Clef raised that expressive eyebrow. “Of course. My Employer provides me with a silver flute, and rarely am I allowed to play on a gold one. One day I hope to be able to purchase such an instrument for myself. The tonal quality—”
“How about a platinum flute?”
“That would be best of all! But it would depend on who made it. The craftsmanship is really more important than the metal, though the best craftsmanship does make any given metal significantly superior. But why dream foolishly? The only craftsmen capable of doing justice to platinum are far away on Earth.”
“Sheen,” Stile murmured.
Sheen produced the Platinum Flute and handed it to Clef.
The man took it with infinite respect and awe. “Why it is, it actually is! A finely crafted platinum instrument! I do not recognize this make, yet it seems excellently done. Who—have aliens gone into the business?”
“Elves,” Stile said.
Clef laughed. “No, really. I must know. This is of considerably more than incidental interest to me. This instrument has the feel of ultimate quality.”
“Mound Folk. Little People. Among them I am a giant. They use magic in their trade. This is an enchanted flute, on loan to me until I pass it along to one who has better use for it than I do. I should have recognized you as a prospect the moment I met you, but I suspect I did not want to part with this magic instrument, and suppressed my own awareness. But I made a commitment, and must honor it. At least I understand, now, how the elves felt about yielding the Flute to me. It is hard to give up.”
“I should think so!” Clef’s eyes were fixed on the Flute as his hands turned it about. Light gleamed from it as it moved. The man seemed mesmerized by it. Then he lifted it to his lips. “May I?”
“Please do. I want to hear you play it.”
Clef played. The music poured out in its platinum stream, so pure and eloquent that Stile’s whole body shivered in rapture. It was the finest sound ever created by man, he believed. Even Sheen showed human wonder on her face—an emotion prohibitively rare for a machine. Stile had not played it this well.
Clef finished his piece and contemplated the Flute. “I must have this instrument.”
“The price is high,” Stile warned.
“Price is no object. My entire serf-retirement payment is available—”
“Not money. Life. You may have to give up both your tenure on Proton and your future as a professional musician in the galaxy. You would have to travel into a land of magic where your life would be threatened by monsters and spells, to return the Flute to its makers—and there is no guarantee they would allow you to keep it. They might require some significant and permanent service of you. There may be no escape from their control, once you enter that region. They do not like men, but they are questing for a man they call the Foreordained, and exactly what he is expected to do I do not know, but it is surely difficult and significant.”
Clef’s eyes remained on the Platinum Flute. “Show me the way.”
“I can start you on that journey, but can not remain with you once you enter the Demesnes of the Platinum Elves. The Flute will protect you; at need it will become an excellent rapier. When you reach the Mound, you will be in their power. I warn you again—”
“I must go,” Clef said.
Stile spread his hands. “Then the Flute is yours, on loan until you determine whether you are in fact the Foreordained. I will take you across the curtain. Perhaps we shall meet again, thereafter.” Somehow he knew Clef would have no trouble crossing into Phaze.
“You took Hulk across,” Sheen reminded him. “When he returned—”
“Some things transcend life and death,” Stile said. “What must be, must be.” And he wondered: how could the Mound Folk have known that Stile would encounter Clef, the man they evidently wanted, in this frame where they could not go? His meeting with Clef as an opponent in the Tourney had been coincidental—hadn’t it?
CHAPTER 10
Red
“And so I sent him on his way to the Mound Folk,” Stile concluded. “I do not know what they want of him, and hope there is no evil.”
“The Elven Folk are not evil,” the Lady Blue agreed. “They, like us, must follow their destinies. Yet their ways be not ours.”
“Now must I seek mine own destiny, coming at last to brace mine enemy and thine. I must slay the Red Adept; so have I sworn and so must it be.”
