Piers Anthony - Juxtaposition

“A second time hast thou repaid my favor,” Stile said. “Now do I owe thee one.”

“Nay, Adept,” Trool protested. “It was prophesied that three times must I tunnel to free thee and thine from hazard, ere the balance evens.”

“Then gladly do I accept this rescue of my Lady!” Stile said. “But dost thou not know that the Blue Adept destroyed all thy tribe in fire?”

“As my tribe destroyed all thy village. Those scales are even. The debt is other.”

Stile shrugged. “Why shouldst thou be burdened, not me?”

“Because thou must save Phaze.” Trool turned and shambled back into his tunnel, which extended darkly into the ground. Stile was amazed at the creature’s facility in tunneling—but of course troll magic was involved. Then he noticed an object on the ground. He stooped carefully to pick it up, for his knees remained bad, able to bend only to right angles before pain began. Stile could use magic to move himself but not to heal himself, so had to live with the condition. He picked up the object. It was a small figurine of a woman, quite well executed.

“Who made this?” Stile asked.

“Trool,” the Lady replied. “He appears clumsy, but his big hands have magic. When he is not tunneling, he turns that magic to sculpture, to relieve his nervousness.”

“Facing two ogres, I can appreciate his concern! Why did he step out on to the land, where they had power?”

“To stop them from charging me,” she said. “Trolls are not my favorite creature, but Trool acted bravely and selflessly. If again we meet, I shall call him friend.”

“Yet if he is honoring a prophecy, I can not reward him,” Stile said. “That might alter the meaning of his action and void the prophecy, causing mischief.”

“True,” she agreed soberly.

Stile contemplated the figurine. “This is thee!” he exclaimed, surprised.

She shrugged. “He begged my leave. He works better when he has a subject. I saw no harm.”

Figurine magic could be potent—but the Red Adept had specialized in that, with her amulets, and she was gone. “No, no harm,” Stile agreed. “He’s a fine craftsman. This is as pretty a statuette as I’ve seen.”

“We forget Clip,” she reminded him, taking the statuette from him.

“In a moment. Now for these monsters.” Stile conjured a cage around the two, then unfroze them. They rattled the bars for several minutes before conceding they were effectively imprisoned; then they were ready to listen to Stile.

“Know, ogres, that I am the Blue Adept,” Stile said. “This is my Lady Blue. Why did the five of you attack her?”

“Blue be now our enemy,” one repeated.

“The Oracle told thee that?”

“Told Brogbt.”

“Who is Brogbt?”

The ogre pointed to one of the dead monsters. “Then must I make the dead to speak,” Stile said grimly. He pondered, working out a spell, then sang:

“Ogre Brogbt, under my spell, the true message do thou tell.”

The dead ogre stirred. Flies buzzed up angrily. Its rigor stiffened mouth cracked open. “Blue be not thine enemy,” it croaked, and lay still again.

“Not!” the Lady exclaimed. “It said not!”

Both living ogres seemed surprised. “Brogbt told us now.”

“He thought the word was now. He was enchanted, and heard or remembered it wrong. I am not thine enemy. Now thou knowest.”

“Now I know,” the ogre agreed, adapting dully to this new reality.

Stile eliminated their cage. “Go inform thy kind of the truth.”

They stomped away.

“Thou art as ever generous in victory,” the Lady said. “Now for the unicorn.” Stile made a spell that set Clip’s hoofprints glowing, and they followed these. The trail led over a hill to a copse of evergreens and entered the dense forest island.

“Where are the mare’s prints?” the Lady asked. Stile sang a new spell to make those also glow, but evoked nothing.

“She was mere illusion,” the Lady said. “A sending to distract him so the ogres could get to me. This surely means mischief. Had Trool not interfered—“

Stile made another spell. “Make an image, make it sooth, - of the unicorn, of the truth.”

The image formed, like a holograph, three-dimensional. Clip walked beside a phantom. The unreal mare led him into the copse—and there a flash occurred, and the unicorn was gone.

“Destroyed?” the Lady cried, appalled.

“I think not,” Stile said grimly. He tried a spell to locate Clip specifically, but it fizzled. “This is Adept magic. I can not fathom the truth beyond this point, for it is Adept against Adept. But the message seems likely enough. Clip has been taken hostage.”

“Hostage!” she exclaimed. “For what?”

“For my behavior. My secret enemy cannot match my power directly, so he has resorted to another device. I must bargain with him for Clip’s life.”

“But what does that Adept want?”

“It seems I am to be involved in great events in the near future. Mine enemies know this, my friends know too. Everybody knows this except me. What mine enemy wants will surely be made known in good time.”

“But no one can influence thee by such means!”

“Oh, yes, he can!” Stile scowled, feeling an elemental savagery. “He can evoke my vengeance against him for whatever he does to Clip. He can make me an enemy for life. Now he is attacking my wife and steed in lieu of me, seeking leverage. Not without consequence may Blue be thus used.”

She smiled sadly. “The honeymoon is over.”

Soberly, he nodded. “I must report to the Herd Stallion.”

“And I—I shall be left behind again.”

“Thou knowest I love thee. Lady. But there are things I must do.”

“I would not change thy nature if I could, my love.” Abruptly, savagely, they kissed, their horror of the situation converting to passion. Then Stile spelled them to the unicorn herd.

They arrived at the edge of the pasture where the unicorns grazed. The great Herd Stallion looked up. He stood eighteen hands at the shoulder, or six feet, and was power fully muscled. His torso was pearly gray, darkening into black hooves; his mane and tail were silver, and his head golden. He was the most magnificent equine Stile knew. Perceiving Stile’s mien, the Stallion converted immediately to man-form and approached. “Speak without waste, Adept.”

“Clip has been taken hostage,” Stile said. Then he choked and could not continue.

“Do thou go see Neysa,” the Lady Blue told him gently. “I will give the Stallion the detail.”

Gratefully, Stile walked through the herd, looking for his closest friend in Phaze. In a moment Neysa came to him. She was fit and sleek, showing as yet no sign of her gravid condition. She had only very recently been bred, and equines did not show the way humans did. She accepted his embrace, shifting momentarily to girl-form in his arms, in the mischievous way she had. Then she shifted back.

“Oh, Neysa,” he said, feeling the tears on his face. “I fear I have placed your brother in dire straits.” She tensed, blowing a harmonica-note of alarm. She loved her brother.

“I was in Proton-frame,” he stumbled on. “Ogres at tacked the Lady Blue. Clip fought valiantly, protecting her, and killed two ogres. But an Adept sent a sending of the mare called Belle, who won thine event in the Unolympics, and lured him into captivity, surely hostage against my power. And I—I can not accept what that enemy may demand of me, though Clip is—“ The tears were flowing freely now, dropping from his chin. “I should have been there!” And perhaps, if he had checked Clip’s situation first, instead of last, he might have been in time to nullify the abduction. He had just assumed that Clip was near.