Piers Anthony - Adept 6 - Unicorn Point

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The Lady was fifty years old now, and her face was lined, but she

remained beautiful to him. Her hair still fell to her waist, fair but seeming

tinted with blue because of her blue gown and slippers. She stood slightly

taller than he, because of his diminutive stature; it had never been an issue

between them.

After a pause, she murmured, "I know, my love." "I will return in a

few days," he continued gravely. "Thou shallst have company." "True." But

there was a tear on her cheek. He kissed her, then went outside the castle.

There was Neysa, her head turning white, her socks falling down about her

hooves but her hide glossy black between, and her mus -- cles still firm.

She remained a fine figure of a unicorn; as her kind put it, her hom retained

its point. Stile mounted her bareback, and she trotted across the

drawbridge over the moat.

Neysa paused without being asked, so that Stile could turn and

wave to the castle. A blue kerchief waved back from the

2 | Piers Anthony

window. Stile felt a pang, because all three of them knew that much

more was afoot than this simple excursion.

Then Neysa turned away, and trotted from the Blue De -- mesnes.

They were on their way.

because a given spell could be invoked only once, and he preferred not to

waste any. Magic, even for an Adept, was often the last resort. But it was

all right to summon die am -- bience without drawing on it.

After a while Stile paused in his playing. "I remember when you

protested my power, old friend," he said.

She played a laughing bit of melody. She had forgiven him his

power a quarter century before, at the time he made his Oath of Friendship

to her. From that time on, all the unicorns of her Herd, and all the

werewolves of Kurrelgyre's Pack, had been her friends too, charmed by the

peripheral power of that Oath. There had been no war between Herd and

Pack, despite significant changes in their compositions as members grew

and bred and migrated, and the Oath had become a minor legend. It had

been the proof of his status as the Blue Adept, for only Adept magic could

affect unicorns against their will.

"Aye, I remember well," he continued, experiencing the nostalgia of

old times. "I was an injured jockey from the frame of Proton, discovering the

strange new world of Phaze. I decided I needed a steed, and you were

there, you beautiful animal, the finest of your kind I had seen, and small like

me. I loved you that moment, but you did not love me."

Neysa played a note of agreement. Her horn was musical, but she

could talk with it in her fashion, and he understood her well. All the

continued, playfully switching back to Phaze dialect. "I think I kept my place

chiefly by luck -- " Here she snorted derisively. "But then thou didst get set

to leap from the high point, and I thought we both would die, and I let thee

go -- and won thee after all." And she agreed.

"Then there came to me a woman, young and fair and small, and

lo! it was thee in human guise, and I learned what it meant to befriend a

unicom," he continued. "And now we be old, and I have my son Bane and

thou thy filly Fleta, and they both be grown and have offspring in their

fashion. Were we wrong to oppose their unions? How much mischief might

we have avoided, had we accepted their pleas!"

Neysa did not comment. She, with her unicom stubborn -- ness,

had not yet changed her mind about her position. They proceeded a while

in silence. Stile mulling it over. His son Bane had managed to exchange

identities with his opposite number in Proton, who happened to be a robot:

the manu -- factured son of the humanoid robot Sheen, once Stile's lover.

The robot youth, called Mach, had occupied a living human body for the

first time, and fallen in love with the human form of Fleta before properly

appreciating her nature. Across the frames, the robot and the unicorn -- the

impossibility of this relationship had been evident to all except the protagon

-- ists. Only the conniving Adverse Adepts, who sought to use the boys for

their own purposes, had supported the union. Bane, in the robot body in

he will develop abilities drawn from both our stocks. And little Nepe, in

Proton -- "

Neysa's ears perked. She was listening to something. Stile

4 | Piers Anthony

paused, so as to give her a better chance; her ears were better

than his. It was probably nothing significant; still, it was always best to be

alert, because there were more monsters than in the past, and not all of

them had learned proper re -- spect for either unicorns or Adepts.

