Piers Anthony - Split Infinity

Neysa lifted her head, sniffing the wind. She seemed disturbed.

“What is it?” Stile inquired, putting away his harmonica.

The unicorn shook her head, unsure. She slowed to a walk, turning this way and that as if casting for something. Then she oriented on whatever it was, and resumed her northward trek. But there was something disquieting about her motion; her gait seemed unnatural.

“Art thou all right?” Stile inquired, concerned.

Neysa did not respond, so he brought out his harmonica again and played. But she immediately blew a harsh note of negation. He desisted, concealing his hurt feelings.

Stile thought she would relax after a short while, but she did not. Instead her gait became more mechanical, quite unlike her normal mode.

“Neysa, I inquire again: art thou all right?”

She ignored him. She seemed to be in a trance.

Alarmed, Stile tugged sharply on her mane. “Something is wrong. I must insist—“

She threw down her head and bucked. The action was untelegraphed, but Stile was too experienced a rider to be caught. He stayed in place, then slid to the ground when she resumed her odd walk. “Neysa, something evidently compels thee. I don’t know what it is—but since we are approaching the locale of the Yellow Adept, I suspect it relates. For some reason the compulsion does not affect me. Give me thy socks, and I will walk with thee in disguise.”

She halted, swishing her tail in annoyance, and let him remove the white socks from her rear feet. Then she marched on.

Stile donned the socks and walked beside her, imitating her walk. If something were summoning unicorns, he wanted to resemble such a captive as closely as possible—until he understood the situation better. The wolfsbane he had sniffed still buoyed his strength; he was ready for anything, and felt no trace of the prior ravages of hunger and thirst. If Neysa had fallen into some spell cast by the Yellow Adept—

Soon the property of the Adept came into sight. It was of course yellow. The sands were yellow, rising into yellow dunes, and the sun sent yellow beams through a yellow fog that concealed the main operation from a distance. Neysa walked straight into that fog.

Soon the Adept’s castle loomed. It was most like a ramshackle haunted house, with a partially collapsing roof, broken windows, and weeds growing thickly against the walls. A few yellow flowers straggled at the fringe—buttercups, sunflowers, a bedraggled yellow rose. Behind the house was a tall wrought-iron palisade fence, rusting yellow, overgrown by morbid vines with yellowing leaves but still quite formidable. An odor rose from the premises: animal dung and decaying vegetation. Rustic, but hardly pleasant.

Neysa walked right on toward the house, and Stile necessarily followed. Already he did not like the Yellow Adept and hoped perversely that the magician was alive —so as to be assured this was not Stile’s own alternate identity. This time he would not be so foolish as to challenge the Adept overtly; he would just look and retreat quickly.

Except for two things. First, there was Neysa—she had somehow been mesmerized, surely for no good purpose, and had to be freed of this complication. Second, Kurrelgyre: the wolf had by now had plenty of time to lope in and out, but evidently had not, which suggested that he too had been trapped by the summoning spell. Stile would have to verify this, then act appropriately. It might not be easy.

Neysa moved right on up to the front door, which was sagging open on rusty hinges. She entered, Stile close behind. They passed through a dusty hall, turned a corner—and bars dropped from the ceiling, separating them.

Oh, no! Not again! Stile backed up—but another set of bars fell behind him. This section of hall had become a cage.

There was an ear-discomfiting shriek of laughter. “Hee-hee! Two! Two fine unicorns, so soon after the wolf! What an excellent day! Haul them out, Darlin’ Corey! Let us view our prizes!”

Something huge bulked at the far end of the hall, beyond the comer. Neysa’s cage slid forward. Some-thing was drawing it onward with easy power.

After a time the thing came for Stile’s cage. It was the rear end of a pink elephant. The little tail hooked into the forward bars; then the creature walked, drawing the cage after it.

Stile considered poking his sword through the bars and puncturing the fat pink rear, or cutting off the tail with his knife. But this would not release him from the cage, and could make the elephant quite angry without really incapacitating it. Better to hold off.

In a moment they emerged into the stockaded area.

There were cages all around. It resembled an archaic zoo. Stile identified a griffin, with the body of a lion and head and wings of an eagle, in the cage most directly across from his. This was no glorious heraldic monster, but a sad, bedraggled, dirty creature whose wings drooped and whose eyes seemed glazed. And no wonder: the cage was too small for it to stretch its wings, and there was no place for its refuse except right next to the cage where the creature had scraped it out. No wonder its feathers and fur were soiled; no wonder it stank!

Now Stile’s attention was taken by the proprietress: an old woman garbed in a faded yellow robe, with stringy yellow hair and yellowish complexion. A hag, in every sense of the word.

“What a lovely little specimen!” the hag cackled, mincing around Neysa’s cage. Neysa seemed to be coming out of her daze; her ears perked up, then laid back in revulsion as the crone approached.

“And this one,” the Adept continued, examining Stile. “A white stallion, yet! What a pretty penny thou wilt fetch, my sweet!” She circled the cage, appraising his apparent form with an indecently calculating eye. “Yes indeed, my precious! White is in the market for the likes of thee! Needs must I send Crow’s-foot with the news.” She hobbled into the house.

Now Stile resumed his survey of the enclave. Beyond Neysa was Kurrelgyre, whose eye was already on him; the wolf nodded slowly. They were in trouble!

The other cages contained a small sphinx, a three-headed dog, a wyvern, and several creatures Stile couldn’t classify. All were bedraggled and filthy; the witch did not bother to care for them properly, or to clean their cages. She did feed them, as there were dishes of food and water at every cage—but several of these dishes had been overturned and kicked out, un-eaten.

Stile examined his own cage. The bars were yellow-ish, like the rest of this place, and somewhat slick. It was as if some sort of grease had been smeared on the metal in a vain attempt to make it seem like gold. He tried to push a bar out of position, but it was like welded steel. The door was firmly locked.

Still, the bars were fairly widely spaced, and he was small. Just a little bowing should enable him to squeeze between two. Stile located the longest, widest section of the cage roof, then drew his sword and used it cautiously as a lever. He did not want to break the weapon, and did not know how strong it was. But he really could not gain purchase, and had to put away the sword. Instead he jumped up, put his feet against one bar, his hands on the next, and hauled as if lifting a heavy weight. Slowly, unwillingly, the bars separated as he strove and panted. When his muscles balked, he had widened the aperture only slightly—but perhaps it was enough.

He dropped down to the cage floor—and discovered that he had become the object of considerable attention. He was still disguised as a unicorn; that must have been quite a sight, a horselike creature clinging to the upper bars!

But he couldn’t allow such cynosure to stop him. The witch should soon be back. He had to do whatever he could do, rapidly.

Stile drew himself up, put his feet between the widened bars, and squeezed his body up and through. Last was his head; his ears got mashed, but he scraped by. He was out.