Out of Phaze

They lay in silence for a time. Then he asked: 'You told the Brown Adept that you love me.'

'I had no right,' she said.

'Surely it has happened before! With animals being able to assume human form, and sharing human intelligence-has no unicorn, or werewolf, or vampire ever before loved a human being?'

'Oh, aye,' she said. 'But it be discouraged for aught but play.'

'Play-as in bed? But not serious, as in love?'

'Aye. Love be special.'

'Surely it is! And until I occupied this human body, I think play was all I ever experienced. But now I believe I love you, Fleta, and I don't see how that can be wrong. I know what you are, and if you love me too-'

She shook her head. 'Mach, mayhap there be secret love twixt our kinds on occasion, but ne'er open. Sometimes a human man will take a werebitch as a concubine, and she would do it not if she loved him not. Sometimes an animal be so fetching, like Suchevane the vampiress, that she could take a human man.'

'Who?'

'Suchevane. She be the loveliest of her kind. Methinks Bane played a game with her, too.' She grimaced. 'But thou dost have no need to meet her,' she concluded firmly.

'So animals and human beings never marry.'

'Nor speak the three,' she agreed.

'The three? Three whats?'

'When thy kind - and sometimes other kinds - bespeak true love, the one will address the other three times, and then there be no doubt.'

'Three times? You mean if I said 'I love you' three times, then you would believe me?'

'Thee,' she said. 'But say it not, Mach.'

'Thee? But I don't talk that way.'

'Aye. Thou art not of Phaze.'

'Thee - three times?'

'Say it not!' she repeated. 'This be ne'er offhand!'

'I don't understand.'

'Aye,' she murmured, and kissed him.

In the morning they joined Brown for breakfast, then went out for a walk around the Demesnes. Mach paused to concentrate on his other self - and felt Bane much more definitely than before. 'He's closer!' he said. 'He must be tuning in on me, making his way here.'

'Aye,' she said, her lip trembling.

He kissed her. 'I will return!'

'I will wait for thee.'

They were coming into a pleasant flowery garden, whose blooms were all shades of brown. 'I'm getting to like the color,' Mach remarked.

'These be grown on the best fertilizer there be,' Fleta said.

'Oh? What's that?'

'Unicorn manure.'

He laughed, thinking it a joke. But she was serious. 'When my dam, Neysa, met Brown, and Brown helped Stile, the unicorns agreed to provide her fertilizer for her garden, and so it has been e'er since.'

That reminded him of her nature. She had not assumed her natural form since their arrival at the Brown Demesnes. 'Fleta, before we part, would you-'

She glanced askance at him.

'Would you play me a tune? I think your music is lovely.'

'But to do that-'

'What is wrong with your natural form?'

She hesitated. It was obvious that she preferred to relate to him in the human fashion. Then she shrugged, and became herself, with her glossy black coat and golden socks. She played a melody on her horn, and then a two-part tune, the pan-pipes playing counterpoint. How she could do that he was not sure; he assumed that magic assisted it. Perhaps the high notes were played at the narrow tip of the horn, and the low ones at the broader base. But the music was as pretty as he could imagine. He would always remember her for this, for her sound as much as for her appearance.

She finished, and changed back to girl form. 'Thou dost value me only for my melody,' she teased him.

'I would value you just as much if-' Mach looked around, seeking a suitable metaphor for the occasion. They were near a pleasant pool, at whose brown-mud border fat frogs squatted. 'If your horn sounded like the croaking of frogs.'

She laughed, but there was an angry croak from the nearest frog, who evidently had overheard. In a moment all the frogs had the message, and were glaring at him.

'Methinks thou didst misspeak thyself,' Fleta said,

suppressing a merry chortle in the way she had, at bosom-level.

Mach was abashed. It had never occurred to him that the frogs would understand. 'I—'

'Croak!' the largest frog said witheringly. Then it turned about, facing the other frogs. They settled themselves in a ring around the pool, at the water's edge. Then they croaked.

Some had low croaks, and some had high croaks, while most were in the middle ranges. They croaked in sequence—and suddenly a melody emerged, each croak a note. More than that: it was the same melody Fleta had just played on her horn, in both its parts. The frogs were duplicating it in all its detail, and in this mode it had another kind of beauty, as great in its fashion as the original had been.

The frogs completed it, and were silent. They waited.

Mach knew he was on the spot. In his ignorance he had affronted the frogs, without cause. He owed them an apology.

He faced Fleta. 'In fact, your horn does sound like the croaking of frogs,' he said loudly. 'Beautiful!'

Fleta smiled. 'I thank thee for that compliment.'

The frogs considered that. Then the leader jumped into the pond. After that the others followed. In a moment the mud was clear.

'I think they have forgiven thee,' Fleta murmured. Then she embraced him and kissed him, in the midst of her laughter.

She changed back to 'corn form and played a new melody. This time Mach joined her, singing counterpoint. And from the pond the croaking resumed, providing a melodic background. It was as though an entire orchestra were performing.

There was a rumble. The ground shook. Fleta stopped playing, alarmed.

The pond abruptly drained away, its water disappearing into the ground beneath. The frogs scrambled desperately to escape. The mud bubbled and slid into the deepening hole.

The flower garden caved in around them. Fleta blew a startled note, bracing her four feet. Mach, realizing that something was seriously amiss, leaped for her, scrambling to her back as his footing gave way. 'Get out of here!' he cried.

She leaped-but the entire garden collapsed under her hooves, dropping them down into a forming sinkhole. Fleta kept her feet, but slid to the bottom.

Now smoke showed, issuing from forming vents. 'It's a caldera!' Mach cried, jumping off her back. 'Change to bird form and fly out, Fleta!'

But she did not; she would not leave him in this danger.

The ground shook again, and the volume of smoke increased, obscuring everything. It seemed to form a globe about them, closing in.

'Magic!' Mach cried. 'I'll try a spell!'

But in this pressure of the moment, he could think of neither rhyme nor melody. Fleta blew a note, trying to help him, but then the smoke closed in, chokingly, and they were helpless.

In a moment, it cleared-but they were no longer in the garden. They were in a chamber hewn from rock-and great ugly creatures surrounded them. The creatures pounced, grasping Mach by the arms, one of them clapping a