Piers Anthony - Out of Phaze

She embraced him again. ‘Thou’rt lovely, Mach.”

“Now will you answer my question?”

She smiled. “Nay.”

“But I answered yours!”

“Aye.” She disengaged, giving him no further answer. He sighed with frustration. There was so much he had yet to learn about the ways and motives of living creatures, Fleta especially.

She found them more fruit, and they ate. Then they trekked north across the plain. Mach’s living legs were tiring, but he did not complain; after all, if delicate Fleta could keep the pace, so could he.

Progress was good, because of the open and level ground. But in midafternoon Fleta paused. “Mach, we have a choice,” she said. “The most direct path to the Blue Demenses be straight north from here, but the most secure path be toward the east.”

“What is the difference in time?”

“We might be there by nightfall, an we take the left through the Lattice. An we take the other, we must night on the trail, and arrive tomorrow noon.”

Mach was tempted to specify the right path, so as to be the night with her, but discipline prevailed. ‘The left, then.”

She nodded, and he realized that she had hoped he would choose the other path. He was coining to understand her quite well by the nuances of her gestures. But his machine heritage provided him a type of discipline that many living folk lacked.

They went left, and within the hour reached the Lattice. This turned out to be a huge network of cracks in the earth. At the fringe the cracks were shallow, but soon they became formidable, several centimeters across and quite deep, extending in endless zigzags. They had to step carefully to avoid wedging their feet in them.

The cracks became larger yet, until they were chasms in themselves. “Now must we be silent,” Fleta said.

“Silent? Why?”

“So as not to rouse the demons below.”

Mach peered down into a crack. Demons down there? After the monsters he had already seen, he didn’t want any more.

They proceeded to a region where the cracks were so extensive that they covered more area than the ground did. Mach found this nervous business; one slip could plunge him into the darkness below. But Fleta evidently knew where she was going.

They came to a dead end. Ahead and to either side the crevices closed them in; only behind was there a jagged path.

Fleta gestured. Mach saw that the path resumed beyond a narrow part of the crack. They would have to jump.

Fleta showed the way. She took a running start, then leaped, landing neatly on the other side. She moved back out of the way, giving him room.

Mach followed suit. He had trained for jumping in the Game, and this body was the same as his own, apart from the fact that it was alive. It was healthy and responsive. He could handle this readily, even when tired.

They went on, winding through the maze. Mach wondered how such a configuration of terrain had come about. Was there an equivalent feature in Proton? He had never really explored the exterior world there; now he wished he had.

They came to another jump. Mach realized that Fleta knew exactly where the gaps were narrowest; otherwise they would soon have been lost amidst impassable cracks.

But just as she was about to leap, a grotesque head popped up from the chasm. “Hhaarr!” it growled.

“The demons!” Fleta exclaimed with dismay. “Me-thought we would not rouse them!”

Other heads appeared from the cracks to the sides and rear. The two of them were surrounded!

“Seems more like a trap to me,” Mach muttered. “We weren’t making a lot of noise.”

Now the demons were scrambling to the surface. Each had a body as misshapen as its head. Short legs, huge long arms, bulbous chest-barrel, horns and tail. And gaping mouths bulging with yellow teeth.

“There be no reasoning with demons,” Fleta said. ‘They eat our kind.”

Mach did not see much hope, but he was ready to fight. “Stand back to back with me,” he said, drawing his axe. “I’ll club any that come close.”

‘That will not stop them; they feel not much pain. O, Mach, I fear the time has come to let the secret be known.”

“Your secret?” he asked, watching warily as the circle of demons closed in about them. “I think it had better wait until we have fought off this crowd.” But he had severe misgivings about that; each demon was approximately his own size, and there were many of them. Unless he could figure out an effective spell. What rhymed with “demon”?

“I be the unicorn,” Fleta said. ‘Thou must ride me to safety. Now!”

“You—what?” But as he looked at her, she vanished. In her place was the black unicorn who had saved him twice before.

The closest demon lunged. Mach swung his axe, catching the creature in the face. The blade cut right through, splitting the head in two—but there was no blood, and the demon kept coming. Now he understood Fleta’s reluctance to fight these things; they were truly inhuman.

He dodged the demon, then leaped to the back of the unicorn and grabbed a handful of black mane. ‘Take off!”

She started moving. A demon grabbed for her, but the long horn whipped about and speared the thing, shoving it back and over into the chasm behind it. Then the unicorn started trotting back along the path, where there were fewer demons; progress forward was impossible, because there was a phalanx of the creatures.

The demons pursued, but they could not match the velocity of the unicorn. In a moment the two of them were clear.

But more demons were climbing from the cracks back along the path. There seemed to be an endless number of them. Another phalanx of them formed up before the other jump, grinning.

But now the unicorn had velocity and inertia. She charged straight into them, bowling them over. At the brink she leaped, carrying Mach and a clutching demon with her. Mach twisted about and clubbed the demon on the head; when that had no effect, he chopped at the arm it had clutching the mane, and severed it. Then the demon dropped away, leaving the hand and part of the arm still locked on.

Now the crevices became too small to hide demons, and that threat abated. The unicorn charged on, her hooves striking the firm places with precision. She knew what she was doing; she must have traveled this route many times before!

In an amazingly brief time they were back at the fork in the path, alone. The unicorn stopped, and Mach dismounted.

Without any intermediate stage, the animal vanished and Fleta reappeared. She looked at him sadly. “Now thou dost know,” she said.

Suddenly it all made sense. He had called in the swamp, and the unicorn had heard, thinking him to be Bane, and had charged to the rescue of her long-time friend. She had taken him to the safety of the crater. Then, when he acted strangely, she had left him, only to return later in human guise. She had learned that he distrusted the unicorn, and that he was not the friend she had known, so she had concealed her nature from him.

When the harpies had attacked, she had had to change to the equine form again, to rescue him. Then back to the form of the woman, to be his companion. And now, unable to save him any other way, she had revealed her secret at last.

Now he remembered stray remarks. “Wouldst rather have me neigh?” and “Wait till I tell the fillies of the herd!” And the warning of the harpy that he was with Ban animal. And her reference to her “dam.” So many little hints, none of which had he understood.

And her attitude about their acquaintance. She liked him—but could not afford to love him. Because she was I an animal, and he a man. She had played games with Bane, who knew her nature, as children would; if the “games became more intimate than those of normal children with normal pets, it was only because a unicorn was no normal pet. Fleta had human intelligence and feelings.