Piers Anthony - Blue Adept

“Before we finish this. Blue,” she said, “I want to know just one thing: why?”

Stile, ready for instant violence, was taken aback.

“Thou, creature of evil, dost ask me why?”

“Normally Adepts leave each other alone. There is too much mischief when magic goes against magic. Why didst thou elect to violate that principle and foment so much trouble?”

“This is the very information I require from thee! What mischief did I ever do thee, that thou shouldst seek to murder me in two frames?”

“Play not the innocent with me, rogue Adept! Even now thou dost invade these my Demesnes, as thou didst always plan. I have heard it bruited about that thou dost consider thyself a man of integrity. At least essay some semblance of that quality now, and inform me of thy motive. I cannot else fathom it.”

There was something odd here. Red acted as if she were the injured party, and seemed to mean it. Why should she lie, when her crimes were so apparent? Stile’s certainty of the justice and necessity of this cause was shaken; he needed to resolve this incongruity, lest he always suffer doubt about the validity of his vengeance. “Red Adept, thou knowest I am here to destroy thee. It is pointless to hide the truth longer. Art thou hopelessly insane, or didst thou have some motive for thy murders?”

“Motive!” she exclaimed. “Very well. Blue, since thou choosest to play this macabre game. I proffer thee this deal: I will answer truly as to my motive, if thou dost answer as to thine.”

“Agreed,” he said, still somewhat mystified. “I shall provide my motive before I slay thee. And if I am satisfied as to thy motive, I shall slay thee cleanly, without unnecessary torture. That is the most I can offer. I made mine oath to make an end of thee.”

“Then here is my rationale,” she said, as though discussing average weather. “The omens were opaque but disquieting, hinting at great mischief. The vamp-folk were restive, responding reluctantly to my directives. Indeed, one among them made petition to the Oracle, asking, ‘How can we be rid of the yoke of Red?’ And the Oracle answered, ‘Bide for two months.’ A vamp spy in fief to me reported that, so naturally I had to verify it personally. Indirect news from the Oracle can never be wholly trusted; there are too many interpretations. But there did seem to be a threat in two months concerning me—and that time, incidentally, is now nearly past. So I rode a flying amulet to the Oracle, and I asked it ‘What is my fate two months hence?’ and it replied ‘Blue destroys Red.’ Then I knew that I had to act. Never has the Oracle been known to be wrong, but I had no choice. I operate in both frames; I could be hurt in either. The Oracle said not that I would lose my life, only that I would be destroyed, which could mean many things. The only way to secure my position was to be rid of Blue before Blue took action against me. So I sent one of Brown’s golems with a demon amulet to Blue, while meanwhile I sought out Blue’s alternate self in Proton too, lest Blue die yet also destroy me. But someone warned thee, and sent a robot to guard thee, and I was unable quite to close that loop. Now must I do it here, or suffer the fate the Oracle decreed for me. Sure it is, I mean to take thee with me, an the Oracle prove true. Thou art the cause of all my woe.”

Still Stile was perplexed. “My motive is simple. Thou didst murder mine other self, rendered the Lady Blue bereft, attempted to slay me also in Proton and in Phaze, and slew my friend Hulk. For two murders I owe thee, and that debt shall be paid.”

She grimaced. “Thou claimest that we should have had no quarrel, but for my actions against thee?”

“As far as I know,” Stile said. “Mine other self, the Blue Adept, had no designs against thee as far as I know; his widow, now my wife, had no notion what enemy had murdered him, or why. As for me—I could never have crossed the curtain without the death of the Blue Adept, and I would not have left my profession as jockey had not my knees been lasered.” He paused. “Why were my knees lasered, and not my head? Had I been killed then, thou wouldst have suffered no vengeance from me.”

“The laser-machine I smuggled into the race was programmed against killing,” she said disgustedly. “Citizens like not fatal accidents, so machines capable of dealing death must have a safety circuit. Also, it is easier to destroy the narrow tissues of the tendons than to kill a man by a single beam through the thickness of his skull. Thou probably wouldst not have died regardless; thy brain would have cooked a little, and no more. And the Citizens would have reacted to such a killing by lowering a stasis field over the entire raceway, trapping me. I had to injure thee first, subtly, while I escaped the scene, then kill thee privately when thou wert stripped of Citizen protection. Except that the robot balked me.”

“The robot,” Stile said. “Who sent the robot?”

“That I do not know,” she admitted. “I thought thou knewest, that it was part of thy plan. Had I realized that thou didst have such protection, at the outset, then would I have planned that aspect more carefully. I thought the Blue Adept was the hard one to eliminate, rather than thee.”

Not an unreasonable assumption! Of such trifling misjudgments were empires made and lost. “There remain mysteries, then,” Stile said. “Someone knew of thy mission, and acted to protect me. Enemies we be, yet it behooves us both to learn who that person is, and why he or she elected to act anonymously. Hast thou some other enemy—perhaps one who could be identified as ‘Blue* though no Adept? Thou must surely have mistaken the Oracle’s reference, for I was innocent until that message generated a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now Blue will destroy Red, for there can be no forgiveness for thy crimes—but I would not be here now, if that Oracle had not set thee against me.”

“A hidden enemy, pitting Red against Blue,” she repeated. “Fool that I was, I queried not the identity of mine enemy, but only my two-month fate—and so the Oracle answered not what I thought it did. The Oracle betrayed me.”

“I think so,” Stile said. “Yet there must be a true enemy —to both thee and me. Let us make this further pact: that the one of us who survives this encounter shall seek that enemy, lest it pit other Adepts against each other similarly in future.”

“Agreed!” she cried. “We two are in too deep; we must settle in blood. But there is vengeance yet remaining for us each.”

“Could it be another Adept?” Stile asked. He was not letting down his guard, but he did not expect an attack until this was worked out. Enemies could, it seemed, have common interests. He had operated in ignorance of the forces that moved against him for so long that he was determined to discover whatever truth he could. “One who coveted thy power or mine?”

“Unlikely. Most Adepts cannot cross the curtain. I labored hard to cross myself, and paid a price others would not pay. I arranged to have mine other self dispatched, then I crossed over and took her place, hoping to be designated the heir to our mother the Citizen. But the wretch designated another, an adoptee, and I had to take tenure and practice for the Tourney.”

Stile was appalled at her methodology, but concealed it.

Her mode had always been to do unto others before they did unto her. That was why she had struck at the Blue Adept. Probably her Proton-self had been conspiring to do the same to Red. And, possibly. Red was now trying to put Stile offguard so she could gain an advantage. “Thou playest the Game?”

“That I do, excellently—and well I know thou art my most formidable opponent in the current Tourney.”

“I know not of thee on any ladder.”