“So must it be,” she agreed pensively. As always, she was garbed in blue, and as always she was compellingly lovely. They were in a private chamber of the Blue Castle. Neysa was absent temporarily, seeing to the security of Clef on his trek to the Mound Folk. Kurrelgyre’s wolves ranged the vicinity, keeping an eye on whatever went on. There had been no move against the Blue Demesnes. “I know what this means to thee, this vengeance,” the Lady said. “And fain would I see my Lord avenged: I am no gentler than thee. Yet I mislike it. There is aught thou knowest not.”
“I hope we are not going to have another scene,” Stile said uneasily. “Dearly would I like thy favor, as thou knowest, but I shall not be swayed from—”
“Methinks we shall have a scene,” she said. “But not quite like the last. Shamed am I to have tested thee as I did. I agreed to support thine effort, and I shall not renege. I like not playing the role of the contrary advocate. But now I must inform thee of misinformation thou hast.”
“It is not the Red Adept who is mine enemy?” Stile asked, suddenly alarmed.
“Forget the Red Adept for the moment!” she snapped. “This relates to us.”
“Have I offended thee in some fashion? I apologize; there remain social conventions in this frame I do not—”
“Apologize not to me!” she cried. “It is I who have wronged thee!”
Stile shook his head. “I doubt thou’rt capable of that, Lady.”
“Listen to me!” she said, her blue eyes flashing in the way they had, momentarily brightening the curtains. “I have to tell thee—” She took a breath. “That never till thou didst come on the scene was I a liar.”
Stile had not been taking this matter too seriously. Now he did. “Thou knowest I do not tolerate a lie in these Demesnes. I am in this respect the mirror of mine other self. Why shouldst thou lie to me? What cause have I given thee?”
The Lady Blue was obviously in difficulty. “Because I lied first to myself,” she whispered. “I denied what I wished not to perceive.” Now tears showed in her eyes.
Stile wanted to comfort her, to hold her, but held himself rigidly apart. She was not his to hold, whatever she might have done. Yet he recalled his own recent reluctance to recognize Clef as the one destined to receive the Flute, and knew how the Lady might similarly resist some noxious revelation. This was not necessarily the sort of lie he could completely condemn. “Lady, I must know. What is the lie?” Once before a woman had lied to him, in kindness rather than malice, and that had cost him heartbreak and had changed his life. He could not even blame her, in retrospect, for from that experience had come his affinity with music. Yet the Lady Blue was more than that serf-girl had been, and her lie might wreak greater havoc. He knew she could not have done such a thing lightly.
She stood and faced away from him, ashamed. “When I said—when I told thee—” She was unable to continue.
Stile remembered now how Sheen had at first tried to deceive him about her nature. He had forced the issue, and regretted it. Associations relating to Sheen had led him to this world of Phaze, making another phenomenal change in his life.
Somehow it seemed that the greatest crises of his existence had been tied in to the lies of women.
“Thou’rt so like my Lord!” the Lady Blue burst out, her shoulders shaking.
Stile smiled grimly. “By no coincidence, Lady.” He thought of how similar her alternate self in Proton, Bluette, was to her. Had Bluette escaped the robot? He hardly dared check on that. Bluette dead would be a horror to his conscience; Bluette alive—how could he deal with her, he
for whom the trap had been set?
“When I said—” The Lady Blue paused again, then forced it out. “I loved thee not.”
Stile felt as he had when declared the winner of the harmonica contest. Was he mishearing, indulging in a wish fulfillment? “Thou dost love thy Lord the real Blue Adept, whose likeness I bear. This have I always understood.”
“Thee,” she said. “Thee … Thee.”
She had told him of that convention of love—but even if she had not done so, he would have understood. There was a ripple in the air and in the curtains of the window, and a tiny brush of wind touched his hair in passing. For a moment there was a blueness in the room. Then the effects faded, and all was as before.
Except for the lie, now demolished. For this was the splash the world of Phaze made in the presence of deep truth. She had confessed her love—for him.
Stile found himself inadequate to rise to the occasion in any fashion. He had been so sure that the Lady’s love, if it ever came, would be years in the making! There was an obvious rejoinder for him to make, but he found himself unable.
