Piers Anthony - Out of Phaze

Just to be sure, he made a loop: he circled carefully, and stopped just before he crossed his own prior trail. If something were following him, this should foil it. Nothing did; all he saw was another deer, browsing amidst the leaves of a copse of small trees. He settled down and kept quiet, so as not to disturb it. When it spooked, he would know something was coming.

His thoughts returned to Agape. She had supported him so loyally, until now; why had she started second-guessing his strategy, that was so obviously successful? He had proved himself readily able to handle the assorted imitation creatures the Citizen had sent against him; she should have been satisfied with that!

There was a thunk beside him. Bane jumped. There was a feathered arrow in the trunk of the tree he squatted near. He was being attacked!

He scrambled away as another arrow whistled through his region. He dived behind another trunk. This time the Citizen was striking from a distance; neither staff nor short sword could do much about that!

How had the man found him, and come up behind him, without even alerting the deer? Bane’s loop had made no difference. The Citizen had not followed his trail, but had simply arrived at his location.

Bane poked his head around the tree, trying to spot the Citizen. But another arrow swished by, too close. The Citizen has good aim!

“Now let’s see you club me in the head!” the Citizen called.

Had the man come in person, this time? If so, the Citizen was taking a serious chance, for he was fat and slow, while Bane was young and fast.

Another arrow thunked into the ground just beyond Bane’s tree. But this one was different. It sparkled. In a moment the dry grass and leaves of the forest floor were burning. A fire-arrow!

Bane went to stamp out the fire—but another normal arrow whizzed by his head, and he had to retreat. But the fire was spreading rapidly toward him. Soon he would have to move, or get burned. But when he moved, he would become vulnerable to the arrows of the Citizen!

He had no choice. He saw the deer running by, spooked by the smoke, in its alarm actually cutting past the fringe of the fire and leaping toward the Citizen. Well, maybe that would distract the man for the necessary instant!

Bane charged for the next tree. But an arrow passed ahead of him, making him dive to the ground.

“I’ve got you covered, apprentice!” the Citizen called, striding forward, his bow ready, the next arrow already nocked. “You weren’t as much competition as I had hoped, after all. Too bad.”

Bane scrambled up. The Citizen’s bow moved to track him with unerring accuracy. He had no chance!

Then the deer hurtled into the Citizen. Both fell to the ground. Bane, amazed, nevertheless grasped his opportunity; he launched himself in that direction, intending to club the Citizen before the bow came back into play.

But he discovered that the job had already been done. The deer was striking at the man’s head with its sharp front hooves, and the head was crackling. It had been another robot, fashioned into a man’s image, and it had been put out of commission.

But by a wild animal?

Then Bane caught on. “Agape!” he exclaimed.

The deer looked at him and nodded. Then it began to melt. Soon it was reforming into Agape’s more familiar human form.

“Thou didst save my life!” Bane exclaimed. “Or at least my freedom. Thou wast with me all along! But why, when we quarreled?”

“Friends can disagree,” she said as her human face became complete. “I couldn’t let you lose the game if I could prevent it.”

He took her in his arms. “We spoke of honor. Thou didst say that thou didst define it differently. I like thy definition.”

“I just did what I had to do.”

“Must I needs apologize to thee,” he said.

“No need, Bane. Just win the game.”

“Aye. But now will come another threat—and me-thinks it will know where we be.”

“The last one followed you and didn’t recognize me,” she said. “Maybe the Citizen tunes in on the substances of your body. Living flesh may not work for that.”

“This be more of a challenge than I like. How can I sleep, and the Citizen tune in on me?”

“We’ve got to find a way to nullify the threat without destroying it,” she said. “Then it won’t matter if it knows where you are.”

Bane cast about for stones. “Next bowman comes, I want a distance weapon.”

“Why not use the bow?”

Bane knocked his head with the heel of his hand. “The bow: Spoils!”

Bane picked up the bow, and checked the remaining arrows. Most were ordinary, but one was incendiary and another was glowing: a marker.

He tested the bow, shooting an arrow at a distant target. It scored; this was an excellent instrument. Probably the man-robot had been designed for perfect marksmanship, too. Well, Bane could score well enough with this, being both trained and having a robot body.

“Each attack seems to be worse than the preceding one,” Agape said. “I think we’d better prepare for something bad.”

“Aye. But thou dost not wish to kill it.”

“Not if we can nullify it without destroying it. Then the Citizen won’t be able to bring a new threat.”

“If we just knew what to expect!” he fretted.

“Since we can’t seem to hide from it, maybe if we made a good defensive position—“

“Or a trap!” he exclaimed.

They discussed it briefly, then worked to set up a covered pit. Bane had to use the sword to excavate the earth and chop through roots, and they couldn’t take time to make it too deep, because they did not know when the next attack would come. The best they could hope for was that the creature would fall in, and be distracted long enough for Bane to get in some crippling but not killing blow. Having slowed it, they could then outrun it, and the Citizen would not be able to bring in anything new.

They put branches and ferns across the hole, bringing them in from a distance, and covered them with some of the dirt. The extra dirt they used to fashion a kind of fort nearby. They spread dry leaves over everything. Then they settled into the fort and waited.

Nothing happened. After two hours, the sun was going down, and they were getting hungry. “The Citizen must be taking a break,” Agape said. “He knows that we don’t dare rest, so he can afford to. He has plenty of time.”

That seemed to make sense. “Let’s eat, then,” Bane said. They searched for food. Some of the trees had fruit, but it wasn’t enough. They also needed water to drink. “If this be a copy of the mountain I know,” Bane said, “there be a cave and the snow from the peak melts into a stream that runs through it. Mushrooms grow in that cave. But some be poison.”

“I can tell good from bad,” Agape said. They went to where the cave should be—and it was there. “The stream joins it inside; its channel be too convoluted and narrow for a person, but for a way it be nice,” he said, remembering.

It was nice. It was dark inside, but Bane used the glow-arrow for light, and it was enough. The mushrooms grew thickly by the bank of the subterranean river. Agape melted a hand and touched sample mushrooms, locating a large patch of good ones. They had food, for now. He ate a token amount, just to keep her company.

Agape checked farther in the cave. She stroked the stones of it. “Bane, this is not safe!” she exclaimed, alarmed. “I feel the stress here; one hard knock, and the ceiling will fall!”

“Aye, I always used a spell to shore it up, just in case. But if we don’t knock it—“

“Let’s get back to the surface,” she said nervously.

They returned to the forest. It was dark now, and the sounds of the night life were there. The Citizen had done an excellent job of renovating this region!