Split Infinity (32 page)

But Stile knew he had asked for this. He had been warned that Adepts were dangerous, but had charged in anyway. Perhaps he had not really believed in the threat This fantasy land of Phaze had not seemed wholly real to him; he had not taken its threats seriously enough.
 
Now, as he wandered, and his thirst grew, his perspective shifted. This frame was becoming more real than that of Proton. Somehow the attacks by monsters hadn’t impressed him deeply; those encounters had been like individual Games, serious yet also unserious.
 
But thirst, hunger, boredom, fatigue, and loneliness—these compelled belief of a fundamental nature. By the time he died, he would really believe!

He thought of appealing to the Black Adept, of begging for mercy—and knew immediately that that would be useless. The punishment was to die in confinement and hopelessness, without further communication.
 
Without dignity or recognition. Those who violated the Adept’s privacy were doomed to share it—completely.

The Black Adept was neither noble nor wicked; he merely enforced his strictures effectively. No one bothered an Adept without good reason! Which was what Neysa and Kurrelgyre had tried to tell him. He had simply had to learn the hard way.

And Stile himself—was he really an Adept? Had his Phaze-self been like this, an aloof, cynical magician?
 
No wonder his companions distrusted that! If his possible exercise of his magic talent meant this, meant that he would lose all sense of friendship, honor and decency—then certainly his magic should be banned. It was better to die a feeling man, than to live as an inhuman robot.

No, correct that; he was thinking in a false cliche.
 
Not all robots were unfeeling. Sheen—where was she now? His week, if he counted correctly, was just about over; the immediate threat of death in Proton—on Pro-ton? No, these were two frames of the same world, and he was in one or in the other—this threat had been abated by time. Now it was Phaze he had to escape, and Proton that represented relief.

Stile wandered along the wall until darkness closed.
 
Then he eased himself to the floor carefully, taking care of his knees. He leaned his back against the bars and experimentally flexed one knee. It actually bent fairly far before hurting; had it begun to heal? Unlikely; other parts of the body healed, but knees did not. Their con-glomeration of ligament and bone prevented blood from circulating well there. Elbows could heal; they did not have to support constant weight. Knees had to be tough—and so, paradoxically, were more vulnerable than other joints. The anonymous enemy had struck well, lasering his knees, condemning him to a lingering torture similar in its fashion to what the Black Adept was now inflicting. Food for thought there? But when not under pressure, his knees could bend almost all the way. He could assume a squatting posture—when not squatting. A fine comfort that was! As if his knees mattered, when his body was doomed.

After a time he climbed back to his feet—this remained a chore, without flexing his knees under pressure—and walked to an interior chamber to relieve a call of nature. He did not like soiling the castle floor, but really had no choice—and perhaps it served the Adept right. Then he returned to the barred wall, settled down again, and nodded off to sleep.

He dreamed he was a robot, with no flesh to warm his metal, no true consciousness to enliven his lifeless-ness. He woke several times in the night, feeling the deepening cold, much more thirsty than he ought to be.
 
Psychological, of course, but still bothersome. He wished he had warm Neysa, in any form, to sleep against. Neysa had given him companionship too—a warmth of the spirit. After his years basically as a loner, he had adapted very quickly to that association; it filled a need. She had changed to human form to please him—but would have pleased him anyway. At least he had done the right thing, sending her away; she could return to her grazing and perhaps the werewolf would keep her company sometimes.

So cold! He hunched within his insubstantial clothing. One little spell could so readily cure this. Give me some heat to warm my feet—no! No magic! It might be crazy, but he would not violate his oath. Only if a firefly flew up and cried “Stile, do magic!” would he indulge—and he didn’t want Neysa risking herself that way anyway. He curled into an uncomfortable ball and slept again; it was better than being awake.

By morning Stile’s whole mouth was so dry it felt like leather. He must have been sleeping with it open.
 
