Blue Adept (14 page)

“Nothing,” Stile said. “The vampire folk are wary of thee, for what reason I do not pretend to comprehend.”

She waggled a pretty finger at him wamingly, in much the way the Rifleman had in Proton. “Play not the innocent with me, pretty man! I have back orders for bats galore. Though I daresay their fear of female Adepts derives somewhat from propinquity, since they reside near one the canines would term ‘woman.’ “

Hulk stifled a chuckle. Insults were very much a matter of viewpoint, here.

“Vodlevile will not deal with thee,” Stile said evenly.
 
“But I will. If thou wouldst trade favors with me, as one professional to another, this is the favor I crave.”

“What has the bat done lately for thee?”

“He helped my friend Hulk, who was on a mission for me. Never did the bat ask for mine assistance, nor does he know it is coming.”

She shook her head. “The machinations of honor and friendship are a fascination to the likes of me! Thy generosity to animals will cost thee yet. Blue.” She glanced at Neysa, whose ears angled quickly back. “Yet ‘tis a true finesse that does appeal to me. My livelihood is in dealing and wheeling, and I will deal with thee. The bat shall have his potion.”

“I thank thee, witch. And what favor dost thou crave in return?”

She considered prettily. “I could wish that thou wouldst come to see me, as once I thought thou wouldst—“ Her eyes traveled to the Lady Blue, who gazed disdainfully away, and back again to Neysa, whose nostrils were beginning to steam. “Yet thine oath forbids, and if it did not, I think others would say nay, or neigh.”

Now a small jet of fire shot from Neysa’s nostril, and the tip of her horn made a tiny motion suggestive of mayhem.
 
“Even so,” Stile agreed, straight-faced. He despised Yellow’s business of trapping and selling live animals, but he rather respected her personally. A romantic alliance was certainly out of the question, as well she knew; Yellow was only teasing the competition. Such lighthearted malice was no doubt more of a pleasure for the men to note, than to the females against whom it was directed.
 

“Then methinks I will take it on the cuff,” Yellow decided. “Some day, when I am in some minor way in need and call on thee for aid—“

“Agreed,” Stile said. “Provided only that the service violates no ethic of mine, and I am then alive.”

“There is that. Thou hast a veritable stormcloud of a future.” She pondered again. “Then let me protect mine investment, and give thee a potion.” She fished a tiny bottle out of her bodice and presented it.

Stile accepted it, disregarding Neysa’s fiery snort. “If I may ask—“

“No secret, my scrumptious. This elixir renders the wearer less noxious to the Elven folk.”

“Thou vixeni” Stile exclaimed. “Thou conniving wench! Thou wert aware of my mission all the timel”

“Even so, on all counts,” she said. “Though I prefer the term ‘foxy’ to ‘vixen.’ “ She vanished.
 

“Some company thou keepest!” Hulk remarked appreciatively. “She is foxy!”

“Or bitchy,” the Lady Blue muttered as she and Neysa walked stiffly away.

Stile smiled. “She’s not a bad sort, considering that she really is a hag and a witch. She really did look like that, a century or so ago when she was young.” He considered briefly. “Hulk, I don’t have much time for the probable magnitude of this mission, so I’ll set off for the Purple Mountains this afternoon, as soon as I do some spot re-search to pinpoint the platinum-working elves.”

“I’ll go with thee!”

“Nay, friend! Thy appearance would only antagonize these folk, and I go not to quarrel but to borrow. I need thee to guard the Lady Blue, as thou hast done so ably before.”

Hulk frowned. “I prefer not to do that. Stile.”

Stile was perplexed. “Thou likest it not here? I would not hold thee—“

“I like it well here. That is the problem.”

“Something tells me I am being opaque about something.”

“Aye.”

“Thou dost not get along with the Lady Blue?”

“The Lady is a wonderful person.”

“Then I don’t see—“

“Thou needest an Oracle?”

Stile shook his head. “I must.”

