Then, perceiving that the Elder was genuinely curious, he amplified: “I am of Proton-frame, come to take up the mantle of my Phaze-self and set to right the wrong of his murder. When the unicorn Herd Stallion challenged me to show my magic, I made a spell to wall him in. When my unicorn steed yielded her ambition on my behalf, I made an oath of friendship to her. It had a broader compass than I expected.”
The Elder nodded. “Ah. And the ’corns and ’wolves have not warred since. Thou art indeed Adept.”
“Yet not omnipotent. Now must I need meet the Herd Stallion again, at the Unolympics, and I am not his match without magic. The Oracle sent me to borrow the Platinum Flute.”
“Ah, now it comes clear. That would of course avail thee.” Yet the elf seemed cold.
“That I am glad to hear,” Stile said. “I have heard it said that music has charm to soothe the savage breast, but whether it soothe the breast of a beast—”
The Elder frowned. “Yet it is forbidden for us to yield this instrument, however briefly, to a human person, and doubly forbidden to lend it to an Adept. Knowest thou not its power?”
Stile shook his head. “I know only what the Oracle advised.”
“No need for mystery. The wielder of the Flute is immune from the negation of magic. There are other qualities about it, but that is the primary one.”
Stile thought about that. For an ordinary person, the Flute would provide little advantage. But for a magic creature, such as a werewolf, it would protect his ability to shape-change, and that could on occasion be a matter of life and death. For an Adept—
With the Flute in his possession, Stile could draw on his full powers of magic, even within the magic-negating circle of unicorns. The Herd Stallion would not be able to stand against him. The Oracle had spoken truly; this was the instrument he needed.
But at the same time, he could understand why the Mound Folk did not want him to have it. The existence of various magic-nullifiers prevented the Adepts from being overwhelmingly powerful. If an Adept obtained possession of the Platinum Flute, there would be no effective limit to his will.
“I appreciate thy concern,” Stile said. “In fact, I agree with it. The likes of me should not possess the likes of this.”
The Lady Blue’s head turned toward him questioningly. “Thou dost not abuse thy power.”
“How could the Mound Folk be assured of that?” Stile asked her. “There is corruption in power. And if the Flute were taken from me by another Adept, what then would be the limit?”
“It is good that thou dost understand,” the Elder said. “The Oracle oft does give unuseful advice, accurate though it be. We Elves have great pride in our artifacts, and trade them freely for things of equal value. But the Flute is special; it required many years labor by our finest artisans, and is our most precious and potent device. It has no equal value. No other tribe has its match; not the goldsmiths or the silversmiths or the ironsmiths or the woodsmiths or bonesmiths. We alone work the lord of metals; we alone control the platinum mine and have the craftsmen and the magic to shape it into usable form. Thou art not asking for a trifle, Adept.”
“Yes,” Stile agreed. “Yet is the Oracle wont to provide advice that can in no wise be implemented?”
“Never. I termed it unuseful, in the sense that surely there is some simpler way to achieve thy mission with the Herd Stallion than this. Misinterpretations may abate the worth of an Oracle’s message, but always the essence is there and true. There must be some pattern to this. Therefore must we deal with thee, can we but find the way. Thou knowest that even for the briefest loan we must extract a price.”
“I am prepared to offer fair exchange, though I know not what that might be.”
“There is little we need from thy kind.”
“I do have resources, shouldst thou choose to tolerate the practice of magic in thy Demesnes. Is there anything that requires the talent of an Adept?”
Pyreforge considered gravely. “There be only two things. The lesser is not a task any man can perform, and the greater is unknown even to us. We know only that it must be performed by the finest mortal musician of Phaze.”
“I do not claim to be the finest musician, but I am skilled,” Stile said.
The wizened elf raised a shriveled eyebrow. “Skilled enough to play the Flute?”
“I am conversant with the flute as an instrument. I should be able to play the Platinum Flute unless there be a geas against it.”
