Piers Anthony - Blue Adept

Black’s linear brow furrowed. “No one intrudes on my Demesnes.”

“With my companions, a unicorn and a werewolf.”

Slowly recognition flickered. “Ah—the man of the Little Folk. I recall it now. I thought thee dead ere now.” He squinted. “Why didst thou not show thy power then?”

“I came in peace—then.” Stile frowned. He did not like the Black Adept, who had imprisoned him and left him to starve. Yet he could not assume this was the murderer he sought. Black really had no interest in the things of other Adepts; he was a recluse. It was surprising that he had bothered to attend the Unolympics. And if he had murdered the Blue Adept, he certainly would have recognized him more readily than this! Finally, Stile knew the nature of Black’s magic: he conjured with lines, not golems or amulets. “If thou intrudest similarly on my Demesnes, I may treat thee with similar courtesy.”

“I can conceive of no circumstances in which I would intrude on thy Demesnes, or associate with the likes of Yellow,” Black said coldly.

“Until thou hast need of a potion or an animal, my arrogant,” Yellow said. “Then thou dost bespeak the crone fair enough.” She led Stile on.

“These people make me nervous,” the Lady Blue murmured. “Never did my Lord take me among them.”

“Thy Lord had excellent taste!” Black muttered from behind.

“So Blue is not thy Lord?” Yellow inquired with a touch of malice. “What fools these peasants be!”

“Call not the Lady Blue a peasant!” Stile snapped, instantly angry. He felt as if he walked among a nest of scorpions.

Yellow’s potion-pretty face twisted into something no girl her apparent age could manage. “I call her—“

“What she is,” the Lady Blue interjected quickly. “Ever have my folk been villagers, farming the land and raising animals, and no shame in it.”

Yellow mellowed. “Aye, no shame in the management of animals. Methinks thy peasant status ceased when thou didst marry Blue. I withdraw that portion of my remark.”

Adepts evidently weren’t accustomed to giving away anything voluntarily! “That portion?” Stile demanded, unappeased. He realized he was behaving exactly like an Adept, but was not in the mood to back off. “Thou leavest her a fool?”

“That were readily abated,” Yellow said. “I have love-potions that—“

“Enough!” Stile said. “The Lady is a widow; I merely assume a role that the Blue Demesnes be not demeaned, and that the great wrong done the Lady may be avenged. I am not her Lord.”

“Passing strange,” Yellow murmured. “With power to enchant an entire unicorn herd, he exercises it not on the Lady who is as lovely as any mortal can be and as spirited as a fine animal and who is legitimately his by right of inheritance. Methinks it is the man who is the fool.”

“Mayhap by thy definition,” the Lady Blue said.

“Even so,” Yellow agreed, shrugging.

They came to a man in a red cloak. He was tall, almost six feet, with red hair and red mustache. “Red . . . Blue,” Yellow introduced.

Red extended a firm hand. “Glad am I to meet thee,” he said, smiling. He had a handsome face and seemed to be about Stile’s age, though of course the “costume” made all but his basic identity suspect.

Yellow took them to the final couple at the pavilion. “Green and consort,” she said. The Green Adept was another man, short and fat, and his Lady was the same. Both wore green suits and sparkling green jewelry, probably emeralds. “Blue and Lady.”

“Uh-huh,” the Green Adept said curtly. “Now let’s watch the show.” But the Lady Green made a small motion of greeting to the Lady Blue.

“These are all that attend this season,” Yellow said. “On other occasions I have met Orange, Purple and Gray. But they be from afar. There may be other Adepts we know not of; we are a secretive bunch. I make many contacts at the several Olympics.”

“Other Olympics?” Stile asked, remembering something the Herd Stallion had said.

“Every major species has them,” Yellow assured him. “Canolympics, Vampolympics, Snowlympics, Dragolympics—some be better than others. Methinks the Elfolympics are best, with their displays of rare weaponry and dancing little men. Hast thou seen the like, my precious?”

“I noticed only the dancing little damsels,” Stile said.

The Lady Blue frowned, but did not comment. Now the formal program was beginning. Stile and the Lady Blue took seats and watched. First the several unicorn Herds got settled as spectators, each at its assigned location; then the competitive contingents marched onto the field to the sound of their own horns and hooves. It was an impressive entry. Each contingent marched in step, led by its Herd Stallion. Every horn was elevated at a 45-degree angle; every tail flung out proudly. The surface of the hooves gleamed in the slanting sunlight, iridescent, and the spirals of the horns shot out splays of mirror-light. The animals were all colors and shades: red, orange, gold, yellow, white, gray, blue, black, brown, striped, dotted and checkered. Some were single-colored, except for those colors typical of horses; others were multicolored. All were beautiful.

The Lady Blue nudged him, making a gesture toward one section of the march. In a moment he found the place —the local Stallion’s complement, with sixteen picked individuals. There was Neysa, marching in the last line, on the side nearest the pavilion. “He didn’t try to hide her!” Stile murmured appreciatively.

Neysa was smaller than the other unicorns, being barely fourteen hands tall, and she was the only one in the display whose colors were horse-normal—her mark of shame. But now she was the steed and oath-friend of an Adept, and though there was general fear and distrust of Adepts in the animal kingdoms of Phaze, the clear onus of an Adept’s favor was so potent that Neysa now had a place of comparative honor. This was the first time she had been permitted to join the Herd and to participate in its ceremonies, and obviously she reveled in it. The hurt of years was being mended. This much Stile had done for Neysa by taming her; this much she had done for herself by allowing him to practice the magic of his station.

The music swelled in a mighty chorus. Eight Herd Stallions blew the leadoff blasts; eight disciplined display-herds responded with the melody. The ground shook with the measured cadence of their prancing hooves; the air shook with the power of their melody. No human orchestra could match the passion and splendor of this performance. Stile could not remember ever having been spectator to anything as grand as this.

They paraded close by the Adepts’ pavilion, and at the closest point every horn angled abruptly to the left in a salute. There was an abrupt silence, breathtaking in its precision; that sudden cessation of sound was more impressive than a fortissimo blast would have been. Then they marched on, the music resuming, to pass by the other pavilions.

Stile examined those other pavilions now. One was filled with wolves. Another swarmed with bats. Another seated elves, and yet another was stuffed with glowering, homed demons. “Everybody comes to the Unolympics!” Stile breathed, amazed.

“Everybody who is anybody,” Yellow responded. “Few Human Folk, however.” Stile was not certain of the significance of that; did it mean that humans were among the least important of the creatures of Phaze? Or that the higher animals simply didn’t like them? In due course the opening parade finished. Now the individual competitions commenced. Wolves ran, bats flew, demons charged and elves scurried from one pavilion to .another. “What’s going on?” Stile asked.

“The judges,” Yellow said, standing.

“Judges?”