Piers Anthony - Split Infinity

Neysa submitted to this indignity, and carried him westward across the amber plain north of the purple mountains, her speed picking up as her strength re-turned. Something nagged at Stile; then he caught on. “You know, Neysa—this is like the old patriotic song of America, back on Earth. I’ve never been there, of course, but it describes amber waves of grain and purple mountains and fruited plains—which reminds me, I’m hungry! I haven’t eaten since I came into this world —I don’t know whether they really exist on Earth, those purple mountains, but they really do exist here! Do you mind if I whistle the tune?”

She cocked her ear back at him, listening, then cocked it forward. She had cute black ears, expressing her personality. She did not mind.

Stile whistled. He was good at it; whistling was, after all, a form of music, and good whistling was good music. Stile was good at anything that related to the Game, back on Proton. He had spent years constantly perfecting himself, and he had a special nostalgia for music. There had been a girl, once, whose memory he associated with it. He whistled the fields more amber, the mountains more purple, and the whole countryside more beautiful. And it really seemed to be so; the entire landscape seemed to assume a more intense grandeur, together with an atmosphere of expectancy. Expectant of what? Abruptly becoming nervous. Stile broke off.

Neysa paused by a tree. It was a pear tree, with huge ripe fruits. “Bless you!” Stile exclaimed. “Are these safe to eat?” He dismounted without waiting for an answer. What a comfort this unicorn was, now that she had joined him!

Neysa moved to the grain nearby and started grazing. She was hungry too. Horses—and unicorns!—could not proceed indefinitely without sustenance; they had to spend a good deal of their time grazing. So a horse was not really faster transportation, for a man; it was speed when he needed it, interspersed with rest. But it was a life-style he liked. His first hours in this world had not been dull, because of the demon-threat and his quest for a steed; but had he remained alone much longer, he would have become quite bored and lonely. Now, with this companionship, this world was delightful. Perhaps his need for transportation had merely been a sublimation of his need for company.

He would have to assume that they could camp here safely, at least for one night. Stile pulled down a pear. It certainly looked safe. If he starved, distrusting nature’s food, what would he gain? He took a juicy bite. It was delicious.

He consumed three of the large fruits, then desisted, just in case. He did not need to gorge. He made a bed of hay, under the pear tree, and lay down as darkness closed in. He hoped it would not rain—but what did it really matter? He would dry. The temperature was nice, here; he would not be cold, even when wet.

Neysa had wandered off. Stile wasn’t worried; he was sure of her, now. She would not leave him—and if she did, it was her right. They had a tacit agreement, no more, subject to cancellation without notice by either party. Still he glanced across the field as the first moon came up. He would prefer to have her near him, just in case. He did not know what routine dangers there might be, here, but was sure Neysa could recognize and handle them. The way she had dispatched the crack-demon and the snow-monster—

The moonrise was spectacular. Far less intense than the sun, it had more appeal because he could look at it directly. This was a close, large moon, whose effulgence bathed the slowly crossing clouds in pastel blue. The thickest clouds were black silhouettes, but the thinner ones showed their substance in blue monochrome, in shades of one color, all the lines and curves and burgeonings of them, all inexpressibly lovely. Oh, to travel amidst that picture, in the magic of the night sky!

Slowly it faded. Moonrise, like sunrise, was a fleeting phenomenon, the more precious because of that. Stile was sure no two moonrises or moonsets would be the same; there would always be a different picture, as lovely as the last, but original. What splendor nature proffered to the eye of any man who had half the wit to appreciate it!

Something was coming. Not a unicorn. Alarmed, Stile peered through the slanting moonbeams. He remained naked, weaponless; he had seldom felt the need for weapons in Proton society, though he knew how to use them. This was a wilder world whose beauty was tempered, perhaps even enhanced, by its hazards. Was this a nocturnal predator?

No—it was a woman!

Yet she carried no weapon either, and wore no clothing, and seemed innocent rather than hostile. This could be another demonic trap, but Stile somehow doubted it. She was—there was something familiar about her.

As she came close, the moonlight caught her fully. The promising outline was fulfilled in blue light. She was small, very small, smaller even than he, but supremely healthy and full-fleshed. She was beautifully proportioned, with small hands and feet, slender yet rounded legs, and virginally firm breasts. Her finger-nails and toenails glistened like pearls, her hair was lustrous black, and she had an ivory decoration set in her forehead. Her face was quite cute, though she had a Roman nose. Her only flaw was a scratch on one arm, a fresh one only starting to heal.

“Stile,” she said, with an almost musical inflection.

“Neysa!” he replied, astonished.

She opened her arms to him, smiling. And Stile understood that the friendship of a unicorn was no in-consequential thing. When he had won her, he had won her completely.

She was of course a variant of demon. No ordinary creature could make such a transformation. But it was already clear that there were variations among demons, in fact whole phyla of them. What mattered was not how far removed her type was from his, but how they related to one another. He trusted Neysa.

Stile embraced her, and kissed her, and she was lithe and soft and wholly desirable. He lay down with her under the pear tree, knowing her for what she was, and loved her, as he had loved the robot Sheen.

In the morning Neysa was back in equine form, grazing. Stile glanced at her, covertly reflecting on the event of the night. Would she expect different treatment, now? Would she now decline to carry him safely?

As it turned out, Neysa’s attitude was unchanged. She was still his steed. The night had been merely a confirmation of their relationship, not a change in it.

But never again would he think of a unicorn as merely a horse with a horn.

Rested and fed, Neysa set out at an easy trot across the field, still bearing west. Trots could be rough or smooth; this one was the smoothest. She could have looked like a drudge, yet fetched a high price on Pro-ton, for the sake of this trot. As if such a creature could ever be sold, for any price! Then she moved into a nice canter with a syncopated beat: one-two-three-pause, one-two-three-pause. A canter, to his way of thinking, was a trot by the forefeet and a gallop by the rear feet;

it too could vary greatly in comfort, depending on the steed’s nature and mood. Stile enjoyed this; how nice it was to ride this fine animal without fighting her!

Neysa shifted into a variant of the trot: the pace, in which the left feet moved together, and the right feet together also. Two beats, throwing him from side to side, but covering the ground faster than an ordinary trot. Then back into a canter—but not an ordinary one. Her rear hooves were striking the ground together, synched with her right front hoof, so that this was an-other two-beat gait: a single foot alternating with three feet. One-TWO! One-TWO! He had to post over the shocks, lest his bones begin to rattle.

She was showing off her gaits, proving that no horse could match her in variety or facility. Yesterday she had demonstrated gaits from one-beat to five-beat; now she was doing the variations.