The unicorn picked up speed, going into a trot. Then it played music through its horn: an actual melody. Lysander hung on and listened, amazed. He was unable to ascertain how such special effects were being accomplished.
They approached a grove of trees. Sure enough, one of them bore huge fruit that looked like melons—and there was a monstrous winged serpent snoozing around its base. The creature woke and hissed at them, sending up a cloud of smoke.
Lysander realized that such a creature could readily be mocked up with plastic and pseudoflesh, but the heat of its breath would still be dangerous. “Maybe I’ll pass on the melon,” he said.
The unicorn shrugged. Then it spouted huge wings, pumped them, leaped, and became airborne. Lysander clung to its back, alarmed. The ground was now receding at an astonishing rate. Magic? It was getting difficult to doubt!
They approached a purple mountain. The thing was literally purple, even at close range; the foliage of the trees had a purplish cast. He had seen a map of Proton on which was marked PURPLE MOUNTAINS, but he had assumed that was figurative.
A gross bird launched from a tall tree. It flew up to intercept the flying unicorn. Lysander tried to judge what kind it was. He knew most of the Earth types that would have been brought here with the human colonists, but this ungainly thing with the huge head and dangling tresses—
It was a harpy! A mythical creature, part vulture and part human woman. No such creature existed, and even if it did, it would hardly be able to fly, any more than the unicorn could. The dynamics were all wrong.
Magic? It was a good show!
“Sheer off! Sheer off, imbecile!” the harpy screeched. “Think I want a ‘corn in my tree?”
The unicorn sounded a brief melody. The harpy listened. “Oh. Sorry, Flach,” she screeched. “I should have recognized thee. I were looking at the handsome man. Well, land at the foot and we’ll talk.”
The unicorn descended, and in a moment came to a four-point landing at the base of the tree. Lysander dismounted, and the boy reappeared. Then the harpy came down and landed somewhat clumsily on the ground beside them. Her face and breasts were young, but her wings and talons destroyed any attractiveness she might have had for a human man.
Then she changed form, and became a young woman, tall and slender. Her face was the same, and probably her bosom, which was now covered by a feathery gown. “Well, what brings you here, Flach?” she inquired.
“This be Lysander,” the boy said. “He believes not in magic.”
The woman eyed him speculatively. “New to this planet?” she inquired.
Lysander nodded. “I arrived about an hour ago. I admit to being confused.”
“Hi. I’m Echo. My better half is Oche.” She extended her hand.
He took it. “I don’t wish to be impolite, but it has been my understanding that there is no such thing as magic.”
She nodded. “So Flach is showing you. That figures.”
“Actually, a little girl was showing me. I am not certain what—” He broke off, for now Nepe was standing before him, dressed in a pinafore, her wild hair neatly braided.
“It’s hard to get used to, at first,” Echo said. “I didn’t believe, until the frames merged, and then I had one hell of an adjustment to make. How would you like to turn into a harpy without warning?”
“I would find that awkward,” Lysander agreed.
“You bet! But you have it easy, because you’re not native, so you didn’t have to merge with your opposite.”
“You and the harpy are the same individual?”
“Just as Flach and Nepe are,” Echo said. “You see, when there were two frames, one was science, the other magic, and long-term residents were represented in both. When they merged, so did the folk, and I’m telling you, it was carnage for a time! But now most of us have made the adjustment. When we go into the domes, we strip down and are serfs; outside we’re in Phaze. Then we dress and speak in the Phaze manner, and do whatever magic we can. It’s a pretty good combination, actually.”
“I don’t wish to impose, but would you object to providing more evidence? Could you, for example, change forms if I were holding you?”
She eyed him again. “That’s the neatest come-on line I’ve heard yet! Sure, hold me, handsome.” She stepped into his arms and kissed him.
He closed his arms around her, less interested in the kiss than in the mechanism of the change. He held her firmly—and then found himself with an armful of feathers. She had become the harpy, her lips still touching his. He was so surprised he let go.
