He played a bar, hoping no one would think to shoot at his face. Yes — he felt, or thought he felt, the coalescing of magic about him. Yet there was something strange about it, making him nervous, and he broke off quickly. "Every gun become a bun," he sang, unable at the spur of the moment to come up with anything sophisticated.
The Citizens stared down at their weapons. They had turned into bread. The rifles were long French loaves covered with icing, making them technically buns. The pistols were fluffy sweet masses. The miniature laser tubes were biscuits.
The Rifleman looked down at his sticky bun. He doubled over with laughter. "The bun is the lowest form of humor!" he gasped.
"First the robots rebel. Now this!" a Citizen complained. "What next?"
The magic ripple crossed the colorful cubist palace. The corrugated contours seemed to flex and flash new colors. Trees appeared within the structure. A creature flew up with a screech, as startled as the Citizens. Huge, dirty wings made a downdraft of air.
It was a harpy. She flew low over the heads of the staring people, her soiled bare bosom heaving as she hurled angry epithets. Filthy feathers drifted down. The harpy had been as eager to depart this strange situation as the Citizens were to see the creature go.
"You can do it!" Merle breathed beside him. "You really can do magic! I knew it, yet I could not quite believe-"
"I am the Blue Adept," Stile agreed, watching the crowd of Citizens. He had eliminated fire guns, but his enemies still outnumbered his allies, and the exits were still barred by determined-looking men. For the cavern remained, along with the field; which had greater reality Stile wasn't sure.
Maybe he should conjure himself away from here. But then how would Sheen find him? He had to remain as long as he could.
A new Citizen stood forth. He was garbed in a light-brown robe and seemed sure of himself. "I am the Tan Adept," he announced. "Citizen Tan, in this frame."
Stile studied the man. He had never before encountered him in either frame, perhaps because the man had held himself aloof. But he had heard of him. The Tan Adept was supposed to have the evil eye. Stile wasn't sure how that worked, and didn't care to find out. "Be not proud," he sang. "Make a cloud."
A mass of vapor formed between them, obscuring the Tan Adept. Stile had tried to enclose the man in the cloud so that he could not use his eyes for magic — it seemed likely that deprivation of vision would have the same effect that deprivation of sound did on Blue — but the general immunity of Adepts to each other's direct magic had interfered.
Where was Sheen? Stile could not afford to remain here much longer. Maybe he could depart and locate her magically later. Right now he had to save himself. For the Tan Adept was already slicing through the cloud; Stile could see it sectioning off as if an invisible knife were slicing vertically, then horizontally. As it separated, it lost cohesion, and the vapor dissipated; in moments it would be all gone. Then that knifelike gaze would be directed against Stile.
Stile played his harmonica, summoning more of his power — and again there was something strange about it, causing him to pause. He saw another man, whose hands were weaving mystically in the air. Stile recognized him — the Green Adept. Distracted by the Tan Adept, Stile had missed the other. He was outmagicked!
"I chose not this quarrel, nor wished it," Green said apologetically. "Would I could have avoided it. But must I act."
Stile lowered his harmonica hastily. Against magic his armor was useless. "Another locale," he sang. "My power-
But Tan had succeeded in carving out the center of the cloud, and now his baleful gaze fixed on Stile, halting his incantation. That gaze could not kill or even harm Stile, it turned out, whatever it might have done to an ordinary person, but it did freeze him for a moment. In that moment, Green completed his gesture.
Stile found himself changing. His arms were shrinking, becoming flat, covered with scales. His legs were fusing. He was turning into a fish!
He had lost the battle of Adepts because of the two-to-one odds against him. His power had been occupied resisting the evil eye, leaving him vulnerable to the transformation-spell. Probably Green's magic had been bolstered by that of other Adepts too. But Stile might yet save his life. He leaped toward the dark water of the sacred river Alph, which cut through a corner of the dome.
