Split Infinity

by Piers Anthony

  Stile was glumly silent. The Lady Blue could indeed ride, better than he had expected—but he knew she could not stay on the unicorn. When she fell, Neysa would kill her, if the fall itself did not. It was legitimate; it was expected. And what would he want with Neysa then?

  The unicorn performed a backflip, then a four-spoked cartwheel, then a series of one-beat hops, followed by a bounce on her back. The Lady stayed on until the last moment, then jumped clear—and back on when Neysa scrambled to her feet.

  Hulk was gaping. “What sort of animal is that? Those tricks are impossible!”

  There was a chord-snort next to Stile. He glanced—and discovered the Herd Stallion beside him, front hooves comfortably crossed on the wall, eyes intent on the competition. “Not bad moves,” Clip translated from the far side.

  Neysa whirled and leaped, spinning about in the air. The Lady’s slippers flew off and her gown flung out so violently it rent; a fragment of blue gauze drifted to the ground. But her hands were locked in the unicorn’s mane, and she was not dislodged.

  Neysa did a sudden barrel-roll on the ground. Again the Lady jumped free—but a tattered hem of her garment was caught under the weight of the unicorn, trapping her. As the roll continued, the Lady was squeezed by the tightening cloth. She ripped her own gown asunder and danced free, abruptly nude.

  “That is some figure of a woman!” Hulk breathed.

  Neysa started to rise. The Lady grabbed her mane—and Neysa threw down her head on the ground, pinning the Lady’s streaming golden hair beneath it. The Lady grabbed for the unicorn’s ears, and Neysa lifted her head quickly; human hands could really hurt tender equine ears when they had to. Stile had not gone for the ears during his challenge ride; it was not his way. The Lady knew the tricks, all right! But Neysa had the end of the Lady’s tresses clamped between her teeth, now. The unicorn knew the tricks too. Human intelligence in equine form—devastating! As the Lady tried to mount again, Neysa yanked her off balance by the hair.

  “Beautiful!” Clip murmured.

  But the Lady grasped her own hair with one hand and jammed her other fingers into Neysa’s mouth where the bit would go on a horse. There was a separation there between the front teeth, used for ripping grass free of the ground, and the back teeth, used for chewing. Pressure in that gap could cause pain. Neysa’s mouth opened under that expert inducement, and the Lady’s hair was free. Then, as Neysa leaped away, the Lady sprang to her back again.

  Neysa ran—but now the Lady was free of the liability of clothing, and had a more secure lodging than before. “She’s winning!” Hulk said, obviously rooting for the Lady, forgetting in the excitement what this would mean to Stile.

  Stile began to wonder. Was it possible that the Lady Blue could ride Neysa? She was, next to himself, the most expert rider he had seen.

  The Stallion made an irate snort. “What’s the matter with that mare?” Clip said. “She should have wiped out the rider by this time.”

  “She is torn by indecision,” Kurrelgyre said. “If Neysa loses, she proves the Lady’s belief that Stile is false. If Neysa wins, she vindicates him as the Blue Adept she wants him not to be. Would I could take from her that choice.”

  Stile kept his eyes forward, but felt a shiver. The werewolf had his bitch in the pack, even as Stile had Sheen in Proton. But Kurrelgyre obviously had developed a separate interest that cut across the lines of species—even as Stile had. Yet who could know Neysa and not like her and respect her?

  “Yes,” Stile agreed. He saw no acceptable outcome for this contest; whoever lost took away a major part of his own commitment. Neysa was his friend; the Lady represented his heritage. Which one was he to choose? Which one was fate about to choose for him? To choose—and eliminate, simultaneously?

  “In the future, I will manage my destiny myself,” Stile muttered. And heard, to his surprise, a snort of agreement from the Stallion.

  Neysa galloped so fast that her mane and the Lady’s hair flew out behind, the black and gold almost merging. Shadow and sunlight. She made turns that struck sparks from the rocks of the ground. She bucked and reared. But the Lady remained mounted.

  Now the unicorn charged the castle. She hurdled the small moat with a magnificent leap, landed on her forefeet, and did her forward flip into the wall. There were growls of amazement from the wolves, and even an appreciative snort from the Stallion. Neysa was really trying now—but the Lady had been smart enough to disengage in time. When the unicorn’s hind feet returned to the ground, the Lady was on again.