The big man paced the courtyard. “Thou and I strike others as quite different. The giant and the dwarf. Yet we are similar. The same age, the same culture, similar Game skills, similar honor.” He paused. “Similar taste in women.” Stile began to get the drift. “Thou didst like Sheen at the first sight of her, and thou dost get along great with Neysa—“

“Yes. But for their special natures—“ Hulk shrugged.
 
“The Lady Blue is another matter. It befits me not to guard her any more.”

Now Stile began pacing. “Thou knowest she is not mine.”

“She sure as hell isn’t mine!” Hulk exploded. “She may not be thine now, but she is destined for thee and no other.
 
Thou’rt the Blue Adept, the keeper of these Demesnes, and she is the Lady Blue. She is the finest woman I have known. Were there another like her—“

“There is another like her,” Stile said, remembering Sheen’s comment. “And I owe thee for the manner in which thou hast given up thine only Oracle answer to my need.”

The two men exchanged glances, a remarkable notion dawning. “Another—in Proton,” Hulk said. “Of course.
 
Her alternate self. But that one too should be—“

“Nay. Not mine. I can not love two.”

“With all the qualities I have seen, but versed in Proton culture.” Hulk smiled, liking the notion. “Then thou wouldst not oppose—?”

“That Proton-lady sure as hell is not mine,” Stile said, smiling as he echoed Hulk’s expression. “Go to Proton. It is a different frame. Thou knowest thou canst never bring her here.”

“Yet even for brief visits—it is all I could ask.”

“Cross the curtain, talk to Sheen. Her friends will locate the lady for thee.”

Hulk nodded. He stopped before Stile and put forth his hand. Stile shook it gravely, knowing this was their parting.
 
Hulk would not come to the Blue Demesnes again. Stile felt a certain smouldering resentment that the big man had taken an interest in this particular woman, and a certain relief that there was in this case a solution, and a certain guilt for both the resentment and the relief. Hulk was a good man; he deserved the best, and the best was the Lady Blue. Her Proton alternate surely had similar qualities. So this was a triumph of fortune and common sense—yet it bothered him. He was simply not as generous in his private heart as he was externally. He had some growing to do, yet.

Now he had no guard for the Lady Blue. He could not leave her alone for any length of time; whatever enemy had struck down Stile’s alternate self, the true Blue Adept, would surely strike again now that it was known the Blue Adept had been reconstituted. Stile had been constantly devising and rehearsing spells and strategies to deal with such an attack, and felt reasonably confident he could handle the situation. But suppose the enemy took the Lady Blue hostage and used her against Stile? He could not risk that.

While he pondered, the Lady reappeared. “The ogre prepares to depart. Know ye why?”

“I know,” Stile said.

‘I like this not”

How did she feel about this arrangement? “He is a good man, worthy of the likes of thee, as I am not.” If she grasped his hidden meaning, she gave no sign.
 

“Worth is not the issue. I have a premonition of doom about him.”

“I confess to being uneasy. I thought it was jealousy or guilt.”

“Those, too,” she agreed, and then he was sure she understood. But she did not elaborate.

He changed the subject. “Now I fear to leave thee here alone—yet must I seek the Flute, lest mine enemy move against me. Neysa will go with me.”

“Is it security thou seekest—or vengeance?”

Stile grimaced, looking at her. “How is it thou knowest me so well?”

“Thou’rt very like my love.”

“Would he not have sought vengeance?”

“For himself, nay. For those he held dear—“ She halted, and he suspected she was remembering her vision of the fiery destruction of the trolls who had wiped out the Blue Adept’s village. Then she met his gaze again. “Without Hulk or Neysa, the Blue Demesnes be not safe for me now.
 
I must go with thee to the Purple Mountains.”

“Lady, it may be dangerous!”

“More dangerous with thee and thy magic than without thee?” she inquired archly. “Have I misjudged thee after all?”

Stile looked askance at her. “I had thought thou dost not crave my company. For the sake of the good work done by the Blue Adept thou callest me lord, but in private we know it is not so. I do not mean to impose my presence on thee more than necessary.”

