“Art thou all right?” Stile inquired, concerned.
Neysa did not respond, so he brought out his harmonica again and played. But she immediately blew a harsh note of negation. He desisted, concealing his hurt feelings.
Stile thought she would relax after a short while, but she did not. instead her gait became more mechanical, quite unlike her normal mode.
“Neysa, I inquire again: art thou all right?”
She ignored him. She seemed to be in a trance.
Alarmed, Stile tugged sharply on her mane. “Something is wrong. I must insist—”
She threw down her head and bucked. The action was untelegraphed, but Stile was too experienced a rider to be caught. He stayed in place, then slid to the ground when she resumed her odd walk. “Neysa, something evidently compels thee. I don’t know what it is—but since we are approaching the locale of the Yellow Adept, I suspect it relates. For some reason the compulsion does not affect me. Give me thy socks, and I will walk with thee in disguise.”
She halted, swishing her tail in annoyance, and let him remove the white socks from her rear feet. Then she marched on.
Stile donned the socks and walked beside her, imitating her walk. If something were summoning unicorns, he wanted to resemble such a captive as closely as possible—until he understood the situation better. The wolfsbane he had sniffed still buoyed his strength; he was ready for anything, and felt no trace of the prior ravages of hunger and thirst. If Neysa had fallen into some spell cast by the Yellow Adept—
Soon the property of the Adept came into sight. It was of course yellow. The sands were yellow, rising into yellow dunes, and the sun sent yellow beams through a yellow fog that concealed the main operation from a distance. Neysa walked straight into that fog.
Soon the Adept’s castle loomed. It was most like a ramshackle haunted house, with a partially collapsing roof, broken windows, and weeds growing thickly against the walls. A few yellow flowers straggled at the fringe—buttercups, sunflowers, a bedraggled yellow rose. Behind the house was a tall wrought-iron palisade fence, rusting yellow, overgrown by morbid vines with yellowing leaves but still quite formidable. An odor rose from the premises: animal dung and decaying vegetation. Rustic, but hardly pleasant.
Neysa walked right on toward the house, and Stile necessarily followed. Already he did not like the Yellow Adept and hoped perversely that the magician was alive—so as to be assured this was not Stile’s own alternate identity. This time he would not be so foolish as to challenge the Adept overtly; he would just look and retreat quickly.
Except for two things. First, there was Neysa—she had somehow been mesmerized, surely for no good purpose, and had to be freed of this complication. Second, Kurrelgyre: the wolf had by now had plenty of time to lope in and out, but evidently had not, which suggested that he too had been trapped by the summoning spell. Stile would have to verify this, then act appropriately. It might not be easy.
Neysa moved right on up to the front door, which was sagging open on rusty hinges. She entered, Stile close behind. They passed through a dusty hall, turned a corner—and bars dropped from the ceiling, separating them.
Oh, no! Not again! Stile backed up—but another set of bars fell behind him. This section of hall had become a cage.
There was an ear-discomfiting shriek of laughter. “Hee-hee! Two! Two fine unicorns, so soon after the wolf! What an excellent day! Haul them out, Darlin’ Corey! Let us view our prizes!”
Something huge bulked at the far end of the hall, beyond the corner. Neysa’s cage slid forward. Something was drawing it onward with easy power.
After a time the thing came for Stile’s cage. It was the rear end of a pink elephant. The little tail hooked into the forward bars; then the creature walked, drawing the cage after it.
Stile considered poking his sword through the bars and puncturing the fat pink rear, or cutting off the tail with his knife. But this would not release him from the cage, and could make the elephant quite angry without really incapacitating it. Better to hold off.
In a moment they emerged into the stockaded area. There were cages all around. It resembled an archaic zoo. Stile identified a griffin, with the body of a lion and head and wings of an eagle, in the cage most directly across from his. This was no glorious heraldic monster, but a sad, bedraggled, dirty creature whose wings drooped and whose eyes seemed glazed. And no wonder: the cage was too small for it to stretch its wings, and there was no place for its refuse except right next to the cage where the creature had scraped it out. No wonder its feathers and fur were soiled; no wonder it stank!
