They took their places. Stile was designated blue, the convention for males, and Hella red, the convention for females. Had two males been competing, they would have been blue and green, or red and yellow for females. The Computer liked things orderly.
The starting buzzer sounded. Stile pushed through the blue door into the labyrinth. Inside the walls and floor were restful light gray, the ceiling a translucent illumination panel. As Stile’s weight came on the floor, it turned blue, panel by panel, and remained that way to show where he had been. Spectators could view this Game on vision screens in mockup form, the patterns developing in red and blue to show the progress of both competitors, appreciating the ironies of wrong turnings and near-approaches to each other.
Stile moved quickly down the hall, his blue trail keeping pace, until he came to the first division. He didn’t hesitate; he took the left passage. Further along, it divided again; this time he took the right passage. The general law of chance would make the right and left splits along the proper way come out about even; this was unreliable for short-term efforts, but still as good a rule to follow as any.
This passage convoluted, turned back on itself, and abruptly dead-ended. So much for general laws! Stile quickly reversed course, following his own blue trail, and took what had been the left passage. This twisted about and finally intersected his original blue trail—the first right turn he had ignored.
Oops—there had to be an odd number of passages available, for at least one led to the red door on the other side of the maze. If two led there, then there would be an even number—with two passages as yet untried. But that was unusual; spectators liked to have the two contestants meet somewhere in the center, and start frantically following each other’s trails, and the Game Computer usually obliged with such a design. He must have missed a passage in his hurry. First mistake, and he hoped it would not prove to be too expensive.
He checked the passage back to the blue door. Nothing there. Then he took off on the right-hand passage he had used to complete the loop. Sure enough, it divided; he had overlooked the other passage because it angled back the way he had come. He should have checked behind him as well as ahead; an elementary precaution. He was not playing well.
However, this was not necessarily time wasted. Hella would be working her way through from the other side, trying to intersect his blue trail that would lead her to the blue door. If he had a single path there, she would have no trouble. As it was, he had turned all paths blue, so she would have no hint; she might get lost, just as he had. Sometimes, in these mazes, one person got nine-tenths of the way through, while the other floundered—and then the flounderer followed the other trail to victory while the nine-tenths person floundered. One could never tell.
He moved on down the new passage. It, too, divided; he moved left and followed new convolutions. This one did not seem to be dead-ending or intersecting itself; good. Now he needed to intersect Hella’s trail before she intersected his.
Stile paused, listening. Yes—he heard her walking in the adjacent passage. That did not necessarily mean she was close; that passage could be a dead-end without connection to this one. Nevertheless, if he knew her location while she did not know his, that could be an advantage. He might sneak in and find her trail while she was still exploring a false lead, and hurry on to victory.
Then he heard her make a small, pleased exclamation. Ouch—that could mean only one thing: she had intersected his trail. Which meant that he was probably the one on the dead-end.
Stile backtracked hastily and silently. Sure enough, her red path intersected his, where he had bypassed the last right passage, and ended there. She was hot on his blue trail, and going the right direction. He was in trouble!
Stile took off down the red trail. He had only two hopes: first that she had a fairly direct trail he could follow without confusion; second that she would get lost on his loops and dead-end.
His first hope was soon dashed; the red trail divided, and he did not know which one was good. He had to guess. He bore right, looped about, came close to the exit-region—and dead-ended. All the breaks were going against him!
He hurried back, no longer bothering to be silent, and took the other trail. It wound about interminably, while at every moment he feared he would hear the clang of her exit and victory. It divided again; he bore right, sweating. If he lost this simple Game to this woman, who really was not the player he was…
Then, abruptly, it was before him: the red door. Stile sprinted for it, suddenly convinced that Hella’s foot was on the sill of the blue door, that even half a second would wipe him out. In his mind’s ear he heard the toll of his loss.
He plunged through. The bell sounded. He had won!
“Damn!” Hella exclaimed from the interior. She had after all gotten lost in his loop, and was nowhere close to the blue door. His alarm had been false.
