But her voice was enough. “Halt, weres!” she screeched. “Slay me not, for I bring a friend of thine for help!” She lifted her foot, showing Agape.
One of the wolves became a buxom young woman in a furry halter. “That be Fleta in birdform!” she cried. “What dost filth like thee do with her?”
Phoebe flopped tiredly to the ground. “Bitch, I be friend to Fleta; she cured my tail-itch, and her friend Mach gave me this spectacular hairdo. But this be not the ‘corn; she be her other self from Proton-frame, who knows not how to change form. So I brought her to thee, ‘cause thou knowest the art o’ shape-changing and mayhap can help her.”
The young woman reached down to pick Agape up. “Be this true? Thou be not Fleta?”
Agape nodded her beak affirmatively.
“Then mayhap we owe thee, harpy,” the woman said. “Choose a tree and roost, and we shall let thee be in peace.”
“I thank thee, bitch,” Phoebe said. “Do thou help her if thou canst; Fleta will need her body, an she return. This be Agape, an alien creature, but not inimical.” Agape realized that the harpy was not being insulting to the werewolf girl; the female of the species was called a bitch.
The girl held Agape up at face level. “I be Furramenin. I talked with thee at the Translucent Demesnes not long ago.”
Agape shook her little head no.
Furramenin laughed. “Ah, yes, that be right! It was Fleta I talked to, not thee! Thou art Agape! Come, let me instruct thee in form-changing. Let me shift to bitchform, and then do thou take my paw and shift to girlform with me. Understand?”
Agape nodded yes. The girl set her down.
The wolf reappeared. Agape hopped across to touch a front paw. Then the girl manifested—but Agape remained a bird.
They tried it again, and again, but with no success. “Must needs it be with a flying creature,” the woman concluded regretfully.
“Aye, bitch,” Phoebe called from the branch she had chosen. “I got her to birdform, but could get her not back.”
“Then will I take thee to Fleta’s friend Suchevane,” Furramenin decided. “In the morning.”
Suchevane! Agape knew that name! That was the one the Citizens had not known, whom Bane had recommended.
Then she felt faint, and fell the tiny distance to the ground.
“What be the matter?” Furramenin exclaimed. “Be thou sick?”
“I know, I think,” Phoebe screeched from her branch. “She be locked in hummingbird form, and the bird has high metabolism. She has eaten not in hours. She be starving!”
“Of course!” the werebitch agreed. “We must feed her! But what do such birds eat?”
“Nectar, methinks,” the harpy replied.
They ranged out and gathered fresh flowers and brought them back. Furramenin held the flowers up for Agape, but she did not know how to eat. Her long bill poked through the delicate petals, getting little nectar.
“This be trouble,” Furramenin muttered. “An we could get her to girlform, we could feed her, but she may starve before we succeed!”
They consulted with the Pack leader, who it seemed was a wolf named Kurrelgyre, who told them to take her to the vampires and the Red Adept. “Start now, tonight,” he said.
So it was that Agape found herself tied to the back of a running wolf, moving rapidly through the night. She was too weak to react, but was conscious, except when she slept. The motion continued interminably, across what she took to be plains, and through what seemed to be forest, and past some dark river. Furramenin seemed indefatigable in her bitchform, but Agape could tell by the lather that leaked from the corner of her mouth that she was straining.
She faded out, and in, and it was morning. Then out, and in again, and it was deep into day, and they were arriving at the caves of the vampires.
There must have been dialogue and explanations, but Agape was too far gone to assimilate them. She was in the process of dying; she knew it. Her foolish attempt to go out on her own had led her inevitably to harm. It was hard to disbelieve that she was in Phaze, now, but it was too late; her belief no longer mattered.
She woke briefly to find herself in the air again, carried by a larger creature. Phoebe? No, the smell was not the same. Then she faded out again.
Chapter 4 Fleta
The world shimmered, and she felt an ineffable change. Then things steadied, and she found herself still in Mach’s embrace.
But it was different. She looked up at him—and his face had changed. It was similar to its normal configuration, but somehow less flexible. His arms, also, were somehow less yielding.
She glanced to the side, and discovered that they were in a chamber. What had happened to the field?
“The exchange has been accomplished,” he said. “We had better disengage.”
He still sounded like Mach! But this was definitely not the same body. Now she noticed that their clothes were gone, too, “Where be we?” she asked.
“In an office maintained by a Citizen, he informed me. Citizen Tan, I think.” Then he drew away from her, surprised. “But you already know that, Agape.”
She was startled. “I be Fleta!”
His startlement mirrored her own. Then he laughed. “Don’t tease me like that, Agape! I love her.”
“Tease thee? I tease thee not! What magic hast thou wrought, Bane, to conjure us so swiftly here?”
He gazed at her, evidently sorting things out. Then he spoke slowly and carefully. “This is the frame of Proton. I am Mach, a self-willed humanoid robot. Are you telling me you are not Agape, but Fleta of Phaze?”
“Aye, I be Fleta of Phaze,” she repeated. “If this truly be Proton-frame, and thou truly be Mach, then must I ha’ traveled here with thee. Be that possible?”
Again he considered. Then he touched his bare chest, and a door opened in it, showing odd wires and objects. “I am the robot, as you can see; this is my own body, not Bane’s.” He closed the door, and his chest looked normal again. “Let me question you briefly. Who was the last person we met, on the way to the exchange?”
“Phoebe,” she said promptly. “The harpy whose hair thou didst ruin, and she takes it as elegance. But she be decent, especially for her kind. I have her feather in my pocket—” But her hand found no pocket, for she had lost her cloak.
“And then we made love,” he said.
“Nay, we followed the delf till the glow was brightest, and only kissed, and then—”
“Then, as I sang the spell of exchange—”
“I spake thee the triple Thee, as thou didst do when—”
He stepped into her and crushed her in his embrace. “You are my love!” he said. “I tested you, but no other person could have known—”
“This really be thy rovot form?” she asked uncertainly.
“It really is. But let me prove myself to you, so that you know you can trust me. I came for you in a canoe I fashioned to float in air, with Suchevane, the most dazzling of vampires, and saved you from your suicide. Then the Translucent Adept appeared, and offered us sanctuary, and the splash of truth supported him, so I agreed—”
She put a finger against his lips. “It be enough, Mach; I know thee now. Methinks in my desire to stay with thee, I worked a bit of magic of mine own, and came with thee to thy frame.”
“A double exchange!” he said, awed. “You are in Agape’s body.”
She looked down at herself. “Aye, this nor looks nor feels like mine! Let me see whe’er I can revert to natural state.” She tried to shift to her unicorn form, but nothing happened. “It happens not.”
“You cannot change that way, here,” Mach said. “Magic doesn’t work in Proton. The laws of science are enforced; mass must remain constant. When Agape changes, she does so slowly, melting from one shape to another.”