Piers Anthony - Juxtaposition

“Let me try. Blue. If I animate her, thou wilt not have to carry her.”

“I’m in a hurry. Brown. The hostile Adepts could spot me at any moment. There isn’t time—“

“Why dost thou not want to animate her here?” she asked with the direct naivete of a child. That stopped Stile. The Lady Blue, his wife, was in Phaze, yet she could cross to Proton, where she had met Sheen. There really was no conflict.

“How fast canst thou do it?”

“She is full-formed.” Brown squinted at Sheen’s torso critically. “Very full-formed. I have only to lay on my hands and concentrate. Most of the time I spend fashioning a golem is carving it to shape before animation.”

“Try it, then. But if she is not herself—I mean, the golems can be—“

“Then will I deanimate her.” Brown leaned over Sheen, where Stile placed her on the ground, and ran her hands over the body. Then she pressed her fingers across the face.

Sheen stirred. Her eyes opened.

Stile stood back, abruptly nervous. Golems were nonliving things, soulless ones animated only by magic, Brown’s ability to make them function was phenomenal but what monster in Sheen’s image might rouse here?

Sheen sat up, shaking her head. She saw Stile. “Oh, we’re back,” she said. “I must have been set back by the deactivation. I feel funny.”

She was herself! “Thou dost know me?” Stile asked, hardly daring to believe. A new golem would not have knowledge of him.

“Of course I know you, Stile! I’m not that forgetful, unless my memory banks get erased. And this child is the one who called you on holo. She—“ Sheen broke off, surprised. “What is she doing here?”

“This is Phaze,” Stile said. “The Brown Demesnes.”

Sheen blinked. “I don’t believe that is possible. I can’t function across the curtain; you know that.”

“I animated thee,” the child said. “Thou art now a golem.”

Sheen looked around, taking in the scene. She saw the wooden walls of the castle, and the golems standing near. “May I inspect this region?”

Stile was becoming nervous about the time. “Do it quickly. Sheen. Thou wilt be inert again if the enemy Adepts discover our presence here and attack.” He was almost fidgeting.

“I think they are distracted by other events,” Brown said. “They know not what my golems are doing.”

Sheen completed her survey extremely quickly. “There is no dome. The air is natural. This is the other world. Will I remain animate? I feel no different.”

“Yes,” the Brown Adept said. “My golems never die, unless they are destroyed.” Tactfully, she did not mention her ability to turn them off.

“Yet I am not alive,” Sheen concluded sadly.

“That is beyond the power of magic,” Brown agreed.

“And of science,” Stile added. “Now must we go.” He took Sheen’s hand and sang a spell to take them to a private section of the curtain. One thing he had done during his honeymoon was survey likely crossing places. They landed in a secluded glade in the Purple Mountain foothills.

“Now that’s an experience!” Sheen exclaimed. “It really is a magic land.”

“It really is,” Stile agreed. “Art thou able to cross the curtain by thyself now?”

Sheen tried, but could not. “I am not alive,” she repeated. “I have no power to do what living creatures do.” Stile took her hand again and willed them across. They stood in a vehicle storage garage. “Do you remember?” he asked.

“I remember Phaze,” she said. “I have not changed. Only your language has changed.”

“So there is no loss of continuity as you shift from magic to science.”

“None at all. I am the same. I wish I were not.”

“Now let’s get that book of magic before we are diverted again. We’re close to a Game Annex terminal, by no coincidence. I can contact the Game Computer privately there.”

“Let me do it,” Sheen said. “There may be another ambush.”

“You’re my fiancee. I shouldn’t let you take all the risks.”

“Without you, I am nothing. Without me, you are a leading Citizen and Adept, capable of saving Phaze and helping my friends. Stand back, sir.”

Stile smiled and shrugged.

“Give me the book of magic,” she said to the Game-access terminal, adding the code.

“Why?” the Computer asked.

“The Blue Adept means to return it to Phaze and there use it to abate the crisis.”

“One moment,” the machine said. “While it is on the way, will you accept a message for the Blue Adept?”

“Yes.”

“A consortium of opposition Citizens, interested in profiting from a necessary action, proffers this wager: the entire amount of Citizen Stile’s fortune at the time, that he will not survive until the start of tonight’s business meeting of Citizens.”

“I’ll take that bet!” Stile called, realizing that he could not lose it. If he died prematurely, all was lost anyway; if he lived, his fortune and power would be doubled again. Double or nothing, right when he wanted it.

“Citizen Stile accepts the wager,” Sheen said. “If he dies, his estate will be liquidated and assigned to the consortium. If he appears at that meeting alive, his fortune will in that instant be doubled, and he will immediately be able to wield the full leverage of it.”

“The wager is so entered. The doubling cube has been turned.” The Game Computer made a bleep that was its way of coughing apologetically. “I have no part of this threat other than serving as a conduit for the wager. It was not necessary for the Citizen to be concerned about an ambush on my premises. Neither am I permitted to warn him of any potential threat immediately beyond my premises.”

“That’s warning enough,” Stile muttered. “Move out, Sheen!” Sheen paused only long enough to pick up the package the delivery slot delivered: the book of magic. They fled down a hall. “Weapons are not permitted on Game premises unless part of a designated Game,” the Game Computer announced.

“It is not warning us, just making a public announcement—officially,” Stile said with a grim smile. “Is the Game Computer really one of your friends?”

“Yes,” she said.

A man appeared in the hall ahead. He looked like an ordinary serf, but he stood before them with a suggestive posture of readiness.

“That’s a robot,” Stile said.

“That’s a killer machine,” Sheen agreed. “Stile, I am a dual-purpose robot, designed for defense and personality. That is a specialized attack vehicle. I am not equipped to handle it. You must flee it immediately; I can delay it only a moment.”

Stile dived for a panel. He tore open a section of the wall where he knew power lines ran. There they were, brightly colored cables, intended to be quite clearly coded for stupid maintenance personnel. He took a red one in both hands and yanked. It ripped free as the enemy robot came near.

“Get well away, Sheen!” he cried.

“Stile, you’ll electrocute yourself!” she cried in horror. Now he took hold of a white cable. This, too, tore from its mooring, which was a magnetic clamp. As the killer robot reached for him, Stile jammed both taw cable ends at its body. Power arced and crackled, electrifying the machine. The robot collapsed.

“You took a terrible chance!” Sheen admonished him as they hurried on. “You could have been electrocuted just pulling those cables out.”

“The power was cut off, to free the magnetic clamps,” Stile said. “The danger was apparent, not real.”

“How could you know that?” She sounded flustered.

“The Game Computer is one of your friends,” he re minded her.

“Oh.” For her friends stood ready to help him, covertly. The Computer had cut off power, then restored it. How could such a brief collusion ever be spotted? Stile knew exactly how to use the assistance of the self-willed machines when he needed to: fortunately the specialized killer machine had been stupid.