His fused legs launched him forward — but he could not land upright. He flopped on his belly and slid across the grass that had been the floor. Some of his cloud had precipitated here, making the mixed surface slippery; this helped him more. He threshed with his tail and thrashed with his fins, gasping for water to breathe; he was drowning here in air!
The river was getting closer. An enemy Citizen tried to stop him, stepping into his sliding path. Stile turned this to his advantage, bracing against the man's legs and shoving himself forward again. But he was still too far from the water. His vision was blurring; perhaps this was natural to fish eyes out of water, but it could be because he was smothering.
Mellon, catching on, charged across to aid Stile. He bent down, threw his arms about Stile's piscine torso, and hauled him up. Stile had shrunk somewhat, but remained a big fish, about half the weight of a man. Mellon charged the water with his burden.
But the Tan Adept aimed his deadly gaze at the robot. Again that invisible knife cut through the air and whatever else it touched. Mellon's left leg fell off, severed just above the knee; metal protruded from the thigh like black bone, and bloodlike oil spurted out. The robot fell — but hurled Stile forward.
Stile landed heavily, bounced, and slid onward, rotating helplessly. His sweeping fish eye caught the panorama of Xanadu: the majority of Citizens standing aghast, the enemies with dawning glee, the two Adepts orienting on Stile again — and Merle launching herself at the Tan Adept from behind. She might have betrayed Stile once, but she was making up for it now! That would take one Adept out for a few vital moments — but Green would still score if he wished to. Stile suspected the fish-enchantment had been a compromise, much as had been Merle's sending him to the mines. But it could also have been the first spell that came to Green's mind under pressure, not what he would otherwise have chosen. No sense waiting for the next one!
Stile's inertia was not enough to carry him to the water. The precipitation ran out, the floor of grass became dry, and Stile spun to an uncomfortable halt. He flipped his tail, but progress on this surface was abrasive and slow.
And what would he do once he reached the water? He could not transform himself back to his natural form, for he no longer could speak or sing. Certainly he couldn't play the harmonica!
Merle kept Tan occupied, in much the way she had done for Stile. The man could not concentrate his deadly gaze on anything at the moment. The surface of the river Alph bubbled and shot out steam as the evil-eye beam glanced by it, and a section of the palace was sliced off; Stile himself was clear.
But the Green Adept was making another gesture. He had evidently immobilized the self-willed machines who had tried to help Stile; all of them were frozen in place. Now it was Stile's turn again — and he knew he could not get clear in time.
Something flew down from the half-open sky. Had the harpy returned? No, it was a bat. A vampire bat! It flew at the Green Adept, interfering with his. spell. Stile's Phaze allies were coming to the rescue!
But Stile was suffocating. The process was slower than it would have been for a human being; fish metabolism differed. But it was just as uncomfortable. He made a final effort and flipped himself the rest of the way to the water. He splashed in at last, delighting in the coolness and wetness of it. He swam, and the liquid coursed in his open mouth and out his gills, and he was breathing again. Ah, delight!
He poked an eye out of the water just in time to see the bat fall. Apparently this was the only one to find him; the vampires must have maintained a broad search pattern, not even knowing how they might be needed. If the first had given the alarm, more would swarm in, and other creatures too — but all would be helpless
against the two Adepts. Stile had to save himself.
He turned in the water and swam rapidly downstream. Maybe he was finished anyway, but somehow he hoped someone would find a way to rescue and restore him.
He swam the river Alph, which, true to its literary origin, flowed past seemingly endless caverns to a dark nether sea. Here the water was sucked into a pipe for pumping back to the artificial source, a fountain beyond the palace.
There was a whirlpool above the intake; he didn't want to get drawn into that!
What was he to do now? He had survived, yes — but anyone who had tried to help him at the Citizens' meeting was now in deep trouble, and Stile had no way to ameliorate that. He could do no magic. He could not leave the water. All he could do was swim and hope, knowing his enemies would soon dispatch all his friends and come after him here.
