Piers Anthony - Split Infinity

Then she stiffened. “The mare could be easier to ride than other unicorns like to think,” the Lady sniffed. “She is small, and not of true unicorn color; she could have other deficiencies.”

Neysa stomped the ground with a forefoot, but did not otherwise protest this insult.

“She has no less spirit than any in this herd,” Clip said evenly, speaking for himself now. “And even were she deficient, she remains a unicorn, a breed apart from common horses. No one but this man could have ridden her.”

The Lady looked at him defiantly. “If he could ride an animal I could not, then would I believe.”

“Therefore thou hast but to ride Neysa,” Kurrelgyre pointed out to her. “Thou hast not the magic humming he had, but the mare remains tired from her long hard ride to reach this castle yestermorn. I ran with her all the way, unburdened, and I felt the strain of that travel —and I am a wolf. So I judge the challenge equivalent. In that manner thou canst prove Stile is no better rider than thee.”

“She can’t ride the unicorn!” Stile protested.

But the Lady was nodding, and so were the unicorns and werewolves. All were amenable to this trial, and thought it fair. Neysa, too, was glancing obliquely at the Lady, quite ready to try her strength.

“I maintain that anything thou canst ride in thy health, I can ride in mine,” the Lady informed him. “There was no comparison between my lord and other men. He could have ridden a unicorn, had he so chosen.”

The Stallion snorted angrily, and Stile needed no translation. The unicorns did not believe any normal human being could ride one of them, involuntarily. They had reason. Stile himself had not guessed what a challenge Neysa would be—until he was committed. “Lady,” Stile said. “Do not put thyself to this ordeal. No one can ride Neysa!”

“No one but thee?” Her disdain was eloquent.

Stile realized that it had to be. The issue had to be settled, and this was, by general consensus, a valid test. Any choice he. Stile, made between Lady and mare would mean trouble, and it seemed he could not have both. If the Lady and the unicorn settled it themselves, he would become the prize of the winner.

Or would he? If the Lady won, the Blue Demesnes would fall, for there would be no accredited Adept to maintain them, and the news would be out. If Neysa won, there would be no Lady Blue, for she would be dead. As he would have been dead, had Neysa thrown him, that first challenge ride. It was the way of the unicorn, the way of life in Phaze, and all of them knew it, including the Lady. She was putting her life on the line. Either way, Stile lost.

With all his magic power restored to him, he was helpless to affect the outcome, or to determine his own destiny. Beautiful irony! “Know thyself,” the Oracle had said, without informing him what the knowledge would cost.

“I know this be hard for thee,” the werewolf said. “Even as it was for me to do what I had to do, when I faced my sire. Yet thou must submit to the judgment of this lot. It is fair.”

Fairl he thought incredulously. The outcome of this lot would be either death or a lie!

The lines of animals were expanding, forming a tremendous ring, bounded by the castle on one side and the magic wall on the other. The unicorns formed a half-circle, the werewolves another, complementing eachother.

Neysa stood in the center of the new ring, the Lady beside her. Both were beautiful. Stile wished again that he could have both, and knew again that he could not. When he accepted the benefits of magic, he had also to accept its penalties. How blithely he had walked into this awful reckoning! If only he had not parked Neysa at the Blue Demesnes when he returned to Proton—yet perhaps this confrontation was inevitable.

The Lady made a dainty leap, despite her flowing gown, which was no riding habit. The moment she landed, Neysa took off. From a standing start to a full gallop in one bound, her four hooves flinging up circular divots—but the Lady hung on.

Neysa stopped, her feet churning up turf in parallel scrape-lines. The Lady stayed put. Neysa took off—sidewise. And backward. The Lady’s skirt flared, but the Lady held on.

“She does know how to ride,” Hulk remarked, im-pressed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that was you, Stile, in a dress. I’ve watched you win bronco-busting in the Game.”

Stile was glumly silent. The Lady Blue could indeed ride, better than he had expected—but he knew she could not stay on the unicorn. When she fell, Neysa would kill her, if the fall itself did not. It was legitimate; it was expected. And what would he want with Neysa then?

The unicorn performed a backflip, then a four-spoked cartwheel, then a series of one-beat hops, fol-lowed by a bounce on her back. The Lady stayed on until the last moment, then jumped clear—and back on when Neysa scrambled to her feet.

Hulk was gaping. “What sort of animal is that? Those tricks are impossible!”

There was a chord-snort next to Stile. He glanced—and discovered the Herd Stallion beside him, front hooves comfortably crossed on the wall, eyes intent on the competition. “Not bad moves,” Clip translated from the far side.

Neysa whirled and leaped, spinning about in air. The Lady’s slippers flew off and her gown flung out so violently it rent; a fragment of blue gauze drifted to the ground. But her hands were locked in the unicorn’s mane, and she was not dislodged.

Neysa did a sudden barrel-roll on the ground. Again the Lady jumped free—but a tattered hem of her garment was caught under the weight of the unicorn, trapping her. As the roll continued, the Lady was squeezed by the tightening cloth. She ripped her own gown asunder and danced free, abruptly nude.

“That is some figure of a woman!” Hulk breathed. Neysa started to rise. The Lady grabbed her mane—and Neysa threw down her head on the ground, pinning the Lady’s streaming golden hair beneath it. The Lady grabbed for the unicorn’s ears, and Neysa lifted her head quickly; human hands could really hurt tender equine ears when they had to. Stile had not gone for the ears during his challenge ride; it was not his way. The Lady knew the tricks, all right! But Neysa had the end of the Lady’s tresses clamped between her teeth, now. The unicorn knew the tricks too. Human intelligence in equine form—devastating! As the Lady tried to mount again, Neysa yanked her off balance by the hair.

“Beautiful!” Clip murmured.

But the Lady grasped her own hair with one hand and jammed her other fingers into Neysa’s mouth where the bit would go on a horse. There was a separation there between the front teeth, used for ripping grass free of the ground, and the back teeth, used for chewing. Pressure in that gap could cause pain. Neysa’s mouth opened under that expert inducement, and the Lady’s hair was free. Then, as Neysa leaped away, the Lady sprang to her back again, Neysa ran—but now the Lady was free of the liabil-ity of clothing, and had a more secure lodging than before. “She’s winning!” Hulk said, obviously rooting for the Lady, forgetting in the excitement what this would mean to Stile.

Stile began to wonder. Was it possible that the Lady Blue could ride Neysa? She was, next to himself, the most expert rider he had seen.

The Stallion made an irate snort. “What’s the matter with that mare?” Clip said. “She should have wiped out the rider by this time.”

“She is torn by indecision,” Kurrelgyre said. “If Neysa loses, she proves the Lady’s belief that Stile is false. If Neysa wins, she vindicates him as the Blue Adept she wants him not to be. Would I could take from her that choice.”

Stile kept his eyes forward, but felt a shiver. The werewolf had his bitch in the pack, even as Stile had Sheen in Proton. But Kurrelgyre obviously had developed a separate interest that cut across the lines of species—even as Stile had. Yet who could know Neysa and not like her and respect her?