Piers Anthony - Juxtaposition

“The enemy Adepts are helping them move, but the goblins are so many that no spell can conjure them all—and the Lady Golem-Adept’s counterspell prevents their coming all the way here by magic anyway. Logistics is a problem. They will be in this spot by dusk.” He indicated the Oracle’s palace.

“That means the ogres and goblins will meet somewhat to the north of the Oracle,” Stile said grimly, tracing the likely paths on the map. “We’d better send a detachment of unicorns to help the ogres. After all, that’s right in the path of our decoy effort. We have to take it seriously enough to fool them.” He glanced at the golems, who were moving the ball again. “Have them go slowly, maybe pushing the ball farther uphill than necessary, so we can roll it down quickly—in an unanticipated direction. I want to give the enemy every chance to rush its forces to the wrong rendezvous.”

Brown gave instructions to a messenger golem, then accompanied Stile on the mock survey excursion. Stile would have preferred to fly, but Sheen’s antimagic spell stopped him as well as the enemy Adepts. He had to go on foot, at least until a unicorn arrived. Fortunately he was quite capable afoot. He set out at a running pace, covering each mile in about seven minutes. Brown’s big golem steed kept pace with huge strides.

Then the unicorn he had hoped for came into sight. “Clip!” Stile cried. “Thou didst know I needed thee!” Clip played a saxophone tune of agreement. Stile vaulted to his back, and they were off at a much faster pace.

“Aw, the troll told him,” Brown said disparagingly. Of course that was true. In this frame of magic, coincidence was seldom unassisted.

Stile experienced the peculiar wrenching of separation again. They had once more passed outside the zone of juxtaposition, and his soul was all his own. The boundaries of the expanded curtain seemed to be quite irregular. He had supposed north would lead into the center of it. His other self had not intruded, letting Stile handle things his way, but the other’s presence was increasingly comfort able, and his absence increasingly jarring.

Now the terrain seemed less familiar, for his other self’s experience with the land was absent. Also, now the overlapping terrain of Proton was gone; this was mostly barren rock and sand, in the science frame, easy to ignore in the presence of the Phaze vegetation, but still present when one cared to perceive it. Well, at least he would suffer no Citizen malice here; only the enemy Adepts could reach him. Was there a valid parallel here? His soul was complete only when the geography was complete. Could the land be said to have a soul, perhaps in the form of the special mineral that the Citizens of Proton had depleted? It was odd, in one sense, that the Citizens resisted the transfer of Phazite, since it would dramatically enrich their world. But of course they would prefer to keep the frames partially overlapped, linked by the curtain so that in due course the Citizens could mine in Phaze as well as in Proton. They would equalize the frames by depleting both. The fact that such mining would do to the environment of Phaze what it had done to that of Proton, and also eliminate the remaining magic of Phaze, seemed not to concern the Citizens. There were, after all, other worlds in the universe to exploit, once this one was squeezed dry.

Since Stile’s transfer of power-mineral would enable the frames to balance, freeing them to separate, that would forever deny the Citizens the opportunity of exploitation. They seemed willfully ignorant of the substantial risk that both frames would be destroyed long before such exploitation could be completed. Stile wondered whether the citizens of ancient Harappa, in the Indian subcontinent of Earth, had had a similar attitude. Had they denuded the land of its necessary resources until it could support their population no longer, so that they weakened and fell to Nordic barbarians in the sixteenth century B.C.? Wealth and power at the expense of nature were an inevitably lethal cancer. But there seemed to be no gentle way to convince cancer to practice moderation.

Well, he. Stile, was fated to have considerable power, it seemed, in the frame of Proton after the separation, and his other self would have it in Phaze, assuming that prophecy had priority over the Blue-be-banished prophecy. The resources of the Oracle-computer, which were obviously considerable, would be at his disposal, and the self willed machines would cooperate. Those machines would have legal-person status, of course. He would be able to enforce a more sensible restraint on that errant society.

Stile sighed. Somehow the prospect of all that power and responsibility did not appeal to him. All he really wanted was to be in Phaze with his creature friends and the Lady Blue. That was what he could not have. Would it be so bad with Sheen? Of course not. She was the best possible woman, her origin aside. Meanwhile, in Phaze, the Lady Blue would have her real husband back. She, at least, would not suffer.

Somehow he was not convincing himself.

Soon they were in sight of the unicorn herd, with a good route for the ball worked out. Stile suffered a pang, realizing that this was probably the last time he would see the Lady Blue. He would have to tell her and bid her farewell—and conceal if he could the way he actually felt about this coming separation. The break was inevitable; it was best that it be clean, without hysterics. The Herd Stallion met him.

“Lord Blue, I will tell our plan, an thou dost prefer,” Brown volunteered. “Do thou go to Neysa and the Lady.” Stile thanked her; she was a most helpful child at times, though somehow he was not eager to do what he had to do. He nerved himself and went directly to the protected inner circle, where Neysa and the Lady Blue awaited him. He tried to tell himself he was happy to see them, but instead he found himself overcome by misgiving. He tried to smile, but they realized at once that something was wrong, and both came to him solicitously.

“What is the matter, my Lord?” the Lady asked. “Does the campaign go ill?”

“It goes well enough,” Stile said. He had learned so much so recently and shared so little with her! They had just been on their honeymoon, and now it seemed years past.

“Then what we feared is true,” the Lady said, one hand on Neysa’s black mane. “I have my child of thee, and thou art leaving us.”

Was this the extent of her reaction? He knew she was capable of fierce displays of anger, sorrow, and love. How could she treat this as if it were commonplace?

“The prophecy of thy second husband no longer protects me,” he said gravely. “Thou hast conceived, and I am no longer essential. There is another prophecy, that Phaze will not be safe until the Blue Adept departs it. I am now the Blue Adept; I would not put this frame in danger willingly.” And he realized as he spoke that the prophecies could indeed make sense; the present Blue Adept had to leave so that the defunct Blue Adept could return. Thus Blue would both leave and remain, both prophecies honored. “The frames will separate—and I must return to mine own.”

The Lady nodded. “Somehow I knew it would be thus. Prophecies care naught for human happiness, only the letter of their fulfillment.”

True; fate did not care. “But thou wilt not be alone,” Stile said quickly. “The soul of thy first husband, mine other self, survives. He shall have a human body again.” Her composure faltered. “He lives?”

“Not exactly. He lost his body. But I believe I can restore it to him, and he will be the same as he was, as far as anyone can tell.”

Her brow furrowed. “But I love thee now!”

“And I love thee. But when thy husband lives, my place will be elsewhere. I thought him dead, else I would not have married thee. He gave up his body that Phaze might be saved, and now he must have it back. This is what is right.”