts be wrong. Grandpa Stile and Granddam Neysa told me that, and showed me how it be so, and I believe it. So needs must I change sides—but we knew the Adepts would let me not. It be the same for Nepe in Proton. So we had to plan, and practice, and hide before the Adepts and Citizens started using us. An they knew that Nepe and I can think to each other, and do it better than our sires can, they would ne’er let us go.”
“So you join the Pack with us?” Si asked.
“Aye. Only it must be known not, ‘cause the Pack can stand not against the Adepts. There would be awful trouble, Grandpa says, an they found any Pack or Herd or Flock sheltering me.”
Si pondered. “I wish we had known this before we swore oath-friendship with thee.”
“Why?” he asked. “Would ye three have made not the oath?”
She concentrated for a time before answering. “Mark thee, we be but young pups, and ill grasp adult concepts. But we feel the truth o’ them, howe’er poorly we say them. So I say to thee we made the oath thinking thou wast only an odd were-creature. We would have made it knowing we be truly helping the cause o’ all the good creatures o’ Phaze. Does that make sense to thee?”
“You would have made it anyway?” he asked, surprised.
“Aye,” Si said, and the others growled assent. “All wolves be ready to fight and die for their Pack and their friends and their way of life, but it means more an they know when they be doing it.”
Flach was abruptly overwhelmed. “Do wolves cry?” he asked.
“Aye, when they be in human form.”
“Good. ‘Cause I be going to cry.”
“Why?” she asked, dismayed. “Did I say it wrong?”
“Nay, thou didst say it perfectly.”
“Have we treated thee not kindly?”
“It be ‘cause ye three have treated me more kindly than I feared,” he said, the tears starting. “I bring great danger to you, yet you support me.”
“It be the way o’ the Pack,” she said. “We three be traveling to join a new Pack, and we know the way o’ it, but we know also how hard it be to do. We welcome thee as we would have our new Pack welcome us.”
“I will try to make you glad o’ that,” Flach said, as the tears flowed more copiously.
Si did not speak again. She put her hands to his face, and turned it toward her, and kissed him passionately. He realized that her face was wet too, with her own tears. She was kissing him for the three of them, for they had accepted him as they knew him to be. He was profoundly grateful, and somewhat in love, as of that moment.
After a suitable interval, they returned to wolf form and slept, the four of them comfortably nestled together against the chill of the night. Their noses pointed outward in four directions, so that any warning carried by the wind would receive prompt attention.
In the period before dawn, Duzyfilan returned with her kill: a giant rabbit. They woke at her summoning growl, and scrambled out to join her. The light of two moons shone down, showing the delicious carcass. In a moment each was hauling and chewing at a leg, while the bitch maintained guard.
Flach had never had a meal of this type before, and was at first alarmed. But he emulated his companions, and discovered that cooling raw flesh was delicious as well as being a challenge. As long as he was in wolf form! By the time dawn came, he was stuffed on rabbit, and felt wonderful.
They slept again, for it was not good to run on a full belly. It was almost noon before they resumed travel. But the bitch knew what she was doing, for she had, it turned out, spied an Adept in the vicinity, and elected to lay low until the Adept was gone.
At dusk they reached Kurrelgyre’s Pack. Duzyfilan sniffed noses with the leader, and brought up the four pups, saying nothing. Kurrelgyre sniffed each in turn, growled his approval, and summoned his own chief bitch. She took the four to her den. They were cowed and quiet, but knew the worst was over: they had been accepted. They never saw Duzyfilan go; she had been no more than a courier, and for reasons of her own she did not stay to socialize.
They were given two days to acclimatize to the new Pack. Then Kurrelgyre brought them up before the assembled wolves and gave them each their second syllable, in the manner of the wolven kind. This was their formal mark of acceptance; henceforth they would be members of the Pack in all the ways of pups of their generation, except that they would be free to make permanent liaisons with other Pack members when they matured. They and the other pups from other Packs represented this year’s New Blood: a place of custom rather than honor. Honor they would have to achieve for themselves, in due course.
