the Citizens were to see the creature go.
'You can do it!' Merle breathed beside him. 'You really can do magic! I knew it, yet I could not quite believe-'
'I am the Blue Adept,' Stile agreed, watching the crowd of Citizens. He had eliminated fire guns, but his enemies still outnumbered his allies, and the exits were still barred by determined-looking men. For the cavern remained, along with the field; which had greater reality Stile wasn't sure.
Maybe he should conjure himself away from here. But then how would Sheen find him? He had to remain as long as he could.
A new Citizen stood forth. He was garbed in a light-brown robe and seemed sure of himself. 'I am the Tan Adept,' he announced. 'Citizen Tan, in this frame.'
Stile studied the man. He had never before encountered him in either frame, perhaps because the man had held himself aloof. But he had heard of him. The Tan Adept was supposed to have the evil eye. Stile wasn't sure how that worked, and didn't care to find out. 'Be not proud,' he sang. 'Make a cloud.'
A mass of vapor formed between them, obscuring the Tan Adept. Stile had tried to enclose the man in the cloud so that he could not use his eyes for magic - it seemed likely that deprivation of vision would have the same effect that deprivation of sound did on Blue - but the general immunity of Adepts to each other's direct magic had interfered.
Where was Sheen? Stile could not afford to remain here much longer. Maybe he could depart and locate her magically later. Right now he had to save himself. For the Tan Adept was already slicing through the cloud; Stile could see it sectioning off as if an invisible knife were slicing vertically, then horizontally. As it separated, it lost cohesion, and the vapor dissipated; in moments it would be all gone. Then that knifelike gaze would be directed against Stile.
Stile played his harmonica, summoning more of his power - and again there was something strange about it, causing him to pause. He saw another man, whose hands were weaving mystically in the air. Stile recognized him - the Green Adept. Distracted by the Tan Adept, Stile had missed the other. He was outmagicked!
'I chose not this quarrel, nor wished it,' Green said apologetically. 'Would I could have avoided it. But must I act.'
Stile lowered his harmonica hastily. Against magic his armor was useless. 'Another locale,' he sang. 'My power-
But Tan had succeeded in carving out the center of the cloud, and now his baleful gaze fixed on Stile, halting his incantation. That gaze could not kill or even harm Stile, it turned out, whatever it might have done to an ordinary person, but it did freeze him for a moment. In that moment, Green completed his gesture.
Stile found himself changing. His arms were shrinking, becoming flat, covered with scales. His legs were fusing. He was turning into a fish!
He had lost the battle of Adepts because of the two-to-one odds against him. His power had been occupied resisting the evil eye, leaving him vulnerable to the transformation-spell. Probably Green's magic had been bolstered by that of other Adepts too. But Stile might yet save his life. He leaped toward the dark water of the sacred river Alph, which cut through a corner of the dome.
His fused legs launched him forward - but he could not land upright. He flopped on his belly and slid across the grass that had been the floor. Some of his cloud had precipitated here, making the mixed surface slippery; this helped him more. He threshed with his tail and thrashed with his fins, gasping for water to breathe; he was drowning here in air!
The river was getting closer. An enemy Citizen tried to stop him, stepping into his sliding path. Stile turned this to his advantage, bracing against the man's legs and shoving himself forward again. But he was still too far from the water. His vision was blurring; perhaps this was natural to fish eyes out of water, but it could be because he was smothering.
Mellon, catching on, charged across to aid Stile. He bent down, threw his arms about Stile's piscine torso, and hauled him up. Stile had shrunk somewhat, but remained a big fish, about half the weight of a man. Mellon charged the water with his burden.
But the Tan Adept aimed his deadly gaze at the robot. Again that invisible knife cut through the air and whatever else it touched. Mellon's left leg fell off, severed just above the knee; metal protruded from the thigh like black bone, and bloodlike oil spurted out. The robot fell - but hurled Stile forward.
Stile landed heavily, bounced, and slid onward, rotating helplessly. His sweeping fish eye caught the panorama of Xanadu: the majority of Citizens standing aghast, the enemies with dawning glee, the two Adepts orienting on Stile again - and Merle launching herself at the Tan Adept from behind. She might have betrayed Stile once, but she was making up for it now! That would take one Adept out for a few vital moments - but Green would still score if he wished to. Stile suspected the fish-enchantment had been a compromise, much as had been Merle's sending him to the mines. But it could also have been the first spell that came to Green's mind under pressure, not what he would otherwise have chosen. No sense waiting for the next one!
Stile's inertia was not enough to carry him to the water. The precipitation ran out, the floor of grass became dry, and Stile spun to an uncomfortable halt. He flipped his tail, but progress on this surface was abrasive and slow.
And what would he do once he reached the water? He could not transform himself back to his natural form, for he no longer could speak or sing. Certainly he couldn't play the harmonica!
Merle kept Tan occupied, in much the way she had done for Stile. The man could not concentrate his deadly gaze on anything at the moment. The surface of the river Alph bubbled and shot out steam as the evil-eye beam glanced by it, and a section of the palace was sliced off; Stile himself was clear.
But the Green Adept was making another gesture. He had evidently immobilized the self-willed machines who had tried to help Stile; all of them were frozen in place. Now it was Stile's turn again - and he knew he could not get clear in time.
Something flew down from the half-open sky. Had the harpy returned? No, it was a bat. A vampire bat! It flew at the Green Adept, interfering with his. spell. Stile's Phaze allies were coming to the rescue!
But Stile was suffocating. The process was slower than it would have been for a human being; fish metabolism differed. But it was just as uncomfortable. He made a final effort and flipped himself the rest of the way to the water. He splashed in at last, delighting in the coolness and wetness of it. He swam, and the liquid coursed in his open mouth and out his gills, and he was breathing again. Ah, delight!
He poked an eye out of the water just in time to see the bat fall. Apparently this was the only one to find him; the vampires must have maintained a broad search pattern, not even knowing how they might be needed. If the first had given the alarm, more would swarm in, and other creatures too - but all would be helpless against the two Adepts. Stile had to save himself.
He turned in the water and swam rapidly downstream. Maybe he was finished anyway, but somehow he hoped someone would find a way to rescue and restore him.
He swam the river Alph, which, true to its literary origin, flowed past seemingly endless caverns to a dark nether sea. Here the water was sucked into a pipe for pumping back to the artificial source, a fountain beyond the palace.
There was a whirlpool above the intake; he didn't want to get drawn into that!
What was he to do now? He had survived, yes - but anyone who had tried to help him at the Citizens' meeting was now in deep trouble, and Stile had no way to ameliorate that. He could do no magic. He could not leave the water. All he could do was swim and hope, knowing his enemies would soon dispatch all his friends and come after him here.
Then the water level started dropping. Oh, no! They had turned off the river, diverting the flow. He would soon be left stranded, to die - which was probably the idea. Possibly Xanadu was shut down between meetings anyway; this time the process had been hastened, to be sure of him.
Stile swam desperately upstream, hoping to find some side eddy that would not drain completely. There was none; the stone floor of the river was universally slanted for drainage. But in one cavern there was a small, pleasant beach, perhaps where Kublai Khan had liked to relax with his wives. Stile nudged himself a hole in the sand and nosed small rocks into place. Maybe he could trap some water for himself.
It didn't work. The water drained right out through the sand, leaving him gasping again. And suppose his private pool had held? He would quickly have exhausted the oxygen in that limited supply. He had to flip and
