Out of Phaze

'Thou dost not want it?' he asked.

'Oh, Bane, I am not your kind! I have a task to accomplish-'

'But after thou dost accomplish it, and make thy report-what then?'

'Oh, Bane, I just don't know! This is all so sudden, so strange!'

'Meanwhile, come and meet my family,' he said. He looked at her appraisingly. 'And let's see how thou wouldst be in blue.' He paused, considering, then sang: 'Turn me blue, and her too.'

There was a flash, and abruptly both of their outfits were blue instead of white.

Agape looked at him, and at herself, astonished. 'Magic! You did it!'

'I be an apprentice Adept,' he said. But privately he was bothered by a detail; there had never before been a flash when he performed magic. Was he losing his touch?

They walked on. Suddenly there was a commotion to the side. Gnarly little men appeared, about half the size of Bane.

'Goblins!' he said. 'They be usually trouble!'

'Are they human beings?' Agape asked. 'They seem so small!'

'They may be descended from human stock, but they be hardly human anymore. Mostly they interfere not with our kind, but they can be ugly on occasion. I want not to waste magic; I'll see if I can bluff them off.'

The goblins charged up. 'Fresh meat!' they exclaimed, licking their twisted lips.

'Back off, goblins!' Bane cried. 'Else I transform you all to worms for the birds!'

'And who dost thou think thou art?' one of them challenged him.

'I think I be the son of Blue,' Bane said.

'Blue be far from here,' the goblin retorted. 'We'll roast thee and thy buxom wench for dinner!'

'Goblins be worms,' Bane sang. 'As birds want-'

'We're going!' the goblin cried, and all of them scurried back the way they had come.

Agape was impressed. 'Could you really have turned them to worms?'

'Methinks so; I have tried to transform that many not simultaneously before,' Bane said. 'My father could readily do it, of course. But we prefer to employ magic only as a last resort.'

'Oh, why is that?'

'Because a given spell only works well once. I have to figure out a new one each time. So if I use magic when I don't need to, I be cutting down my options for the future. That could make me pretty much impotent, later in life.'

'Ah, now I understand!' she exclaimed. 'So life is not entirely easy, even with magic!'

'Not necessarily easy at all,' he agreed. 'Because there be also hostile magic.' He paused. 'Speaking of which-the White Adept really has never been very friendly with the Blue Adept, not since the separation of frames. Why would she do us this big favor now?'

'Perhaps she is a nicer person than you thought.'

He laughed. 'Adepts aren't nice folk! They are concerned only with their own powers.' Then he reconsidered. 'No, some are all right. The Red Adept owes his position to my father, so he's always friendly, and the Brown Adept's all right too. She helped Fleta and the weres a lot. She's the one who makes the golems.'

'The golems?'

'They be like robots,' he said with a smile. 'They look and act like men, but they be dead sticks. Generally.'

They went on. 'Mayhap I should conjure us directly there,' Bane said. 'So thou dost not have to walk so far.'

'Save your magic,' Agape said with a smile. 'I don't mind walking with you.'

They came to a mountain. There was a large cave visible at its base. 'The vampires!' Bane exclaimed.

'Vampires! The kind that suck blood?'

'They do, but not indiscriminately. It be part of special rituals they have for coming-of-age and such. We have nothing to fear from them.' He walked toward the cave-entrance. Agape followed, not at all at ease.

A man in a gray cape stood guarding the cave, though bats wheeled in the sky nearby. He came alert as the two approached. 'Who be ye?' he challenged.

'I be the son of Blue,' Bane said. 'This be my friend, a shape-changer. I come to see my friends.'

'Who be thy friends?' the man asked.

'Vanneflay,' Bane said.

'Sorry, he be away these three days.'

'Vidselud, then,' Bane said.

'Him, too.'

Bane considered. 'Then Suchevane.'

The man shrugged. 'That be a coincidence! He, too.'

'All away?' Bane asked, surprised.

'But thou'rt welcome to join us in a meal,' the guard said. 'Any son of Blue be welcome here.'

'Uh, Bane-' Agape whispered uncomfortably.

Bane smiled. 'My friend be nervous about vampire viands. Thank thee, but we shall move on.'

The guard made a negligent wave of his hand.

They returned to the forest and walked on toward the west until they were well clear of the vampire's mountain. Bane was deep in thought.

'I'm glad we didn't stay there!' Agape said. 'The thought of eating blood-'

'That bothers thee? Is blood not easier to imbibe than solid food?'

'We don't consume flesh,' she said.

'Actually, the vampires wouldn't have offered us blood. It's too valuable, and they always take it fresh. That isn't what bothers me.'

'What bothers you, Bane?'

'This be not Phaze.'

She halted in place. 'What?'

'When I changed the color of our clothing, there was a flash. My magic ne'er did that. Be there a way science could have done it?'

'Changed the color? Oh, yes; some material is sensitive to certain types of radiation, so that when it flashes-'

'Methought so. And true goblins bluff not so readily; must always destroy a few ere they give over. But mainly, the vampires. They were not.'

'But the fact that we did not see them change form does not mean-'

'Oh, they might have changed form, by some device. But the friends I named-' He shook his head.

'But they really could be away,' she said.

'The first, yes. But the second, Vidselud-he be the son of Vodlevile, for whom my father did a favor. Vidselud be six or seven years my senior, but we be friends because with me he can safely travel.'

'He can't with his own kind?'

'Nay. He has a problem with the assimilation of blood that crops up every so often. They keep a potion in the cave that cures it, and they never let that potion go out, because it cannot be replaced. So he flies ne'er beyond walking distance of the cave, unless with me, because I can conjure him home if need be.'

'But then he should be home!' she said.

'He should be home. Yet the guard said he was not.'

'Still, that's not proof-'

'And the third one, Suchevane.'

'He could also be-'

'She,' Bane said succinctly.

'Female? But the guard said 'he'-'

'Precisely.'

'Maybe the guard forgot.'

Bane smiled. 'No male forgets Suchevane!'

Agape looked sharply at him. 'She is-?'