Sheen was waiting as he emerged. “Take me away from here,” he told her, putting his arm about her slender waist. He suffered another untoward image: Sheen lying torn apart after the tank chase. Yet there was no present evidence of that injury; she was all woman. “I’ve had enough of the Tourney for now!”
“There’ll be more than a day before your next match,” she said. “Time for you to catch your duel with the Herd Stallion in Phaze.”
“I might as well be right here in the Tourney!” he complained. “One contest after another.”
CHAPTER 6
Unolympic
Neysa had taken off early to rehearse with her brother for the incipient exhibitions, at the Lady Blue’s behest. Stile was bothered about the hiatus in protection for the Lady, but was unable to object. She had remained within the castle, reasonably safe.
At the appropriate hour, Stile put his arm about the Lady’s supple waist and uttered a spell that jumped them both to the event. He was getting better at this sort of spell, but still would rather have traveled by conventional means, had there been time.
It was impressive. Eight or ten herds of unicorns had assembled for their competition; each Herd Stallion had his banner mounted at his camp and his subjects ranged about it. There was a tremendous open pasture upon which many hundreds of unicorns grazed. They sported all the colors of moons and rainbow, and were handsome specimens of equine flesh.
Yet there were many other creatures too. Werewolves ranged in small packs, carefully neutral in the sight of so much potential prey. No false growls here! Bats swooped from perch to perch and sailed high in the air in pursuit of insects. Humanoid figures of all types abounded.
A unicorn male trotted up to Stile and the Lady. In a moment he shifted to man-form, neatly attired in a khaki uniform. “Please identify thyself and party and accept an admittance tag.”
“The Blue Adept and Lady Blue,” Stile said.
“Adept! Right this way!” The unicorn’s reaction resembled that of a serf of Proton confronted by a Citizen.
They followed the unicorn to a small pavilion set up beside the exhibition field. Several people reclined on thronelike chairs or couches. They did not rise or make any acknowledgment of Stile’s or the Lady’s arrival. Stile was now well-enough accustomed to the ways of Phaze to know that this nonreaction represented a studied discourtesy to either an Adept or a Lady. But he showed no overt reaction; he wanted first to understand why.
Then a comely young woman stood and approached them. She seemed vaguely familiar. “Thou comest undisguised, my handsome?” she inquired, proffering her hand. There was the hint of a cronish cackle in her voice.
“Yellow!” he exclaimed. “What brings thee here? I thought—”
“Thou didst suppose I had no more youth potions?” she inquired archly. “None that would stand up to a day’s hard use?”
“I recalled thee with fair hair, fairer than those of the Lady Blue, light yellow tresses.” Said tresses were now short, brown and curly. But of course she could make her appearance whatever she chose, for the duration of her potion. This was, as she put it,
her costume. Her dress, at least, was yellow; that was the real key. “I thought the unicorns—” He shrugged.
“It is truce between all attendees of the Unolympics,” she explained. “Well the animals know my nature, but here I exert my powers not, neither do the animals chide me for old affronts. We Adepts have few such social opportunities, and few occasions to socialize with others of our ilk in peace. We take them greedily.”
He remembered that Yellow had been lonely in her own Demesnes, especially for male company. Naturally she would socialize when she safely could. “Ah, like the temple of the Oracle,” Stile said. “No quarrels here.” He looked about. “These be Adepts?”
“And consorts. I forgot that thou rememberest not.” She smiled brilliantly and bobbed her cleavage about, enjoying her youthful form as only an old hag could. What height was to men, he thought, breasts were to women. “Come, my charming; I will introduce thee around.”
A chance to meet other Adepts—one of whom might be his murderer! This was serendipitous, an unexpected windfall.
Yellow conducted them to a woman reclining on a white couch, and garbed in a sparkling white gown. She was of indeterminate middle age, and somewhat stout. “This be White,” Yellow said, indicating her with a half-contemptuous twist of a thumb. Then she jerked the thumb at Stile. “This be Blue, and Lady.”
