Piers Anthony - Adept 05 - Robot Adept

Anthony, Piers - The Apprentice Adept - 5 - Robot Adept

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1

Phaze

Suchevane stood in the canoe. She was obviously fatigued to the point of

collapse, and in a misery of mixed emotion, but she remained such a stunningly

beautiful figure of a woman that the rest hardly mattered. "I must needs fly

home," she said. "I may not, I think, associate with ye folk longer."

"I understand, vampire maiden," Mach replied, looking up from his place at the

rear of the canoe. "I thank you for your great service, and hope that we may

at least remain friends."

"Mayhap," Suchevane agreed. "I did it mostly for thee, Fleta, and glad I am

that thy life be safe and thy love secure. Would I had such love myself." She

gazed for a moment at the fading brightness around them. "Would that any man

evoke such splash for me!"

The woman in Mach's arms lifted her head, gazing at her friend through

tear-blurred eyes. "Wouldst thou had such love thyself," Fleta agreed. "Fare

thee well, dearest friend!"

Then Suchevane lifted her arms like wings, and with effortless elegance even

in her fatigue became a lovely bat, and flew into the haze. Exhaustion made

her flight ragged, but she would get where she was going.

The watery bubble floating beside the canoe bobbed gently. "I be not partial

to vamps," the face of the Translucent Adept said within it. "But that one

might almost tempt an Adept." The bubble spun, so that the face reoriented on

the canoe. "I will, an thou wishest, provide thy craft a tow to my Demesnes."

"Accepted, Adept," Mach replied. Then he lowered his face again to Fleta's

face, and lost himself in her.

The watery bubble moved, and from it stretched a watery line that touched the

prow of the canoe. Bubble and canoe floated through the air, gaining speed,

traveling through the closing night.

Mach and Fleta, victims of forbidden love, were on their way into the power of

the Adverse Adepts.

Mach woke to the sound of lapping water. He looked, and sure enough, their

canoe was on the surface of a large lake or small sea. "How strange!" he

exclaimed.

Fleta woke. "Art well, my love?" she asked, concerned.

"We're on water," he explained.

She laughed. "It be strange to see a boat on water? Mayhap in thy frame,

rovot, but not in mine!"

He smiled ruefully. "I enchanted this canoe to float in air, that's all. I was

surprised."

The watery bubble ahead of them rotated so that the face in it faced back.

"Willst be yet more surprised, youngster, in a moment."

Fleta stretched, arms bent, her breasts moving against him. "Must needs I call

on nature," she said. "Let me change." She drew away from him.

"Don't leave me!" he protested, abruptly wary. "The last time you did that, I

almost lost you forever!"

She abruptly sobered. "I thought only to spare thee evil, then," she said.

"Fear not, I shall return to thee very shortly." Then she leaned into him and

kissed him with such passion that his burgeoning doubt was sublimated into

joy.

While he sat half-stunned by the delight of her, she stood much as Suchevane

had, and abruptly became the hummingbird. The bird was glossy black, with

golden little legs and beak; it darted forward to muss his hair with its

wings, then shot away.

Mach shook his head, half in rue; he was a bit jealous of her instant

shape-changing ability, and wished he could simply change and fly like that.

That gave him pause for thought. He was a novice Adept, wasn't "he? He had

managed to perform magic on occasion. What were his limits? The real Adepts

could do amazing things; could he do likewise, if he only mastered the magic?

The more he considered, the better he liked the notion. He had conjured this

air-floating canoe that had given him such good service; that was by any

reckoning competent magic. He had nullified the suicide spell on Fleta by the

force of his declaration of love: the triple Thee. While that was not an

ordinary type of magic, neither had the spell on her been ordinary. She had

asked the Red Adept to give her an amulet that would cause her to lose her

ability to change forms, so that when she dived off the mountain she would be

unable to save herself by changing to hummingbird form and flying away. The

Red Adept, reluctantly, had granted her this. Mach had reversed Adept magic!

Surely shapechanging himself would be a comparatively minor enchantment. All

he had to do was work out the appropriate spells.

