“Because he and me can never be, and his world be there.”
“I am not sure of that,” Mach said. “But if I stayed here, Bane would be trapped there, and I know that’s not right.”
“So it be hopeless as well as forbidden,” Brown said. “I think I cannot help the two of you in that.”
“No one can help,” Fleta said, turning on Mach a look of such misery that he leaped from his chair and went to hold her.
At this point there was an interruption. A globe of mist appeared above the table. It formed into a shape of a man’s head. “So the apprentice and the animal are getting friendly,” the head remarked.
“What dost thou do here, Translucent?” Brown demanded angrily.
“Our agents have discovered that the young man be not what he appears to be,” Translucent said. “This be not the apprentice Adept, but his other self from Proton.”
“So I have already ascertained,” Brown snapped. “Be it for this thy minions persecute this couple?”
“Persecute? Hardly. This young man represents the only known contact with the other frame in a score years. We have long regretted lack of contact with those of Proton, and would have this lad relay messages there for us. For this purpose we sought him, and are prepared to reward him handsomely.”
“By sending demons and harpies and goblins after him?” Fleta demanded hotly. “Some reward!”
“Watch thy tongue, animal, lest thou lose it,” Translucent said to her.
“Don’t call her animal!” Mach flared.
The foggy head surveyed him, then nodded. “So it really be like that.” It smiled. “I apologize, unicorn, if aught I spoke of thee seemed amiss.”
“Just call off thy minions,” Fleta said, taken aback.
“Indeed, they be gone already,” Translucent said. His gaze returned to Mach. “What be thy price to convey messages?”
“Price?”
“Gold? Servants? A palace? My associates and I can be generous when pleased.”
“Thy associates and thee be no credit to the frame of Phaze!” Brown snapped. “Get thee hence from my Demesnes!”
“In a moment, woodworker.” Again the misty gaze fixed disconcertingly on Mach. “An thou not be ready at this time to make a commitment, call me when thou dost wish. Take a cup of water and dash it to the ground and speak my name, and I shall respond. I think thou willst in due course perceive the merit in mine offer.” And at last the head faded out.
“Disgusting intrusion!” Brown muttered. “We try to keep things civil with the Adverse Adepts, and Translucent be not the worst o’ them, but even he can try my patience.”
“You mentioned that you helped fight the Citizens, in the old days,” Mach said. “Is this tied in with that?”
“Aye.” Brown smiled reminiscently. “I was but a child then, and new at my post, for my predecessor had recently died. Stile, new as the Blue Adept, came here and wreaked havoc in my Demesnes, and I was angry; but when I came to know him, I helped him, and for a time I had charge of the Book of Magic, and in the end I did betray him for his own good by reversing the frame he went to.”
“So you were the one who brought Blue to Proton, and Stile to Phaze!” Mach exclaimed.
“Aye. Then I turned the Book of Magic over to Trool the Troll, and he became the Red Adept. Since then Stile has guided the affairs of Phaze in a beneficial direction, curtailing the evil powers of the opposing Adepts, who naturally hate him. E’er they sought to balk him, and to diminish the freedoms of the animals and Little Folk, but e’er he was alert, and Red provided powerful new spells when needed, and Phaze has prospered despite the loss of magical power.”
“Loss of magic? It seems effective enough to me!”
“That be because thou saw it not in the old days. When the frames separated, half the Phazite, the rock of magic, was passed o’er to Proton, to make up for the Protonite lost by mining there. That balanced the frames so they would not destroy each other, and then they separated so that no one could cross thereafter. But the power of magic was diminished, and I think the power of economics diminished in Proton too, because there could be no more unlimited mining.”
“It was,” Mach agreed. “Proton remains well off, because Protonite now commands a much higher price, but only a small fraction of the prior total is exported. My father has worked to make the operation of the society more efficient, so that we can maintain as good a lifestyle as before; the self-willed machines have been helping. But the old-guard Contrary Citizens have adamantly opposed him; they want to get rich by multiplying the output of Protonite.”