She fell away, and had to flap her wings to recover before she hit the ground. “Thou didst drop me, thou dork!” she screeched. There was the tinkle of Nepe’s laughter.
If this wasn’t supernatural, it was a device beyond his reckoning. Echo had felt every inch the human woman—and she had been within his grasp as she changed.
“Let me try again,” he said. He squatted, and grabbed her two bird legs. “Change back.”
Abruptly he was holding on to one knee and one thigh. Both were definitely human.
“Satisfied?” Nepe asked. “Or do you want to squeeze her gams some more?”
Hastily he let go, though his human orientation was returning, and he found the legs interesting. “If it isn’t magic, it’s beyond me,” he confessed.
“It’s science,” Echo said. “I’m a cyborg. See, my body’s inanimate.” She opened her robe, exposing her breasts. She touched the right one, and it swung out from her torso to reveal a hollow cavity instead of mammary glands. “But Oche, she’s magic, all right.”
“I’ll take thee to the wolves,” Flach said, having changed without notice.
“Wolves? I’d rather not.”
But the lad was determined. “Take my hand; I’ll conjure thee to the Pack.”
With resignation, Lysander reached for the hand. “Come see me some time when you’re not busy, handsome,” Echo said. “I work for Citizen Powell, when I’m on duty in Proton. You?”
“Citizen Blue,” he said.
“You’re lucky!”
Then his hand made contact—and the scene changed.
They stood at the edge of a lovely valley whose flower-specked expanse led down to a small meandering stream. A herd of horses were grazing, guarded by a single stallion pacing the perimeter. Horses? No, unicorns; each had its horn, and the colors were beyond anything seen on ordinary equines.
The stallion galloped up. He had a bright blue coat and red “socks” on his hind legs. As he moved, he played music on his horn, sounding very like a mellow saxophone.
The unicorn who had carried Lysander reappeared. This one had a black coat and blue hind socks, seeming to have a family resemblance to the stallion. He played a return melody, his flute-like theme prettily counterpointing the saxophone.
Then both animals became human, the change like the flick of an image on a computer screen. The boy was familiar, but the man was not. He had black hair and a black suit, with blue socks, and was of mature age. He looked tough.
The man eyed Lysander. “My grand-nephew tells me that thou be a new employee of Blue, and that thou hast difficulty assimilating our culture.”
“Correct. I had understood that magic was mainly illusion.”
“Flach will happily demonstrate magical illusion!” the man said. As he spoke, a disembodied eye appeared in the air behind him, the white of it grotesquely veined. A second eye formed beside it, and the two focused on Lysander. Slowly the right one winked. “But not now,” the man said sternly, without turning. The eyes vanished. “I suspect thy best course be to assume that what thou seest be valid, until thou dost become convinced. Ignorance be lethal, here.”
“I believe that, sir.”
The man frowned. “Oh, aye, thou seest me clothed, so dost assume I be a Citizen. Nay, in Phaze there be no Citizens. When the mergence came, we had to compromise in a number o’ ways, because some folk were merged and others had no other selves, and the status o’
selves could be different in the frames. So—” He paused. “Be I confusing you?”
“Yes,” Lysander admitted.
The unicorn reappeared, and blew a loud note. Immediately there was the sweet tinkle of bells, and a mare broke from the Herd. Her coat was a deep red verging on purple, and her mane rippled iridescently. She was an astonishing and beautiful creature.
Then she became a blue heron, and flew toward them. Soon she landed, becoming a unicorn as her feet touched ground. She tinkled her bells again questioningly—but the sound was actually from her horn.
The stallion played another brief melody. The mare’s head angled so that one eye could orient on Lysander.
“Go with Belle,” Flach said. “Great-Uncle Clip wants to talk with me.”
“You mean, ride her?”
“If thou dost wish,” the boy said. “Oh—she will explain about the mergence.”
“But I can’t understand bells!”
“Now thou canst,” Flach said.
Lysander chose not to argue. He presumed there was some point to all this. His job was to go along, learning what he needed to. Certainly what he was experiencing was amazing, and the surprises showed no signs of abating.