Fleta returned, humming up to perch on the canoe's front seat, then shifting

to giriform. She had evidently completed her business. That was another

advantage of shape-changing: the nectar of just a few flowers could feed her,

and she remained fed when she shifted to a far more massive form. Similarly,

one bird dropping could clean out her system, for the human form as well.

Magic took little note of scale.

"Going down," the Translucent Adept's voice came from ahead. Then his bubble

dipped under the surface—and the canoe followed. In a moment they were sinking

through the greenish water, but breathing normally; the water seemed like air.

Fleta moved back to take his hand. "Adept magic spooks me," she confided. "I

wish—"

He silenced her with a kiss. He knew what she wished: that they could be

together without the intercession of the Adept. But it seemed that this could

not be, for their union was opposed by her kind and his, so they were

constrained to accept Translucent's hospitality.

They continued down. Fish swam by, gazing with moderate curiosity at the

canoe; apparently they had seen things like this before. Then the bottom came

into view, and it seemed again as if they were floating through air, with the

rocks and seaweed and sea moss like the terrain of some jungle land.

Now that land turned strange. Orange and blue-green sponges spread across it,

and corals reached up like skeletons, and peculiar flowerlike, tentacled

things waved on yellow stalks. At first these were small, but as the canoe

progressed they grew larger.

Mach looked down below the canoe as they passed a long log. No, it was a pipe,

with a spiral band wrapping it, getting larger in diameter as they traveled

along it. Then they came to its end—and there was a big round eye gazing up at

him. The thing was a living creature!

"A giant nautiloid," the Translucent Adept exclaimed from ahead. "Creature o'

the Ordovician period o' Earth. I have a certain interest in the paleontology

o' the seas."

Beyond the eye were about eight tentacles, which reached for the canoe but

stopped short of touching it. Mach was just as glad. "It looks like an octopus

in a long shell," he remarked.

"That might be one description," Translucent agreed. "It is related, in the

sense that the nautiloid is an order o' molluscs, as are modern octopi and

squids. But these are far more more ancient examples; the Ordovician was

approximately four hundred million years ago."

"You sound like a scientist!" Mach remarked. "Yet you are an Adept."

"No incongruity there! The separation o' magic and science on this planet

occurred only a few centuries ago;

prior to that, our history is common. The magic is employed in restoring

ancient creatures who exist no longer on Earth or elsewhere. All Adepts be

scientists in their fashion; it be merely that we specialize in the science o'

magic, and turn it to our purposes exactly as do our counterparts in the frame

o' Proton."

A creature vaguely like a monstrous roach swam across the canoe, startling

Fleta. "A trilobite," Translucent said, evidently proud of the creatures of

his domain. "And see, here comes a sea scorpion."

Indeed, the thing resembled a monstrous scorpion, almost a meter long. Fleta

shrank back from its reaching pincers. "At ease," Translucent rapped, and the

scorpion flipped its tail and swam quickly away. It was evident who was master

here.

They came to a hill rising from the ocean floor, and the canoe bumped to a

halt. "Here is thy honeymoon isle," Translucent announced. "Secure from all

intrusion, guarded by the trilobites and scorpions and nautiloids."

"Does that mean we be prisoners?" Fleta asked nervously.

"By no means, mare," the Adept replied. "I promised ye both a haven for love,

and freedom to do as ye pleased. Ye be free to depart at any time—but naught

can I promise an ye depart mine Demesnes, for my power be limited beyond."

Mach's powers of doubt came into play. "What is it you hope to gain from

this?"

"There be only one known contact between the frames, now," Translucent said.

"That be through thy two selves, in the two frames. An thou use thy power o'

communication on our behalf, we shall establish liaison with our opposite

numbers, the Contrary Citizens o' Proton, and gain advantage. An we use this

lever to unify the frames for full exploitation, our wealth and power will be

magnified enormously. It be straight selfinterest."

"But I can contact only Bane, who is the son and heir of Stile, the Blue Adept

of this frame," Mach protested. "He opposes you, I'm sure, as my father Blue

of Proton opposes the Contrary Citizens. If I work for you, as I think I must

do in return for your hospitality, that is no guarantee that Bane will

cooperate."

