resting place. The ground writhed with sucker leaves that sought to fasten to the flesh of human or equine. Hinblue stamped her hooves, trampling down the suckers, but already some were fastening on the sides of the hooves, trying to drink from the hard surface. Stile tried to cut off the plants, but they were too low to the ground, making his blade ineffective.
'We can not stay here,' the Lady said, her feet moving in a dance of avoidance. 'We must cross again.'
Stile agreed. The horse had recovered her wind. They crossed back to Proton and made a dash for the better clearing ahead. This time they made it.
Now they were in sight of the hermit's hut. Clip rejoined them, remaining in hawk-form so as not to betray his nature before the watching hermit. They saw the old man's eyes peering from the dark window.
'He sees us,' the Lady said. 'We shall need his help, for we cannot go through more of this jungle or through Proton.'
Stile could only nod. He didn't like this situation at all. Some honeymoon they were having!
The Lady went up to talk to the hermit. But the old man slammed the rickety door and refused to answer her call.
Stile began to get angry. The hawk made a warning cry, and Stile stayed back. Clip had caught on to something important, by his attitude.
The Lady Blue gave it up. 'Surely the hermit knows our predicament, but he will help us not,' she said. The touch of a flush on her cheeks betrayed her irritation.
The hawk spoke again, then flew to the ground and scratched a place bare. In that spot he gouged out a word: ORANGE .
The Lady was first to catch on. 'The Orange Adept! No wonder he is such a curmudgeon!'
Stile signaled, pointing to himself and raising an eye-brow questioningly. He wanted to know whether the Orange Adept was aware of the identity of his visitors.
Clip thought not. This was merely the way the Adept treated all strangers. Few Adepts cared what happened to those who intruded on their Demesnes, and those Adepts who did care, generally were malignant. Stile had encountered the syndrome before, but he did not like it any better with repetition.
They walked to the far side of the clearing, while the beady eyes of Orange peered from the window of his hut. Here the curtain plunged into the thickest of the bramble tangles. Hinblue tried to trample them down, but they wrapped around her foreleg, making her squeal in pain as the thorns dug in. There was a snicker from the hut.
Stile slashed at the mass with his sword, but no matter how many stems he severed, the mass held its form, like a pile of brush. It would be necessary to draw each severed stem out and set it in the clearing - and each stem seemed to interlink with others, so that the entire mass tended to come loose, falling about his bare arms and scratching. The hermit sniggered, enjoying this.
After a time, scratched and sweaty and tired, they gave it up. They could not get through this way. But meanwhile, the clearing had diminished; new plants were encroaching, and they looked just as ugly as the brambles. The Orange Adept's mode of magic evidently related to plants. Indeed, it must have been one of his creatures that silenced Stile. Now the old man was enjoying watching the flies struggle in the web.
'Mayhap the other side of the curtain, again . . .' the Lady said. But at her words Hinblue's ears went back, her nostrils distended, and the whites showed around her eyes. She did not want to brave the oxygen-poor, polluted air of Proton again!
Yet they couldn't remain here. By nightfall the advanc ing plants would leave them no opening, and they would have to fight for their lives while the Orange Adept laughed. Stile was furious with frustration, but unable to oppose this magic with his own.
Still, he could act directly against the malignant Adept. He put his hand on his sword, facing the hut.
'Nay, my love,' the Lady cautioned. 'There are worse plants than these, and surely they protect him. We must not approach him.'
She was right. Stile had to contain his rage.
Clip flew up and away, searching for some way out. The lady calmed Hinblue. One thing about the Lady Blue - she did not lose her nerve in a crisis. She was in all respects an admirable woman, his ideal and his beloved. Before Stile let her suffer, he would charge the hut and menace the Adept with his sword, heedless of whatever plants might make their hideous presence known. But first he would wait for Clip, hoping the unicorn would be able to help.
The sun descended inexorably, and the plants continued to close in. Some were like giant vines, with flowers that resembled the orifices of carnivorous worms. Transparent sap beaded in those throats, and drooled from the nether petals like saliva. The sword should stop these - but what would happen when darkness closed? Stile did not want to fight these plants at night.
Clip returned. He landed behind the Lady, so that he could not be seen from the hut, and changed to man- form. “I may have found help,' he reported, but he seemed dubious.
'Out with it, 'corn,' the Lady snapped.
'I saw no way out of this garden of tortures; it is miles thick. So I searched for other creatures who might assist, but found only a lone-traveling troll.'
'A troll!' the Lady cried, distraught. 'No help there!'
She was tolerant of many creatures, but hated trolls, for a tribe of them had once tried to ravish her. Stile knew that his alternate self, the former Blue Adept, had had a bad altercation with trolls who had massacred his whole home village and been in turn massacred by him.
'Yet this one seems different,' Clip continued. 'He travels by day, which is unusual; he was voluminously swathed in black cloth, so that no sunlight might touch him, but I knew his nature by his outline.' He wrinkled his nose. 'And by his smell.' Trolls tended to have a dank-earth ambience.
'Why should a troll travel by day?' the Lady asked, intrigued despite her revulsion. 'They are horrors of the night, turning to stone in sunlight.'
'Precisely. So I inquired, expecting an insult. But he said he was in quest of the Blue Adept, to whom he owes a favor.' Clip shrugged in seeming wonder.
Stile looked askance at this. He had had no commerce with trolls!
'That's what he said,' Clip continued. 'I was skeptical, fearing more mischief, but, mindful of thy plight, I investigated. 'What favor canst thine ilk do for the likes of the Adept?' I inquired politely. And quoth he, 'I am to bring him to a plant this night.' And quoth I, 'How can the Adept trust a monster like thee?' and quoth he, 'He spared me in my youth, and him I owe the favor of a life - mine or his. He may kill me if he wishes, or follow me to the plant. Only then will part of mine onus be acquitted.' And I said, 'He can not be reached at the moment,' and he said, 'Needs must I go to him now, for only tonight can the first part of my debt be abated,' and I said-'
'Enough!' The lady cried in exasperation. 'I know him now. That is the troll my Lord spared a score of years ago. Perhaps that one, of all his ilk, can be trusted. But how can he get here?'
'I was just telling thee,' the unicorn replied, hurt. 'I said, 'How canst thou pass an impassable barrier of thorns?' and he said he was a troll, skilled at tunneling, like all his kind.'
'Tunneling!' the Lady exclaimed, her face illuminating.
'It will take time, for rode is hard, but he promised to be here by midnight.'
By midnight. Could they hold out against the encroaching plants until then? They would have to!
It was a mean, harrowing interim, but they held out. At the crack of midnight the ground shuddered and the grotesque head of the troll emerged into the wan moonlight, casting two shadows. The big eyes blinked. 'The night is painfully bright,' the creature complained.
'This is Trool the troll,' Clip introduced. 'And this is the Blue Adept, who does not deign to address thee at this time. Lead him to thy plant.'
The troll sank back into the earth. Stile followed, finding a fresh tunnel large enough for hands and knees. The Lady came last. Clip shifted back to his natural form and stood with Hinblue, defending against the plants. If Stile did not recover his power and return in time to help them, only the unicorn would survive.
The tunnel continued interminably, winding about to avoid the giant roots of trees and buried boulders. Stripped of his magic, Stile began to feel claustrophobic. If there were a cave-in, what spell could he make? But he had to trust the troll - the one his other self had spared, long before Stile came to Phaze. For this creature felt he had a debt to the Blue Adept, and Stile now held that office. He could try to explain the distinction between himself and his dead other self to the troll, but doubted this would matter. What use to inform Trool that he had come too
