Alone, he turned on the screen. It did not have any input from outside, unsurprisingly; the time barrier stopped that. It did have an assortment of canned entertainments and educational programs.
He turned it off, lay on the bed, and pondered. The North Pole must have been a similar warren, that he had never before his trip there known of or suspected; the elders were good at keeping secrets when they wanted to. That had been slow time, so if the Green and Black Adepts had gone there at the same time the animal heads came here, it would have seemed like only a few minutes, perhaps, though a month passed outside. Meanwhile, here, it had been ten years! Plenty of time to get it in shape for company.
But what were they going to do with fresh “tokens” from Sirel and Alien, and the Hectare seed? He had hoped to have the answer to prior riddles once he got here, but instead he was encountering only greater mysteries.
Disgruntled, he lay there for a time, and then he slept.
He woke as Sirel and Alien returned, both in human form. “See, we be fine!” she exclaimed. “It were but a bit o’ tissue from each, and we be done.” She changed to wolf form, and back, so that he could see she hadn’t changed.
“But we be captive here, for three years,” he reminded her.
“Whate’er it takes to free our realm,” she said brightly. She looked around. “This be like Proton!” She became Troubot, in straight machine form. “Exactly like Proton,” the robot said from a speaker grille.
Alien became his Proton self, ‘Corn, fully human. “Yes, it is true.” He returned to his Phaze self. “But methinks I prefer to sleep hanging from a rafter.” He reached up, took hold of a convenient plank, and became the bat. He flipped neatly over and caught the wood with his feet.
“And thee?” Flach asked Sirelmoba. “Dost thou be similarly satisfied?”
“Aye,” she said. “Because I be with thee.”
His bad mood eased. It could indeed have been worse.
She joined him in the bed for the night, evidently feeling naughty, because in neither her machine nor wolf aspects did she use a bed. She tickled him, and the rest of his bad mood dissipated. She wasn’t exactly Icy, but she was his Promised, and in due course that would be far more significant than anything he had done with the demoness.
The three of them were kept so busy they hardly had time to be bored. They were subjected to a full program of education in all the things of Proton and Phaze, but especially in music. This amazed Flach again. He liked music, for in his unicorn form he was a natural musician, with the sound of the recorder. But why were they all being trained to be expert in different instruments?
“There must be reason,” Alien said philosophically, and Sirel agreed. Indeed, the two, who had not associated with each other much before, were turning out to be surprisingly compatible. Flach was the odd one out.
So, increasingly, for the classes, he turned the body over to Nepe, who was more patient about such things. That had another advantage: it attracted Alien’s attention, for he had always been sweet on Nepe. Thus Nepe was the center of attention, because Sirel’s other self Troubot liked her too.
One of the things they learned in detail was the scientific nature of Proton. For this all three of them assumed their Proton identities, because it was mind-bendingly complex in some aspects.
Proton seemed like a planet orbiting a star, but it was not. Not exactly, anyway. It was a black hole companion to the star, far smaller and denser than it seemed. The light from the star touched its shell and whipped around it to depart at right angles, leading to strange optical effects. The globe rotated on an axis pointed to the star, so that the South Pole should have been unbearably hot and the North Pole unbearably cold. They were hot and cold, respectively, but not to the degree they might have been, because of the bending of the light; the south got less and the north more than otherwise. The hemispheres of day and night were east and west, clearly demarked at the North and South Poles, where the line of their contrast actually crossed. That was what Flach had seen as a shadow over half the North Pole. That shadow slowly turned counterclockwise, with the clockwise rotation of the globe. At the South Pole the shadow would seem to turn clockwise. There was a complex explanation for just how the light of the sun appeared to be coming from above the equator when actually it was whipping around the tiny black hole inside the planetary shell, but they didn’t pay much attention to this. After all, magic made all kinds of illusions seem real. So at night they looked at the stars, not caring what devious route their glitters took. There was a chamber whose ceiling was one-way invisible, so that they could see the day and night skies, though no creature on the surface could see down into the Pole Demesnes. That was enough.
But a greater anomaly was the orientation of the two sides of it. Most planets, being round, had lands and seas extending all the way around, continuously. Thus they had no west or east poles. Proton had such poles—because they were the limits of the original curtain between its aspects. Beyond those Poles was Phaze, the other side of the planet. But this other side had not been apparent, because it was in the realm of magic. Proton and Phaze were similar geographically, and in their fundamental natures, but the laws by which things operated differed. Yet they remained connected, with the happenings and creatures of one tending to form alignment with the happenings and creatures of the other, as interpreted by their natural laws. Between the two had been the curtain, which few folk could cross. That curtain had wandered in seemingly curvaceous fashion across the planet, from East Pole to West Pole. But when a person crossed it, he crossed to the equivalent nexus on the other half of the planet. This had been the only effective connection between the universes of science and magic, for three hundred years.
When the Adept Clef merged the frames, he had in effect caused the magic hemisphere to slide around the planet to overlap the science hemisphere. Because they were fundamentally similar, they had been compatible, and the sets of selves had become individual folk with alternate natures. But this had changed the face of the planet. With its two sides merged, it lacked anything on the far hemisphere. Now there was nothing there.