"Aye, none at all," Translucent agreed. "Yet it be halfway there, and mayhap

for the sake o' his love there he will elect to join with us as thou has done.

We prate not o' the nebulous good o' future generations that may or may not

come to pass; we proffer honest self-interest, ours and thine, and believe

that this be the truest route to success in any endeavor."

"I question this," Mach said. "But for the sake of what you offer, which is

the fulfillment of my love for Fleta, I will make my best effort to contact

Bane and relay those messages you wish. I regard this as a deal made between

us, not any signification of unity of interest beyond the deal."

"Fairiy spoken, rovot man," Translucent said. "We require not thy conversion,

in language or in mind, only that thou dost betray us not."

"I will deliver your messages without distortion; my word on that is given.

But I may not have complete control. If I should exchange again with Bane—"

"Then thine other self will be in my power, here," Translucent said. "But I

will not hold him; he hath no deal with me. He will be free to rejoin his own,

and thy filly too. But thy loyalty in this lone respect will be mine. My

messages, when it becomes possible to pass them through."

"Agreed," Mach said shortly. He was not completely pleased, but then he looked

at Fleta and knew he had no choice. Their union would never be sanctioned by

Stile or Neysa or any of those associated with them; only here with the

Adverse Adepts could their love be honored.

The love between a robot and a unicorn.

The island—for so it seemed, though it was entirely under water—was a

marvelous place. It was defined by a transparent dome similar to that of the

cities of Proton, in which the air was good and the land dry. The dome held

out the sea, and the creatures of the sea stayed clear because they were

unable to swim or breathe here. Indeed, Mach and Fleta learned to make

frequent circuits just inside the barrier, to spot sea snails, starfish, small

trilobites and sea scorpions that had fallen through and were dying in the

dryness. Mach fashioned a heavy pair of gloves so that he could handle such

creatures safely; he simply picked them up and tossed them back through, for

the barrier was pervious to matter other than air and water.

Once a fair-sized nautiloid blundered through, its two-meter-long shell lying

dry, its eye and tentacles barely remaining in the water. Mach picked up the

front section, and Fleta took the rear point, and they heaved it back into the

sea. The nautiloid sank slowly through the water, as if not quite believing

its luck, then jetted away, shell-first, its tentacles trailing. It was heavy

enough in air, but a bubble of gas filled much of its shell, making it buoyant

in water.

"Funny that there are no fish," Fleta remarked.

Mach checked through the files of his memory. He had been educated in

paleontology along with all the rest, but it had been a survey course, scant

on details. "I think true fish did not develop until the late Silurian,

perhaps 330 million years ago," he said. "So this is about 70 million years

too soon for them."

"Latecomers," she agreed wryly. "And how late be we, then?"

"Well, in the Mesozoic 200 million years ago the reptiles evolved, culminating

in the dinosaurs of about 75 million years ago. Only after they passed did the

mammals really come to the fore, though they had been around for 100 million

or more years before. Man dates from only the last 10 million years or so."

"We be very late!" she concluded.

"Very late," he agreed. "And of course man's expansion into space occurred

within the past half-millennium, and his discovery of magic in the frame of

Phaze—"

"Yet surely magic existed always," she said. "Only we knew naught o' its

reality until we found the frames."

"Perhaps so," he agreed. "There have been legends of magic and magical

creatures abounding on Earth for many thousands of years. We believe that the

development of the vampires and werewolves—"

"And unicorns," she said, shifting to her natural form. She was a pretty black

creature, with golden socks on her hind legs and a long spiraled horn.

"And unicorns," he said, jumping onto her back and catching hold of her glossy

mane.

She played an affirmative double note on her horn. Each unicorn's horn was

musical, resembling a different instrument, and hers resembled the panpipes.

This enabled her to play two notes at once, or even a duet with herself. All

unicorns were natural musicians, but her music was special even for the

species. She had had competitive aspirations, before her association with Mach

caused the Herd to shun her.

"I wish I could change the way you do," Mach said, reaching forward to tickle

one of her ears.