He worked his rocklike tongue around, moving his jaws, and managed to find a small pocket of saliva to spread about. Now he had to get up and—

And what? The bars remained, and would not disappear until his skeleton joined the other. He had no-where to go, nothing to do.

Yet he had to do something. He was still cold; exercise was the only answer. His hunger and thirst had abated for the nonce, but his body was stiff. He climbed to his feet and limped to his makeshift privy. Shame to waste fluid, but as long as life remained, the bodily processes continued.

He resumed his trek along the barred wall, moving rapidly enough to generate some heat, slowly enough to conserve energy. Pointless travel, except that it was better than just lying down and dying. Plenty of time for the latter later.

There was no escape. The labyrinth of the castle was interminable, and the barred wall was too. The Black Adept only had one kind of magic, but he was very thorough about that! Theoretically there should be an end to the wall somewhere—but that end was the Adept himself. What use, then, to search for it? No logic, no reasonable discussion could move a man with the power and alienation this one had shown. The Black Adept was in his fashion like a Proton Citizen.

A Citizen! Kurrelgyre had said the people of Phaze were the same as those of Proton—or had been, before the shifting of serfs had become extensive. An Adept could indeed be a Citizen, in his alternate self. In the one frame, the instrument of power was wealth; in the other, magic. In both cases, arrogance reigned supreme.

Stile kept moving. He had won marathons in the Game; he could survive for some time when he put his will to it. If he caught up to the Black Adept, he might incapacitate the man and escape. Or kill him, since the Adept seemed willing to let Stile die. No, he did not want to be a killer himself; monsters were one thing, but the Adept was a man. Stile was willing merely to circle around the Adept, to get outside the barrier and escape.

Did his mental decision not to kill a man differentiate him from the Adept-mode? Could it be taken as evidence that he would not be as thoroughly corrupted by the power of magic as other Adepts had been? He hoped so.

Strange that there was no food in this bleak castle. Didn’t the Black Adept eat? Probably his food supplies were well hidden in a convoluted storehouse, which would naturally be outside this barrier. Still, that raised more conjectures. Since this Adept did not conjure things from nothing, the way Stile’s magic had done, he must have to obtain natural food elsewhere. Did the Black Adept have to trade with peasants for supplies of grain, eggs, cabbages? He could not, then, live in absolute seclusion. His ready use of language suggested the same. He had contact with others; he just didn’t like it.

Would any of those others be coming here to the castle?
 
Would they help Stile? No, that seemed unlikely; the Adept could have supplies for a year at a time.

Stile moved slowly, conserving his strength, balancing his generated warmth against his thirst and hunger.
 
He gave up following the interminable wall, and cut across the center of the castle as well as he could. But all the interior passages were dead ends; the configuration differed here. He wished he had some quick way to analyze the lines, but the castle was too complex; it would take him far longer than he had left to grasp its layout and locate the Adept. He also wished he had a good cutting tool to sever a line; since all of this was a single line, he could cut the Adept off from his castle anywhere. From his past. Would everything unravel, in the manner of the dragon? But there was nothing. His dagger could not damage the stonelike hardness of the material. The outer walls had had some give, but here they had none. Only a diamond drill or saw could do the job, or magic—

No!

All day Stile fought with himself, the thought of magic becoming more attractive as his physical condition deteriorated. But he refused to yield. It didn’t matter that no one would know if he conjured a cupful of water to drink; an oath was an oath. He would expire with his integrity intact; that was one thing the Black Adept could not deprive him of.

At last, night seeped into the castle again. Stile sank down to sleep but could not. He did not want to yield himself up so quietly to extinction!

He found the harmonica in his hand, unbidden. He had avoided making music, because of its magical con-notation. Magic could occur in the ambience of music, even when he did not voice it. His saddle had appeared, obviously conjured by his unconscious wish while he made music. But wouldn’t it be all right to play, now, so long as he willed no magic? Music reminded him of Tune, so long ago, and it was fitting to think of her again as he concluded his own tenure.