So it was that they became Forel, Sirel, Terel and Barel: becau
se they had been lucky enough to be adopted by the leader’s den. They would strive henceforth to do that den honor. It was even possible that one of them might have the supreme honor, when grown, of killing Kurrelgyre. With peace, but threatened war, the Packs were increasing in size, anticipating future losses, so that it was no longer required that a young wolf kill his sire in order to assume adult status. But when a sire became infirm, it remained the duty of one of his offspring to dispatch him cleanly. However, that was a long time distant, and it was quite possible that Kurrelgyre would die in battle before then.
No one recognized Barel as the boy whom Neysa had carried by a few days before, because when he went to boy form he assumed an altered appearance with wolven clothing, and his smell was not the one they had encountered. Minions of the Adverse Adepts did pass, searching for someone, but it was evident that only werewolves were here. Kurrelgyre of course had not been told Flach’s identity, and if he suspected, he did not care to give it away. Certainly not to the Adverse Adepts!
It seemed that Flach had made a successful escape. But only time would tell. Meanwhile, he worked hard to become the best were pup he could be, and he did no other magic or shape changes than those of the wolven kind. The focus of the war between the good and bad Adepts had to move elsewhere.
Only his den mates, his oath-friends, knew of the pain he felt because of his isolation from his true parents. They felt it too, but not in the same way, for they had not also separated from their native culture. They remained with him, and stood by him, so that it was remarked with approval among the Pack how unusually close these four were.
Chapter 4
Blue
Agnes answered the call. In a moment she came to inform Citizen Blue. She was getting old and gray, as she had been no young thing when he had hired her from offplanet four years before, but she had quickly become his most reliable and trusted servant. Indeed, she was more like a friend, despite being an alien creature. She normally remained well in the background, so that few visitors noticed her at all. “It is for you, sir.”
“Who is it, Nessie?” he inquired, though he had an excellent notion.
“Citizen Tan, sir.”
He nodded. He gestured to the screen in this room, giving it leave to light, as Agnes disappeared.
Sure enough, it was Citizen Tan. “Your grandchild has disappeared,” Tan said abruptly. “You know something of this.”
“Now how could I know about that?” Blue inquired. “Isn’t she in your camp’s charge?”
“You put her up to it!”
“Did I? That must have been very naughty of me.”
“If you shelter her as a runaway, you will be in violation of the truce.”
“I wouldn’t think of it, Tan.”
“We shall recover her! And when we do—”
Blue frowned. “Are you suggesting that you would mistreat a child? I would not care to see that, for I fear it would prejudice your relationship with the child’s parents, who might become uncooperative.” This was of course a cutting understatement; Bane—and Mach, too—would not tolerate any threat against Nepe; she was untouchable.
“You’re so damned smug!” Tan exclaimed. “But she can’t remain hidden long. We’ll scour the planet for her, and if we discover any complicity at all on your part—”
“Now why should I want to prevent my granddaughter from making her scheduled visit to me? You know how I delight in her company. Indeed, this smacks of some device on your part, to keep her from me. Should I lodge a complaint?”
Citizen Tan faded out, scowling.
Agnes reappeared. “She will be all right, sir?”
“I am sure of it, Nessie. You trained her, after all. Who else could have done it better?”
“But she is only four of your years old!”
“And perhaps the brightest child on the planet.”
She nodded, fading back again.
Now Blue placed a call of his own, to Citizen Purple. The fat Adept scowled, but had to listen.
“We have operated under a truce,” Blue said. “We agreed not to harass each other directly, your side and mine, and your side has access to the Oracle during the time I am visited by my granddaughter. However, I have not received my scheduled visit this time. This represents a violation on your part.”
“We’re looking for her!” Purple snapped.
“I am sure you are. When you find her, and deliver her to me, I shall see that my part of the agreement is honored. Until then, you will be denied access to the Oracle.”
Purple’s mouth opened, but Blue cut the connection before the foul language got through. He had just dropped the other shoe.
Sheen entered. “You are not being nice, dear,” she remarked. She was naked in the serf style, slender and graceful, despite being nominally his age. But her hair betrayed her years, with some gray strands among the brown, and her breasts rode lower than they once had. Yet even these were not true indicators, for they were crafted. She was a robot, ageless unless restyled.