That was why there was no reference to the far side of the planet. No one could go there, for anyone who stepped over the edge would fall into the black hole and never return. A short distance beyond the four Poles, the world ended. The old fear of Earthly navigators that they might sail off the edge of the flat world and be lost was valid here. Only on the doubled shell that was the residential continent with its peripheral waters was life possible.
The plan to save the planet (half-planet shell) was simple in essence, if not in detail. It was to slide the doubled shell around to the far side of the black hole, which was in the fantasy universe. Actually this wasn’t exactly a physical thing, because the shell already rotated around the black hole, making day and night feasible in their fashion. It was in relation to the aspects of the hole, which transcended normal physics. When the sides had been separate, the curtain had served as the crossing point from science to magic. Now there was no such avenue; a bit of the magic frame was caught within the science frame, so was accessible by other creatures of the science universe. That was the problem with the Hectare. But if the shell could be slid around to the fantasy frame, then it would be accessible by the creatures of the fantasy universe—and not by those of the science one. There might be horrendous magical menaces out there, but in the three hundred years the two sides of the planet had been parallel, the only exterior contact had been from the science side, so the magic universe seemed like a better bet.
But the playing of the Platinum Flute that had merged the shells would not be enough to slide them both around. It was a general rule of magic that a particular spell worked only once for a particular person; only creatures who had evolved with alternate forms could change them repeatedly. The merger spell had been used, and would not work again, even if that were the one needed. What was needed was a slide spell, of such power as to move half a world—and the
device to summon such magic and control it did not exist. Neither did any person or creature with the ability to play it.
However, it had been ascertained that such a device could be crafted, in time, and that was being done. And a creature could be generated to play it—and that was being done. So the years necessary for each were being spent under the Poles. Only the proper elements were needed, at the right time—and this was what Nepe and Flach were coordinating.
“But why are we being trained to play music?” Nepe demanded.
“Two reasons,” the bear head in charge of the class growled. The three children had learned to understand all the animals well enough, as time passed. “First, there is a need for decoys, in case the Hectare catch on; they must not know which person or creature is the one who will play. Similar iridium flutes are being crafted, only one of which is magic, so that if any are destroyed, they will be decoys. Second, you may be needed to accompany the player, for it will be a complex tune. Your flutes may not be magic, but if they help support and guide the true flute, they are essential. You must play well enough to enable the true one to play perfectly, for the fate of the frames depends on this.”
Now they understood, and continued their practice with greater enthusiasm. The three, playing lovely iridium flutes together, generated quite pretty and intricate melodies. Nepe and Flach knew that they were not as good as Grandpa Stile or Blue, and certainly not close to the Adept Clef, but they could make the animal heads pause in whatever they were doing, to listen until the melody ended.
So the time passed, and they did not find it dull. The animal head children joined them in the classes, eager to learn about the outside realm they had never known. For a self-sustaining community had come here, complete families, giving up their lives on the surface. All to accomplish the plan to free Phaze from alien exploitation. It was apparent, if there had ever been doubt, that there was an enormous and dedicated complement involved, with Flach and Nepe only one little part. But if they failed, the entire effort would come to nothing.
Suddenly, it seemed, they were older. Sirel came into her first season. Flach would have been satisfied to wait indefinitely for it, so as to remain her Promised, but it was not to be. “I need you, Barel,” she said, and though he remained young—about eleven in human terms—he knew it was true. Indeed, her readiness was acting on him, making him mature, at least when in wolf form, rapidly.
They went into a private section of the “park”—a region of honeycombed tunnels where edible plants grew magically in twilight—and there as wolves accomplished in a moment what endless prior experimentation had not approached. Suddenly they were Wolf and Bitch, adults by the standard of that society, and their Promise was fulfilled. Never again would there be this between them; like brother and sister, they had only familial interest in each other, and their shared experience.
They assumed their human forms again, and found themselves still children. But now they knew that their innocence of childhood was over, and that stage by stage, inevitably, they would discard their fancies of youth and assume increasingly those of the adult state.
“Yet still we be friends,” Sirel reminded him wistfully.
“Aye,” he agreed. “Forever friends.” And he discovered that the thing he had feared was not actually a loss, but a portal; behind were the things of childhood, and ahead were the things of the adult state. If, for example, he were to travel again with the lovely demoness Icy, and she teased him with her luscious body again, wrapping her legs around him as she pretended to instruct him on the delights of his far future, he would have a potent response! But perhaps more likely, and more important, he could now orient on adult relationships, seeking that one who would share his future in the way his dam shared his sire’s. It was a dawning but exciting prospect.
Sirel evidently was having a similar realization. Their friendship had not suffered, it had merely changed its nature. They now understood each other and themselves and their culture in a more significant way.
Suddenly, it seemed, their tenure here was done. Three years had passed, and it was time to return to the normal realm. Flach had grown so accustomed to this society that he almost regretted it; there had been comfort in living with the animal heads, and he had made friends with the animal head children. But he had not forgotten his mission.