He played. The music wafted out, permeating the corridors and windows and convolutions of the castle, striking harmonics in the walls. He was making the sound, but he was listening too, and it was absolutely beautiful. He was mastering the harmonica, playing it with his heart, evoking a feeling of melody he had seldom before achieved. Perhaps it was his swan song, his final gesture. Nevertheless it was a satisfying way to At last, tiring even of this, he put the instrument away and dropped into sleep. This time it was more peaceful, as if his fast had freed him of material concerns.

He was awakened by a low growl. Stile’s eyes cracked open, but his body did not move. He knew where his sword was; he needed to locate the animal. And to decide whether it was worth trying to fight. Why trade a quick death for a slow one?

Then, in the dark, a voice: “Stile.”

“Kurrelgyre!” he said. Stile put his face to the bars, to get closer. “This isn’t safe for thee!”

“Neysa went to the Oracle. It said ‘Curtain.’ Neysa did not understand what that meant, but I do. I sniffed around the castle. One corner of it intersects the curtain. Follow me.”

The curtain! Of course! Except— “I can’t do it; I swore no magic. It takes a spell to pass through.”

“Thou art true to thine oath. Thou couldst have escaped ere now, hadst thou been otherwise. But fear not; I will put thee through.”

Relieved, Stile followed the werewolf, pacing him on the other side of the wall. So Neysa had donated her single question the Oracle permitted to his cause! He would not have asked her to do that, yet now accepted the gesture gratefully.

It seemed only moments before Kurrelgyre brought him to the curtain. One small section of his prison intersected it. Apparently the Black Adept was not aware of it. That suggested the Adept was alive in both frames, unable to perceive or cross the curtain.

“We shall wait for thee at the Oracle’s palace,” Kurrelgyre said as Stile approached the glimmer. “Be mindful of the trust the mare places in thee, setting thee free of this frame.”

“I don’t know how long it will take me to—“

But the werewolf was already casting the spell. Stile passed through.

Stile landed outside a dome. He gasped—for the air was barely breathable. He might survive thirty minutes without a mask, but would not enjoy it. The limited oxygen of Proton’s atmosphere was further reduced to favor the needs of the dome, and the pollution of sundry industrial processes was dumped out here. He realized—was it for the first time?—that the barren surface of Proton was the result of man’s activities. Had the machine age not come here, the atmosphere would have remained like that of Phaze. Man’s civilization had made a heaven-planet into hell.

Fortunately the dome was within five minutes foot travel. He could see it clearly, for its illumination flowed through the force field, lighting the barren plain.

Stile, his fatigue somewhat abated by his rest and the shock of the cold night, walked briskly toward the dome, drawing his clothing tightly about him. So long as he kept his respiration down, the air was not too hard on his lungs. Running would be a disaster, though.
 
His clothing helped shield him from—

Clothing! He could not wear that here! He was a serf.

Yet without it he would soon be in trouble from the cold. He would have to wear it as long as possible, then dispose of it just before entering the dome. Maybe he could recover it when he returned to Phaze.

But he could not return where he had left, for that would put him right back in the prison of the Black Adept. He needed his clothing for the other frame, but not in this locale. He would have to risk carrying it with him.

Stile reached the dome. It was a small one, evidently the private estate of a Citizen. It was hardly safe for a serf to intrude uninvited on such a place, but he really had no choice. These few minutes had made him un-comfortable; the less exposure to outside conditions, the better. He removed his clothing, bundled it up with the shoes inside, and stepped through the dome wall.

Instantly he was in light and warmth. This was a tropical garden of the kind popular with Citizens, whose tastes seemed to run opposite to the external wasteland their policies were making on the planet.
 
Exotic palms were at every available spot, with a cocoa-chip mulch beneath. No one was present—which was why Stile had entered here. If he were lucky, he might get through undiscovered.