“Who?”
“The Adepts be the ones with much magic. They be mostly human, but the Red Adept be a troll, and the Unicorn Adept be pan unicorn. The Blue Adept always supported the unicorns, and the werewolves and vampires, so—“
“But you named a Stile Adept.”
“He were the Blue Adept, but he changed selves with Stile, and now he be Citizen Blue, and Stile be the Adept.”
“Oh—so Nepe’s grandfather—“
“Aye,” she tinkled. “Clip’s sister Neysa had a filly, Fleta, who mated with Blue’s son Mach, the rovot—“
“What?”
“In Proton there be rovots,” she tinkled patiently. “Like golems, only made o’ metal. Nepe be their child, so she be—“
“Wait! Wait! I’m all confused. I thought the frames were separate. How could a unicorn filly mate with a robot? Even if it were possible physically, they were in opposite frames!”
“Mach crossed o’er, and took Bane’s body, here, and loved Fleta. Their child be Flach. Bane crossed to Proton, and took Mach’s body, and married Agape the alien, and their child be Nepe. But when the mergence came—“
“They became the same!” Lysander exclaimed, the light dawning. “Stile and Blue are the same, and their sons are the same, and their grandchildren! But—“ He broke off, troubled by another aspect.
“One child be male and one be female,” she tinkled, understanding. “We believed it not either, but it be so. That unbelief were critical in Stile’s victory.”
“Just what was this victory? How did it relate to the merging of the frames?”
“The Adverse Adepts were gaining power, and were in league with the Contrary Citizens, and the Purple Adept sought to kill Stile and assume power. But Blue summoned the Platinum Flute, and Clef to play it, and they piped the frames together. Blue and Stile merged and liked each other, and Fleta and Agape liked each other, and Flach and Nepe, for all were good folk. But the bad Adepts and Citizens were mean folk, each out for himself alone, not sharing power, and they could stand their other selves not, and fell in torment struggling with themselves. By the time they came to accommodation with their opposites, the good folk were firmly in power. Now it be verging on the golden age, for Stile and Blue be reconciled with their sons Mach and Bane and their grandchildren Flach and Nepe, and all value the land and creatures. Ne’er again will evil govern either frame.”
“But how can magic work here, when it is unknown in the rest of the galaxy?”
“It be the Phazite,” she tinkled. “The magic rock ‘neath the mountains. It be the source o’ magic and energy. The bad Citizens were mining it, and selling it, and depleting it, so our magic were less. They cared for our welfare not, any more than they did for the air they spoiled before. But Stile and Blue stopped them, and now little rock goes out.”
“This rock provides magic and energy?”
“Aye. The Proton ships use it and the rovots and ‘chines, and it be best in the galaxy. The Citizens were getting much wealth, but we were fading.” She made a merry serenade of bells. “No more!”
Abruptly she halted. “What’s the matter?” Lysander asked.
“A goblin, spying on us!” she tinkled. “Do thou dismount; needs must I drive him out.”
Lysander quickly got off. Then she was a black panther, bounding into the brush.
There was a swirl of motion, and something like a little man leaped up and dodged behind a tree. The panther circled the tree, but evidently the goblin was gone.
The big cat came back. The beautiful unicorn reappeared. “They have no business here,” she tinkled indignantly. “These be ‘Corn Demesnes.”
Evidently so. Lysander remounted, and they continued on around the grazing herd. By the time they returned to the boy and stallion, the two had evidently finished their conversation. Indeed, the unicorn was grazing again, and the lad was playing with tiny clouds, making the black one chase the white one in crazy patterns just above the ground. When the two collided, there was a crack of thunder, and flare of lightning, and a bucket of water drenched the soil.
The boy became the unicorn. “We thank thee for thy help, Belle,” Flach piped politely. Lysander seemed to understand all music talk now, and he knew he wasn’t imagining it.
“Welcome, Adept,” Belle tinkled. “It be fun to rehearse the history. Tell the Lady we miss her.”
“Aye, I’ll nag her!” the boy said zestfully, reappearing. “Or I will,” the girl Nepe added. The changes seemed instant; Lysander could detect no transition. What else could it be but magic?
Then Nepe extended her hand. Lysander took it, knowing what was coming.
Sure enough, the scene changed. They were standing at the edge of a forest clearing where a number of wolves were lying. The wolves jumped up, smelling the intrusion—and beside Lysander was another wolf. “Tear him not, brothers!” Flach growled, this form of communication also now comprehensible. “I be showing him magic at Blue’s behest.”
A wolf approached Lysander—and abruptly became a woman. She was of indeterminate human age, no young innocent but also not old. “For thee, Flach, we honor this. But canst be sure he be worthy?”
“I thank thee, Bukisaho,” Flach said. “He be new to Phaze, and Blue wants him broken in. I know no more than this, and that he be named Lysander.”
“Thy human names be e’er strange,” she said. “I would second-guess Blue not, but mayhap thou shouldst include the Adept Tania on the tour.”
“Aye, excellent notion, bitch!” the boy exclaimed, startling Lysander.
The woman, noting his reaction, laughed—and so did the surrounding wolves, in their way. “Aye, he be new!” the woman agreed.
A young wolf appeared at the fringe of our, camp. “Sirelmoba!” Flach cried, spying it.
The wolf charged him, leaped into the air with teeth bared— and became a girl about his age, smacking into the boy with her mouth against his for an extremely solid kiss. Her hair was dark, like his, as were her furry jacket and skirt; she could have been his sister, but obviously wasn’t.
After an intense moment, she drew back her head but not her body. The two might be children, but they looked much like lovers, Lysander thought. “O Barel, it be but days but it feels like years!” the girl said. “I feel my age drawing nigh, any year now; be thou ready when I be!”
“But once we mate, we part!” he protested. “I be in no hurry for that, Sirel.”
“We will part not, only turn to friendship.”
He nodded. “Aye. Still, I be not rushed.”
“I will make thee rush, when my heat come,” she promised.
They were like lovers! They were talking of mating!
“This be Lysander,” Flach said, turning to him as the girl released him. “He be a new serf for Blue.”
“Pleased to meet thee, Lysan,” the girl said. “Thou hast no Phaze form?”
“No Phaze form,” Lysander agreed.
“Then I assume mine other form, to greet thee,” Sirel said—and abruptly a wheeled machine sat in her place. “I am Troubot, the trouble-shooting robot,” it said via a speaker. “I love Nepe, but I fear my love is vain.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Nepe said, appearing, naked as she had been in the dome. “But unless you want to put on a humanoid body like Daddy’s—“
The wolf-girl reappeared. “It be more fun being a bitch.”
Bitch: a female dog or wolf. Now Lysander had it straight.
“I must on,” Flach said. The changes were so quick and natural that it seemed pointless to try to track them. “We be going to see Tania.”
Sirel frowned cutely. “Thou knowest I like thee not with that woman.” The way she said it, “woman” sounded the way “bitch” did away from Phaze.