  They hurdled the moat, outward bound, and charged across the arena toward the magic brick wall. Now Stile saw the fire jetting from Neysa’s nostrils and the bellows-heaving of her barrel as she put forth her critical effort. The Lady was almost hidden, as she rode low, her head down beside Neysa’s neck.

  Stile watched in growing disquiet as the unicorn’s horn bore on the wall. Stile was directly in its path; he saw the horn endwise, as a compressed spiral on Neysa’s forehead, coming at him like the point of a rotary drill. Her eyes were wide and turning bloodshot, and her flaring nostrils were rimmed with red. Neysa was near her limit—and still the Lady clung fast. Stile felt mixed relief for the Lady, sorrow for the unicorn, and apprehension for himself; he was at the focus of this agony.

  Then Neysa swerved aside, kicking up her rear. Her flank smashed into the wall, knocking loose the top row of bricks and breaking the mortar-seal on several lower courses. She rebounded, getting her footing, breathing fire—and the Lady was clinging to her side, away from the wall. Otherwise the Lady’s leg would have been crushed—and Stile himself might have been struck, as he had been too absorbed in the charge to move out of its way. Only the curvature of the wall and Neysa’s swerve had spared him. Stile caught a glimpse of the Lady’s neck, shoulder, and breast behind one blood-streaked arm; then steed and rider were away, prancing to the center of the arena.

  The Stallion shook a brick off his back. Neither he nor Kurrelgyre had flinched, either. All three of them were powdered with reddish brick dust. But some of that red was sticky: whose blood was it?

  “They’re playing for keeps,” Hulk murmured, awed.

  “It is the way, in Phaze,” Kurrelgyre assured him.

  But now Neysa was tiring. She had extended herself for a day and a night to bring Stile here, and the intervening day had not been enough to restore her to full vitality. Her maneuvers were becoming less extreme. Her brushoff pitch against the wall had been her last fling. The Lady’s head lifted, her gaze triumphant—and at the same time her mouth was sad. Had she, in her secret heart, wanted Stile to be vindicated, though it cost her her life? What kind of existence did this indomitable woman face with her husband gone, and her vulnerability now known to the world? Had she lost, she would have been dead—but would have died with the knowledge that the Blue Demesnes would survive.

  Then, desperately, without real hope, Neysa experimented with alternate gaits. The one-, two-, three-, and four-beat gaits gave the Lady no trouble—but evidently she had not before encountered the unicorn specialty of the five-beat. Immediately Neysa felt the uncertainty in her rider; she picked up the pace, exaggerating the peculiar step. Her strength returned, for this last fling.

  “What is that?” Hulk asked, amazed.

  The Stallion snorted with satisfaction. “That is the unicorn strut,” Clip answered. “We use it mostly in special harmonies, for counterpoint cadence. We had no idea she could do it so well.”

  Suddenly the tables had been turned. The Lady clung to the mane, but her body bounced about with increasing roughness, unable to accommodate this unfamiliar motion. Stile knew exactly how it felt. Riding was not simply a matter of holding on; the rider had to make constant adjustments of balance and position, most of them automatic, based on ingrained experience. A completely unfamiliar gait made these automatic corrections only aggravate the problem. Stile himself had analyzed the gait in time, but the Lady—

  One of the Lady Blue’s hands tore awa
y from the mane. Her body slid half off. One good lunge, now, and Neysa would dump her. “Kill her!” Clip breathed.

  Abruptly Neysa halted. The Lady recovered her grip, hung on for a moment—then released the mane and slid to the ground. The ride was over.

  “The little fool!” Clip exclaimed. “She had the win! Why didn’t she finish it?” And the Stallion snorted in deep disgust.

  “She has forfeited her place in the herd,” Kurrelgyre said sadly. “In thy parlance, she threw the game.”

  Stile jumped off the wall and walked toward the unicorn and Lady, who both stood as if frozen, facing away from each other. As he walked, understanding came to him. Stile played his harmonica as he worked it out, gathering the magic to him.