Then the water level started dropping. Oh, no! They had turned off the river, diverting the flow. He would soon be left stranded, to die — which was probably the idea. Possibly Xanadu was shut down between meetings anyway; this time the process had been hastened, to be sure of him.
Stile swam desperately upstream, hoping to find some side eddy that would not drain completely. There was none; the stone floor of the river was universally slanted for drainage. But in one cavern there was a small, pleasant beach, perhaps where Kublai Khan had liked to relax with his wives. Stile nudged himself a hole in the sand and nosed small rocks into place. Maybe he could trap some water for himself.
It didn't work. The water drained right out through the sand, leaving him gasping again. And suppose his private pool had held? He would quickly have exhausted the oxygen in that limited supply. He had to flip and scramble to get back into the deeper center channel where a trickle still flowed.
Desolate, he let the water carry him down toward the drain. It was the only way he could hang on to life a little longer.
Something came down the channel, its feel splashing in the shallow water. It was a wolf. A werewolf-another of Stile's friends! It was sniffing the surface, searching for something. Maybe it was hungry.
Stile had to gamble. He splashed toward the wolf, making himself obvious. If the creature did not know him, this would be the end. His present mass was similar to that of the wolf, but he was in no position to defend himself.
The wolf sniffed — and shifted to man-form. "I know thee, Adept," he said. "Thy smell distinguishes thee in any form. But I have no water for thee, no way to carry thee. I am but part of the search pattern, looking for thee and the enemy we are to battle. Do thou wait in what water thou hast, and I will bring help."
Stile threshed wildly, trying to convey meaning. "Ah, I understand," the werewolf said. "Enemy Adepts will follow me to thee when they divine I have found thee. But I will go instead to the enchantress, who can surely help thee from afar once I advise her. Do thou survive ten more minutes; then all be well." He shifted back to wolf-form and ran swiftly upstream.
Enchantress? That had to be another Adept — and not Brown, whose magic applied only to the animation of golems. A witch surely meant trouble. Had White convinced the animals she was on their side? Woe betide him if they trustingly delivered him into her hands!
But still he had no choice. He went on down to the sunless sea and huddled in the diminishing current as the last of the water drained out the bottom. Maybe the enchantress, whoever she was, really did mean to help him, since she knew he would die if she didn't. The Adepts had no need to locate him; they could simply wait for the draining water to eliminate him.
Unless she wanted to be absolutely sure…
Yet the Green and Tan Adepts already knew he was confined to the river. They could locate him readily, just by walking down the channel. So this sorceress must be on a different side-
12. Juxtaposition (J)
Suddenly he was in a giant fish bowl, and Sheen was peering in at him. She was surrounded by wolves and bats. "That's you, Stile?" she inquired rhetorically. "Just a moment while I revert you."
She opened a book and leafed through the pages while Stile turned about in his confined quarters with difficulty. No, it wasn't that the tank was small; he was big. The bowl had not been designed for thirty kilograms of fish.
"Ah, there it is," she said. She concentrated on Stile, lifted two fingers of her left hand, winked, and said, "Umph," while she tapped her right foot.
Abruptly Stile was in man-form again. Behind him was the fish bowl, undisturbed. He was dressed in the manner of a Citizen, and his harmonica was with him. He stood inside a small force-field dome set in a forest glade. The huge gruff shapes of ogres guarded it outside, as if the werewolves and vampires inside were not enough. Some sort of magic scintillated above, probably warding off hostile spells. An automatic laser unit swung its lens back and forth, questing for unauthorized intrusions. Magic and science merged.
"You did this?" he asked Sheen. "Conjured me here, changed me back?"
"You can't have been paying very close attention. Didn't you see me use the book of magic?" She patted its cover.
"But you're not alive! How can you do magic?"
"Machines are excellent at following instructions."
"The book — that good?"
She handed it to him. "Better. I am as yet a novice; I had only minutes to study it before you got yourself enchanted. It is the perfect key; it will make you the power of the millennium."
