Piers Anthony: Blue Adept

It was good to travel with his unicorn again. Stile was not sure whether he could transport himself magically from place to place. If that came under the heading of changing his aspect before others, then probably he could; if instead it came under the heading of healing or changing himself, then he probably could not. So far he had deemed it expedient not to experiment; magic gone wrong could be fatal. So he needed transportation, and Neysa was the best he could ask for. She had been his first steed in this magic frame, and his first true friend. His love of horses had translated instantly to unicorns, for these creatures were horses: plus a musical horn that was also a devastating weapon; plus special gaits and acrobatic abilities beyond the imagination of any horse; plus human intelligence; plus the ability to change shape. Yes, the unicorn was the creature Stile had been searching tor all his life without realizing it until he met one.

Neysa, in girl-form, had become his lover, before he had met the Lady Blue and realized that his ultimate destiny had to lie with his own kind. There had been some trouble between Neysa and the Lady Blue at first; but now as oath-friend to the Blue Adept, the unicorn needed no further reassurance. In this magic frame, friendship transcended mere male-female relations, and an oath of friendship was the most binding commitment of all.

It was ironic that now that Neysa could achieve her fondest wish—to have her own foal—that oath of friend-ship interfered. Neysa’s logic was probably correct; Stile did need her to protect him from the pitfalls of this barely familiar world until he could deal with his secret enemy. Unicorns were immune to most magic; only Adept-class spells could pass their threshold. Stile had reason to believe his enemy was an Adept; his own Adept magic, buttressed by the protective ambience of the unicorn, should safe-guard him against even that level. As the Lady Blue had pointed out, the original Blue Adept had not had a unicorn to guard him, and that might have made the difference. He really did need Neysa.

They moved into a canter, then a full gallop as the two unicorns warmed up. Clip and Neysa ran in perfect step, playing their horns. She took the soprano theme on her harmonica, he the alto on his saxophone. It was another lovely duet, in counterpoint, augmented by the strong cadence of their hooves. Stile wished he could join in, but he had to preserve his anonymity, just in case they were being observed. There were baleful things lurking in these peaceful forests and glades; the unicorns’ familiarity with the terrain and reputation as fighters made the landscape become as peaceful as it seemed. But there was no sense setting up the Blue Adept as a lure for trouble. Clip knew the way. The unicorn herd grazed wherever the Herd Stallion decreed, moving from pasture to pasture within broad territorial limits. Other herds grazed other territories; none of them intruded on these local demesnes. Human beings might think of this as the region of the Blue Adept, but animals thought of it as the region of this particular herd. Werewolves and goblins and other creatures also occupied their niches, each species believing it-self to be the dominant force. Stile made it a point to get along as well as he could with all creatures; such detente was much more important here in the frame of Phaze than it was in any nonmagical frame. And he genuinely re-spected those other creatures. The werewolves, for example, had helped him to discover his own place here, and the entire local pack was oath-friends with Neysa. They galloped west across the terrain where Stile had first encountered Neysa; it was a spot of special significance for them both. He reached around her neck to give her an invisible hug, and she responded by twitching ear back and rippling her skin under his hands as though shaking off a fly. Secret communication, inexpressibly precious. To the south was the great Purple Mountain range; to the north the White Mountain range. There was surely a great deal more to Phaze than this broad valley, but Stile had not yet had occasion to see it. Once he had dealt with his enemy and secured his position, he intended to do some wider explorations. Who could guess what wonders might lie beyond these horizons?

They moved west for two hours, covering twenty miles. This frame used the archaic, magic-ridden units of measurement, and Stile was still schooling himself in them. Twenty miles was roughly thirty-two kilometers in his more familiar terms. Stile could have covered a similar distance in similar time himself, for he was among other things a runner of marathons. But for him it would have meant a great effort, depleting his resources for days; for these animals it was merely pleasant light exercise. Unicorns could travel twice this speed, sustained, when they had to, and faster yet for shorter distances.

Now the sun was descending, getting in their eyes. It was time to graze. Unicorns, like horses, were not simple running machines; they had to spend a good deal of their time eating. Stile could have conjured grain for them, but actually they preferred to find their own, being stubbornly in-dependent beasts, and they rested while grazing. Neysa slowed, found a patch of bare rock, and relieved herself in the equine manner at its fringe. This covered any sound Stile might make as he dismounted. Then she wandered on, grazing the rich grass, ignoring him though she knew exactly where he was. She was very good at this sort of thing; no observer would realize that an invisible man was with her, and the rock concealed any footprints he made. Stile had brought his own supplies, of course; the Lady Blue had efficiently seen to that. No sense requiring him to make himself obvious by performing unnecessary magic to fetch food, apart from the general caution against wasting one-shot spells. He would sit on the rock and eat, quietly.

Stile levered himself down, careful not to put strain on his knees. Knees, as he had learned the hard way, did not readily heal. Magic might repair them, but he could not operate on himself and did not as yet trust the task to any other Adept. Suppose the Adept he asked happened to be the one who wanted to kill him? He could get along; his knees only hurt when flexed almost double. He could still walk, run and ride comfortably. His former abilities as an acrobat had suffered, but there was still a great deal he could do without flexing his knees that far.

After grazing, Neysa came to the edge of the rock and stood snoozing. Stile mounted her, as she had intended, and slept on her back. She was warm and safe and smelled pleasantly equine, and there was hardly a place he would have preferred to sleep—unless it were in the arms of the Lady Blue. That, however, was a privilege he had not yet earned, and might never earn. The Lady was true to her real husband. Stile’s double, though he was dead, and in no way did she ever mistake Stile for that other man.

Next morning they were off again. They cantered gently until noon, when they spied the herd. It was grazing on a broad slope leading down to an extensive swamp. Beyond that swamp. Stile remembered, lay the palace of the Oracle, who answered one and only one question for any per-son, in that person’s life. The Oracle had advised Stile to “Know thyself”—and despite the seeming unhelpfulness of it, that had indeed been the key to his future. For that self he had come to know was the Blue Adept.

A lookout unicorn blew a trumpet blast, and the members of the herd lifted their heads, then trotted together to form a large semicircle open toward the two approaching unicorns. Perceiving that formidable array of horns. Stile was glad he was not approaching as an enemy. Neysa had drilled him in the use of his rapier by fencing with her horn, and he had come to appreciate what a deadly weapon it could be. This was another respect in which unicorns were fundamentally different from horses: they were armed—more properly, horned—and were as likely to attack as to flee. No sensible tiger, for example, would attempt to pounce on a unicorn.