She flicked her tail, stinging his back, and walked toward a grove standing in

the interior of the island. There she abruptly lay down.

"Hey!" Mach exclaimed, tumbling off, still hanging on to her black mane.

But she changed back to girlform, so that he had a hold on her hair, and was

not crushed by her mass. "No hay in this state," she said, rolling into him.

He used his hold to bring her face in to his. He kissed her. "How glad I am

that I rescued you!" he exclaimed.

"And glad I be that thou didst rescue me," she responded. Then she tickled him

on a rib.

They rolled and laughed and made explosively tender love, then sought a fruit

tree for food. This island, however magically crafted and maintained, was a

paradise, with many bearing trees. It was always moderately bright by day,

with the sunlight coming down as if diffused by beneficial clouds, and

moderately cool by night, for comfortable sleeping. There was a house on it,

but they hardly used this, because Fleta had no need of it and Mach had no

desire for what she did not share.

But as time passed, their satisfaction waned. "No offense to you," Mach said

cautiously, "but I find myself increasingly restive. Maybe it is because I am

not accustomed to being alive."

"Dost miss those naked girls o' thy frame?" she inquired teasingly. She was

naked herself, having no use for clothing, here. She could appear in girlform

clothed or unclothed, as she chose. Her equine coat translated into a black

cape, her socks to stockings, and her hooves to shoes. What happened to these

items when she appeared naked, Mach had never ascertained; and she, teasingly,

had never explained.

"No, that means nothing in Proton, only that they are serfs. But with you—"

"Have I not done my best to please thee, thy way?" she asked. "To have sex

with thee when I be not in heat?" For she, being a unicorn mare, normally

sought such interaction only when the breeding cycle demanded, and then with

such intensity as to wear out any man. Her shape might be completely human,

for this, but her underlying nature remained equine. The unicorns owed more to

animal lineage than to human.

"Indeed you have!" he agreed. "But I want more."

She frowned. "Mayhap another filly? Be thou eager to start a herd?"

He laughed. "No, of course not! You are all I want, and all I love! But—"

"Thou dost want me in other shape? I thought—"

"No, Fleta!" he exclaimed. "I want to marry you!"

She considered. "As the humans marry? Mating restricted one to the other, for

all o' their lives?"

"Yes."

"But this be not the animal way, Mach. We have no need o' such a covenant."

"I think I do. I think of you as human."

"I be not human," she said firmly. "That be why thy folk—Bane's folk—oppose

our association o' this manner. And my dam, Neysa—ne'er will she accept our

union."

He sighed. "I know it. And I think we cannot have a valid marriage without the

approval of your kind or mine. So we are forced to cooperate with the Adverse

Adepts, whose policies I think I should oppose."

"I tried to free thee from this choice," she reminded him.

"By suiciding!" he exclaimed. "You almost freed me from the need to exist!"

"Aye, I know that now," she said contritely.

"So here we are in paradise, with no future."

"Mayhap we could have a future, o' a kind, if—"

He glanced sharply at her. "You know a way to persuade our relatives?"

"Mayhap. If we could but breed."

"Breed? You mean, have offspring? That's impossible."

"Be it so?" she asked wistfully. "Not for aught would I dismay thee, Mach, but

how nice it would be to have a foal o' our own. Then might the relatives have

to accept our union."

"But human stock and animal stock—you may assume human form, but as you said,

that doesn't make you human. The genes know! They deal with the reality."

"Yet must it have happened before. Surely the harpies derive from bird and

human, and the vampires from bats and human, and the facility with which we

unicorns learn the human semblance and speech suggests we share ancestry."

"And the werewolves," he agreed, intrigued. "If it happened before, perhaps it

is possible again."

"I really want thy foal," she said.

"There must be magic that can make it feasible," he said, the idea growing on

him. "Perhaps Bane would be able to—"

"Not Bane!" she protested. "I want thine!"

"Uh, yes, of course. But I am no Adept. I'm a fledgling at magic. I don't know

whether—"

"Thou didst make the floating boat," she pointed out. "Thou didst null the

spell the Red Adept put on me. That be no minor magic."

