“Careful! Thou wilt spear me!” he protested, grabbing her about the neck and hanging on to steady himself. She snorted. She had perfect control of her horn, and would never skewer something she didn’t mean to, or miss something she aimed for. She blew a questioning note.
“Nice of thee to inquire,” Stile said, ruffling her sleek black mane with his fingers. He was feeling better already; there was a healing ambience about unicorns. “But it’s nothing. Next time I’ll have thee carry me; thou dost a better job.”
The unicorn made another note of query. “Oh, that,” he replied. “Sheen took care of me and got me to the Game on time. I had to match with a Citizen, a former Tourney winner. He nearly finished me.” She blew a sour note.
“No, he was a top Gamesman,” Stile assured her. “A player of my caliber. It was like doing battle in this frame with another Adept! But I had a couple of lucky breaks, and managed to win in the last moment. Now he’s going to help me find out who, there, is trying to wipe me out.” He tapped his own knee, meaningfully. “And of course once we settle with the Herd Stallion, we’ll set out to discover who killed me here in Phaze. I don’t like having anonymous enemies.” His expression hardened. “Nay, I like that not at all!”
The Lady Blue appeared. She wore a bathing suit, and was as always so lovely it hurt him. It was not that she was of full figure, for actually she was less so than Sheen, but that somehow she was exquisitely integrated, esthetically, in face and form and manner. The term “Lady” described her exactly, and she carried its ambience with her regardless what she wore. “Welcome back, my lord,” she murmured. “Thank thee. Lady.” He had been absent only a day, but the shift of frame was so drastic that it seemed much longer.
“Thy friend Hulk has returned.”
“Excellent,” Stile said. He was somewhat stiff from the bruising football game, but glad to be back here and quite ready to receive the Oracle’s advice.
“Thou’rt weary,” the Lady said. “Let me lay my hands on thee.”
“Not necessary,” Stile demurred. But she stopped him and ran her soft hands across his arms and around his neck, and where they touched, his remaining discomfort faded. She kneaded the tight muscles of his shoulders, and they loosened; she pressed his chest, and his breathing eased; she stroked his hair and the subconscious headache became nonexistent. The Lady Blue was no Adept, but she did possess subtle and potent healing magic, and the contact of her fingers was bliss to him. He did not want to love her, yet, for that would be foolhardy; but only iron discipline kept him from sliding into that emotion at a time like this. Her touch was love.
“I would that my touch could bring the joy to thee that thy touch does to me,” Stile murmured.
She stopped immediately. It was a silent rebuke that he felt keenly. She wanted no closeness with him. Not while she mourned her husband. Perhaps not ever. Stile could not blame her.
They moved on into the castle-proper. The Lady preceded him to the bath, where Hulk soaked in a huge tile tub set flush with the floor, like that of a Proton Hammam. The huge man saw the Lady, nodded, then in an after-thought sought ineffectively to cover himself. “I keep for-getting this is not Proton,” he muttered sheepishly. “Men don’t go naked in mixed company here.”
“Thou’rt clothed in water,” the Lady reassured him. “We be not overly concerned with dress, here. My present suit differs not much from nudity.” She touched the blue material momentarily. “I have myself stood naked before a crowd and thought little of it. The animals wear no clothing in their natural forms, and oft not in their human shapes. Even so, I would not have intruded, but that my lord is here and needs must be informed immediately.” “That’s right!” Hulk agreed. “Do thou step outside a moment. Lady, and I’ll get right out of this.”
“No need,” Stile said. “I am here.” He had been behind Hulk, whose attention had been distracted by the prior entry of the Lady.
“Oh. Okay. I have the Oracle’s answer. But thou dost not have much time. Stile. May I talk to thee privately?”
“If the Lady is amenable,” Stile agreed. “And what is this, unfit for mine ears?” the Lady Blue demanded. “Well I know you two are not about to ex-change male humor. Is there danger?”
Hulk looked guilty. He used his fingers to make a ripple in the bath water. “There may be. Lady.” The Lady looked at Stile, silently daring him to send her away. She called him “lord” and deferred to him in the presence of others, for the sake of appearances, but he had no private power over her.
“The Lady has suffered loss already,” Stile said. “I am no fit replacement, yet if the Oracle indicates danger for me, she is rightfully concerned. She must not again be forced to run the Blue Demesnes without the powers of an Adept.”
“If thou wishest,” Hulk agreed dubiously. “The Oracle says that thou canst only defeat the Herd Stallion by obtaining the Platinum Flute.”
“The Platinum Flute?” Stile repeated, perplexed.
“I never heard of it either,” Hulk said, making further idle ripples with his hand. The ripples traveled to the edges of the tub, then bounced back to cross through the new ripples being generated. Stile wondered passingly whether the curtain that separated the frames of science and magic was in any way a similar phenomenon. “But there was another querist there, a vampire—“
“The likes of us have naught to do with the likes of them!” the Lady Blue protested.
“Or with the unicorns or werewolves?” Stile asked her, smiling wryly.
She was silent, unmollified. Certainly her husband had not had much association with such creatures. The free presence of unicorns and werewolves in the Blue Demesnes dated from Stile’s ascendance. He felt this was an improvement, but the Lady was evidently more conservative. “Actually, he was not a bad sort at all,” Hulk said. “I lost my way, going in, and he flew by in bat-form, saw I was in trouble, and changed to man-form and offered to help. He hadn’t realized I was human; he thought I was a small giant or an ogre, and those pseudomen sort of look out for each other. I think he was rather intrigued by my motorcycle, too; not many contraptions like that in Phaze! I was afraid I was in for the fight of my life, when I realized what kind of creature he was, but he told me they only take the blood of animals, which they normally raise for the purpose and treat well. In war, they suck the blood of enemies, but that’s a special situation. They never bother friends. He laughed and said it wasn’t true that people bitten by vampires become vampires themselves; that’s a foul myth propagated by envious creatures. Maybe that story originated from a misinterpretation of their love-rites, when a male and a female vampire share each other’s blood. The way he told it, it almost sounded good. A fundamental act of giving and accepting. I guess if I loved a vampire lady, I’d let her suck—“ He broke off abruptly, embarrassed. “I didn’t say that well. What I mean is—“ Stile laughed, and even the Lady smiled briefly.
“There is no shame in love, any form,” Stile said. “Uh, sure,” Hulk agreed. “I got to talking with him, and the more I knew him, fhe better I liked him. He drew me a map in the dirt so I could locate the Oracle’s palace with-out getting in trouble. Then he changed back to a bat and flew off. And you know, that route he pointed out for me was a good one; I made it to the Oracle in a couple more hours, when it could’ve been days the way I had been going.”
Hulk made another wave on the water, one that swamped the pattern of wavelets. “I’m finding it harder not to believe in magic. I saw that man change, I saw him fly. He was there when I arrived, and showed me that room where the Oracle was—just a tube sticking out of the wall. I felt sort of silly, but I went ahead and asked ‘How can Stile defeat—‘ I forgot to use thy Phaze title, but it was too late, and it didn’t seem to matter to the Oracle—‘How can Stile defeat the unicorn Herd Stallion in fair combat at the Unolympics?’ And it replied ‘Borrow the Platinum Flute.’ I couldn’t understand that, and asked for a clarification, but the tube was dead.”