  Neysa, after the specter of defeat, had had the victory in range. But Neysa wanted Stile’s welfare more than she wanted her own. She had finally, unwillingly, recognized the fact that he could fulfill his destiny only as the Blue Adept, complete with magic. Once she had proven that he alone could ride the unicorn, what could she gain by killing or even humbling the Lady—who was his natural mate? Neysa had ceded him to the Lady, so that he could have it all, knowing himself and his Demesnes exactly as the Oracle had decreed. She had understood that he was already half-smitten with his alternate’s wife, and understood further that the Lady Blue was indeed worthy of him.

  Neysa had sacrificed her own love for Stile’s. She had shown the one person she had to, the Lady Blue, that Stile was no impostor; wolves and unicorns could doubt it if they wished, but the Lady could not. For Stile had mastered the unicorn strut without being thrown; he really was the better rider. That was Neysa’s gift to Stile. And he—had to accept it. Neysa was his ultimate steed, but the Lady was his ultimate woman. He hardly knew her yet, but he knew his other self would have chosen wisely, and everything he had observed so far confirmed this. He also knew his alternate self of Phaze would have wanted Stile to take over—for the Blue Adept was him, in other guise.

  The Lady Blue, however, was not yet his woman. Stile had merely qualified for the Tourney, in this sense, and had won the right to court her. He would have to prove himself in other ways than magical and in riding ability, showing that he was worthy of her love. He would have to demonstrate convincingly to her that he was as good as her husband had been. Perhaps he would not succeed, for she was so steadfastly loyal to her first love that a second love might be impossible. But in the interim, he knew she would accept him as the master of the Blue Demesnes, and support him publicly as she had the golem—for the sake of the reputation and works of Blue. That was all he had a right to expect. It was, for the moment, more than enough.

  It was Neysa he had to deal with. She who had made it all possible—and now would go, excluded from the herd, departing in shame to fling herself off the same cliff where they had first come to terms. She had lived always with the hope that eventually the Herd Stallion would relent and allow her full membership in the herd. He would have, had she destroyed the Lady in approved fashion. But for a creature who yielded a draw in a contest she could have won, shaming the vanity of the herd, there would be no forgiveness. The rigors of species pride were harsh.

  Stile had, in the naïveté of his conscience, turned Neysa loose when he had conquered her, making a sacrifice no other man would have—and won a better friend than he had known. Now she had returned the favor.

  Stile’s head turned as he walked, his gaze passing over the unicorns and werewolves. All were somber, watching him, knowing what had to be, knowing this was his parting with his most loyal friend. They felt sympathy for him, and for the mare, and it was a minor tragedy, but this was the way of it—in Phaze.

  Damn it! he thought. He was not truly of this world, and this proved it. He had been raised to a different order of integrity, where blood sacrifices were not required. How could he tolerate this senseless loss? Yet he knew it was not senseless, here. The laws of this society were harsh but valid.

  The magic gathered close as he played. The strange cloud of it spread about him—and, as he approached, about the Lady and the unicorn. But what good was magic, in an ethical dilemma? What spell could he make, to eliminate the need for what he knew had to be?

  Stile came to stand before Neysa, playing the music that had been inspired by the sound of her horn. Her body was heaving with the recent extremity of her effort. Her mane was disheveled, with dry leaves in it and several strands hanging over the left side. There were flecks of blood on her back; she must have scratched herself when she did the back-smash against the castle wall. He wished he could make a little spell to heal it for her, but knew this was not proper now. Her gaze met his, dully; she was waiting only for him to bid her farewell.

  Farewell? What irony! It was death he would bid her.

  This reminded Stile obscurely of his race in the marathon, in the other frame. He had been almost dead on his feet, as Neysa was now, but he had won—as she had—and then tried to give it back to an opponent he respected. Again, he had made a friend. Surely he could salvage his relationship with Neysa, if only he had the wit to find the way!

  What had the werewolf said about oaths? They superseded all relationships, conflicting with none, not even the male-female ones. Kurrelgyre’s oath-friend could do no wrong by Kurrelgyre’s bitch; the oath made that irrelevant.

  The marathon. The oath. What had passed through his mind, when … ?

  And he had it.

