savage magic storm.
In the morning they resumed their tour of the curtain, recrossing the White Mountain range and bearing south-west. There were some deep crevices on the ground; when their steeds' hooves knocked sand into them, it fell down and away beyond the limit of perception, soundlessly. 'Deep caves, mayhap,' Stile remarked, a bit nervous about a possible collapse of the footing. But Clip tapped the ground with a forehoof, indicating that there was no danger of a fall as long as a unicorn picked the way.
Stile checked his contour map and discovered they were heading for the Black Demesnes. He did not like the Black Adept, and by mutual consent they spelled rapidly past the grim castle and well on toward the Purple Mountains .
Now the curtain bore directly south. Suddenly there was an explosion of fire before them. Stile squinted at the flame, trying to determine whether it was natural or magic.
'The warnersl' the Lady exclaimed. 'The Green Adept!'
'It must be,' Stile agreed. 'I promised to bypass him.'
They went around, rejoining the curtain southwest of Green's marked territory. The curtain was curving back westward, through the foothills of the southern mountains. The scenery was pleasant; waist-high bushes covered the rolling terrain, topped with faintly purple flowers. The steeds trotted through, finding firm footing beneath. The midafternoon sun slanted down.
Suddenly a creature jumped in front of Hinblue. The thing had the body of a powerful man and the head of a wolf. It bayed - and the horse spooked. The Lady Blue, an expert rider, was not in any trouble; she brought her steed about and calmed her.
Then a second creature appeared, this one with the head of a ram. It bleated.
Stile's mind formulated a spell while his hand went for his harmonica. But he withheld his magic, uncertain whether it was necessary. He had heard of the animal-heads, but understood they were not aggressive toward human beings. Was his information mistaken?
More animalheads appeared, making their assorted noises. Cats, goats, hawks, bears, turtles - none of them with the intelligence or verbal ability of a man, but each quite formidable in its fashion. They were all snarling, squawking, roaring, or growling aggressively. A pighead charged toward Stile, grunting.
'I fear they mean mischief,' the Lady Blue said. 'This is not like them. Something has angered them, methinks.'
'Yes,' Stile agreed. Clip's horn was holding the pighead at bay, but a crocodilehead was circling to the rear. 'We had best avoid them till we know their motivation.'
'Methinks we can outrun them,' she said, concerned but not worried.
Their steeds took off. Hinblue was a fine mare, capable of a galloping velocity that shamed ordinary horses; she really did move like the wind. But Clip was a unicorn whose inherent magic made him swifter yet. By common consent they used no other magic, not revealing Stile's status; Adepts were not necessarily favored in the back reaches of Phaze.
The animalheads gave chase enthusiastically, baying, bellowing, and hooting. But their human bodies could not compare with the equine bodies, and they soon fell behind. Yet two things narrowed the gap; this was animalhead territory, more familiar to the beastmen than to the intruders; they could take the best paths and shortcuts, and kept popping up just ahead. Also, there were a number of them, so that a good many were already ranged along the route, and these formed living barricades. This made the chase close enough for discomfort.
Three catfaces rose up before them. Both steeds, well versed in this sort of thing, did not leap, for though they could have cleared the creatures, they would in the process have exposed their vulnerable underbellies to attack from below. Instead they put their heads down and charged low.
The catheads could have handled the horse, but not the deadly hom of the unicorn. That hom could skewer a standing creature instantly. The cats dropped down, giving way, and the party galloped on unscathed.
Half a dozen pigheads appeared, grunting urgently. This time the steeds leaped. The pigheads reached up, but their weapons were their tusks, not good for vertical goring. One got struck in the head by Hinblue's front hoof, and the others desisted.
A pack of wolfheads closed in, but the steeds dodged and galloped to the side and got around and through, then put on speed to leave the beasts behind. No more animalheads appeared, and Stile knew that his party had gotten away clean.
Unnoticed in the hurry, the vegetation had changed. They were now forging through a forest of huge old trees - oak, ash, elm, and beech, by the look. But it was not necessarily easy to tell them apart, for the trunks were gnarled and deeply corrugated, and the tops shaded the ground into gloom.
'I like not the look of this,' the Lady Blue said.
Stile agreed. Their escape had led them away from the curtain, so that they now had to relocate. It would not be safe to return to their point of divergence from it; the animalheads were there. Stile still preferred to avoid the use of magic in the present situation; this was an annoyance, not a crisis.
All of which meant they would have to search for the curtain the tedious way - slowly, eyes squinting for the almost invisible shimmer. The curtain was easy to follow lengthwise, but difficult to intercept broadside unless one knew exactly where to look.
'Well, it's all part of the honeymoon,' Stile said. The Lady smiled; she had known there would be this sort of interruption in the schedule.
They looked, riding slowly around the great old trees. The forest was so dense now that even indirect light hardly penetrated, yet there were an increasing number of small plants. They twined up around the bases of the tree trunks and spread across the forest floor. Some were a suspiciously verdant green; others were pallid white. Many were insidiously ugly.
Yet they were plants, not creatures. None of them sent questing tentacles for the intruders; none had poisonous thorns. They flourished in gloom; that seemed to be their only oddity.
There was no sign of the curtain. 'It will take forever to find it this way,' Stile said. 'I want to be back on it by nightfall.' He jumped down and walked. 'We can make a better search on foot,' he said.
Clip blew a warning note. Unicorns were naturally resistant to magic, and this protected the rider. The Blue Adept, Clip felt, needed protection, and should not be straying from his steed. As if Stile did not have ample magic of his own.
Stile walked on, peering this way and that, searching for the curtain. It had to be somewhere near here; they had not gone all that far and they had not diverged from its path greatly. In this gloom the shimmer should be clear enough.
Clip's ears turned. He blew a low warning note. Stile paused to listen.
The animalheads were catching up. Stile's party had to move on before-
Too late. A pigface appeared in front of Stile. A dog-face came up behind the Lady. There was rustling in the bushes all around. Perhaps aided by some sort of stealth-spell, the animalheads had surrounded them.
The Lady called Hinblue, who charged toward her. Stile stepped toward Clip, but already the pighead was on him. Stile did not use magic. He drew his sword, threatening but not attacking the creature. Thеге was something odd about this, and he did not want to do anything irrevocable until he fathomed it.
The pighead halted its aggression - but three sheepheads were closing from the sides. A spell would freeze them, but Stile still didn't want to do it. Rather than shed blood, he dodged around the pighead, hurdled a fallen branch - and an offshoot moved up and intercepted his leading ankle, causing him to take a heavy spill into a flowering bush beyond.
There was a kind of zapl as the leaves were disturbed, and Stile felt the presence of magic. Quickly he jumped up, feeling about his body, but he seemed to have suffered no injury.
The animalheads had taken advantage of his fall to surround him. Clip had stopped a short distance away, perceiving that the animalheads could reach Stile before the unicorn could. No sense precipitating an attack by spooking them.
Stile decided to make an honest attempt at communication before resorting reluctantly to magic to freeze them temporarily in place. It wasn't natural for normally peaceful creatures to attack and pursue strangers like this. Maybe he could establish a yes-no dialogue with one of the more intelligent ones. He really wasn't looking for trouble on his honeymoon!
He opened his mouth to speak - and nothing but air emerged. He couldn't talk!