The Lady, her statement made, now began her documentation. “When thou didst prove thine identity by performing magic, and I saw the animals’ loyalty to thee, it was my heart under siege. I thought thou wouldst be either like the golem, all wood and lifeless and detestable, or that thou wouldst use thy magic as the Yellow Witch suggested, to force my will to thy design.”
“Nay, never that!” Stile protested. “Thou’rt thy Lord’s widow!”
“Always didst thou safeguard me, with Hulk or Neysa or the wolves or some potion. Even as my Lord did.”
“But of course! The Lady of the Blue Demesnes must ever be protected!”
“Wilt thou be quiet a moment!” she flared. “I am trying to tell thee why I love thee. The least thou canst do is listen.”
Stile, perforce, was silent.
“Three things distinguished my Lord,” she continued after a moment. “He was the finest rider in Phaze—and so art thou. He was the strongest Adept—and so art thou. And he was of absolute integrity—as so art thou. No way can I claim thou art his inferior. In fact—long have I fought against the realization, but no more shall I lie—thou art in certain respects his superior.”
“Lady—”
“Damn me not with thy modesty!” she cried fiercely, and Stile was suppressed again.
“Never did he actually ride a unicorn,” she continued. “Never did he enchant an entire assembly into friendship with one. Never did he win the active loyalty of the wolfpack. I think he could have done these things, had he chosen, but he chose not. And so he was less than thee, because he exerted himself less. Always had he his magic to lean on; mayhap it made him drive less hard. Thou—thou art what he could have been. And I—I love what he could have been.”
Stile started one more protest, and once more she blocked him with a savage look. “When thou sworest friendship to Neysa, such was the power of that oath that its backwash enchanted us all. Thy magic compelled me—and I knew in that moment that never more could I stand against thee. The emotion thou didst feel for the unicorn became my emotion, and it has abided since, and I would not choose to be rid of it if I could. Always will Neysa be my friend, and I would lay down my life for her, and my honor too. Yet I know it was no quality in her that evoked this loyalty in me, though she has qualities that do deserve it. It was thy spell, like none before in this world. I love Neysa, and Neysa loves thee, and through her I too must love thee—”
Yet again Stile tried to interrupt, and yet again could not.
“I tell thee this to show that I know the extent to which thy magic has acted on me—and thus am assured it does not account for the fullness of my feeling. I love thee in part because I have experienced the depth of thy love for Neysa, and hard it is to deny feeling of that sincerity. Thou lovest well, Adept, and thereby thou dost become lovable thyself. But I do love thee more than I can blame on magic.”
She paused, and this time Stile had the wit not to interrupt her. “When thou didst take me along on thy trip to the Mound Folk,” she continued, “and the Sidhe toyed with us, and thou didst dance with the Faerie-maid, then did I suffer pangs of jealousy. Then when thou didst dance with me, as my Lord used to do—”
She broke off and walked around the room. “Ever was I a fool. I thought I could withstand thy appeal. But when I heard thee play the magic Flute—O my Lord, that sound!—not since the days of mine other courtship have I heard the like! But then thou didst go to fight the Worm, and I cursed myself for my callousness to thee, swearing to make it up to thee an I should ever see thee again alive—and yet I hardened again when thou didst survive, telling myself it could not be. The lie was on me, and I could not cast it off. Then at the Unolympics when thou didst so readily defend me against the seeming slur of Yellow—alas, I am woman, I am weak, my heart swelled with gratitude and guilt. And I could not help myself, I had to hear thee play again, and so I betrayed thy possession of the Flute to Yellow. And saw thee nearly killed by the Herd Stallion. Yet again had I played the fool, even as Yellow knew. And then at last, when thou didst come to me suffering from thy loss of thy Game and of thy friend Hulk—I longed to comfort thee with all my being, but the lie lay between us like a festering corpse, making foul what would have been fair, adding to thy grief, making of me a fishwife—and yet in that adversity didst thou steer thy narrow course exactly as he would have done, and I knew that I was lost. And I feared that thou wouldst die before ever I had chance to beg the forgiveness I deserved not—”
“I forgive thee that lie!” Stile cried, and again the air shimmered and the things of the room rippled and the breath of breeze shook out her tresses.