“Remember,” Eli warned him. “Outside it be but a week past. Thou willst have to hear thy third message, and do what it directs, whate’er it be; we know not.”
“But Sirel and Alien—what o’ them?” he asked.
“The main part o’ their missions were accomplished at the outset,” Eli said. “But an thy message tell thee to keep them with thee, then that must they do. An it be other, then they be free for their own devices—until thou dost need them at the end.”
“We would participate further in thy mission,” Sirel said, “an we can. But too would we remain with each other.” For after Sirel had achieved her maturity and abated the Promise, her interest in Alien had changed. The two had been friends; slowly they became more than friends. They could not relate intimately in their animal forms, but could in the human form, and it looked very like a rare wolf-bat romance. That could bring trouble with their subcultures, but after the robot-unicorn liaison that had generated Flach, acceptance might be easier.
“An I have a choice, will I keep ye two with me,” Flach said.
“And gi’en that choice, will we remain with thee,” Alien said.
So it was agreed. The three embraced, and made their preparations for departure. They bid farewell to the animal head children they had known so well for three years, and packed supplies, and of course their three iridium flutes.
They left by the same spiral passage they had arrived by; it was the only avenue to the regular realm. The Hectare stood guard as it had three years before, standing off the Pole. Eli had assured them that it was the same one; the animals had kept watch. That meant that the deal should hold. Indeed, as the three emerged and walked past, the creature took no seeming notice. But after they cleared the Pole and shut its lid, it moved across and stood over it again. That was signal enough.
They walked back to where the unicorns and semi-human companions had waited. They were there; the firefly was first to spy the approaching party and alert the others.
“But these are older!” Echo exclaimed.
“Three years older,” Flach agreed. “Time be changed, under the West Pole, as it be under the North Pole, only it accelerates. We have lived and grown.”
“It must be,” Lysander said, from his invisibility. “No one else has come, and the BEM has kept faith. In fact, it showed us the flag of truce and challenged us to a game; it had figured out where you came from. We declined, but we did talk to it, under that truce; we told it the stories of Phaze, and it told us the stories of the galaxy.”
“It be an honorable creature,” Flach agreed. “This guard duty must be boring for it, so once it lost the game, it took advantage of the situation to do something interesting.”
“Must needs we kill them, when we win?” Alien asked. “Methinks we could get along, an they be not in a position to despoil our world.”
“If you win, they will capitulate gracefully,” Lysander said. “But unless you have something exceedingly special, that I can not stop, you will lose.”
“The more I learn o’ the Adepts’ plan, the more certain I become that there be something special,” Flach said. “But exactly what it be, I know not.”
“Maybe it is time for your third message,” Echo said.
“Aye. I hope I insult none here an I take that message alone; I know not whe’er it be secret from some or all but me.”
“Go by thyself,” Alien said. “Tell us what thou dost deem proper.”
Flach walked toward the ocean, sat in a hollow, and brought out the message capsule. It said, TAKE WEST POLE’S PRODUCT TO SOUTH POLE, WHEN.
He pondered that. He had gone to the North Pole, it turned out, to b
ring the Green and Black Adepts out at the proper moment; otherwise, in that slow time, they would not have emerged when they were supposed to. and the Magic Bomb would have been set wrong. So though the message had seemed inadequate, it had turned out to be all he had needed to know. The second message had told him to take the Hectare seed to the West Pole, and to go with those with him and four the wolves sent. Those with him—actually with Nepe—had been Lysander and Echo; the wolves had sent Sirel, Alien, and the two unicorns. Evidently the word had been spread before, for them to be ready for the call. It had all been set up, somehow, so that Flach and Nepe fell naturally into the pattern. Even the use of the enemy agent, Lysander, had turned out perfectly, suggesting that the prophecy had known very well what was to happen.
But they had just left the West Pole, and the only product they had was the decoy flutes. That didn’t seem to be enough. Those flutes could have been delivered by other means; they were useful only as decoys. Take decoys to the South Pole? That suggested that the action would be somewhere else. Yet it seemed most likely that the action would be with Flach, the only loose Adept, and Lysander, the person of the prophecy. How could they be elsewhere?
And it said WHEN. What did that mean? Not now? If so, how would he know when? He was baffled.
It’s a riddle, Nepe thought. How would that distressingly gorgeous ice maiden unriddle it?
Icy? She would instantly fathom the manner some seemingly unrelated factor factored in, and suddenly everything would make sense. She would point out the obvious, that Grandpa Stile/Blue had said it would take seventeen years to forge the counterweapon, and that time was accelerated under the West Pole so that one week outside was three years inside, so that seventeen years inside would fit within six weeks outside, and—but of course that wouldn’t match, because in only another four weeks the Magic Bomb would emerge from slow time and destroy the planet.
To which objection she would say—That if the Pole was slow, and another fast, who could say what might be under the other two? Maybe slower—or faster. In which case those seventeen years could be accommodated!