Phaze Doubt

by Piers Anthony

  “I ask this not o’ thee,” Purple said, pausing again. “I came only to spare myself a life confined, under geas. An the truth purchase me that, I be satisfied.”

  Brown looked to the side. There was the Blue Adept and the Lady Blue. “Stile! I beg thee, an our friendship mean aught, let not this horror be!”

  Stile lifted his hands. “Thou be pardoned, Purple, at Brown’s behest. An thou do no further evil, we spare thee death and confinement, and thy paramour too. Get thee gone from our sight.” He was evidently somewhat disgusted—but only somewhat. He had never been a vengeful man, when there were reasonable alternatives. He turned to the Hectare standing behind him. “Do thou input it to thy net: he to be watched but not molested.”

  The BEM extended one small tentacle, its tip tilted up.

  Slowly Purple turned. “Lady, thou be more generous to me than I were to thee. I thank thee for what I expected not.” Then he turned again and walked away, and no one challenged him.

  No one except Alyc, who tackled him and embraced him. He put an arm around her. He had always had an eye for young women, and she was reputed to be a most passionate one.

  Now Brown saw the Tan Adept, with the vampire Jod’e beside him. Tan had used his power to fascinate the lovely bat woman, who was blameless. Brown opened her mouth.

  “And Tan, pardoned,” Blue said before Brown could speak.

  The BEM made another note.

  “I thank thee, O my lady!” Jod’e exclaimed.

  Tan walked away, with Jod’e. Brown had to admit that they did make a decent couple. With a bat wife, Tan would not again betray the interests of Phaze.

  Another couple came forward. It was Lysander, who had turned out to be another enemy spy, but who had in the end chosen to help save Phaze, and his companion Echo or Oche. “When you took Tsetse to Hardom to help Purple play his game with the Hectare, I was the one you took, in the guise of Tsetse. I apologize for deceiving you in this manner.”

  Brown was amazed. “Thou? A man?” But she realized that it was possible. She had known that the person was larger than Tsetse, and of course she hadn’t verified for gender.

  “Yes. The prophecy indicated that my cooperation was required if the planet shell was to be saved. Thus I was integral to Phaze Doubt, and Nepe brought me to help her fetch the key element of the counterploy.”

  Phaze Doubt. She realized that that would have been their name for the project to save Phaze. “The key element?”

  An attractive young woman of about seventeen stepped up. “I was the one he fetched, in the form of a BEM seed,” she said. “I am known currently as Weva, though with the reversal this is approximate. I want to thank you, Adept, for enabling me to come into existence, and to help save Phaze.”

  So this was the new BEM Adept, whose music had indeed saved Phaze! Without her, all would have been lost. “I be glad, now, it happened,” Brown said.

  “My companion Flach sends his regrets, and those of the Robot Adept; they are occupied at the moment in conjuring the last snow demons to the western reaches, where it is now suitably cold. I offered to help, but Flach preferred to handle it himself.”

  Brown looked at her. “Thou dost disagree?”

  Weva smiled wryly. “Not really. I think he has to bid farewell to a certain snow demoness before he can get serious about me.”

  Brown laughed. “Methinks I heard about Icy! Believe me, he had his future not with her!”

  “True. But I think I will remind him of it several times before I let him settle down to his future with me. Meanwhile, I am glad to meet you, who were instrumental in my genesis. I had no parents, really, but I always thought that someone like you—” She shrugged. “A foolish notion, of course.”

  “A mother figure?” Brown asked, amazed.

  “I should not have mentioned it,” Weva said quickly, flushing. “Now I realize that I had no right to cast you as—”

  “Nay, girl, I be not affronted!” Brown exclaimed. “Gladly would I have had a child like thee, an it been possible without—”

  A tear showed at the girl’s eye. “Then—?”

  “May I hug thee, Weva?”

  “Oh, yes!” Weva opened her arms and embraced her.

  “Thou must visit me,” Brown said. “Thou and thy young—” She hesitated. “Flach and Nepe be similarly reversed?”

  “Yes. We are working it out. For now, we agree that he is male and I female. In time I’m sure the ambiguity will be resolved.”

  “Surely it will,” Brown agreed. It occurred to her that there could be another reason that Weva chose to identify with her, Brown. That sexual ambiguity…

  Now a unicorn stepped forward. It was Neysa. She assumed her woman form, actually that of Nessie the Moebite emulating hers. “I be last,” she said, “ ‘cause my burden be most onerous.”

  “Thou?” Brown asked, astonished. “Thou hast been always my best friend, Neysa!”

  “Aye. That be why my pain be most, that I betrayed thee in thine hour o’ need.”

  “What? Thou didst ne’er—”

  “Nay, I did! When thou didst tell me what I somehow hall ne’er fathomed before, and sought my support.”

  “Thou gavest it, Neysa. Thou didst—”

  “I said thy shame would not be known. I, who loved outside my species, and had not the courage to confess it, and who condemned my filly when she did have the courage—how could I have condemned thee for loving in other manner! I were hypocrite when I hurt thee, Brown, and deep be my thereof.” There had been one tear at Weva’s eye; there was a stream at Neysa’s eyes. “It were not thy shame, O truest friend, it were mine.”

  Brown opened her mouth to protest, but was frozen. For from the mare radiated the splash of truth. It caused the air to shimmer, and the ground to ripple, and the sky to shift color, crossed the assembled folk, and from them radiated echoing splashes, their ripples crisscrossing. That backwash intersected the spot where Brown and Tsetse stood, and suddenly Brown felt the great current of support from all the gathering. The knew—and they accepted her way, as she accepted theirs.

  Brown embraced Neysa. “There be no shame,” she said. Now it was true. The last doubt of Phaze had been resolved.

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