Neysa elevated her nose to sniff the breeze. She made a musical

snort of perplexity. Evidently this was not routine. "Do you wish me to

intercede?" Stile asked. As an Adept, he could handle just about any threat

from anything less than another Adept, and at present the Adepts were not

harrying each other despite their enmities.

But the unicorn was independent, true to the nature of her species.

She preferred to handle this herself. She broke into a trot, and then into a

gallop, moving at the velocity only her kind could manage. Stile crouched

low, hanging on to her mane, enjoying this run as much as he had her easy

walk.

They broke into open country, much as they had a quarter century

before, covering ground at a rate beyond the powers of any horse. The

magic of the unicorn was not merely in her hom! This time she was trying

Neysa was concerned; she did not trust anything unfamiliar.

He continued his effort to place the creature. It had to be

something^. It had a body like that of a panther or lion, and a head like that

of a bird of prey. It reminded him of the old heraldic devices in the history

texts --

"Griffin!" he exclaimed. "That's a griffin! Head and wings of an

eagle, body of a lion!"

Neysa made a musical toot of agreement and continued running at

speed. She had known it by the sound and smell.

"But there are no griffins in Phaze!" he exclaimed after a moment.

UNICORN POINT 15

Yet there it was, and gaining on them. A classic heraldic monster.

Obviously it did exist here.

Stile's brain was now racing at almost Neysa's pace. Sparks were

flying up from her heating hooves, and figurative sparks were emanating

from his head. There were only a few ways that such a creature could be in

Phaze. Was it possible that all the surveys of the wildlife of the frame had

been wrong, and had overlooked this creature? He doubted that; those sur

-- veys had been competent and conducted magically. The grif -- fin might

be an illusion, crafted by another Adept. But he doubted that too, because

Neysa had heard it and scented it;

they wished, they were limited to those few they had mastered, and Stile

knew of none who had elected a non -- Phaze form. The Adepts could take

any form, but only once. Thus it would be necessary to find new variants of

the spell to achieve the same alternate form, which seemed like too much

trouble.

However, a single appearance in this form might be enough,

depending on its purpose. Why should an Adept assume the form of a

griffin to chase another Adept? Was one of the Adverse Adepts breaking

the truce? Trying to take him out anonymously, using this shape in case

Stile escaped and tried to identify the perpetrator? That was possible, for

some Adepts had few ethical scruples, but unlikely, because the Adverse

Adepts already had the upper hand and were likely to win the complete

power they sought, in time. They had succeeded in tilting the balance of

power in their favor when they had given Mach and Fleta sanctuary. Now

Mach and Bane were both working for them, and their facility with magic in

this frame, and with science in the other, was in -- evitably growing. Stile

and his allies were waging little more than a holding action at this point,

staving off the reckoning.

6 | Piers Anthony

Why should the enemy try to kill him, when this would only stir up

his allies to desperate measures, and change nothing?

invoke a spell that would set back even an Adept. The truth was that a

single Adept could seldom really harm another Adept; their magic tended to

cancel out. That was another reason it was easier to abide by the truce; vio

-- lation was not likely to be effective.

The shadow of the monster was coming close, and the grif -- fin

itself was descending, its front talons reaching down. Stile readied his spell,

but withheld it; he did not want to affront Neysa by demonstrating a lack of

faith in her effort. Now she had reached the Lattice, and her hot hooves

were clattering on its pattern of little cracks. Those cracks were widening

into crevices, and the crevices to deep clefts, as they pene -- trated to the

center of the region.

Soon Neysa was stepping across enlarging gaps, and then jumping

over them. The gaps were now broader than the landing places, and the

ratio continued to shift. That was the devastating thing about the Lattice;

the farther it went, the worse it got. There was a way across it, but that way

was devious, like a route through a maze, and could not be nav -- igated

blindly. The griffin hovered above as if uncertain how to proceed; perhaps it

was not familiar with this network. Then it folded its wings and dropped

down toward them.