Now Stile’s attention was taken by the proprietress: an old woman garbed in a faded yellow robe, with stringy yellow hair and yellowish complexion. A hag, in every sense of the word.
“What a lovely little specimen!” the hag cackled, mincing around Neysa’s cage. Neysa seemed to be coming out of her daze; her ears perked up, then laid back in revulsion as the crone approached.
“And this one,” the Adept continued, examining Stile. “A white stallion, yet! What a pretty penny thou wilt fetch, my sweet!” She circled the cage, appraising his apparent form with an indecently calculating eye. “Yes indeed, my precious! White is in the market for the likes of thee! Needs must I send Crow’s-foot with the news.” She hobbled into the house.
Now Stile resumed his survey of the enclave. Beyond Neysa was Kurrelgyre, whose eye was already on him; the wolf nodded slowly. They were in trouble!
The other cages contained a small sphinx, a three-headed dog, a wyvern, and several creatures Stile couldn’t classify. All were bedraggled and filthy; the witch did not bother to care for them properly, or to clean their cages. She did feed them, as there were dishes of food and water at every cage—but several of these dishes had been overturned and kicked out, uneaten.
Stile examined his own cage. The bars were yellowish, like the rest of this place, and somewhat slick. It was as if some sort of grease had been smeared on the metal in a vain attempt to make it seem like gold. He tried to push a bar out of position, but it was like welded steel. The door was firmly locked.
Still, the bars were fairly widely spaced, and he was small. Just a little bowing should enable him to squeeze between two. Stile located the longest, widest section of the cage roof, then drew his sword and used it cautiously as a lever. He did not want to break the weapon and did not know how strong it was. But he really could not gain purchase, and had to put away the sword. Instead he jumped up, put his feet against one bar, his hands on the next, and hauled as if lifting a heavy weight. Slowly, unwillingly, the bars separated as he strove and panted. When his muscles balked, he had widened the aperture only slightly—but perhaps it was enough.
He dropped down to the cage floor—and discovered that he had become the object of considerable attention. He was still disguised as a unicorn; that must have been quite a sight, a horselike creature clinging to the upper bars!
But he couldn’t allow such cynosure to stop him. The witch should soon be back. He had to do whatever he could do, rapidly.
Stile drew himself up, put his feet between the widened bars, and squeezed his body up and through. Last was his head; his ears got mashed, but he scraped by. He was out.
He climbed silently down, while the captive animals watched the contortions of this astonishing unicorn. They were not about to betray him to the witch! The conspiracy of silence was the only weapon they possessed.
Stile went to Kurrelgyre’s cage. “I must have a rapid update,” he said. “How can I free thee and Neysa and the others? The large bars are too strong for me.”
The werewolf transformed into his human form, too large to squeeze between the bars. “Thou art fortunate in thy size,” he said. “Only Neysa might do what thou hast done—and the potion hath dulled her wit so she can not transform her shape. My wolfsbane might help steady her—but we dare not administer it to her animal form. We are at impasse. Save thyself; thou canst not free us.”
“If
I go, it will be only to help thee—as thou didst for me before. Can I overcome the witch?”
“Only if thou canst kill her by surprise, instantly with thy sword. She will else throw a potion on thee, and destroy thee.”
“I don’t want to kill her,” Stile said. “Murder is not the proper solution to problems. I only want to neutralize her and free these poor captives.”
Kurrelgyre shook his head. “Thou canst not defeat an Adept fairly save by magic.”
“No. Mine oath—”
“Yes. When thou didst not break thine oath to save thyself from the Black Demesnes, I knew thy word was constant. I expect no different of thee here in the Yellow Demesnes. But now it is not thy life at stake, but Neysa’s. The witch will sell her to another Adept—”
“Why don’t Adepts conjure their own creatures, instead of buying them?”