The White Adept lifted snowy lashes. Her eyes were ageless, like swirls of falling snow. “Reports of thy demise seem to have been exaggerated.”
“No exaggeration,” Stile said. “I seek my murderer.”
“May I be far from the scene of thine encounter,” White said, unalarmed, and turned her wintry orbs back to the field where several unicorns were practicing their acts. Stile remembered that the White Adept had been in the market for a white unicorn; Yellow had mentioned that, at their first encounter. He hoped no such creature had been captured.
Yellow led them on. “Methinks thy appearance here stirs greater commotion than shows,” she murmured with grim satisfaction. “It is well known that thou’rt possibly the strongest current Adept, and that thou hast cause for vengeance. Blue was ne’er wont to attend these functions before. Only be certain thou hast the right party, before thou makest thy move.”
“I shall,” Stile said through his teeth.
Now they approached a man in black. He glanced incuriously at Stile as Yellow made the introduction. “Black … Blue.”
“We have met before,” Stile said evenly.
Black peered at him. “I recall it not.”
“In thy Demesnes, a month ago.” Had it been so short a time? Stile felt as if an age had passed since he had first entered the frame of Phaze and assumed the mantle of the Blue Adept. Subjective experiences had made the days seem like months. Even his encounter with Black seemed impossibly distant. Yet Black was the same, with his line tapering off into the ground, no doubt attaching him to his castle. Black was made of lines.
Black’s linear brow furrowed. “No one intrudes on my Demesnes.”
“With my companions, a unicorn and a werewolf.”
Slowly recognition flickered. “Ah—the man of the Little Folk. I recall it now. I thought thee dead ere now.” He squinted. “Why didst thou not show thy power then?”
“I came in peace—then.” Stile frowned. He did not like the Black Adept, who had imprisoned him and left him to starve. Yet he could not assume this was the murderer he sought. Black really had no interest in the things of other Adepts; he was a recluse. It was surprising that he had bothered to attend the Unolympics. And if he had murdered the Blue Adept, he certainly would have recognized him more readily than this! Finally, Stile knew the nature of Black’s magic: he conjured with lines, not golems or amulets. “If thou intrudest similarly on my Demesnes, I may treat thee with similar courtesy.”
“I can conceive of no circumstances in which I would intrude on thy Demesnes, or associate with the likes of Yellow,” Black said coldly.
“Until thou hast need of a potion or an animal, my arrogant,” Yellow said. “Then thou dost bespeak the crone fair enough.” She led Stile on.
“These people make me nervous,” the Lady Blue murmured. “Never did my Lord take me among them.”
“Thy Lord had excellent taste!” Black muttered from behind.
“So Blue is not thy Lord?” Yellow inquired with a touch of malice. “What fools these peasants be!”
“Call not the Lady Blue a peasant!” Stile snapped, instantly angry. He felt as if he walked among a nest of scorpions.
Yellow’s potion-pretty face twisted into something no girl her apparent age could manage. “I call her—”
“What she is,” the Lady Blue interjected quickly. “Ever have my folk been villagers, farming the land and raising animals, and no shame in it.”
Yellow mellowed. “Aye, no shame in the management of animals. Methinks thy peasant status ceased when thou didst marry Blue. I withdraw that portion of my remark.”
Adepts evidently weren’t accustomed to giving away anything voluntarily! “That portion?” Stile demanded, unappeased. He realized he was behaving exactly like an Adept, but was not in the mood to back off. “Thou leavest her a fool?”
“That were readily abated,” Yellow said. “I have love-potions that—”
“Enough!” Stile said. “The Lady is a widow; I merely assume a role that the Blue Demesnes be not demeaned, and that the great wrong done the Lady may be avenged. I am not her Lord.”
“Passing strange,” Yellow murmured. “With power to enchant an entire unicorn herd, he exercises it not on the Lady who is as lovely as any mortal can be and as spirited as a fine animal and who is legitimately his by right of inheritance. Methinks it is the man who is the fool.”
