Piers Anthony - Robot Adept

Except for his separation from Agape. He loved her too, and wanted to be with her—and could not, here.

The girl blinked, recovering equilibrium. “We have exchanged, Fleta,” he told her. “I be not Mach.”

There was a little pop behind him, and a trace of vapor passed, evidently lingering from the mist of the dawn.

She stared at him. “You are alive!” she breathed. “Aye, filly.” Then he asked her about the nature of the truce Mach had told him about, but she seemed confused.

“Where are we?” she asked.

He laughed. “Where thou hast always been, mare! In Phaze, o’ course.”

Still she seemed perplexed. “Please—do some magic,” she said.

He realized that she had suffered some kind of shock, perhaps because of her proximity to the exchange he had made with Mach. He conjured a basket of oats for her.

“I am not the unicorn,” she said. “I am Agape.”

“Be thou joking, mare?”

She claimed she was not. There followed some confusion, as each doubted the other’s identity, but soon she convinced him that she was indeed Agape. He could not, however, convince her that he was Bane. Finally they compromised: he gave her a spell she could invoke for protection and left her. He would know if she used the spell, so he could check on her, for it was his magic.

Then he conjured himself to the Blue Demesnes.

His mother, the Lady Blue, welcomed him, of course. It was his father Stile he was concerned about.

He need not have been. They met privately in Stile’s office, protected from observation by a careful spell. “I made a mistake in judging you,” Stile said, speaking in his original dialect, as he was apt to do when serious. “Or perhaps in judging your other self, Mach the Robot. I should have remembered how Sheen was—and how Neysa was. Their offspring—” He shrugged. “I shall not err like that again.”

There was a faint ripple in the air. Bane was startled. The statement had seemed incidental, but that was the splash of truth. Stile was deadly serious.

“As you may know, Fleta sought to kill herself,” Stile continued gravely. “And Mach rescued her in a manner reminiscent of my own Oath of Friendship to Neysa, proving his love and his nascent power. Were you aware that he overrode an Adept’s spell in the process?”

“I had not much time for news,” Bane said. “Trool’s spell?”

“Trool’s spell. He always was too decent for his own good, and when he couldn’t talk her out of suicide, he gave her what she asked, reluctantly. It was incidental magic, for him—but no ordinary person overrides any Adept magic! The doing of it shook the frame, and suddenly all of us knew that a new Adept was in the process of coming into being. Translucent pounced on the opening, and won Mach’s trust, leaving us in a very bad situation.”

“Aye,” Bane agreed. “Dost know that I have found love in Proton-frame?”

“The parallelism of the frames made that likely. We were so blinded by our concern for the continuation of our line that we lost sight of other realities. Our opposition to your union as such is at an end. Do what you must do; I’m sure you have found a worthy companion.”

“As such?”

Stile laughed. “We still must oppose it—for different reason. You cannot remain in Proton without aggravating the deadly imbalance.”

“Ah, aye,” Bane agreed. “So it be the same.” He grimaced. “I sought not love there,” he continued. “I knew not I was going there, when first it happened. But e’en as thou didst find love across the frames, so did I.”

“I was concerned about the future,” Stile said. “Now I am concerned about the present. The Adverse Adepts are marshaling their forces, seeking to use their advantage to achieve complete victory. If they can establish communication between the frames, merging Proton analytic techniques with Phaze magic, they can dominate this frame. You and Mach are the key; if you cooperate in that, the power is theirs.”

“I seek not to give them that!” Bane protested.

“But if they take possession of your woman?”

“Aye, they tried,” Bane said. “We seek to return her to her planet of Moeba, then she will be safe. But it be difficult; the Contrary Citizens be alert.”

“You will accept separation from her?” Stile asked, surprised.

“Aye, because though I love her, so also do I love the frame. I would not take her at the cost of all else I value. So I am with thee, my father; I know our romance can be not permanent.”

“I had thought you would oppose me in this,” Stile said. “But if you give her up, will you then—?”

“Aye, I will find a woman of Phaze and make an heir,” Bane said. “An she be amenable to the knowledge that I love her not.”

Stile, not normally the most demonstrative of men, simply extended his hand. Bane shook it. Again a faint splash was evoked. There was no quarrel between them.

“I thought to give up my own love similarly,” Stile said, “for the good of the frame. But I got her back—and if there is any way I can find to do the same for you, I will do it, regardless of the heir.”

Bane smiled. “But there be a development they know not: Agape be now here in Phaze.”

“She crossed the curtain with you?” Stile asked, amazed.

“Aye. She was embracing me, and Fleta embraced Mach as we exchanged, and methinks we carried them with us.”

“But where is she now?”

“In Fleta’s body, girlform. She feared a trick by the Citizens, and they have been most devious before. She be seeking her answer alone.”

“But there is danger for the uninitiate in Phaze!”

“Aye. I gave her a spell. More can I not do, an I wish to keep mine agreement to let her be. When she accepts Phaze, then can we be together again.”

“This is apt to aggravate the imbalance,” Stile said.

“I sent word to Mach and Fleta. Trool identified it; your exchange is wreaking mischief of a cumulative nature. The Adverse Adepts verified it, once we identified it; they know that both frames can be pushed to destruction, if we ignore this imbalance. We can halt it only by returning you to your own frames.”

Bane sighed. “And our loves be in the opposite frames! Mischief indeed!”

“Mischief indeed,” Stile agreed. “But it does not solve the problem of dominance in the frames. The two of you can continue to communicate from your own frames, and if you do it for the benefit of the Adverse Adepts, they will prevail.”

“And if the Contrary Citizens gain power o’er Agape, I can promise not that I will not do their bidding,” Bane said.

“And the same for the Adverse Adepts,” Stile said. “You don’t want them to catch on to her presence here. As long as they believe she is Fleta, they will leave her alone, so as not to give Mach cause to change his mind.”

“Aye. That were in my mind as I left her: that she be in no danger from them, only from natural creatures.”

Stile walked around the chamber, his blue robe swinging out as he turned. “I do not trust the Adverse Adepts to wait passively for you to fall into their hands. They seem to be honoring the truce, perhaps because they fear that any violation here will bring a countermove in Proton, or will alienate Mach. But as Mach discovers that the Lady Blue and I have withdrawn our opposition to their union, and realizes that he no longer needs sanctuary with Translucent, the Adepts will seek to consolidate their advantage by more forceful means. It would facilitate my preparation if I had a better notion what they might be planning.”

“And thou canst not simply go and ask!” Bane said with a wry smile.

“They keep aware of me as I do of them,” Stile agreed. “They know where I am at any given moment, just as I know where they are. I fear they use their minions for their dirty work, but I don’t want to seem to be spying on the goblins or ogres or demons either, lest I alert them to my suspicions.”