“Because some spells are more complex than others. An Adept may conjure a dozen monsters via a single summoning spell with less effort than a single one by creation. So they store captive creatures in cells, and prepare spells to bring them upon need—”
“I get the picture. To be an Adept is to maintain dungeons where others languish—and the Yellow Adept caters to this need by trapping the necessary animals. I dare say she traps wild fowl and sells the eggs to the Black Adept, too; he has to get his food from somewhere. Maybe he pays her off by making strong cages from black line-bars, that she paints yellow. How does she summon the hapless victims? Neysa seemed to go into a trance.”
“Yellow’s magic is exerted through potions, I now have learned. She boils a cauldron whose vapors mesmerize animals, bringing them here to be caged. She could summon men similarly, but does not, lest men unite against her and destroy her. Had I been in my man-form, or Neysa in her girl-form—”
“Yes.” Stile moved across to Neysa. “Wilt thou release me from mine oath, that I may cast a spell to free thee? I fear thy fate at the hands of the witch.”
Neysa, dulled by the summoning potion, was not dull enough to forget her antipathy to Adept-class magic. She shook her head no. She would not condone such sorcery to free herself.
“Say,” Stile said, trying again. “Thou canst also change into a firefly, and these bars would not hold—”
But Neysa’s eyes were half lidded and her head hung low. The effort of will that such transformation required was beyond her present capacity.
“Or if thou couldst assume thy human form, the potion would not affect thee—”
There was a growl from another cage. Kurrelgyre looked up nervously. “Hark! The witch comes!”
Stile jumped to the werewolf’s cage, on inspiration drawing off his socks. “Don these!” he whispered, shoving them through Kurrelgyre’s cage bars. “And this.” He put the sword through, with its harness. “She will assume—”
“Right.” In a moment the white unicorn image formed. The sword was concealed by the illusion. “Remember: thou darest not eat nor drink aught she offers thee, for her potions—”
“Uh-oh! Did Neysa drink?”
But the Yellow Adept appeared before the werewolf could answer. Still, Stile hardly needed it. Neysa, like most equines, drank deeply when she had opportunity, and could have done so automatically while still under the influence of the summoning vapor. That would explain why she hadn’t made any real effort to save herself. That also explained why the smarter animals here refused to eat. Kurrelgyre had avoided this trap, and was alert. But the situation of all these animals remained bleak, for evidently none of them had the strength to break out of the strong cages. Eventually they would have either to eat or to starve. Not a pleasant choice; Stile’s memory of his confinement in the Black Castle remained fresh.
Stile was not idle during these realizations; he ducked behind the werewolf’s cage, trying to hide. He knew it was foolish of him to hesitate about dealing with the witch; obviously she had little to recommend her, and would happily wipe him out. But he could not murder a human being heartlessly. Just as he was bound by an oath of no magic, he was bound by civilized restraints. Demons and monsters he could slay, not people.
“Eeeek!” Yellow cried, pronouncing the word exactly as it was spelled. “The cage is empty! The valuable white ’corn stallion!” But then she inspected the situation more carefully. “No, the stallion remains. It is the wolf who is gone. I could have sworn his cage was—” She glared across the compound. “Darlin’ Corey!” she screamed. “Didst thou move the cages about?”
Stile watched the pink elephant. The creature had seen what happened; which side was it on? If it told the truth—
The elephant waddled past the cages toward the witch. Suddenly it flung its trunk to the side, catching Stile by the nape of his shirt and hauling him into view. It trumpeted.
“Well, now, dearest!” the crone cried, scratching idly at a wart on her nose. “So it was a werewolf! Changed to its man-form and squeezed out of its cage.”
The elephant squealed, trying to correct her misimpression.
“Oh shut up, Darlin’ Corey,” she snapped. “What shall we do with the werewolf? I don’t have a cage small enough at the moment. He’s pretty shrimpy.” She peered at Stile more closely, as he hung in midair. “But healthy and handsome enough, my lovely. Maybe he would do for my daughter. Hold him there a moment, my tasty; I will send the wench out.”