“Mayhap by thy definition,” the Lady Blue said.
“Even so,” Yellow agreed, shrugging.
They came to a man in a red cloak. He was tall, almost six feet, with red hair and red mustache. “Red … Blue,” Yellow introduced.
Red extended a firm hand. “Glad am I to meet thee,” he said, smiling. He had a handsome face and seemed to be about Stile’s age, though of course the “costume” made all but his basic identity suspect.
Yellow took them to the final couple at the pavilion. “Green and consort,” she said. The Green Adept was another man, short and fat, and his Lady was the same. Both wore green suits and sparkling green jewelry, probably emeralds. “Blue and Lady.”
“Uh-huh,” the Green Adept said curtly. “Now let’s watch the show.” But the Lady Green made a small motion of greeting to the Lady Blue.
“These are all that attend this season,” Yellow said. “On other occasions I have met Orange, Purple and Gray. But they be from afar. There may be other Adepts we know not of; we are a secretive bunch. I make many contacts at the several Olympics.”
“Other Olympics?” Stile asked, remembering something the Herd Stallion had said.
“Every major species has them,” Yellow assured him. “Canolympics, Vampolympics, Snowlympics, Dragolympics—some be better than others. Methinks the Elfolympics are best, with their displays of rare weaponry and dancing little men. Hast thou seen the like, my precious?”
“I noticed only the dancing little damsels,” Stile said. The Lady Blue frowned, but did not comment.
Now the formal program was beginning. Stile and the Lady Blue took seats and watched. First the several unicorn Herds got settled as spectators, each at its assigned location; then the competitive contingents marched onto the field to the sound of their own horns and hooves.
It was an impressive entry. Each contingent marched in step, led by its Herd Stallion. Every horn was elevated at a 45-degree angle; every tail flung out proudly. The surface of the hooves gleamed in the slanting sunlight, iridescent, and the spirals of the horns shot out splays of mirror-light. The animals were all colors and shades: red, orange, gold, yellow, white, gray, blue, black, brown, striped, dotted and checkered. Some were single-colored, except for those col
ors typical of horses; others were multicolored. All were beautiful.
The Lady Blue nudged him, making a gesture toward one section of the march. In a moment he found the place—the local Stallion’s complement, with sixteen picked individuals. There was Neysa, marching in the last line, on the side nearest the pavilion. “He didn’t try to hide her!” Stile murmured appreciatively.
Neysa was smaller than the other unicorns, being barely fourteen hands tall, and she was the only one in the display whose colors were horse-normal—her mark of shame. But now she was the steed and oath-friend of an Adept, and though there was general fear and distrust of Adepts in the animal kingdoms of Phaze, the clear onus of an Adept’s favor was so potent that Neysa now had a place of comparative honor. This was the first time she had been permitted to join the Herd and to participate in its ceremonies, and obviously she reveled in it. The hurt of years was being mended. This much Stile had done for Neysa by taming her; this much she had done for herself by allowing him to practice the magic of his station.
The music swelled in a mighty chorus. Eight Herd Stallions blew the leadoff blasts; eight disciplined display-herds responded with the melody. The ground shook with the measured cadence of their prancing hooves; the air shook with the power of their melody. No human orchestra could match the passion and splendor of this performance. Stile could not remember ever having been spectator to anything as grand as this.
They paraded close by the Adepts’ pavilion, and at the closest point every horn angled abruptly to the left in a salute. There was an abrupt silence, breathtaking in its precision; that sudden cessation of sound was more impressive than a fortissimo blast would have been. Then they marched on, the music resuming, to pass by the other pavilions.
Stile examined those other pavilions now. One was filled with wolves. Another swarmed with bats. Another seated elves, and yet another was stuffed with glowering, horned demons. “Everybody comes to the Unolympics!” Stile breathed, amazed.
Blue Adept Page 19