The Elder considered again. He was obviously ill at ease. “It is written that he who plays the Flute well enough to make our mountain tremble will be the foreordained savior of Phaze. Dost thou think thou art that one?”
Stile spread his hands. “I doubt it. I was not even aware that Phaze was in jeopardy.”
“The Oracle surely knows, however. If the Time of Decision draws nigh …” Pyreforge shook his head dolefully. “I think we must try thee on the Flute, though it grieves me with spreading misgiving.” He glanced at a crevice, where a guard lurked. “How be the light outside?”
The guard hurried outside. In a moment he returned. “Overcast, shrouded by fog. It will not lift this hour.”
“Then may we gather outside. Summon the tribe this instant.”
The guard disappeared again. “This be no casual matter, Adept. The Flute extends its force regardless, protecting the magic of the holder. An thou shouldst betray us, we must die to a man to recover it, killing thee if we can. I think thou canst be trusted, and on that needs must I gamble; my life be forfeit an I be in error.”
Stile did not like this either, but he was not sure how to alleviate the elf’s concern.
“Let thy warriors fix their threats on me,” the Lady Blue said. “My Lord will not betray thee.”
Pyreforge shook his head. “This be not our way, Lady, despite the ignorance of our commoners. And it would not avail against the typical Adept, who values nothing more than his power.”
“Well I know the justice of thy concern. Yet would I stake my life upon my Lord’s integrity.”
The Elder smiled. “No need, Lady. Already have I staked mine. No lesser hostage preserves the peace in these Demesnes, when an Adept manifests here. I do this only for that the Oracle has cast its impact on us, and my book suggest the ponderosity of the situation. Fate draws the string on every creature, inquiring not what any person’s preference might be.” He returned his attention to Stile. “The Flute’s full power is available only to the one who can master it completely, the one for whom it is destined. We made it, but can not use it; only the Foreordained can exploit it ultimately. When he comes, the end of the present order will be near. This is why we can not give up the Flute to any lesser person.”
“I seek only to borrow it,” Stile reminded him. But this did not look promising. If he were not the Foreordained, they would not let him borrow the Flute; if he were, there was a great deal more riding on this than his encounter with the Herd Stallion!
They walked outside. The cloud-cover had intensified, shrouding all the mountain above their level, leaving only a low-ceilinged layer of visibility, like a huge room. The elves of the tribe had gathered on the knoll, completely surrounding the mound—young and old, women and children too. Most were slender and handsome, and among them the women were phenomenally lovely, but a few were darkened and wrinkled like the Elder. Stile was the cynosure of all their eyes; he saw them measuring him, discomfited by his large stature; he did indeed feel like a giant, and no longer experienced any exhilaration in the sensation. All his life he had privately longed for more height; now he understood that such a thing would not be an unmixed blessing, and perhaps no blessing at all. Hulk had tried to tell him. The problem was not height; it was in being different, in whatever manner.
“We can not bear the direct light of the sun, being Dark Elves,” the Elder said. “Should a sunbeam strike us, we turn instantly to stone. That is why the fog is so important, and why we reside in these oft-shrouded mountains, and seldom go abro
ad from our mounds by day. Yet like all our kind we like to dance, and at night when it is safe and the moons be bright we come out. I was in my youth careless, and a ray pierced a thin cloud and transfixed me ere I could seek cover; I turned not to stone but became as I am now. It was the wan sun, not mine age, that scorched me.”
“I might heal thee of that,” Stile said. “If thou wishest. A spell of healing—”
“What I might wish is of no account. I must needs live with the consequence of my folly—as must we all.”
Now an elf brought, with an air of ceremony, a somber wooden case. “Borrow the Flute for the hour only,” the Elder told Stile. “Ascertain for thyself and for us thy relation to it. The truth be greater than the will of any of us; it must be known.”
Stile took the precious case. Inside, in cushioned splendor, lay the several pieces of gleaming metal tubing. Platinum, yes—a fortune in precious metal, exclusive of its worth as a music instrument, which had to be considerable, and its value as a magic talisman. He lifted out the pieces carefully and assembled it, conscious of its perfect heft and workmanship. The King of Flutes, surely!
