possession. But even without it, no one could have killed him, were he on guard!'
'Unless he intended to permit it,' Stile said.
Her shock turned to horror. 'No! Nothing I did, no will of mine should have caused him-'
'Of course not,' Stile agreed quickly. 'He would never have done it because of thee.'
'Then what is thine import?'
'That perhaps he knew something, received an omen, that caused him to accept what was coming.'
She considered that for some time, her hand clenching and unclenching in his. 'Yet what could possibly justify - what was fated?'
'I wish I knew.' For Stile's own passage across the curtain had been enabled by that demise of his alternate self. If the Blue Adept had sought to eliminate his brand of magic from the frame, he had acted in vain, for Stile performed it now.
That night they did not make love. They lay and watched the blue moon, and Stile played gently on the mysterious harmonica, and it was enough. Slowly sleep overtook them.
'Be at ease,' a man's voice came from nearby. 'We have met before, Adept.'
Stile controlled his reaction. He still held the harmonica; he could summon his power rapidly. In a moment he placed the half-familiar voice: 'Yes, at the Unolympics, Green Adept.' He did not want trouble with another Adept - especially not when the Lady Blue was close enough to be hurt by the fallout. He was as yet unable to see the man; probably Green had employed a spell of invisibility, with related obfuscations. Otherwise he could not have gotten by the alert equines.
'I come in peace. Wilt thou grant truce for a dialogue?'
'Certainly.' Stile was relieved. By custom verging on law, Adepts did not deceive each other in such matters. What in Phaze could this man want with him at this time?
The Adept became visible. He was a pudgy man of middle age, garbed in green. He looked completely inoffensive - but was in fact one of the dozen most powerful people of Phaze. 'Thank thee. I will intrude not long.'
A hawk appeared silently behind the Adept. Stile gave no sign. He did not expect treachery, but if it came, there would suddenly be a unicorn's horn in action. If Clip attacked the Green Adept, he risked getting transformed into a clod of dung, but Stile knew he would take that risk if necessary. 'Surely thou hast reason.'
'It is this, Blue: my sources give thee warning. Go not to the West Pole. Great mischief lies there.'
'There is no mischief there,' the Lady Blue protested. 'It is a sacred place, under truce, like the palace of the Oracle.'
'Dost thou think no mischief lies with the Oracle?'
Stile chuckled. 'Excellent point, Green. But the Lady and I are on our honeymoon, and our excursion to the West Pole has private significance. Canst thou be more explicit?'
'Why shouldst thou care if mischief comes to a rival Adept?' the Lady demanded. 'Thou didst evince no concern, Green, when the life of Blue hung in peril before.'
That was an understatement. No other Adept had lifted a finger or made a spell either to warn or to assist the Blue Adept in his severe crisis that had left two Adepts dead or ruined. This sudden concern was suspicious.
'Needs must I then elaborate,' Green said heavily. 'My Demesnes lie athwart thy route. I would let thee pass unscathed, knowing thy mission - but by that acquiescence I commit myself to thy fate. This is not my desire. I want no part of what befalls thee. Go not to the West Pole - but an thou must go, then go not through the Green Demesnes.'
That made sense. The Green Adept had no personal interest in Stile; he merely wanted to make certain he was not implicated in what happened to Stile. If a prophecy decreed doom to all who might facilitate Stile's approach to the West Pole, this step exonerated the Green Adept.
'Now I seek no trouble with thee,' Stile began. 'But the Lady and I planned to follow the curtain to its terminus, and-'
'And we can bypass the Green Demesnes, in the interest of courtesy,' the Lady Blue finished.
Stile shrugged. 'The Lady has spoken. Set out warners at thy boundaries, and we shall there detour.'
'I shall,' Green agreed. 'Since thou dost humor my preference, I offer one final word: my sources suggest that if thou dost go to the West Pole, thou wilt suffer grievously in the short term, and in the moderate term will incur the enmity of the most powerful forces of the frame. I urge thee once more to give up this quest. There are other suitable places to honeymoon. The Green Demesnes themselves will be opened to thee, shouldst thou care to tarry there instead.'
'I thank thee for thy advice,' Stile said. 'Yet it seems the end of Phaze draws nigh, and powerful forces already dispose themselves in readiness. The Foreordained has appeared. What is fated, is fated, and I am ready if not eager to play my part.'
'As thou dost choose.' The Green Adept made a signal with the fingers of his left hand and disappeared.
'I mislike these omens,' the Lady said. 'Methought our troubles were over.'
'Loose ends remain, it seems. I had hoped we could let them be for at least this fortnight.'
'Surely we can,' she agreed, opening her arms to him. The hawk flew quietly away. The weapon of the unicorn had not, after all, been needed.
Next day they resumed the ride north. Stile made a small spell to enhance Hinblue's velocity and let Clip run at full speed. They fairly flew across the rolling terrain. Fire jetted from the unicorn's nostrils, and his hooves grew hot enough to throw sparks. Unicorns, being magic, did not sweat; they ejected surplus heat at the extremities.
After a time they slowed. Stile brought out his harmonica and played, Clip accompanied him on his saxophone-voiced horn, and the lady sang. The magic closed about them, seeming to thicken the air, but it had no force without Stile's verbal invocation.
'We can camp the night at the Yellow Demesnes,' Stile said. 'The curtain clips a corner of-'
'By no means!' the Lady snapped, and Clip snorted.
Stile remembered. She didn't like other Adepts, and Yellow liked to take a potion to convert herself from an old crone to a luscious young maid - without otherwise changing her nature. Also, her business was the snaring and selling of animals, including unicorns. Stile had traded magical favors with Yellow in the past and had come to respect her, but he could understand why his wife and steed preferred not to socialize.
'Anything for thee,' he agreed. 'However, night approaches and the White Mountains lie beyond.'
'Indulge thyself in a spell, Adept.'
'How soon the honeymoon turns to dull marriage,' he grumbled. Clip made a musical snort of mirth, and the lady smiled.
The ramshackle premises of Yellow appeared. Both animals sniffed the air and veered toward the enclosure. Hastily Stile sang a counterspell: 'This will cure the witch's lure.' That enabled them to ignore the hypnotic vapor that drew animals in to capture and confinement. Before long they had skirted those premises and moved well on toward the termination of the plain to the north.
At dusk they came to the White Mountain range. Here the peaks rose straight out of the plain in defiance of normal geological principles; probably magic had been involved in their formation.
The curtain blithely traveled up the slope at a steep angle. It would have been difficult to navigate this route by daylight; at night the attempt would be foolhardy. 'And there are snow-demons,' the Lady said as an afterthought.
Stile pondered, then conjured a floating ski lift. It contained a heated stall for two equines, complete with a trough filled with fine grain, and a projecting shelf with several mugs of nutri-cocoa similar to what was available from a Proton food machine. Clip could have converted to hawk-form and flown up, but the cold would have hin dered him, and this was far more comfortable. Unicorn and horse stepped into the stalls and began feeding, while Stile and the lady mounted for their repast. Eating and sleep ing while mounted was no novelty it was part of the joy of Phaze.
They rode serenely upward as if drawn by an invisible cable. 'Yet I wonder where this magic power comes from?' Stile mused. 'I realize that the mineral Phazite is the power source for magic, just as its other-frame self, Protonite, is the basis for that scientific, energy-processing society. But why should certain people, such as the