“What would a machine know about niceness?” he retorted, smiling.
“Certainly not a great deal from association.”
He grabbed her and kissed her. “How long have we been married? Two and a half years?”
“You may have slipped a decimal, sir.”
“I get that from association.”
“I doubt it.”
He held her a moment more. “Thou dost still so much resemble the metal maid I met and loved, when I returned to life.” He reverted to his native pattern of speech only in times of emotion, or for effect.
“I am the same!” she protested. “Crafted to please your other self, shaped to his taste.”
“And to mine,” he agreed. “I loved one before thee, but she came to love me less, and so I left her—and found thee. Thy love never flagged.”
“Because you never changed my program. If you want me to have another personality—”
“Tease me not! In my life must needs there be one thing constant, and that be thee and thy program.” He squeezed her close, and kissed her again.
“Careful, Blue,” she murmured in his ear. “You are getting aroused before schedule.”
“Trust thee to remember that!” he exclaimed, for it was true.
He released her and faced the exit panel. “Mustn’t keep my audience waiting,” he said, reverting to the Proton mode of speech.
“Play thy role well, my love,” she said.
He smiled. She normally used Phaze language only to tease him, but this time he knew it was more than that. “Fear thou not, O Lady Sheen. I shall play them a game that shall keep them rapt.” Then he stepped out.
For this was the point of this exercise. He had trained his grandchild Nepe carefully, as Stile had trained Flach in Phaze. He knew about this because the two children were able to communicate with each other: a secret only Stile and Blue and their ladies (Agnes included) had known until this point. Now Stile had given the signal for the children to hide, and Blue had to trust his other self’s judgment. He did not know where Nepe had gone, but he did know she would need about twenty-four hours to secure her situation. It was now his job to provide her that period. The future of this ploy, and likely the planet, depended on his success in creating an effective diversion.
Now we shall play a game, he thought as he emerged into the hall. A game of high stakes! He knew that every word he spoke and every action he took would be noted, outside the protection of his Citizen’s sanctuary. The Contrary Citizens believed he had some complicity in Nepe’s disappearance, as indeed he had. He had made his provocative calls to ensure that belief. Now he was going out, and they should believe that he was going to contact his granddaughter. If they were assured of that, they would put all their resources into watching him, instead of into the more routine but effective effort of a cordon and pattern search for her. It was a ploy so obvious that only a fool should fall for it—and he hoped to make a fool of the enemy Citizens.
&
nbsp; He walked around the halls as if merely exercising—or making sure he was unobserved. Of course there should be no way to shake the hidden observation of the enemy; he depended on that. If they lost him, they might by default get moving on the pattern search, expensive and disruptive, as that would be. He was offering them a seemingly much easier route.
After he was satisfied that he was alone, he approached a Citizen portal and summoned his transport. This was a box somewhat like an ancient elevator, that traveled through channels unavailable to serfs. The sides consisted of holographs of Phaze, so that it looked as if he were in a glass cage swinging along over the Phaze surface. He loved Phaze, of course, and wished he could revisit it; but he loved this technological frame more. To him, the ways of magic were familiar and frankly somewhat dull, while the ways of science were, even after a quarter century, novel and exciting. With magic, each spell could be invoked only once; with science there was no limit. And Sheen was a creature of science. He had been fascinated by her from the outset, knowing her nature; she represented in one package all the wonders of this frame. To the locals, the notion of a living man loving a robot was ludicrous—but Blue was not a local, he was an immigrant from a foreign frame. Sheen was beautiful, she was conscious, she was feeling, she was loving. Science had fashioned the whole of her, and that was much of her allure. She had loved Stile, and lost him to the Lady Blue; but she had been ready to accept Stile’s alternate self instead, and that had been the key. A living woman would not have done it, but the robot lacked the particular consciousness of self that counted here. Blue had Stile’s body and Stile’s nature; he was Stile’s other self. Sheen was programmed to love the first two, and though she knew of the third, her programming did not find it significant. She had, in effect, Stile under another name.