Piers Anthony - Out of Phaze

There was a southward-blowing wind, which facilitated his progress, and he traveled much faster than he had before, with less fatigue. But he was now three days behind Fleta. He hoped she had remained with the Herd.

The wind stiffened. He shipped his paddle and let it carry him like a current. The scenery moved rapidly by. He had to take action on occasion to avoid trees, but otherwise it was a restful trip. He wished he could remain here in Phaze, but the logic of the situation was inescapable. He did not belong here, and his continued presence would harm the frame. It would be hard to part with Fleta, but it had to be done.

He reached the grazing Herd in the afternoon, and guided his craft toward it. The Herd Stallion came forth to meet him. He had a dark blue coat, with red socks, and bore a family resemblance to Fleta. Obviously this was her uncle Clip.

“I am Mach, visiting this frame,” Mach said, back-paddling to hold his canoe in place. “I would like to talk to Fleta.”

The unicorn became a man. “And I be the Herd Stallion. My niece passed here three days past, but went on to the local Werewolf Pack.”

“Then I must go on to the Pack,” Mach said.

“Not if thou beest not known to them,” Clip said. “We know thee, because thou hast the likeness of our friend Bane, and Fleta told us of thy nature. But the wolves welcome strangers not.”

“I must find her, to tell her farewell,” Mach said.

Clip gazed at him appraisingly. “In that case, I shall send with thee a guide.” He reverted to equine form and blew a brief melody on his horn. It sounded like a saxophone.

There was a stir amidst the Herd. The unicorns were of all colors and patterns, mostly mares with some younger ones. One of the young ones came forth. He was piebald, with large patches of green and orange. He blew an inquiring note, sounding like a trombone.

Clip changed back to man form. “Bone, guide this man to Kurrelgyre’s Pack and introduce him,” he said.

Bone changed to adolescent form. “But this be Bane! He needs no guidance there!”

“This be Mach,” Clip said. “Dost seek to be expelled from the Herd before thy time? Do as I say.”

“Aye, Master,” the youth agreed.

“Get in and help him paddle,” Clip said.

So Bone climbed in, took the front seat, and used the paddle. Suddenly the canoe’s progress was faster, which was just as well, because the wind had died.

They moved east. Soon night closed. Bone guided them to a copse of fruit trees, where they tied the canoe. Mach ate and settled down to sleep; Bone reverted to his natural form and grazed.

Next day they paddled on. Bone, not content merely to paddle and guide, chatted about this and that.

“You like your life on the plain?” Mach inquired.

“Oh, sure,” the youth inquired. “ ‘Course it’ll be harder when I get evicted from the Herd.”

“Evicted? Why?”

“All grown males get evicted. There can be only one Herd Stallion. So we have to range beyond it, on guard against enemies, and hope for the day one of us will achieve a herd of our own.”

“But wouldn’t it be fairer to have one stallion to one mare?”

“What kind of a herd would that be?” Bone inquired indignantly. “Only the fittest can sire offspring.”

Mach saw another reason why Fleta might prefer to love outside the Herd, and outside her species. All the mares serviced by one stallion? There could not be much attention for individuals! “And you are the offspring of Clip?”

“Of Clip? Nay! He deposed my sire fifteen years back.” He made a gesture with the paddle. “And what a fight that was! Clip had been out in the hills with but a small Herd, mainly Belle, but that must’ve toughened him, because he came down and challenged our Herd Stallion, who was getting pretty old, and gored him and drove him off. Of course Clip be not young himself, now, and already the males of the hills be watching him. But he be brother to Neysa, and she hath friends—Oh, does she have friends, from the Blue Adept on down!— and whoe’er takes out her brother would have to fear from those friends.”

Phaze had a sterner mode of existence than he had realized! Mach could understand dragons preying on unicorns and such, but hadn’t realized how tough the internal affairs of the herd could be.

“So you’ll be going out, and maybe one day challenge for the mastery of some herd?”

“Mayhap,” the youth agreed. “More likely get myself killed trying.”

And this was the life Fleta was a part of! Was he going to return to Proton and leave her to it? His recent decision to depart the frame was shaken. Yet what could he accomplish, by taking her from her Herd, except to shame her before her kind?

By nightfall they reached the Pack. Kurrelgyre turned out to be a grizzled wolf and, when he changed, a grizzled man, middle-aged and tough. Bone was obviously wary of him, and glad to revert to unicorn form and gallop away once Mach was safely introduced.

“Aye, she was here, three or four days past,” the leader of the Pack said. “She went on to the Vampire Demesnes.”

Another delay! Not only was he not catching up to Fleta, he was getting farther behind her!

The werewolves served him roasted meat. He didn’t inquire what kind it was. They gave him a cozy nest of hay for the night, though it wasn’t as comfortable for him as it was for them, in their canine forms.

In the morning Kurrelgyre decreed that he should have a guide, and a bitch named Furramenin jumped into the front of his canoe. She put her paws on the front seat and pointed her nose in the direction he was to go, and he paddled the craft in that direction.

At noon the bitch guided him to the site of a spring, so he could stop and drink water and find fruit. She jumped out of the canoe, glanced at the fruit, then changed to girl form. It seemed that she preferred to eat fruit in that shape, rather than to hunt for meat in her natural form. Mach hardly objected; he had been somewhat wary of the bitch, though he had told himself she would not turn on him. As a woman, she was just as young and healthy, and pretty too, though he would have preferred that she be either naked in the manner of a serf, or fully clothed. Her fur skirt and halter split the difference.

She kept the human shape when they resumed travel. She paddled, but she lacked the vigor the unicorn had had, and their progress was not swift. They had to camp for the night before reaching the Vampire Demesnes.

They foraged again for food, then settled down. “You can have the canoe if you wish,” Mach offered.

“Nay, I will resume bitch form and curl up in a hole,” she said. But she didn’t do that immediately, and that prevented Mach from settling down. He kept thinking of her as an attractive young woman, which made it awkward, especially when she leaned unselfconsciously toward him in that loose halter. He wondered how animals such as these had come to have human intelligence.

“Do you know Fleta personally?” he inquired politely.

“Aye, she be friend to me,” Furramenin said. “That be why I volunteered for this hunt. We talked, and she told me of the human man she liked. Thou art that man?”

“I am. Now I seek her to bid her farewell, for I must return to my frame.”

“Aye, she knew that. An thou hadst stayed, she was ready to speak the three thee’s to thee.”

“The what?”

“Dost thou know not? An a human or human-formed creature love truly, that creature bespeaks the other, ‘Thee’ three times and the splash bespeaks its truth.”

Now he remembered; Fleta had told him of it. Except for one detail. “Splash?”

She laughed. “How canst thou know true love in thy frame of Proton? The splash be the magic ripple that spreads in the presence of the utterance of significant truth.”