"In extremes, I may have done some good magic," he admitted. "But I was lucky.

For offspring I would need competence as well as luck."

"Then make thyself a full Adept, as Bane is growing to be," she urged.

"Enchant thyself and me, that we may be fertile together. Success in that

would make up for all else we lack."

"You're right!" he said with sudden conviction. "I must become Adept in my own

right!" But almost immediately his doubt returned. "If only I knew how!"

"My Rovot Adept," she said fondly. "Canst thou not practice?"

"Surely I can. But there are problems. No spell works more than once, so I

cannot perfect any particular technique of magic without eliminating it for

future use. That makes practice chancy; if I found the perfect spell, it might

be too late to use it."

"Yet if thou didst seek advice—"

"From the Adverse Adepts? I think I would not be comfortable doing that; it

would give them too intimate a hold on me. I mean to do their bidding in

communications between the frames, but I prefer to keep my personal life out

of it." Yet he was conscious as he spoke of the manner his personal life was

responsible for their association with those Adepts; he was probably deluding

himself about his ability to separate that aspect.

"Aye," she agreed faintly. "Methinks that be best. Yet if thou couldst obtain

the advice o' a friendly Adept—"

"Who opposes our union?" he asked sharply.

"I be not sure that all oppose it."

"Whom are you thinking of?"

"Red."

"The troll? He's not even human!"

"Neither be I," she reminded him.

"Um, you may be right. He did help you try to suicide." Mach had mixed

feelings about that, too, though he knew the Red Adept had no ill will in the

matter.

"He urged me not, but acceded to my will. If thou shouldst beseech him

likewise—"

"It's worth a try, certainly. But would it be safe to go there? Once we leave

the protection of the Translucent Demesnes, we might have trouble returning.

Our own side might prevent us."

"I think not so, Mach. It be thy covenant they desire—thy agreement to

communicate with thine other self. Thou wouldst no more do it for one side as

for the other, an the agreements be wrong."

He nodded. "Let's think about it for a few days, then go if we find no reason

not to."

"Aye." She kissed him, enjoying this human foible. Unicorns normally used lips

mainly for gathering in food. The notion that human folk found the seeming

eating of each other pleasurable made her bubble with mirth. Sometimes she

burst out laughing in mid-kiss. But she kissed remarkably well, and he enjoyed

holding a laughing girlform.

Before they decided, they had a visitor. It was a wolf, • a female, trotting

through the water to the island and passing through the barrier. Mach viewed

her with caution, but Fleta was delighted.

"Furramenin!" Fleta exclaimed.

Then the wolf became a buxom young woman, and Mach recognized her also. The

werebitch had guided him from the Pack to the Flock, where the lovely

vampiress Suchevane had taken over. The truth was that all Fleta's animal

friends were lovely, in human form and in personality; had he encountered any

of them as early and intimately as he had Fleta, he might have come to love

them as he did her. He accepted this objectively, but not emotionally; Fleta

was his only love.

"I come with evil tidings," the bitch said. This appellation was no affront,

any more than "woman" was for a human female. Indeed, the term "woman" might

be used as an insult to a bitch. "The Adept let me pass, under truce."

They settled under a spreading nut tree. "Some mischief to my Herd?" Fleta

inquired worriedly. She was tolerated by the Herd, but no longer welcome;

still, she cared for the others, and they cared for her.

The bitch smiled briefly. "Nay, not that! It relates to thy golem man."

Fleta glanced at Mach. "The rovot be not true to me?" she asked with fleeting

mischief.

"He be from Proton-frame. The Adept Stile says it makes an—an imbalance, that

grows worse the more time passes, till the frames—" She seemed unable to

handle the concept involved.

"Till the frames destroy themselves?" Mach asked, experiencing an ugly chill.

"Aye," Furramenin whispered. "Be that possible?"

