Piers Anthony - Out of Phaze

“No game. I just don’t understand. Who are you? Where did you come from? Why do you use the archaic forms? Why are you garbed?”

She cocked her head at him cannily. “So we call it not a game. That can I do. As for who I be, as if thou dost not know: I am Fleta, thy companion of yore. I speak as thy kind does; wouldst rather have me neigh? As for my garb—why there be no need for it, if this be the game!” And she reached down, caught hold of the hem of her cloak, and drew it up over her head. In a moment she stood before him naked, for she wore no underclothing. “Be that better, Bane?”

“Yes,” he agreed. She was a most comely figure of a young woman, perfectly formed and standing just slightly shorter than he. “But why are you calling me Bane? Do you know me?”

“What wouldst thou be called, then?” she inquired merrily.

“My name is Mach.”

She laughed. “What a stupid name!”

He frowned. “Is Fleta a more intelligent name?”

“Certainly! But I will try to keep my laughter down while I call thee Mach.” Indeed, she did try, but the laughter bubbled up from her stomach, caused her breasts to bounce, and finally burst out of her mouth. She flung her arms about him and kissed him, as she had in the night. “O, Bane—I mean Ma-Ma—“ A giggle overcame her, but she fought through it. “Mach! What a romp have we here! I feared thou hadst forgotten me in thy serious studies of blue magic; how glad I be to learn not!”

“Fleta, I have to say that I do not know you. What’s this about magic?”

“Ah, wait till I tell the fillies of the herd of this! Never played we music like this!”

“If you would just answer my questions,” Mach said somewhat stiffly.

“As thou dost wish,” she agreed. “But first may we eat? and O, I see thou art all scratched! Why dost thou not heal thyself?”

“Heal myself?” he asked blankly. “I think only time can do that.”

“With thy magic,” she explained. “Surely the game be not such that thou must suffer such smarts!”

“I don’t know anything about magic!” he protested.

She made a moue. “Or wouldst thou have the unicorn heal thee instead?”

“The unicorn!” he exclaimed, alarmed. “What do you know about that?”

She stared at him, then smiled again, dismissing his supposed ignorance. ‘Thy memory seems brief, lately!”

“A unicorn brought me here last night, after rescuing me from monsters in the swamp. I don’t know why; do you?”

She shook her head so that the lustrous hair swirled. “Who can know the mind of a ‘corn!” she exclaimed, laughing again. “Mayhap she thought thou didst call for help.”

“I did call for help,” he agreed. “But—but why should an animal do me any favor?”

“An animal,” Fleta repeated thoughtfully. “An thou hadst called her that, mayhap she’d have left thee in the swamp indeed!”

“Oh—are they sensitive about that sort of thing? Good thing she didn’t understand my speech.”

“Aye, so,” she agreed, twinkling again. “So thou dost not desire the ‘corn to heal thy trifling wounds with her horn?”

“With her horn?”

“Adepts be not the only ones who do magic!” she exclaimed. “Dost thou not remember the healing of the horn?”

“You mean—that unicorn—when she approached me with her horn lowered—only wanted to—to touch my scratches and heal them magically?”

“Lo, now he remembers!” she exclaimed. “What else would she be about?”

“I wasn’t sure,” he confessed. “I was relieved when she left.”

Fleta frowned. ‘There be aspects of this game I understand not,” she said. ‘Thou dost not wish the return of the unicorn?”

“True,” he agreed. “But of course I cannot prevent it. Maybe we should get away from here before she arrives.”

She sighed. “Be that the way thou dost want it, so let it be. I had not thought to hear thee say the like, though.”

“Well, I’m sure unicorns can be perfectly good animals, and I do appreciate what she did for me yesterday. But I must admit I feel safer with you.”

“And thou dost not propose to conjure up a repast for us both?”

“What makes you think I could do such a thing?”

She laughed her merry laugh. “Sheer foolishness, Mach!” she said. “Come, I shall find us food.” She led him from the crater.

3 - Bane

Bane found himself in a chamber, sitting on a bed. A moment before he had been in the forest glade, seeking rapport with his other self. He had sung a spell to facilitate the exchange of identities—and it seemed that it had worked! Here he was in the other frame, while his alternate had to be in Phaze. Wait till he told his father of this success!

He looked about, trying to fix as much of this locale in his mind as possible before he reverted to his own frame. It was not that Adept Stile would doubt him, but that he wanted to have information that would establish the case beyond question. This was the first genuine contact with the frame of Proton since the two had separated twenty years ago. Of course no one else had seriously sought such contact; it had been generally agreed that total separation of the frames was best. But Bane had regarded it as a challenge, and when he had tuned in on the sendings of his other self, he had jumped at the chance to intensify the contact.

This was definitely Proton! Everything about the room was unmagical. The bed was formed of some substance unknown in Phaze, hard like wood but with no grain, and the mattress on it was like one big white sponge. There was a cabinet against the wall with a window in it that opened on blankness. Beside it were several books—no, they seemed to have no pages. But perhaps the folk of this frame didn’t read books. His father would know.

He looked down at his body. It was naked. That, too, aligned; Stile had mentioned that the folk of Proton went naked, all except the rulers. He was really here, in the body of his other self.

But he decided to make sure. If this were Proton, magic would not work here. “Make me rise, to realize,” he sang, composing a ditty on the spot, as he had been trained to do from childhood. It was his mind that really governed the spell, but it had to be in the right form: singsong and rhymed.

Nothing happened. He remained firmly planted on the bed. In Phaze he would now be floating above it. This was the final proof: he was definitely out of Phaze.

He clapped his hands, expressing the sheer joy of the accomplishment. What a breakthrough! To transport himself to the other frame, when others had believed it to be impossible. And he would be able to do it again, now that he knew exactly how. What a tremendous opportunity loomed!

But now he had better switch back, so they could each report their accomplishment to their folks. Bane sat on the bed, concentrated—and nothing happened.

Oops! He had used magic to facilitate the exchange— but here magic didn’t work. His other self would have to perform the spell—and would his other self know the spell?

Well, he could explain. All he needed to do was use their rapport to make it clear.

He concentrated again—and discovered, to his horror, that the rapport was gone.

The two selves had to occupy the same site in their respective frames, for the rapport to be achieved. They had to unify in their fashion, seeming almost as one. It had taken Bane a long time to discover the place where he could overlap his Proton self, and to be there when his other self was ready for that rapport. This was that occasion—but now the other self had moved off the spot.

Bane got up, casting desperately about for the other. He knew he could sense the other if he overlapped, or even if he came close—but where was the other?