Meanwhile the Mound Folk watched in sullen silence, and the Elder talked, unable to contain his pride in the instrument. “Our mine be not pure platinum; there is an admixture of gold and iridium. That provides character and hardness. We make many tools and weapons and utensils, though few of these are imbued with magic. There is also a trace of Phazite in the Flute, too.”
“Phazite?” Stile inquired, curious. “I am not familiar with that metal.”
“Not metal, precisely, but mineral. Thou mayst know of it as Protonite.”
“Protonite!” Stile exclaimed. “The energy-mineral? I thought that existed only in Proton-frame.”
“It exists here too, but in another aspect, as do all things. Wert thou not aware that Phazite be the fundamental repository of magic here? In Proton-frame it yields physical energy in abundance; in Phaze-frame it yields magic. Every act of magic exhausts some of that power—but the stores of it are so great and full Adepts so few that it will endure yet for millennia.”
“But in Proton they are mining it, exporting it at a horrendous rate!”
“They are foolish, there. They will exhaust in decades what would otherwise have served them a hundred times as long. It should be conserved for this world.”
So Phaze was likely to endure a good deal longer than Proton, Stile realized. That made Phaze an even better place to be. But why, then, was there this premonition of the Foreordained, and of the end of Phaze? Stile could appreciate why Pyreforge was disturbed; there were indeed hints of something seriously amiss.
What would happen when Proton ran out of Protonite? Would Citizens start crossing the curtain to raid the supplies of Phazite? If so, terrible trouble was ahead, for Citizens would let nothing inhibit them from gratification of their desires. Only the abolition of the curtain would prevent them from ravishing Phaze as they had ravished Proton. Yet how could a natural yet intangible artifact like the curtain be removed?
Now the Flute was assembled and complete. It was the most beautiful instrument Stile had ever seen. He lifted it slowly to his mouth. “May I?” he asked.
“Do the best thou canst with it,” the elf said tightly. “Never have we heard its sound; we can not play it. Only a mortal can do that.”
Stile applied his lips, set his fingers, and blew experimentally.
A pure, liquid, ineffably sweet note poured out. It sounded across the landscape, transfixing all the spectators. Elder and elves alike stood raptly, and Neysa perked her ears forward; the Lady Blue seemed transcendentally fair, as if a sanguine breeze caressed her. There was a special flute-quality to the note, of course—but more than that, for this was no ordinary flute. The note was ecstatic in its force and clarity and color—the quintessence of sound.
Then Stile moved into an impromptu melody. The instrument responded like a living extension of himself, seeming to possess nerves of its own. It was impossible to miskey such a flute; it was too perfect. And it came to him, in a minor revelation, that this must be the way it was to be a unicorn, with a living, musical horn. No wonder those creatures played so readily and well!
Now the Mound Folk danced. Their sullenness vanished, compelled away by the music, and their feet became light. They formed their ranks on the ground, not in the air, and kept their motions on a single plane, but they were abandoned in their sheer joy of motion. The elves scintillated as they turned, and their damsels glowed. They spun into convoluted patterns that nevertheless possessed the beauty of organization. They flung out and in; they kicked their feet in unison; the elves swung the maids and the maids swung the elves; they threaded their way through each other in a tapestry of ever-increasing intricacy. There were no tosses or acrobatic swings, merely synchronized patterns that coalesced into an artistic whole. Over and through it all passed the grandeur of the music of the Flute, fashioning from disparate elements an almost divine unity. It was not Stile’s skill so much as the talent bequeathed by the perfect instrument; he could not shame it by delivering less than his ultimate.
Stile saw that the fog was lifting and thinning, as if dissipated by the music. The clouds roiled and struggled to free themselves of their confinement. He brought the recital to a close, and the dancing came to a neat halt as if it had been planned exactly this way. Again the Mound Folk stood still, but now they were smiling. Even the guards who had greeted Stile so inhospitably had relaxed their resentment.