Now again she faced away from him, as though ashamed of what she had to say. “I was a girlish fool when first the Blue Adept courted me. Somehow I took him not seriously, for that he resembled to my ignorant eye a child or one of the Little Folk. Even when I married him I withheld somewhat my love from him. When I learned of the geas against his siring a child by me, I mourned more for the lack of the child than for my Lord’s deprival. For years I dallied, and only slowly did I learn to love him truly—and only when he died did I realize how deep that love had grown. Fool I was; I loved him not with abandon until he was gone. I swore, once it was too late, never to be that kind of fool again. Yet was I trying to be that kind of fool with thee, even as I was with him. Now thou dost go yet again perhaps to thy doom, and I will deceive myself or thee no longer. An thou must die, thou must suffer my love first. And that is the scene we must have.”
Now at last she gave him leave to speak unfettered. Stile could not doubt her sincerity. He loved her, of course; they had both known that all along. Yet he was not sure he wanted her love this way. “How did he die?” he asked.
If this question struck her as irrelevant, she did not treat it so. “The golem in thy likeness walked to the Blue Castle during my Lord’s absence. At first I thought it was Blue, but very soon knew I better. ‘I bring an amulet for Blue,’ the golem said, and gave me a little demon on a chain, the kind employed by frame-travelers to mock clothing when they have none.
“I encountered one of those!” Stile exclaimed. “When I invoked it, it tried to choke me with the chain!”
“Even so,” she agreed grimly. “All innocently did I relay it to my Lord, who took it for a message-amulet, perhaps an exchange for some favor. I begged him to invoke it with caution, lest there be some error, but he heeded me not. He put the chain about his neck and invoked it—” She was unable to continue.
“And it strangled him so that he could utter no spell in self-defense,” Stile concluded. “He depended on magic to foil magic, and this time could not. Had he used physical means—”
“I could not heal a dead man,” the Lady sobbed. “Nor could I let it be known he was lost, lest the Demesnes suffer. The golem took his place, the hateful thing, and I had to cooperate—”
So nothing further was kn
own about the motive for the murder. The Red Adept had dealt with the Brown Adept to obtain the golem, and used it without Brown’s knowledge for evil. Perhaps she had even been responsible for the original Brown’s death, to prevent him from interfering, leaving the innocent child as the new Brown Adept. The golem itself had not committed the murder of Blue; it had not been made for that. Probably Brown had been told it would serve as a double for Blue when the latter was indisposed to expose himself to public scrutiny, or when he wished to conceal his absence from the Castle. Exactly as the robot in Stile’s likeness had served in the frame of Proton.
“This curse of infertility—what of it?”
“After I married Blue, I went to the Oracle to inquire what kind of children I would have, wasting my lone question in girlish curiosity. The Oracle replied ‘None by One, Son by Two.’ I understood that not until my Lord died: that I would bear children not by my first husband. Oh, I grasped it in part, but did not realize that it was not truly a geas against fertility, but that he would die too soon. I thought he was cursed by sterility—” Again she broke down, but almost immediately fought out of it. “Thou art my second husband—and before thou dost suicide in this awful mission of vengeance, thou must give me that son!” she concluded with determination.
“My son shall not be raised by a widow!” Stile said.
The Lady turned at last to face him. “I love thee. I have at last confessed it. Shame me not further by this denial. I must have at least this much of thee.”
But already Stile’s mind was working. He loved the Lady Blue, but this sudden force of her return-love was too much for his immediate assimilation. He would be ready for it after due reflection; but now, this instant, it was too much like a windfall gift. He somehow feared it would be taken from him as rapidly as it had been bequeathed, and he wanted to protect himself against such loss before getting committed. Love did not make Stile blind; he had learned caution the hard way. So now he looked for the catch. He did not doubt the Lady’s sincerity, or question her desirability; he simply didn’t trust the magic vicissitudes of fate. “The Oracle always speaks correctly.”