'Nuisance, hell! I was attempting to have my honeymoon! Why should this represent a threat to anyone?'
'Thou didst bring the Foreordained, and then thou didst travel to the West Pole. These were elements of the prophecy.'
'So the other Adepts decided to stop me from getting there,' Stile said, grimacing. 'Setting neat little magical traps.'
'Some did. Green chose to stand aloof, as I did, misliking this. Sure enough, thou didst get there. Now the onrush of events is upon us, and if we do not get thee away from Phaze promptly, we all are doomed.'
'So you propose to remove me by killing me?'
'Nay, we know that would not work,' Yellow said. 'At least White and Green and I suspected it would not. Black and Orange and Translucent did not participate in the proceedings, and Brown opposed them. We had to suppress her, lest she warn thee.'
So it now developed that the other Adepts were anything but unanimous; most were at best neutral. That explained why they had not simply massed their magic against him. Stile's expression turned hard. 'Suppressed Brown? What dost thou mean by that?'
'A stasis-spell,' White said quickly. 'No harm was done her. It is hard indeed to do direct harm to an Adept; the spell is likely to bounce and strike down the speller. But slantwise action can be taken, as with the silence and confinement for thee.'
'You froze the child in place?' Stile demanded. 'Our truce is just about to come to an unkind end.'
'She would have blabbed to thee,' White repeated.
'Now I am blabbing to thee: release her.'
White's expression hardened, as was typical of those whose reason was only a front. Yellow quickly interceded. 'Provoke him not unnecessarily, White; he has power and friends we hardly know. We need hold Brown no longer. I shall go free her.' She brought out another vial, sipped the potion, and vanished.
'Methinks thou hast won the heart of more than Brown,' White grumbled. She viewed him critically, noting the mud caking his body and the awkward turban, loincloth, and shoe structures. 'It must be thy magic, rather than thy demeanor.'
Stile relaxed marginally. Ugly things were happening, and he knew it wasn't over. So far there had been attacks against him, the Lady Blue, Clip, and the Brown Adept. An organization of Adepts had formed against him. He needed to know the rest of it. 'Let's have it, White. Exactly what is the threat to Phaze, and what dost thou want of me?' For he knew her suggestion about giving him a place of leadership was wrong; how could he lead, if his presence meant the end?
'We want thee to leave Phaze voluntarily, so that the dangers of Adept confrontations are abated. Thou canst take Lady Blue and aught else thou wishest. Cross the curtain, embark on a Proton spaceship, and depart for the farthermost corner of the universe as that frame knows it, never to return.'
Stile had no intention of doing that. Apart from the complication of the Lady Blue's official nonexistence in the other frame, where the Records Computer took such things more seriously than people did in Phaze, there was the matter of the robot Sheen. How could he marry her, with his other wife in Proton? And how could he leave his friends the unicorns and werewolves and vampires? Phaze was the world of his dreams and nightmares; he could never leave it. 'Nay.'
'The applicable portion of the prophecy is this: Phaze will never be restored till the Blue Adept is forever gone.' Thou canst not remain.'
'I have had some experience with misrepresented predictions,' Stile said. 'Restoration of Phaze after my departure is hardly synonymous with my destruction of it - which I maintain is no intent of mine. Thou hast answered only a fraction of my question, and deviously at that.'
'I am getting to it, Blue. The goblins guard an apparatus from the other frame, protecting it from all threats. The end of Phaze will come when that device is returned. The goblins guard it blindly from harm; we would prefer to destroy it.'
'So the collusion of Adepts with goblins is rife with internal stress,' Stile observed. 'Doubtless the goblins know not of this aspect.'
'Doubtless they suspect, however,' White said.
'Surely the massed power of the Adepts can prevail against mere goblins,' Stile said, pushing at her verbally. 'Any one of us could enchant the entire species of goblin into drifting smoke.'
'Thou might, Blue. Few others could. But this device is a special case and can not be attacked directly.'
'Anything can be attacked!' Stile said. 'Some things with less success than others, though, as seems to be the case when Adepts attack Adepts.'
'Nay. This device is what is called in the other frame a computer.'
'A computer can't operate in Phaze! No scientific device can.' Except, he remembered, near the West Pole.
'This one has a line running to the West Pole.'
Parallel thoughts! 'Maybe. If it could figure out how to use magic in its circuits.'
'Aye. It functions partially, and has many thoughts. Some concern thee - which is why we did not wish thee to make connection with it at the Pole.'
'How canst thou know this if the goblins let thee not near it? In fact, why do the goblins allow Adepts in their demesnes, seeing the likes of thee would destroy what they endeavor to guard from harm?'
'The goblin-folk are not unduly smart,' she said with a fleeting smile. 'But smart enough to keep Adepts away from the device. They cooperate with us to some extent because they know that we oppose thee - and thou art one who will take the contraption from them and return it to Proton-frame, where it seems it will wreak all manner of mischief on both frames. So it is an uneasy alliance, but it will do. All of us, Adept and goblin alike, wish to save Phaze.'
'And I wish to destroy Phaze,' Stile said. 'Or so you other Adepts choose to believe. Because of some fouled-up prophecy. No matter that I love Phaze; you believe that not.'
'Nay, Blue, this one is not distorted. Thou wilt return the thing to Proton and thereby destroy Phaze, and only thy departure can alleviate that.'
Stile was annoyed by this insistence. There had to be some flaw in the logic. 'How dost thou know the prophecy is true?'
'The computer itself made it.'
'And what relevance can the guess of an other-frame contraption have? Thou dost credit it with the accuracy of the Oracle!'
She nodded, and Stile's mouth dropped open. 'Oh, no!' he exclaimed.
'It is so,' she affirmed. 'The computer is the Oracle. That is how it defends itself from the likes of us. Any thrust we can conceive against it, it anticipates and foils. Its means are devious but effective. We dare not attack it directly.'
'Now let me back up,' Stile said. 'Thou didst offer me peace and fortune in Phaze, then told me I have to get out of Phaze forever or be killed, so that I won't destroy it. Surely thou perceivest the contradiction. Where is the lie?'
'Nay, Blue!' she said. 'We Adepts differ some amongst ourselves about our manner of dealing with thee, so there may be seeming contradictions. It is a fair offer - if thou dost but accept it. Cooperation or exile. We fear thou wilt not.'
'Try me, White.'
Her glance played across the cavern, indicating the unicorns and goblins, all waiting for the settlement of Adepts. 'Needs must we have greater privacy than this,' she said. 'Thy spell or mine?'
'Mine,' he said. He played a bar of harmonica music, then sang: 'Give us a globe that none may probe.' And about them formed an opaque sphere that cut off all external light and sound.
In a moment light flared, as the witch made a spell of her own. 'Now before we suffocate,' she said, 'I'll give it to thee without artifice. We want thee to destroy the Oracle. Only thou canst do it, for thou art its tool. It will admit thee to its presence, if thou canst get somehow past the goblins, and thy power is great enough to do the deed. Destroy that evil machine, Blue, and Phaze will be saved. This is the loophole we dare not voice aloud. Only if it returns operative to Proton can it act to destroy Phaze, and it can not foresee its own demise. Do this, Blue, and