“That was the loveliest music I ever did hear,” the Elder said. “It made our finest dance. Thou hast rare talent. Yet did the mountain not shake.”
“It did not shake,” Stile agreed, relieved.
“Thou art not the Foreordained.”
“Never did I claim to be.”
“Still, thou canst play marvelously well. If the Oracle decrees that the Flute be loaned to thee, it may be that we are constrained to oblige.”
“This I would appreciate,” Stile said, taking apart the instrument and returning it carefully to its case. “If thou dost trust me with it.”
But now the circled Mound Folk frowned and muttered. The roil of the clouds had stilled when the music stopped, but the disturbance seemed to have passed into the elves. “Nay, my people will not so lightly tolerate that. Perhaps if we borrowed thy service in exchange—”
The muttering subsided. “I am willing to do what service I may,” Stile said. “But I can not remain here long. I have commitments elsewhere. I will need the Flute for a number of days, until the Unolympic.”
The muttering began again. “Desist this noise!” the Elder cried at the elves, annoyed. “We shall fashion a fair bargain or not part with the Flute.” He accepted the Flute-case from Stile; in this judgment, at least, he had not been mistaken. Stile had neither abused the Flute nor sought to retain it without permission. “Now get under cover before the cloud breaks!”
There was little danger of that now, but the Mound Folk hurried away. Stile and the Lady returned inside the nearest mound with the Elder, while Neysa and Hinblue returned to their grazing.
“It could be said,” Pyreforge said after reflection, “that thou dost borrow the Flute only to bring it to the one for whom it is intended. The Foreordained.”
“But I do not know the Foreordained!”
“Then shalt thou quest for him.”
Stile understood the nature of the offer. Such a quest could take as long as he needed for the Flute. Yet it would have to be a true mission. “How could I know him?”
“He would play the Flute better than thee.”
“There may be many who can do that.”
“I think not. But thou wouldst send him to us, as we can not fare forth to seek him, and we would know by the tenor of the mountain his identity. If he played well, but was not the Foreordained, we at least would have the Flute back.”
“This seems less than certain. I think, at least for the acquiescence of thy people, I need
to earn this borrowing. Thou didst mention two tasks, the lesser of which no man might perform. Yet I am Adept.”
“Canst thou wield a broadsword?”
“I can,” Stile replied, surprised.
“This task bears the threat of ugly death to any but the most skilled and persistent swordsman.”
“I have faced such threats before. I would feel more secure from them with the Flute in my hands and a broadsword ready.”
“Assuredly. Then listen, Adept. There is beneath our Mound Demesnes and below our platinum mine, deep in a cave hewn from out of the Phazite bedrock, one of the Worms of the fundament, ancient and strong and savage and fiery.”
“A dragon!” Stile exclaimed.
“Even so. But not one of the ordinary reptiles of the southern marches beyond these mountains. This monster has slowly tunneled through the mountain range during all the time we have mined here. Now we have come within awareness of each other. The Worm be centuries old, and its teeth are worn and its heat diminished so that it can no longer consume rock as readily as in bygone centuries, yet it is beyond our means to thwart. It requires from us tribute—”
“Human sacrifice!” Stile exclaimed, remembering the threat the elves had made concerning the Lady Blue.
“Even so. We like this not, yet if we fail to deliver on schedule, the Worm will exert itself and undermine our foundations and melt our platinum ore and we shall be finished as smiths. We are smithy elves, highly specialized; it took us a long time to work up to platinum and become proficient with it. We can not go back to mere gold, even if other tribes had not already filled in that specialty. We must maintain our present level, or become as nothing. My people would sooner go out in sunlight.”
“So thou dost need that dragon eliminated,” Stile concluded.
“For that I believe my people would abate their disquietous murmurings about the loan of the Flute.”
“Even so,” Stile said warily. “This is a large dragon?”
“Enormous.”
“Breathes fire?”