“And with that understanding, may not the Lady accompany the Lord?”

Stile sighed. He had made due protest against a prospect that in fact delighted him as much as it made him nervous and guilty. “Of course she may.”

The Lady rode a pale blue mare, the offspring of the foal of the Hinny and the Blue Stallion. As she had described, this mare’s color was mainly an echo of the blue harness, but the effect was there. The Blue Stallion had been alive but aging when the Blue Adept was killed; the horse, it was understood, had died of grief.

Stile rode Neysa. He had never ridden another steed since taming her. No horse could match her performance, but it was more than that. Much more.

They crossed the fields south of the Blue Castle and entered the forest adjacent to the Purple Mountain range.
 
Soon they were in the foothills. According to Stile’s references, the geographical tomes collected by his other self, the tribe of the Dark Elves who worked platinum lived on a mountain about fifty miles east of where the convenient curtain-access to Proton was. The animals knew the way, once it had been determined; Neysa had ranged these lands for years and knew the location by description, though she was not conversant with the actual Elven Demesnes.
 
Here the lay of the land was gentle, and the air balmy, with patchwork clouds making the sunshine intermittent.
 
The ride became tedious despite the pleasure of the surroundings. Had Stile been riding alone, he would have slept, trusting Neysa to carry him safely, or have played his harmonica, or simply have talked to the unicorn. But the presence of the Lady Blue in her natural splendor inhibited him.

“It was across this country I rode the Hinny, so long it seems ago,” she remarked.

Stile found no appropriate response. He rode on in silence, wishing that the tragedy of his other self did not lie between them.

“The Hinny,” she repeated musingly. “How I miss that fine animal!”

This was safer ground. “How is she now? Ten years is a fair span in the life of a horse, about thirty of ours, but not interminable.”

“Of course thou knowest not,” the Lady said somberly.
 
“The Hinny was bred by the Blue Stallion, and returned to her wilderness fastness alone. The blue lad went back to his business, about which we inquired not, but which I believe was the meticulous construction of the Blue Castle.
 
I remained with my family and with Snowflake, the white foal we had rescued. Sometimes out in the fields we thought we glimpsed the Hinny, and our hearts yearned toward her, but never came she nigh. Yet I was ill at ease.
 
The revealed identity of my erstwhile companion the blue lad astounded me, and I was shamed. Yet I was intrigued too, and potently flattered by his suit. I remembered the vision I had had while he played his music, the Lady in the blue moon, and the subtle appeal of that notion grew.
 
Later I learned that he had gone to inquire the identity of his ideal wife, and the Oracle had named me. It had for once been not obscure or circuitous or capable of alternate interpretation; it had told him exactly where and when to find me. Hence he had come at the designated moment, extremely fortuitous for me as I hung dangling in the clutch of the troll, and preserved my life when else it would have ended there. He had done all that he had done only to win my favor, though I was his by right from the moment he rescued me. And I only an ignorant peasant-girl!”

“The Oracle knew better,” Stile murmured. “Thy Lord’s legacy lives on in thee, when else it would have perished.” She continued as if she had not heard him. “Ah, what a foolish girl was I in that time. Long and long was it before ever I gave him the third Thee.”

“I beg thy pardon. Lady. I don’t follow—“

She gestured negligently with one hand. “Of course thou art from another culture, so I needs must inform thee. In Phaze, when a person loves another and wishes to have it known without obligation, she omits the statement and repeats only the object. Thee, three times. Then that other may do as he wishes, without reproach.”

“I don’t understand,” Stile said. “Just to say to a person Thee, th— “ Neysa nearly bucked him off as she drowned him out with a blast from her horn.

“Say it not carelessly nor in jest,” the Lady reproached him. “It has the force of an oath.”

Shaken, Stile apologized. “I have much to learn yet of this culture. I thank thee. Lady, for educating me, and thee, Neysa, for preventing me from compromising myself ignorantly.” But it would not have been a lie if he had said it to the Lady; this was a battle all but lost at the outset.
 
Still, it would have put her in an awkward situation.