He approached the beautiful mare. Up close he saw that she was old, like the stallion; flecks of gray showed in her hide. “May I ride you, Belle?” he asked.
Her bell sounded. “Aye.”
“Thank you.” He climbed on her back.
Then he did a doubletake. “I understood you!” he exclaimed.
She laughed with the pealing of bells. “Flach did it. He be the Unicorn Adept. We o’ the Herd be proud o’ him.” She started walking, leaving the man and boy behind.
“Unicorn Adept?”
The bells tinkled again, melodiously. “Clip asked me to clarify our system for thee.” These were not her precise words; rather, he was translating the sounds into his own sentences, as he was coming to understand the dialect of Phaze. It didn’t matter; he understood her perfectly. It was apparent that any further effort to resist acceptance of magic was likely to be futile; it was the readiest explanation for what was going on. “There were two frames, one magic, the other science. We unicorns lived in magic Phaze, while the Citizens and serfs lived in science Proton, in their domes, because they had polluted all the air and ruined the land. Many o’ us had other selves, but we could cross o’er not.”
“Let me see whether I understand,” he said. “You were a unicorn, and some person in Proton was the same as you?”
“Nay, some mare,” she tinkled. “I have no human form; it were not one I chose. We unicorns can usually learn two other forms, and I chose the heron and the cat. Clip chose man and hawk. So we trot together, and we fly together, but when I go to Proton with him he be a man and I be a horse. But I like it there not, so I remain out on the range.”
“The frames merged, and now the domes are Proton, and the outside land is Phaze?”
“Aye, by agreement. So when a Citizen steps outside, he assumes his Phaze form. If he be Adept, he has great power, but most o’ them be just ordinary folk. So the Proton folk mostly stay in their domes, and we Phaze folk remain mostly outside. Many of us have no opposite selves anyway, so it be easier. Things really changed not much, after the mergence settled down, except that the Adept Stile gained power.”
“Who?”
“The Adepts be the ones with much magic. They be mostly human, but the Red Adept be a troll, and the Unicorn Adept be part unicorn. The Blue Adept always supported the unicorns, and the werewolves and vampires, so—”
“But you named a Stile Adept.”
“He were the Blue Adept, but he changed selves with Stile, and now he be Citizen Blue, and Stile be the Adept.”
“Oh—so Nepe’s grandfather—”
“Aye,” she tinkled. “Clip’s sister Neysa had a filly, Fleta, who mated with Blue’s son Mach, the rovot—”
“What?”
“In Proton there be rovots,” she tinkled patiently. “Like golems, only made o’ metal. Nepe be their child, so she be—”
“Wait! Wait! I’m all confused. I thought the frames were separate. How could a unicorn filly mate with a robot? Even if it were possible physically, they were in opposite frames!”
“Mach crossed o’er, and took Bane’s body, here, and loved Fleta. Their child be Flach. Bane crossed to Proton, and took Mach’s body, and married Agape the alien, and their child be Nepe. But when the mergence came—”
“They became the same!” Lysander exclaimed, the light dawning. “Stile and Blue are the same, and their sons are the same, and their grandchildren! But—” He broke off, troubled by another aspect.
“One child be male and one be female,” she tinkled, understanding. “We believed it not either, but it be so. That unbelief were critical in Stile’s victory.”
“Just what was this victory? How did it relate to the merging of the frames?”
“The Adverse Adepts were gaining power, and were in league with the Contrary Citizens, and the Purple Adept sought to kill Stile and assume power. But Blue summoned the Platinum Flute, and Clef to play it, and they piped the frames together. Blue and Stile merged and liked each other, and Fleta and Agape liked each other, and Flach and Nepe, for all were good folk. But the bad Adepts and Citizens were mean folk, each out for himself alone, not sharing power, and they could stand their other selves not, and fell in torment struggling with themselves. By the time they came to accommodation with their opposites, the good folk were firmly in power. Now it be verging on the golden age, for Stile and Blue be reconciled with their sons Mach and Bane and their grandchildren Flach and Nepe, and all value the land and creatures. Ne’er again will evil govern either frame.”