The pink elephant chuckled. The monsters in cages exchanged glances, bewildered. Obviously this was the first they had heard of Yellow’s daughter. What kind of a slut was she? Meanwhile, the hag limped rapidly to the house.
Stile thought of doing an acrobatic flip and climbing the elephant’s trunk. But the creature was quite big and strong, and not stupid; it might bash him against a tree. Had he retained his sword—but that would have been highly visible, forcing him to use it to defend himself. It was better to appear more or less helpless, lest he get doused by a potion.
He looked around, able to see more clearly from this height. Beyond the palisades the yellow fog obliterated everything. It was as if the rest of the world did not exist. No doubt this was the way the Adept liked it. She had a little mist-shrouded world of her own, that no man dared intrude upon. Did she get lonely? Probably no more lonely than a person with her appearance would get in the midst of the most convivial society. Who would want to associate with her? Stile, as a person who all his life had felt the inherent discrimination of size, could not entirely condemn the witch for reacting to the discrimination of appearance. Yet he could not allow her to abuse his friends, or to continue mistreating innocent animals.
His eye caught something—a glimmer in the fog outside the compound. A faint curtain of—
The curtain! Could it be here? The thing seemed to wander all over Phaze like a tremendous serpent. Might it be used to facilitate escape, as it had before?
No, there were two problems. The curtain, close as it was, was out of reach, since it was beyond the palisades. And Neysa could not use it. Or would not; he wasn’t sure which. So this was a mere tantalization, no real help. Best to wait and see what the witch’s daughter had in mind. She was probably a homely girl upon whom her crazy mother forced the attentions of any likely-seeming male.
She emerged. She was stunning. Her yellow hair flowed luxuriously to her waist, her hands and feet were tiny, and her complexion was gold-bronze vibrant, not sallow. She had a figure that would have made an artist gape, with prominent secondary sexual characteristics. Her eyes were so large she seemed almost like a doll—but what a doll!
Young witches, it seemed, had other assets than magic.
“Darlin’ Corey, put that man down this instant!” the girl cried, spying Stile. Her voice, despite its vehemence, was dulcet. Everything about her was as nice as it was nasty about her mother.
Darlin’ Corey lowered Stile to the ground, but remained near, on guard. Stile straightened his clothing and rolled his shoulders; it had not been entirely comfortable, hanging all that time in midair. “I don’t believe we’ve met,”
he said.
She giggled jigglesomely. “Tee-hee. I’m Yellowette. My, thou’rt a handsome wolf.”
“I’m a man,” Stile said.
She looked down at him. That was the only fault he could perceive in her: she was a few centimeters—a couple of this frame’s inches—taller than he. “That, too. Kiss me, my cute.”
Neysa, in the cage, recovered enough to make a musical snort of recognition. Suddenly Stile had a suspicion why the pink elephant had found the notion of this encounter humorous, and why the caged beasts had never known of the witch’s daughter. What would a lonely old hag do with a handsome-if-small man, if she had a potion for every purpose? Drug him—or take a very special potion herself? “Not in front of these monsters,” he said.
“What do they matter, my delight? They can not escape.”
“I like my privacy,” he said. “Let’s take a walk outside—and return later, as before.” He glanced meaningfully at Neysa, hoping the drug had worn off enough to uncloud her mind. “As before.”
Yellowette’s fair brow wrinkled. “Thou knowest that unicorn, werewolf?”
“I’m not a werewolf,” he said, aware that she would not believe him. “I do know her. She’s a jealous mare.”
“So? Well, she’ll be gone in a few days. There’s a fair market in unicorns, for they are hard to catch. Their horns and hooves are valuable for musical instruments and for striking fire, their dung is excellent fertilizer for magic plants, and their hides have anti-magic properties.”
Stile experienced an ugly chill. “These animals are for slaughter?”
“Some are, my pleasure. Some aren’t even good for that. The black mare would be excellent as a courtyard showpiece, except that she lacks proper coloration and is small. The white stallion, in contrast, is a prize; the White Adept will probably use him to battle dragons in his arena.”