"As thou dost choose." The Green Adept made a signal with the fingers of his left hand and disappeared.
"I mislike these omens," the Lady said. "Methought our troubles were over."
"Loose ends remain, it seems. I had hoped we could let them be for at least this fortnight."
"Surely we can," she agreed, opening her arms to him. The hawk flew quietly away. The weapon of the unicorn had not, after all, been needed.
Next day they resumed the ride north. Stile made a small spell to enhance Hinblue's velocity and let Clip run at full speed. They fairly flew across the rolling terrain. Fire jetted from the unicorn's nostrils, and his hooves grew hot enough to throw sparks. Unicorns, being magic, did not sweat; they ejected surplus heat at the extremities.
After a time they slowed. Stile brought out his harmonica and played, Clip accompanied him on his saxophone-voiced horn, and the lady sang. The magic closed about them, seeming to thicken the air, but it had no force without Stile's verbal invocation.
"We can camp the night at the Yellow Demesnes," Stile said. "The curtain clips a corner of-"
"By no means!" the Lady snapped, and Clip snorted.
Stile remembered. She didn't like other Adepts, and Yellow liked to take a potion to convert herself from an old crone to a luscious young maid — without otherwise changing her nature. Also, her business was the snaring and selling of animals, including unicorns. Stile had traded magical favors with Yellow in the past and had come to respect her, but he could understand why his wife and steed preferred not to socialize.
"Anything for thee," he agreed. "However, night approaches and the White Mountains lie beyond."
"Indulge thyself in a spell, Adept."
"How soon the honeymoon turns to dull marriage," he grumbled. Clip made a musical snort of mirth, and the lady smiled.
The ramshackle premises of Yellow appeared. Both animals sniffed the air and veered toward the enclosure. Hastily Stile sang a counterspelclass="underline" "This will cure the witch's lure." That enabled them to ignore the hypnotic vapor that drew animals in to capture and confinement. Before long they had skirted those premises and moved well on toward the termination of the plain to the north.
At dusk they came to the White Mountain range. Here the peaks rose straight out of the plain in defiance of normal geological principles; probably magic had been involved in their formation.
The curtain blithely traveled up the slope at a steep angle. It would have been difficult to navigate this route by daylight; at night the attempt would be foolhardy. "And there are snow-demons," the Lady said as an afterthought.
Stile pondered, then conjured a floating ski lift. It contained a heated stall for two equines, complete with a trough filled with fine grain, and a projecting shelf with several mugs of nutri-cocoa similar to what was available from a Proton food machine. Clip could have converted to hawk-form and flown up, but the cold would have hin dered him, and this was far more comfortable. Unicorn and horse stepped into the stalls and began feeding, while Stile and the lady mounted for their repast. Eating and sleep ing while mounted was no novelty it was part of the joy of Phaze.
They rode serenely upward as if drawn by an invisible cable. "Yet I wonder where this magic power comes from?" Stile mused. "I realize that the mineral Phazite is the power source for magic, just as its other-frame self, Protonite, is the basis for that scientific, energy-processing society. But why should certain people, such as the Adepts, channel that power better than others? Why should music and doggerel verse implement it for me, while the Green Adept needs special gestures and the White Adept needs mystic symbols? There is a certain channelization here that can not be coincidental. But if it is natural, what governs it? If it is artificial, who set it up?"
"Thou wert ever questioning the natural order," the Lady Blue said affectionately. "Asking whence came the Proton objects conjured to this frame, like the harmonica, and whether they were turning up missing from that frame, making us thieves."
So his other self had speculated similarly! "I wonder if I could conjure a source of information? Maybe a smart demon, like the one Yellow animates with a potion."
"Conjure not demons, lest they turn on thee," she warned, and Clip gave an affirmative blast on his horn.
"Yes, I suppose there are no shortcuts," Stile said. "But one way or another, I hope to find the answer."
"Mayhap that is why mischief lurks for thee at the West Pole," the Lady said, not facetiously. "Thou canst not let things rest, any more in this self than in thine other."
That was quite possible, he thought. It was likely to be the curious child with a screwdriver who poked into a power outlet and got zapped, while the passive child es caped harm. But man was a curious creature, and that insatiable appetite for knowledge had led him to civiliza tion and the stars. Progress had its dangers, yet was neces sary-
Something rattled against the side of the gondola stall, startling them. Clip shifted instantly to hawk-form, dropping Stile so suddenly to the floor that he stumbled face-first into the food trough as if piggishly hungry. Hinblue eyed him as he lifted his corn- and barley-covered face, and made a snort that sounded suspiciously like a snicker. "Et tu, Brute," Stile muttered, wiping off his face while the Lady tittered.
Soon Clip returned from his survey of the exterior situation, metamorphosing to man-form. "Snow-demons," he said. "Throwing icicles at us."
Stile made a modification spell, and the chamber drew farther out from the mountainside, beyond reach of icicles. So much for that. "Yet this will complicate our night's lodging," Stile commented.
"Nay, I know a snow-chief," the Lady said. "Once the demons were enemies of my Lord Blue, but we have healed many, and this one will host us graciously enough, methinks."
"Mayhap," Stile said dubiously. "But I shall set a warning spell against betrayal."
"Do thou that," she agreed. "One can never be quite certain with demons."
They crested the high peak and followed the curtain to an icebound hollow in a pass on the north side. "Here, belike, can we find my friend," the Lady said.
Stile placed the warning spell, and another to keep warm — a warmer and a warmer, as the Lady put it — and they rode out. There was a cave in the ice, descending into the mountain. They approached this, and the snow demons appeared.
"I seek Freezetooth," the Lady proclaimed. "Him have I befriended." And in an amazingly short time, they were in the cold hall of the snow-chief.
Freezetooth was largely made of snow and ice. His skin was translucent, and his hair and beard were massed, tiny icicles. Freezing fog wafted out of his mouth as he spoke. But he was affable enough. Unlike most of his kind, he could talk. It seemed that most demons did not regard the human tongue as important enough to master, but a chief had to handle affairs of state and interrogate prisoners. "Welcome, warm ones," he said with a trace of delicately suppressed aversion. "What favor do you offer for the privilege of nighting at my glorious palace?"
Glorious palace? Stile glanced about the drear, ice-shrouded cave. It was literally freezing here — otherwise the snow-demons would melt. Even protected by his spell, Stile felt cold.
"I have done thy people many favors in past years," the Lady reminded Freezetooth indignantly, small sparks flashing from her eyes. That was a trick of hers Stile always admired, but several snow-demons drew hastily back in alarm.
"Aye, and in appreciation, we consume thee not," the chief agreed. "What hast thou done for us lately, thou and thy cohorts?"
"This cohort is the Blue Adept," she said, indicating Stile.
There was a ripple through the cave, as of ice cracking under stress. Freezetooth squinted, his snowy brow crusting up in reflection. "I do recall something about a white foal-"