Piers Anthony - Robot Adept

Agape fell into the grass. It was less than a meter, and she was so small and light that no damage was done. She half napped, half scrambled on down through the tangle, getting out of sight.

But another harpy had seen her. “Haa!” she screeched, and dived, claws outstretched.

Agape scooted to the side, and the harpy missed. But the ugly bird had not given up; she looped just above the grass and came back, more agile than she looked. “Come here, thou luscious morsel!” she screeched.

Agape tried to scoot away, out of reach, but the harpy loomed over her, about to pounce.

“Mine!” Phoebe screeched, zooming in and colliding with the other, knocking her out of the way. Just in time!

Agape found a mousehole and scrambled down it. She did not like going into darkness under the ground, but it definitely was not safe above!

Then she heard the sound of scratching, or of excavation. A harpy was trying to dig her out!

Fortunately the mouse tunnel had been constructed with exactly such tactics in mind. It branched and curved and extended forever onward. She scooted along it, hoping she didn’t encounter the proprietor, leaving the harpy behind. Then she settled down to wait.

When silence returned, she crept back the way she had come. She was not constructed for crawling, but was so small that she could pretty well run two-legged along the tunnel. That was one advantage to tiny size!

“Agape! Agape!” a harpy screeched. “They be gone now. Come to me!”

It was Phoebe! No other harpy would know her true name. Agape made her way out of the tunnel, and gave a peep.

Phoebe spied her. “Ah, ‘tis a relief!” she screeched.

“I thought sure I’d lost thee! Come, we must to the weres ‘fore else amiss occurs!” She took Agape in her claw again, and lunged into the air.

They reached the Were Demesnes without further event. Three husky wolves veered toward Phoebe the moment they spied her, evidently meaning business. The harpy was tired from her long flight, and could not achieve sufficient elevation to avoid them. Their teeth gleamed.

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

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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?”