Neysa leaped down into a channel, surprising Stile. Now the walls

of it rose up on either side. In a moment the two of them were below the

the far side of the Lattice -- but the griffin hovered above, evidently

waiting for that. Had they played into its trap?

"Maybe if we go on through, I can throw a spell at the griffin as we

come out," Stile suggested. "There has to be Adept involvement, so -- "

She sounded a note of agreement. They both knew that they could

not afford to dally long here in the Lattice, for the demons would surround

them and set up a barrier to stop the plunging unicorn. Then they would

have to deal with the de -- mons, and it would be messy, because this was

the demons' home territory. But this intrusion had caught the demons by

surprise, so they had not yet massed or organized sufficiently, and would

not be able to do so before Neysa galloped on out.

They passed the nadir of the Lattice, and began the gradual incline

toward the escape at the far side. Stile watched the griffin above, ready to

time his spell so as to stun it as their heads came out of the chasm.

Suddenly Neysa faltered. Her stride broke, and she ground to a

painful halt. Stile was almost thrown from her back, because he had been

watching the sky rather than the Lattice, and had not seen the obstruction.

Now his eyes wrenched down -- and there was no obstruction.

The demons were advancing, appearing from all the inter -- locking

crevices of the demon warren. This was evidently no surprise to them!

weight off your feet."

But demons were closing in, and some had nets; they were

prepared for this also.

Stile sighed. He knew better than to try to reason with this type of

demon. He would have to back them off with magic. He took a breath.

Abruptly the demons froze in place. Stile gaped; he hadn't done it!

This was very powerful magic; who had interceded?

8 | Piers Anthony

The griffin landed just above. It changed form. Suddenly a young

man stood there, hair tousled, handsome.

"Bane!" Stile cried, surprised and relieved.

"No, Mach," the man replied. "I am sorry; I did not mean to drive

you into the Lattice. I see Neysa ran afoul of the demons' founder spell. My

fault; I will abate it,"

"Mach!" Stile said. Normally he could tell them apart, though they

used the same body; their manners differed. His distraction of the moment

had dulled his perception. "Why were you pursuing us?"

"You can be hard to locate, Adept," Mach said with a smile. "The

other Adepts watch you, of course, but I never bothered to spy on you. I

prefer to search you out at need. So I assumed a form I knew you would

recognize as alien to Phaze. But then you wanted to make a game of it, so

gesture. It was a power Stile could only envy. Originally Mach had been

clumsy with magic, his attempted spells going awry, but after the Red

Adept had trained him with the Book of Magic he had be -- come the most

powerful of all the Adepts, Bane included. He should have been on Stile's

side -- had Stile not blundered ca -- lamitously.

Neysa resumed her unicorn form, and Stile mounted. They moved

out of the Lattice. Mach awaited them at the edge.

"I thought we weren't associating," Stile said with a smile as they

emerged. "Aren't you on the other side?"

"Would I be, if we had the past five years to live over?"

"No." Indeed, the major reason for Stile's opposition to Mach's

union with Fleta had been nullified by events. He had needed an heir who

was Adept, and offspring by that heir who would also be Adept, so as to

have the continuing power to hold off the Adverse Adepts. He had thought

that there could be no offspring of man and unicorn, and that a robot could

not become Adept. Had he known what was to happen,

UNICORN POINT 19

he would have welcomed Mach as a savior, instead of op -- posing

him as an interference.

"I gave my word, and Bane gave his," Mach said. "We would have

chosen otherwise, and still our sympathies lie with you, but our word is

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摘要：

TheLadywasfiftyyearsoldnow,andherfacewaslined,butsheremainedbeautifultohim.Herhairstillfelltoherwaist,fairbutseemingtintedwithbluebecauseofherbluegownandslippers.Shestoodslightlytallerthanhe,becauseofhisdiminutivestature;ithadneverbeenanissuebetweenthem.Afterapause,shemurmured,"Iknow,mylove.""Iwillr...

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Piers Anthony - Adept 6 - Unicorn Point

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