Piers Anthony - Robot Adept

She threw herself aside. The fire ignited the grass. behind her, and scorched her backside. Indeed, her cloak was burning, and she felt the flame as if it were roasting her own flesh. She threw herself down flat, to roll, to crush the blaze out, but it continued stubbornly.

Meanwhile the dragon was looping about, readying itself for a second run. This time she knew it would not miss.

Then she remembered the spell that Bane had given her. Maybe it was all part of the fakery, but she would have to use it! “Agape, Agape, Agape!” she cried.

The dragon, orienting on her, hesitated. It peered down, perplexed. It flew over her without firing, then looped back and searched again. It sniffed the air. Then, frustrated, it flew away, trailing a small, angry plume of smoke.

The spell had worked—or had seemed to. The dragon had not been able to see, hear or smell her. But she was perfectly perceivable to herself, and she still cast a shadow. So if the spell was genuine, it operated only on the perceptions of the predator. If it was fake, then the dragon, or dragon mock-up, had simply been feigning.

That fire was real, though! There was a smoldering patch of grass, and her cloak had a hole in it near the pocket. Indeed, the feather had been scorched.

“Who calls? Who calls?” someone screeched.

Agape looked up, startled. It was another flying creature. This one was much smaller, being a gross womanheaded bird. She smelled awful, and had a fright-wig head of hair or feathers. She was a harpy, one of the creatures in the human pantheon.

Was Agape still unperceivable? How long did the spell last?

“I smelled thy signal, but I see thee not!” the harpy screeched. “Where dost thou be?”

Smelled her signal?

The harpy circled. “Damn!” she muttered. “Mayhap the dragon got him, ere the smell of my burned feather reached me!”

Burned feather? That was the signal? If Fleta had kept that feather, knowing it would summon the harpy when burned, that harpy must be a friend.

“Here I am,” Agape called, almost before she realized she was doing it.

The harpy whirled in air and peered down at her. “Ah, now I see thee, mare! Glad am I thou wast not hurt! Yet why didst thou summon me, an thou escaped the dragon?”

“The dragon’s fire burned the feather,” Agape explained.

The harpy screeched so violently with laughter that she practically fell out of the air. “Aye, don’t that beat all! An accident! But how earnest thou to run afoul o’ a dragon? Why not change form to thy natural state and pipe it off?”

This harpy, however gross of humor and person, seemed friendly, so Agape decided to speak frankly. “I am not Fleta. I can’t change the way she could.”

“Not Fleta?” the harpy screeched, amazed. “How can that be? Thou hast her body, and the feather!”

If this was Phaze, the truth should not hurt. If Proton, it was known already, such as it was. “I am Agape. I exchanged with Fleta. I have her body, but do not know how to use it.”

The harpy peered cannily down at her. “It be true thou dost speak not like her. But Mach! Where be Mach?”

“He exchanged too. Now Bane is here.”

“Then how came a dragon near? Mach be a burgeoning Adept! He prettified my hair! Next to that, banishing a dragon be mere chick’s play, and Bane be more than Mach.”

“I sent him away.”

The harpy flapped heavily in place, considering that. “Nay, I can make sense not o’ that! Why send him off, an thou helpless ‘gainst a dragon?”

“So I could learn where I am, by myself.”

“Surely thou knowest where thou art! Canst not see the mountains? This be the fringe o’ the Harpy Demesnes, and I be queen o’ the dirty birds, for now, so long’s my hairdo sustain itself. I be Phoebe, befriended by the mare not long agone. There be no mystery here!”

“If you did not know whether you were in a strange land, or had had a spell cast on you to make you think you were there, what would you do?” Agape asked.

“Why, I’d go out and look!” the harpy screeched. “I’d know soon enough—” Then she paused. “Belike thou hast a point. But thou must chance not Fleta’s body to dragons! She will need it when she returns.”

“If I had any portion of her abilities, I would use them,” Agape said. “But I am not a unicorn; I cannot change forms in her manner.”

The harpy came down for a bumpy landing in the grass. “Thou hast her body; thou must needs be able to change.”

“I don’t know how. On Proton I can change form, but the mechanism differs.”

“Mayhap thou dost just need encouragement. Here, take my claw, and when I fly, do thou likewise.” She extended a filthy foot.

“But I don’t know how to begin!” Agape protested.

“Nonsense, alien lass. Knowing be no part of it. Just do it!” She shook her foot invitingly.

Bemused, Agape took hold of the foot. Then Phoebe spread her greasy wings and launched into the air, her dugs bouncing. Agape willed herself to do likewise.

Suddenly she was flapping her own wings. But she was out of control; she went into a tailspin and plunged back to the ground.

“Thou didst it!” Phoebe exclaimed, hovering. “Thou hast her hummingbird form! But why beest thou not flying?”

Agape tried to answer, but all that emerged was a peep.

“Well, change back to girlform and tell me,” the harpy said, coming down for another crash landing.

Agape tried, but nothing happened.

“Mayhap I shouldn’t’ve messed. I fear thou art stuck in birdform, and know not how to fly!”

Agape nodded her tiny head affirmatively. Magic was definitely not for novices!

The harpy considered. “It be my fault; I told thee to try. Needs must I take thee to a shapechanger. The werewolves be not too far, and methinks Fleta has friends among them. Come, bird—let me carry thee there, and we shall see.” She reached for Agape.

Agape shied away, suddenly terrified. The claw was huge, larger than her whole present body!

Phoebe paused. “Aye, I see thou be afraid o’ me now, and ‘tis true my kind preys on thine, or at least on true birds. But I mean thee no harm; remember, I be friend to Fleta.”

Agape realized that she had to trust the harpy. She hopped toward her.

Phoebe reached out again, slowly, and closed her claws about Agape’s body. That foot could have crushed the life from her, but it did not; it merely tightened to firmness. Then the harpy lurched back into the air.

She flew east, carrying Agape. The air rushed past, though the harpy did not seem like a particularly effective flyer. Probably the flight was boosted by magic. Well, it was one way to travel!

As they moved across the plain, Agape wondered how it was that she had been able to change form from a woman to a hummingbird, instantly. There was a question of mass: the woman had hundreds of times the mass of the bird. Where had it gone? When Agape changed form, in her own body, she never changed mass. Had she sacrificed any significant portion of her mass, she would have lost her identity.

She realized that magic was the only explanation. Magic took no note of the laws of science; it had its own laws. Apparently mass was not a factor. But it was still a strange business!

“Uh-oh,” Phoebe screeched under her breath.

Agape twisted her neck, which was marvelously supple, and saw lumbering shapes closing in. More harpies!

“List well, alien,” Phoebe said urgently. “My filthy sisters think I’ve got prey I mean to hide away, so they mean to raid it from me. I can escape them not; must needs I hide thee till they leave off.” She swooped low. “Come to none ere I call to thee, for they will snatch thee and chew thy bones in an instant! Now hide, hide!” And she let go.