"Can – can you change form and fly ahead, and see?" he asked. "I can keep the canoe moving meanwhile."
"That distance? Aye, now. But it will be slower for thee," she pointed out.
"I realize. But I've got to know."
"Aye." She shipped her paddle, changed, and flew up and ahead. Mach continued paddling, trying to put extra strength into it so as to maintain speed, but knew it wasn't enough.
The bat returned. It landed on the seat, and changed. "She be there," Suchevane said. "I did not approach, for that would have taken too much time; I returned the moment I spied her. She be trudging up toward the ledge, just a few minutes distant from it." She resumed paddling, and the canoe picked up speed.
"Then we're in time!" Mach exclaimed.
"Nay," she said sadly. "She will reach it before we do – and then we shall be at the bottom, while she be at the top. No way to stop her, unless perchance we call and she hear."
They paddled furiously, and the canoe fairly leaped along, but the spell of endurance had not allowed for this extra energy, and they were now tiring. Mach saw sweat staining Suchevane's black halter, and her hair was becoming a stringy tangle, and he himself was panting. But the high face of the cliff was coming into sight.
Far up, on the ledge, stood a tiny figure. Mach knew it was Fleta, locked in her human form. If only she waited until he could get close –
And what would he have to say to her, then? That he had decided to leave her forever and return to Proton! What glad news would that be for her?
There was a faint ripple in the air. As it passed through him, Mach thought he heard his name cried out with hopeless longing.
"Nay!" Suchevane gasped.
Horrified, Mach saw. Fleta had just leaped from the ledge, and was doing a graceful swan-dive into the pool of darkness below.
He could not reach her in time – and could not catch her if he were there. The height of the fall was far too great. She would be dashed into oblivion on the rock below.
As if it were in slow motion, he watched her plunge, her arms outspread. He knew it was for love of him she had done this, to free him from the need to be with her. But he could not let it happen!
He cast about for some magic to use to save her, but in the pressure of the eternal moment his thoughts were glacial. He could not make a rhyme, let alone sing it! And if he could, how could his puny magic prevail against that of an Adept? All he knew was that he loved her, and could not let her go. Not for any reason. And still she dropped.
"Thee!" he cried into the void that separated them.
The frame itself seemed to still, all the sights and sounds of it pausing in place as if listening.
"Thee!" he cried again.
A haze formed, an inward-drawing expectation, fogging out all the landscape beyond their canoe, the falling girl, and the line between them. Magic was coalescing.
"Thee!" he cried the third time, and all of his soul was in it.
The power of it jumped like a lightning bolt, from him to her, and struck her, and radiated out from her like sunrise, brightening the face of the cliff, the rocky ground, and the welkin above. A soundless explosion, striking iridescence from the environment and rippling on throughout the frame.
The face of the cliff was so clear it was mirrorlike, and the colors of the trees and sky were preternaturally bright, as though washed totally clean. The air was absolutely pure.
And she was gone. Where the falling human figure had been, there was nothing.
"The splash!" Suchevane breathed, and now her sweat was gone and her hair was sparkling; she was lovelier than ever before. "Ne'er before one like that! I love all everything!"
"But my love!" Mach cried in dawning horror. "What did I do to Fleta?"
They stared into the radiant emptiness before them, aghast.
Then came the sound of the hummingbird.
Almost afraid to believe it, Mach held up his hand. The tiny bird darted in and landed on it. The feathers of the folded wings were shining black, and the claws were golden.
"The splash!" Suchevane repeated. "It nulled the spell Trool put on her!"
"And her involuntary reflex took over," Mach said. "She saved herself!"
"But none hath power to null Adept magic!" the vampiress continued. "None save another Adept. Methinks thou must be – "
The bird hopped to the canoe, and abruptly Fleta was there in girl form, her sudden weight making the craft rock. She gazed at Mach for half a moment, her eyes brimming, then fell into his embrace.
He knew he could not leave her, no matter what the consequence. All the considerations of the welfare of the frames paled beside the truth of their love.
But that love was forbidden, in Phaze, and he could not take her to Proton. What were they to do?
A watery bubble appeared beside the canoe. The face of the Translucent Adept was in it. "Come to us, and we shall defend thy right to love whom thou dost please, and ne'er will the two of ye be parted," he said. And from him emanated a lesser ripple, in no way on a par with the one just past, yet it signified the truth of his utterance. The Adept had made a promise he would keep.
Now it occurred to Mach that either Stile or the Red Adept could have prevented Fleta's suicide, had they wished to. But what better way to discourage him from remaining in Phaze, than to let Fleta die! Suddenly he understood the nature of the critical mistake the Adept Stile had been fated to make: to let Fleta commit suicide.
Mach's will hardened. "We shall go with you," he said.
Suchevane turned an appalled countenance to them. "I know it be the only way," she said. "I cannot say nay. But O, what mischief be coming o' this!" And from her, too, came the splash of complete conviction.