  Stile set the harmonica aside. With the magic intense about him, he sang with impromptu melody: “My name is Stile, called the Blue Adept; Standing before thee I proffer mine oath: To the unicorn Neysa, companion and steed—Friendship forever, uniting us both.”

  For an instant it was as if a dense cloud had darkened the sun. A sudden, odd, insweeping breeze rustled the distant trees and fluttered the blue pennants on the castle and stirred the manes and hackles of the animals. Neysa’s eyes widened. Her ears switched back and forth as comprehension came. She phased into girl-form, equine-form, firefly-form, and back to unicorn, entirely nonplused.

  The ripple of enchantment imploded about the two of them in soft heat, then rebounded outward in a circle. The turf changed color, passing through the hues of the rainbow and back to normal in a swiftly expanding ring. The ripple intersected the naked Lady, whose tangled hair scintillated momentarily, and went on, leaving that hair smoothly brushed.

  The Lady turned. “Only perfect truth makes such splash,” she murmured. “Only my lord had such power of magic.”

  Stile spread his arms. Neysa, overwhelmed, stepped forward, her horn lifted clear. Stile reached around her neck and chest and hugged her. “Never leave me, oath-friend,” he murmured. He heard her low whinny of assent, and felt her velvet muzzle at his shoulder. Then he disengaged and stepped back.

  The Lady Blue came forward. She put her arms about Neysa. “Never again be there strife between us,” she said, tears in her eyes. Neysa made a tiny snort of acceptance.

  Now the wolves and unicorns came in, forming a ragged line, heedless of the mixing of species. In turn, each wolf sniffed noses with Neysa and each unicorn crossed horns, and went on. All of them were joining in the Oath of Friendship. Even her brother Clip came, and Kurrelgyre, and Hulk. Neysa accepted them all.

  It was, Stile knew, the power of his spell. When he had phrased his oath in verse and music, he had performed magic—and wrought a greater enchantment than he had anticipated. The spell he had envisioned, though not completed in words, had flung outward to embrace the entire circle of creatures, compelling them all to share Stile’s feeling. Neysa would not now be banned from the herd—or from the pack. She was friend to all. But she would remain with Stile, having accepted his power with his oath.

  Only the Herd Stallion stood apart. He alone had resisted the compulsion of the enchantment. He did not interfere; he waited within his enclosure until the ceremony was over. Then he blew a great summoning blast of music and leaped over the wall. It had never truly restrained him; it had
merely been the proof of the power of the Blue Adept, which power could as readily have been turned to a more destructive manifestation. Once the Herd Stallion had seen Stile was no impostor, his objection had ended. Now the unicorns rallied to him, galloping to form their formation. Playing as a mighty orchestra, they marched away.

  Kurrelgyre shifted to wolf-form and bayed his own summons. His faith had also been vindicated, and his bitch had been satisfied. The wolves closed in about him, and the pack loped away in the opposite direction. In a moment only Stile, Neysa, the Lady Blue, and Hulk remained by the Blue Demesnes.

  Stile turned to the woman he would now be dealing with. Nothing was settled, either with her or with his anonymous murderer, or in the other frame. But it was a beginning. “Lady, wilt thou ride my steed?” he asked. There was no need to ask Neysa; as a friend she would do anything for him, and he for her. By the phrasing of his invitation, he was acknowledging that he had as yet only a partial claim on the Lady, and could not take her for granted. She was a challenge, not a friend.

  The Lady Blue inclined her head, as regal in her nakedness as she had been in the gown. Lightly she mounted Neysa. Stile walked on one side, Hulk on the other. Together they approached the open castle.

  Also by Piers Anthony

  Published by Ballantine Books:

  THE MAGIC OF XANTH

  A Spell for Chameleon

  The Source of Magic

  Castle Roogna

  Centaur Aisle

  Ogre, Ogre

  Night Mare

  Dragon on a Pedestal

  Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn

  Golem in the Gears

  Xanth: The Quest for Magic

  THE APPRENTICE ADEPT

  Book One: Split Infinity

  Book Two: Blue Adept

  Book Three: Juxtaposition

  INCARNATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

  Book One: On a Pale Horse

  Book Two: Bearing an Hourglass