“But how can magic work here, when it is unknown in the rest of the galaxy?”
“It be the Phazite,” she tinkled. “The magic rock ‘neath the mountains. It be the source o’ magic and energy. The bad Citizens were mining it, and selling it, and depleting it, so our magic were less. They cared for our welfare not, any more than they did for the air they spoiled before. But Stile and Blue stopped them, and now little rock goes out.”
“This rock provides magic and energy?”
“Aye. The Proton ships use it and the rovots and ‘chines, and it be best in the galaxy. The Citizens were getting much wealth, but we were fading.” She made a merry serenade of bells. “No more!”
Abruptly she halted. “What’s the matter?” Lysander asked.
“A goblin, spying on us!” she tinkled. “Do thou dismount; needs must I drive him out.”
Lysander quickly got off. Then she was a black panther, bounding into the brush.
There was a swirl of motion, and something like a little man leaped up and dodged behind a tree. The panther circled the tree, but evidently the goblin was gone.
The big cat came back. The beautiful unicorn reappeared. “They have no business here,” she tinkled indignantly. “These be ‘Corn Demesnes.”
Evidently so. Lysander remounted, and they continued on around the grazing herd. By the time they returned to the boy and stallion, the two had evidently finished their conversation. Indeed, the unicorn was grazing again, and the lad was playing with tiny clouds, making the black one chase the white one in crazy patterns just above the ground. When the two collided, there was a crack of thunder, and flare of lightning, and a bucket of water drenched the soil.
The boy became the unicorn. “We thank thee for thy help, Belle,” Flach piped politely. Lysander seemed to understand all music talk now, and he knew he wasn’t imagining it.
“Welcome, Adept,” Belle tinkled. “It be fun to rehearse the history. Tell the Lady we miss her.”
“Aye, I’ll nag her!” the boy said zestfully, reappearing. “Or I will,” the girl Nepe added. The changes seemed instant; Lysander could detect no transition. What else could it be but magic?
Then Nepe extended her hand. Lysander took it, knowing what was coming.
Sure enough, the scene changed. They were standing at the edge of a forest clearing where a number of wolves were lying. The wolves jumped up, smelling the intrusion—and beside Lysander was another wolf. “Tear him not, brothers!” Flach growled, this form of communication also now comprehensible. “I be showing him magic at Blue’s behest.”
A wolf approached Lysander—and abruptly became a woman. She was of indeterminate human age, no young innocent but also not old. “For thee, Flach, we honor this. But canst be sure he be worthy?”
“I thank thee, Bukisaho,” Flach said. “He be new to Phaze, and Blue wants him broken in. I know no more than this, and that he be named Lysander.”
“Thy human names be e’er strange,” she said. “I would second-guess Blue not, but mayhap thou shouldst include the Adept Tania on the tour.”
“Aye, excellent notion, bitch!” the boy exclaimed, startling Lysander.
The woman, noting his reaction, laughed—and so did the surrounding wolves, in their way. “Aye, he be new!” the woman agreed.
A young wolf appeared at the fringe of our, camp. “Sirelmoba!” Flach cried, spying it.
The wolf charged him, leaped into the air with teeth bared—and became a girl about his age, smacking into the boy with her mouth against his for an extremely solid kiss. Her hair was dark, like his, as were her furry jacket and skirt; she could have been his sister, but obviously wasn’t.
After an intense moment, she drew back her head but not her body. The two might be children, but they looked much like lovers, Lysander thought. “O Barel, it be but days but it feels like years!” the girl said. “I feel my age drawing nigh, any year now; be thou ready when I be!”
“But once we mate, we part!” he protested. “I be in no hurry for that, Sirel.”
“We will part not, only turn to friendship.”
He nodded. “Aye. Still, I be not rushed.”
“I will make thee rush, when my heat come,” she promised.
They were like lovers! They were talking of mating!
“This be Lysander,” Flach said, turning to him as the girl released him. “He be a new serf for Blue.”