“Stile encouraged the association of the species,” Brown continued. “Thus it was that Bane was named after wolf-bane, the charm the werewolves use for strength, and had as playmates the young of the unicorns, werewolves, vampires and even on occasion some of the Little Folk or the trolls.”
“I learned about Fleta,” Mach said, smiling at her. “But how far does this association go? Fleta seems to feel that any permanent liaison between us is forbidden.”
Brown spread her hands. “Camaraderie be one thing; marriage be another. The species be concerned about the purity of their lines, and some have ancient enmities. So this be an uneasy association at best. Stile himself was close to Neysa, but he married his own kind. So even if thou didst not have to return to thine own frame, I think there would be no approval in this frame for what thou might desire.”
“She speaks truth,” Fleta murmured. “Not as I see it!” Mach said. “I grew up in a society in which robots like myself mixed with other types of creature, and no limits to their association were imposed. My father is human, my mother a robot. Is there greater distinction between me and a unicorn than between me and a human being?”
Brown shook her head. “In Phaze thou wouldst be called a golem, an thou didst have thine own body. Even so was Sheen considered, when she visited this frame. I personally believe that golems should have greater rights, but I am biased by the nature of my magic. Phaze be not ready for mixing of species in any but the most innocent sense, and not ready for self-willed golems at all. An thou didst take Fleta to Proton with thee, there the situation might differ.”
Mach sighed. “I think I do not want to return to Proton alone, but I cannot take her with me.”
“I knew always our love was forbidden,” Fleta said. “The more fool I for yielding to it.”
“This experience has been a kind of dream for me,” he said. “But I too knew I could not live forever in a dream. Once I discover how to exchange back, I will have to return his body to Bane.”
Soon they had another call. A man walked in from the kitchen, carrying a tray full of desserts: chocolate ice cream. Mach glanced at him casually, then did a doubletake. “Father!”
Brown laughed. “Stile, thou idiot! Thou didst not have to masquerade as a servant!”
For it was indeed Stile, the Adept. He looked exactly like Citizen Blue, except that his clothing was of Phaze instead of Proton. He was small, shorter than any of the others in the room, but fit, in his middle forties.
“I didn’t know quite what to expect,” Stile said, setting down the desserts. “So I thought I’d come quietly.” He sounded exactly like Blue, too.
“So thou didst animate one of my golems!” Brown said.
“It was already animate. I merely gave it my semblance.”
“Sit down, have some ice cream,” Brown said mischievously. Mach had to smile, knowing that an ordinary golem could not eat.
“Not my flavor,” Stile demurred.
Brown snapped her fingers. Another golem responded. “Fetch some blue ice cream,” she ordered.
The golem returned in a moment with blueberry ice cream, setting it before Stile. He took his spoon and began to eat.
Fleta’s mouth dropped open. Then Brown caught on. “Thou dost fashion the illusion of eating, to go with the illusion of life for the golem.”
Stile smiled. “It gets harder to deceive thee, Brown. W
hy didst thou send thy messenger?”
“This be not thy son, Bane, but his other self from Proton, Mach,” Brown said. “He needs to know how to return to Proton.”
Now Stile did a doubletake. He stared at Bane. Then he glanced at Brown. “May I?”
“Feel free,” she replied.
Stile sang something under his breath. There seemed to be a play of force around Mach, but nothing else happened.
“So it be true,” Stile breathed. “Contact between the frames, after twenty years!”
Brown relaxed. Evidently she had retained a certain skepticism about Mach’s claim, despite her friendly treatment of him. But it seemed that Stile’s magic had verified it.
“Fleta brought me here,” Mach said. “We were pursued by agents of Adverse Adepts.”
Stile nodded. “So that was why it came not to mine attention! They used no magic. Methought thou wast merely having a private fling with thine old companion, and I knew my son could handle the like of goblins.”
