Piers Anthony - Blue Adept

She appeared immediately on the screen. “So soon? Game is tomorrow—“

“Come to this address!” Stile said. “I may need help.” The screen went blank. Red had intercepted the call; he should have known she would not be sitting idle. He might have avoided her little traps along the way, by declining to pursue her directly, but she knew he would come for her here. He had made a tactical error. Stile dived for the curtain.

A nozzle started hissing out vapor as he moved. Some sort of gas, probably stun-gas. Red seemed to like that sort of thing. Had she known precisely where and when he would appear, she could have nailed him. As it was, it was a close call; he got a whiff of it as he crossed the curtain, and reeled as he emerged in Phaze. Neysa steadied him with her solid body, and in a moment his head cleared. “Good thing I stayed close to the curtain,” he said. “I’m going to have to create a distraction, so she won’t spy me next time. The Oracle says Blue will destroy Red; I’ll start the process now. Let me have my harmonica.” Neysa shifted to girl-form. She now wore a little knap-sack over her dress—she manifested clothed or naked at will—in which she carried Stile’s harmonica and other oddments. Stile had never quite fathomed how she was able to carry foreign objects on her human body that disappeared when she changed form, yet were not lost. She could change to firefly-form while carrying his harmonica, though it was far larger than the firefly, and have no trouble. He kept discovering new aspects of magic that made little sense in scientific terms—and of course magic did not make scientific sense. If it did, it wouldn’t be magic. So he just had to accept that impossible things happened magically, and let it be.

He took the harmonica and played a brooding, powerful theme. For this job the Platinum Flute might have been better, but that had never really been his. He hoped Clef was getting along with the Mound Folk all right, and wondered whether the musician really could be the Foreordained they wanted, and if so, in what manner he was destined to save Phaze. Sometimes Stile had the feeling that he was just one thread in a complex skein, doing whatever it was he was fated to do, with no more free will than a robot had. So many seemingly coincidental things had happened to him—but of course he could be manufacturing a pattern for nothing. Clef might not be the Foreordained; the mountain might not tremble when he played the Flute. So Stile’s encounter with him would have been no more than the randomness it appeared to be.

His magic was now intense. He concentrated on the Red Castle. “Make of this, the Red Demesne, a holocaust, a wreck obscene.”

They watched. The entire structure shimmered. Smoke appeared. The remaining creatures associated with it scrambled out as if fleeing something horrible. Behind them licked tongues of greenish flame. The smoke expanded, bursting out windows in its urgency to breathe free. Gouts of it roiled up in burgeoning masses resembling the grotesque heads of goblins.

Then the explosions came. Whole walls shoved outward. Partitions sailed flaming in wide arcs, to crash and splinter in minor puffs of fire. Rockets of light shot out, and sprays of burning fog. All colors were represented, but gradually red predominated: this was the home of the Red Adept, after all.

“That should give her something to think about,” Stile said. “I really don’t like such destruction, but I must destroy the entire works of the Red Adept. I mean to leave no springboard for her to wreak her mischief again.” He thought once more of Hulk and Bluette. Had she survived? He hoped so, though he did not want to deal with her 2 directly. What grief Red had brought upon her, merely to try to trap him. Stile. Yes, Red had to be destroyed. The pyrotechnics continued at the castle, reducing it steadily to the obscene wreck specified by the spell. Mean-while, Stile stepped back across the curtain, checking to see whether Sheen had arrived. He avoided the gassed station, knowing that Sheen would check for him outside. He came back to Phaze for air, then checked Proton again. On his third crossover, he spied her. She ran to him, opening her chest compartment to bring out an oxygen mask for him so that he could handle the Proton outdoor air. Quickly he explained the situation. “So what I have in mind is to interrupt the power to the dome-field generator,” he concluded. “Can you get me a heavy-duty cutting laser?” Sheen smiled. She opened her compartment again, and presented him with a compact Protonite-powered portable metal-cutting laser unit and a power-cable locator.

“Bless you!” Stile exclaimed, kissing her, then replacing the mask. They walked across the desert, searching out the cable. Stile was apprehensive that someone would think to look outside the dome, and would spot them, but that was a chance they had to take. Citizens and serfs of Proton were very much dome-oriented, and simply ignored the outer world as if it did not exist. That might help. This should not take long; the force-fields that formed the air-enclosing domes drew a lot of power. Such heavy-duty cables were easy to locate. Soon they found it.

Stile aimed the laser-cutter down and turned it on. The sand bubbled into glass as the beam plunged into it. It formed a glass-lined hole leading down to the shielded cable. Then it cut through the cable itself, casing and insulation and all, centimeter by centimeter. There was a flash from the hole. Air puffed from the dome in decompression. The force-field was gone. “I think she will be out presently,” Stile said with grim satisfaction. “Now I have sworn to kill her, but I want to be fair about it. I don’t want you to do the job for me. Since there are regulations against the execution of serfs by serfs, in the frame of Proton, 111 need to drag her into Phaze. Maybe we can bring her to trial there, and put her away ethically. So you leave it to me—but keep an eye on Blue Adept 283 me, because I don’t expect Red to pass up any advantage or ploy, legal or illegal, that she thinks will work. She’ll try to keep our feud private, because if the Citizens investigate her connection to Hulk’s murder she’ll be exiled from Pro-ton. So this is private between us—and I don’t want to be the victim of cheating.”

“Your logic is human,” Sheen said wryly. “If I weren’t programmed to love you—“

“Get on with it. Get a vehicle or something.”

“Bluette’s Employer has launched an investigation. Very soon he will obtain a transcript of Hulk’s experience.” She walked toward the shuttle tube. The gas would have no effect on her, and she would be able to use the communication screen to contact her friends.

So Bluette’s Employer was taking action. Red was already getting into trouble on Proton. But that didn’t change his own need to deal with her.

Stile ran on into the dome-area, now a shambles from the abrupt decompression. With luck he could catch Red during this initial period of confusion. All the occupants should be gasping, looking for long-neglected oxygen equipment, not paying attention to anything except their personal discomfort.

But as he entered, a vehicle charged out—a sand buggy with a bubbletop, painted red. She was taking off. Stile ran for the cellar section. Maybe there would be another vehicle. He had to have some way to follow. There were three other vehicles—all in flames. Red had made sure she would not be pursued.

Well, he had another avenue. Stile hurried to the curtain and stepped through, removed his abruptly inoperative oxygen mask, and looked about. Neysa was there, of course, pointing the way. “I’ll spell myself to a spot ahead of her, then recross,” Stile said.

But the unicorn nudged him, blowing a negative note.

She wouldn’t let him go alone.