“Well, do we sneak in this time, or boldly challenge?” Stile asked the unicorn. She blew a note of negation, ending in a positive trill. “I agree,” he said, “I’m tired of sneaking. We’ll settle this openly this time.” He wondered whether it was true that one Adept could not directly enchant another Adept who was on guard. That notion seemed to be giving him confidence, certainly. He faced the door and bawled in as stentorian a voice as he could muster: “Brown, come forth and face Blue!” The huge door cranked open. A giant stood in the door-way. He was as massive as the trunk of an oak, and as gnarly. He carried a wooden club that was longer than Stile’s whole body. “Go ‘way, clownl” he roared. Clown. Oops—he was still garbed in that fool’s suit! Well, let it be; he didn’t want to mess with a nullification spell right now.
Stile was used to dealing with men larger than himself; all men were larger than himself. But this one was extreme. He was just about ten feet tall. If he swung that club, he could likely knock Stile off Neysa before Stile could get close enough to do anything physical.
Unless he used the Platinum Flute as a lance or pike ... But first he had to try the positive approach. “I want to meet the Brown Adept.”
The giant considered. His intelligence seemed inversely proportional to his mass. “Oh,” he said. “Then come in.” Just like that! Neysa trotted forward, following the giant. Soon they were in a large brownwood paneled hall. A man was there, garbed in a brown robe. He was brown of hair, eyes and skin. “What want ye with me?” he inquired, frowning.
“Nothing,” Stile said. “I want the Adept herself.”
“Speak to me,” the man said. “I am Brown.”
“Brown is a woman,” Stile said. “Must I force the issue with magic?”
“Thou darest use thy magic in my Demesnes?” the brown man demanded.
Stile brought out his harmonica and played a few bars.
“I dare,” he said.
“Guard! Remove this man!”
Giants appeared, converging on Stile and Neysa. “I want these creatures swept,” Stile sang quickly. “And bring the Brown Adept.”
It was as if a giant invisible broom swept the giants out of the hall. Simultaneously an eddy carried in a disheveled, angry child. “Thou mean man!” she cried. “Thou didst not have to do that!” Stile was taken aback.
“Thou’rt the Brown Adept?” But obviously she was; his spell had brought her.
“If I were grown and had my full power, thou wouldst never be able to bully me!” she exclaimed tearfully. “I never did anything to thee, clown!”
Appearances could be deceptive, but Stile was inclined to agree. Why would a child murder an Adept who meant her no harm? Unless this was another costume, concealing the true form of the Adept. “I am here to ascertain that,” Stile said. “Show me thy true form.”
“This is my true form! Until I grow up. Now wilt thou go away, since thou art not a very funny clown?”
“Show me thy true form of magic,” Stile said.
“Art thou blind? Thou didst just make a jumble of all my golems!”
Golems! “Thou makest the wooden men!”
She was settling down. “What else? I use the brownwood growing outside. But most of these were made by my pred —the prior Brown Adept. He trained me to do it just before he died.” A tear touched her eye. “He was a good man. It is lonely here without him.”
“Knowest thou not a wooden golem usurped the Blue Demesnes?” Stile demanded.
Her cute brown eyes flashed. “That’s a lie! Golems do only as told. I ought to know. They have no life of their own.”
Like the robots of Proton. Only some robots, like Sheen, and her sophisticated friends, did have consciousness and self-will. “Thou hast sent no golem in my likeness to destroy me?”
Now she faltered, bobbing her brown curls about. “I—I did not. But I have not been Adept long. My predi-pred—“
“Predecessor,” Stile filled in helpfully.
“That’s the word! Thanks. Predecessor. He might have. I don’t know. But he was a good man. He never attacked other Adepts. He just filled orders for them. Golems make the very most dependable soldiers and servants and things, and they never need feeding or sleeping or—“
“So another Adept could have ordered a golem in my likeness?” Stile persisted, piecing it together.
“Sure. He made golems in any likeness, in exchange for other magic he needed. Like a larderful of food, or a get-well amulet—“ Stile pounced on that. “Who traded him an amulet?”
“Why the Red Adept, of course. She makes all the amulets.”
Something was wrong. “I met the Red Adept at the Unolympics. Red was a tall, handsome man.”
“Oh—she was in costume, then. They do that. Just as I tried to do with a golem when thou earnest. Sometimes strangers are bad to children, so Brown warned me not to reveal myself to intruders. I didn’t know thou wert apprised I was a girl.”
It burst upon Stile with dismaying force. The costume! Not merely different clothing or appearance, but different sex too! Child’s play to produce the image of the opposite sex. In fact, Red could have done it without magic. Remove the mustache, lengthen the hair, put on a dress, and the Red he had seen was a woman. Remove the dress so that she was naked, and cover the hair with a skullcap, and it was the woman who had killed Hulk in the mine. How could he have overlooked that?
“Brown, I apologize,” Stile said. “A golem invaded my Demesnes, and I thought thee guilty. I see I was mistaken. I proffer amends.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” she said, smiling girlishly. “I haven’t had company in a long time. But thou mightest put back my giants.”
Stile made a quick spell to restore the golems he had swept away. “Is there aught else I can do for thee before I go?” he inquired.
“Nothing much. I like thy unicorn, but I know they don’t mess with other Adepts or anybody. Only other thing I’m trying to do is grow a nice flower-garden, but they all come up brown and dry. I don’t want thy magic for that; I want to do it myself.”
Neysa blew a note. Stile dismounted, and she shimmered into girl-form. “Unicorn manure grows magic plants,” Neysa said.
“Gee—pretty ones?” Brown asked, her eyes lighting. “Like a Jack-in-the-pulpit who preaches a real sermon, and tiger-lilies who purr?”
Neysa had already changed back to her natural shape.
She blew an affirmative note.
“Send one of thy golems with a cart and fork,” Stile said. “A giant, who can haul a lot. Thou knowest where the herds roam?”
Brown nodded. “I go there all the time, to look at the pretty ‘corns,” she said wistfully. “But I dare not get close to them.”
All girls liked equines. Stile remembered. He looked at Neysa, who nodded. “If thou likest, Neysa will carry thee there this time, and tell her friends to give manure to thy golem.”
“A ride on a unicorn?” Brown clapped her hands with delight. “Oh, yes, yes!”
“Ride, then,” Stile said, glad to make this small amend for his unkind intrusion here. “I will meet thee there.” The child mounted the unicorn somewhat diffidently, and they started off at the smoothest of gaits. Stile knew Neysa would not let Brown fall, and that her unicorn herd would acquiesce to the golem’s acquisition of several loads of excellent manure, for such things were not denied to oath-friends. Neysa had helped bail him out of mischief, again, by making Brown glad for his visit. This had turned out to be the wrong Adept, but the excursion had been worthwhile. Now at last he knew the identity of his enemy. He would not have time to brace the Red Adept after rejoining Neysa at the herd; he had to get back across the curtain for the next Round of the Tourney. But on his return to Phaze. . . .