“I managed to work a little magic, but it was clumsy, especially at first,” Mach said. “Without Fleta, I would have been captured.”
“I brought him here because I thought they would not be blocking off this castle as they were the Blue Demesnes,” Fleta said. “But I could not tell him how to return to Proton.”
“How didst thou come to this frame?” Stile inquired of Mach.
“I willed it—and suddenly it happened.”
“But thou couldst not will thyself back?”
Mach shook his head. “It didn’t seem to work that way.”
Stile considered. “Where did it happen?”
“In a glade near the swamp.”
Stile looked at Fleta. “What glade?”
Fleta gave a more accurate geographic description, and added that Bane had gone there several times before the exchange was made.
“Then Bane was trying for this?”
“Yes,” Mach said.
“Thy position in Proton—how did it relate to thy point of arrival in Phaze?”
“Why, they were the same,” Mach said.
“Then thy body occupied the same spot his did—one in each frame.”
“Yes, I think so.”
“That must be the key! To overlap the position, then will the exchange. Mayhap he facilitated it with a spell.”
Mach sat amazed. Of course that was the key, suddenly so obvious! To overlap, so there was no physical motion required. And when he had walked away from that spot, the overlap no longer occurred, so they couldn’t change back.
“I did it!” he exclaimed ruefully. “I left the spot, trapping him there without even realizing!”
“Then perhaps he is trying to locate thee, again,” Stile said. “Does he have a mechanism for that?”
“I don’t know,” Mach said. “But I think so, because he knew where to be, while I did not realize that location mattered. But if so, it may not work in Proton.”
“He would have used another spell,” Stile agreed. “Or perhaps the two of you are attuned to each other. If thou dost try to tune in on him—”
“I never thought of that!” Mach exclaimed, feeling quite stupid. He sat still and concentrated, thinking of Bane. Where are you, my other self?
He felt the faintest of stirrings, as though he had reached something far distant. But he couldn’t be sure.
“Try it again, periodically,” Stile suggested. “I think this be a thing no other can do for thee.” He leaned forward. “But in the meantime, there be things we must grasp. This be contact between the frames, when we thought it impossible. A psychic rapport between the two of you—mayhap a unique one. I see now why the Adepts be after thee; they knew before I did, and seek contact with Proton.”
“Yes,” Mach agreed. “They want me to carry messages, and have offered me anything I want.”
Stile nodded. “We all be starved for news! But thou—if thou be the son of mine other self, who is thy mother?”
“Sheen.”
“Sheen be the best and loveliest of women, but she also be a robot. Do robots bear babies now?”
“No. I am a robot too.” Quickly Mach explained.
“Yet thou dost resemble Bane, physically?”
“Precisely, as far as I can tell.”
“And thou dost have a soul, for now it be here.”
“And his is in my robot body,” Mach agreed.
“I suspected that a machine could have a soul when I knew Sheen,” Stile said, and his eyes looked far beyond the chamber. “Now it seems we have the proof.” He shrugged. “Tell thy mother I remember her, and be glad for her fortune in marrying Blue.” Then he left, and only the golem remained, brown and wooden, the melting ice cream untouched before it.
“He seemed not much interested in thee!” Fleta said indignantly.
Mach smiled. “He was interested. He is like my father; only a small fraction of the thought and emotion in him leaks out. I’m glad to have met him, and I shall carry back his message.”
“Methinks Stile was a bit too restrained,” Brown remarked. “He will be watching thee, Mach.”
“I know it.” Mach looked at Fleta. “I think our time together is limited, now that I have the key to my return.”
“Aye,” she agreed faintly.
“I will provide you with a suite here, until the time,” Brown said.
It was a nice suite. “She understands,” Fleta whispered.
“She understands,” Mach agreed. “She may have had some forbidden love of her own.”