Stile considered, holding the book. He remembered the Oracle's considerations of human abilities and corruptibility. Was he really as incorruptible as he was supposed to be? Already, to obtain the book, he had compromised himself with Merle. Rationalization was easy to fall into. Suppose he started using that book of magic, for the best causes, and became addicted to it? Spells so easy that a robot — a robot- could master them at a glance, so potent they could instantly counter the enchantment of an Adept. Truly, that book represented power like none before imagined.
He handed back the book. "Keep it, Sheen. Use it with discretion. I have enough power already."
"But what about Trool the troll?"
"You handle it. With the book, you can do it."
"I can't cross the curtain to reach the Oracle's palace."
"You're across it now."
Her eyes widened. He kept being surprised by the detail of her human reactions. "So I am! But I couldn't before."
"The curtain isn't moving, it's widening. Now it comes in halves, with a steadily broadening region of overlap of frames between the fringes. This is the halfway region, the area of juxtaposition. You may not be able to cross the whole curtain at once, but you can cross it by halves now. I'll move the Phazite across it the same way."
"That must explain the strange thing I saw," she said.
"What thing?" In a situation where lasers and spells mixed, what could be strange?
"As I was casting about for a suitable place to set up this haven, I saw two men, a Citizen and an Adept. The Black Adept, by your description — made from a line. The Citizen had a line too, a financial line vital to his being. The two people came together as if drawn unwillingly — and suddenly they merged. One man stood where two had been. It must have been the two selves of the two frames reuniting in the common zone."
"So it must," Stile agreed, awed by the concept. "Juxtaposition is more literal than I thought! The divided people become whole people — for a while. They will surely separate again when the frames do. I wonder how the two Blacks feel about each other right now!"
She smiled. "There must be a number of very confused people! Not only two bodies together, but two half-souls too." Then she sobered, remembering that she had no soul at all.
"Speaking of confused people — I left a remarkable situation in Xanadu. I don't know whether Merle and the Rifleman-"
"I will check on it," Sheen said. She touched a button, and a holo-image formed, showing the Xanadu cavern.
The scene was horrendous. Merle and the Rifleman were confined in a cage whose bars were formed of ice, s
lowly melting in the heat of the chamber. Four hungry griffins paced just outside the cage, eager to get at the morsels within. In minutes the prisoners would be doomed.
"The Adepts want to be sure I'm dead," Stile said. "If I'm alive and aware, they know I will act to save my friends. If the ice melts and the monsters feast, the enemy Adepts will know I'm helpless."
"I did conjure a dead fish to replace you in the sunless sea," Sheen said. "I thought it would be enough. This dome is resistive to perception; they do not know we are here."
"Where are we?"
"In the heart of the ogre demesnes."
"Should be safe enough," he agreed. "But my enemies are right. I can't let the only two Citizens who helped me — I just can't leave them to this fate. I must act."
"Maybe I can do it in a way that won't betray you." She looked in the index of the book of magic again. "What type of spell should I search for?"
"Something that seems coincidental, natural. Some regular enemy to griffins that happens to wander by. Dragons, maybe."
"Here it is," she said brightly. "A spell to attract flying dragons. It's a visual display that only dragons can see, suggestive of griffins raiding the dragon nests to steal diamonds. It enrages them, and they launch toward battle."
"Excellent. Just see that they don't attack my friends."
She got on it, uttering what sounded like gibberish and stamping both feet. "That does it. I modified it to make the dragons protective toward people caged in ice. The nest syndrome, again. They'll melt the bars without hurting the prisoners. The enemy Adepts will be too busy containing the dragons to worry about the prisoners, who will surely disappear rapidly into the labyrinth of Proton. Do you want to watch?"
Stile glanced again through the holo at the prisoners. The Rifleman was holding Merle, shielding her from the cold of the ice and the reaching claws and beaks of the griffins. They made a rather fetching couple. Perhaps this incident would give the two respect for each other and lead to a passing romance.
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