"I very much fear it is," Mach said. "In the days of our parents, many folk

crossed the curtain between frames, and Protonite was mined and not Phazite,

generating an imbalance. They finally had to transfer enough Phazite to

restore the balance, and separate the frames permanently so that this could

not happen again. That depleted the power of magic here, and reduced the

wealth of Proton there, but had to be done. Too great an imbalance does have

destructive potential. But I would not have thought that the mere exchange of

two selves would constitute such a threat."

The bitch looked at the mare. "Be he making sense?" Furramenin asked.

"I take it on faith that he be," Fleta replied.

"If Stile says it, he surely knows," Mach said. "I realize that the two of you

are not technically minded, but I have had enough background in such matters

to appreciate the rationale. They must be able to detect a growing imbalance,

and I must be the cause."

"But what does that mean for thee?" Fleta asked.

"It means that every hour I remain in Phaze, and that Bane remains in Proton,

is bad for the frames, and could lead to the destruction of both frames. We

must exchange back."

"No!" Fleta cried. "I love thee; thou hast no right to rescue me from suicide

only to relegate me to misery without thee! Didst thou speak me the triple

Thee for this?"

"The triple Thee?" the werebitch asked, awed. That was the convention of

Phaze; when spoken by one to another and echoed by the splash of absolute

conviction, it was an utterly binding commitment.

"No right at all!" Mach agreed, feeling a pang. "Yet if remaining with you

means destruction for us both, and the frames themselves, what can I do? We

lose each other either way."

"Nay, there be proffered compromise," Furramenin said. "That be the completion

o' my message: an thou agree to exchange back for equal periods, that the

frames may recover somewhat, truce will be extended for that."

"The families accept our union?" Fleta asked eagerly.

"Nay. They merely recognize an impasse, and seek to prevent further damage

while some solution be negotiated."

"If I return to Proton for a time, they will accede to equal time here with

Fleta?" Mach asked. "A month there, a month here, with no interference?"

"Aye, that be the offer," the bitch said.

"That seems to be a good offer," Mach said to Fleta.

She gazed stonily into the ground, resisting the notion of any separation at

all. Unicorns were known to be stubborn, and though Fleta was normally the

brightest and sweetest of creatures, now this aspect was showing. Her dam,

Neysa, was reputed to be more so.

Mach looked helplessly at Furramenin. The werebitch responded with a shrug

that rippled the deep cleavage of her bodice. "Mayhap thou couldst offer her

something to make up for thy separation," she murmured.

Mach snapped his fingers. "Offspring!" he exclaimed.

Fleta looked up, interested.

"Grant me this temporary separation from you," he said, "and on my return I

shall make my most serious effort to find a way to enable us to have a baby,

and shall pursue it until successful."

They waited. Slowly Fleta thawed, though she did not speak.

Mach addressed the bitch again. "What of the Adverse Adepts? Do they accede to

such a truce?"

The watery bubble appeared, floating at head height.

"Aye," the Translucent Adept said. "Our observation in this respect marches

that o' the other side. The frames are being eroded. We profit not, an the

mechanism o' our contact destroy our realm. But the two o' ye can communicate

regardless o' the frames occupied. Hold to thy agreement with us, and we care

not which frame thou dost occupy."

"I cannot implement that agreement unless my other self concurs," Mach

reminded him.

"And the other side cannot profit from the connection unless thou dost

concur," Translucent agreed. "The impasse remains—but an Bane appear here,

mayhap we can negotiate with him."

"I suppose that is the way it must be," Mach said. "I must seek my other self

and offer to exchange with him. I hope I can devise a spell to locate him."

"Surely thou canst," Translucent agreed, fading out.

"I must return to my Pack," Furramenin said. She became the wolf, and exited

at a dogtrot.

Mach pondered. To do magic, he had to devise a bit of rhyme and deliver it in

singsong. That would implement it, but the important part was his conception

and will. If he wished for a "croc" verbally, he could conjure an item of

pottery or a container of human refuse or a large toothed reptile, depending

on his thought. He had very little experience with magic, and was apt to make

awkward errors, but he was learning.

What he wanted was an unerring way to locate his other self. He did not want

to risk any modification of his own perceptions, because if that went wrong,

Piers Anthony - Adept 05 - Robot Adept

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