For the first time, they spent a night in human quarters, without fear of pursuit or discovery, and it was sheer delight. They made love with the desperation born of the knowledge of coming separation.
“But surely I need not stay always in Proton,” Mach murmured. “If I could come here once, I could come here again, at least for a visit, to see you.”
“Aye,” she breathed with sudden hope. “If Bane agreed. I don’t know how he would feel—”
“Bane be a good man. He would do it.” They lay in silence for a time. Then he asked: “You told the Brown Adept that you love me.”
“I had no right,” she said.
“Surely it has happened before! With animals being able to assume human form, and sharing human intelligence—has no unicorn, or werewolf, or vampire ever before loved a human being?”
“Oh, aye,” she said. “But it be discouraged for aught but play.”
“Play—as in bed? But not serious, as in love?”
“Aye. Love be special.”
“Surely it is! And until I occupied this human body, I think play was all I ever experienced. But now I believe I love you, Fleta, and I don’t see how that can be wrong. I know what you are, and if you love me too—”
She shook her head. “Mach, mayhap there be secret love twixt our kinds on occasion, but ne’er open. Sometimes a human man will take a werebitch as a concubine, and she would do it not if she loved him not. Sometimes an animal be so fetching, like Suchevane the vampiress, that she could take a human man.”
“Who?”
“Suchevane. She be the loveliest of her kind. Methinks Bane played a game with her, too.” She grimaced. “But thou dost have no need to meet her,” she concluded firmly.
“So animals and human beings never marry.”
“Nor speak the three,” she agreed.
“The three? Three whats?”
“When thy kind—and sometimes other kinds—bespeak true love, the one will address the other three times, and then there be no doubt.”
“Three times? You mean if I said ‘I love you’ three times, then you would believe me?”
“Thee,” she said. “But say it not, Mach.”
“Thee? But I don’t talk that way.”
“Aye. Thou art not of Phaze.”
“Thee—three times?”
“Say it not!” she repeated. “This be ne’er offhand!”
“I don’t understand.”
“Aye,
” she murmured, and kissed him.
In the morning they joined Brown for breakfast, then went out for a walk around the Demesnes. Mach paused to concentrate on his other self—and felt Bane much more definitely than before. “He’s closer!” he said. “He must be tuning in on me, making his way here.”
“Aye,” she said, her lip trembling.
He kissed her. “I will return!”
“I will wait for thee.”
They were coming into a pleasant flowery garden, whose blooms were all shades of brown. “I’m getting to like the color,” Mach remarked.
“These be grown on the best fertilizer there be,” Fleta said.
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Unicorn manure.”
He laughed, thinking it a joke. But she was serious. “When my dam, Neysa, met Brown, and Brown helped Stile, the unicorns agreed to provide her fertilizer for her garden, and so it has been e’er since.”
That reminded him of her nature. She had not assumed her natural form since their arrival at the Brown Demesnes. “Fleta, before we part, would you—” She glanced askance at him.
“Would you play me a tune? I think your music is lovely.”
“But to do that—”
“What is wrong with your natural form?” She hesitated. It was obvious that she preferred to relate to him in the human fashion. Then she shrugged, and became herself, with her glossy black coat and golden socks. She played a melody on her horn, and then a two-part tune, the pan-pipes playing counterpoint. How she could do that he was not sure; he assumed that magic assisted it. Perhaps the high notes were played at the narrow tip of the horn, and the low ones at the broader base. But the music was as pretty as he could imagine. He would always remember her for this, for her sound as much as for her appearance.
She finished, and changed back to girl form. “Thou dost value me only for my melody,” she teased him.
“I would value you just as much if—” Mach looked around, seeking a suitable metaphor for the occasion. They were near a pleasant pool, at whose brown-mud border fat frogs squatted. “If your horn sounded like the croaking of frogs.”
She laughed, but there was an angry croak from the nearest frog, who evidently had overheard. In a moment all the frogs had the message, and were glaring at him.