Phaze Doubt

by Piers Anthony

  “Yes. But this is logic. My mission is not subject to that.”

  “Suppose it were possible at least to save most Hectare and some natives, by warning them now?”

  “It isn’t. It would take several days to organize for a disciplined withdrawal, and only one day remained when I came here. Had I known the nature of the ploy sooner, I would have warned the Hectare.”

  “Aye. We told thee little, until thou wast here. Yet there be a way.”

  “Something you didn’t tell me?”

  “Aye. I be thine enemy, remember.”

  Lysander laughed. “I had almost forgotten! What is this secret?”

  “We can, by special magic, transport some o’ the acceleration to the surface o’ the shell. It would deplete the effect at the Poles, but provide perhaps a week at the cities.”

  “They could get away!” Lysander exclaimed.

  “Aye.”

  “But there’s a catch.”

  “Perceptive o’ thee to fathom that.”

  “You won’t let it happen.”

  “Aye. Why facilitate the benefit o’ mine enemy?”

  “And I, lacking your expertise in magic, can not do it without your cooperation.”

  “Aye, no more than I can gain thy figures from Mischief.”

  “Then what is the point? It changes nothing. I will not save your frames, and you will not save the BEMs. Our positions are consistent.”

  “The point be that we have chips to bargain. An the Hectare had a choice, would they not choose to exit Proton?”

  “Yes, of course! But you aren’t going to give them that choice.”

  “Here be my challenge: play me a game. An thou dost win, I will provide magic to save the Hectare and those they choose to take with them, and thou and Echo. That be a half victory, but better than naught. An I win, thou dost release those figures.”

  “But the stakes aren’t even!” Lysander protested, guiltily intrigued. “You aren’t offering victory against victory, but half against whole.”

  “True. But our victory be not complete loss for the Hectare or thee. We will treat them fairly, and put thee in charge o’ integrating them into the society. We can use their skills. And we will make a spell to make thou fertile—”

  “I’m with Echo. She can’t conceive.”

  “An we do the magic, she can. Remember Nepe; she be child o’ machine.”

  Lysander considered. It was true: the full victory for the natives would be only half a loss for the Hectare, while the full loss of the natives would be half a Hectare win. The stakes were fair. But did he have the authority to make such a deal?

  “Be the Hectare not gamesmen?” Oresmite inquired. “Would they not let the game decide, an the stakes be even?”

  “Yes, they would. But I can’t—”

  “An the leader be incapacitated, who has authority?”

  “The next in command. But—”

  “An the leader be away or distracted, and the next in command learns aught that must needs be decided instantly, what then?”

  “The next in command must act.”

  “Does the authority for this matter then not devolve on thee, the only Hectare to know its nature in time to act?”

  “Well, there is Weva—”

  “Wouldst have her make the decision?”

  “No! She’s on your side!”

  “Then methinks it must be thee, unless my logic be in error.”

  Lysander realized that the cunning old elf had him. He had been maneuvered into a position where the authority was his; a Hectare court would agree. He might lack the authority simply to decide the fate of the frames, but as a player in a game of decision—a case could be made.

  “Agreed. But it must be a fair game.”

  “Aye. We shall decide together. Or wouldst prefer to have Mischief decide?”

  “No!” Then Lysander had to laugh. “No, we shall come to our own agreement. Only when both are satisfied will it be set.”

  “Aye.” Oresmite smiled. “We have time.”

  ***

  There followed several days of negotiations. Oresmite, being old and small, would not commit to any brute physical contests. Lysander, wary of the elf’s lifetime experience, rejected those that were culturally oriented. Intellectual games like chess or go were tempting, but Lysander wasn’t sure how much the elf might have played these to wile away the time, and Oresmite was nervous about Lysander’s analytic Hectare brain.

  “Methinks we require a new game, ne’er before played,” the Chief remarked at last.

  “Yes. So that neither experience nor special aptitude is likely to count.”

  They brought the others in on it. The challenge: create a new, fair, playable but unplayed game whose outcome could not be certain.

  The boredom evaporated as elves and human beings got to work. Proposals were made, analyzed, and rejected.

  The key, as it turned out, came from an elf child. He had been listening to the stories of the history of magic before Phaze, when it had existed back on Earth. “Why not Merlin and the Witch?” he asked.

  This was an episode recorded by T. H. White in a book titled Sword in the Stone but later excluded from a larger compendium, perhaps because it revealed too much about magic. Merlin had fought the witch by form changing, each trying to assume the form of a creature that could demolish the other. Merlin, sorely pressed, had won by becoming a germ that infected and killed the witch’s monster.

  “But I can’t change forms!” Lysander protested.

  “Nor can I, neither any elf,” Oresmite replied. “But we can in illusion.”

  The illusion chamber was normally used to generate lovely vistas similar to those of the outside world, so as to lessen the claustrophobic restrictions of the caves. But it could be turned to any fancy. A person had only to take his place at one of the focal points and imagine something, and it was animated in the chamber. There were regular puppet shows, the puppets illusory but realistic, because complete living detail wasn’t expected in such creatures. Few could imagine sufficient detail to make an image seem truly realistic.

  But if animals could be represented crudely, puppet-fashion, as pieces in a game, then it might be feasible. He could imagine a tiger, chasing the elf’s antelope. Only the elf would then imagine a dragon, and turn on the tiger. Then—

  “But we’d just both wind up with the biggest, most ferocious monsters, and it would be a stalemate,” Lysander said. “Or as germs, trying to infect the other. I don’t think it would work as well as it did centuries ago on Earth.”

  “Aye,” the Chief agreed. “It were a nice notion, but impractical.”

  “Not necessarily,” Beman said. “Appropriately restrictive rules could make a fair game of it.”

  “Agreed,” Nepe said. “Scientific rules applied to the magic. To prevent stalemates.”

  “Then work it out,” Lysander said, intrigued by the notion of being able to change forms, if only in imagination. It was as close to magic as he could get, on his own. “If we like it, we’ll play it.”

  They retired with a committee of elves to work it out. Next day they returned with the proposal for “Animals.” Oresmite and Lysander reviewed it and liked it. They had their game.

  The Chief took the key position at one end of the chamber, and Lysander the one at the other end. At the sides sat elves and human beings holding pictures of assorted animals ranging from ladybugs to fire-breathing dragons. The animals were paired, with one of each kind at each side of the chamber. One side represented Lysander’s animals, the other the Chief’s, and they were even.

  Each player had an iridium coin. They flipped them together. Lysander’s bounced, flipped, and settled down with the picture of an equine tail showing. The Chief’s coin spun and rolled, finally falling with a donkey’s head in view. The two did not match, which meant the result was odd rather than even, and that meant by prior agreement that Oresmite chose the first animal.

  The Chief glanced at h
is pictures. One glowed, and its figure jumped off the paper to take its place in the chamber beside the pictures. It was a donkey, appropriately.

  Lysander looked at his pictures. He focused on the unicorn, and it left its paper and hit the chamber floor running. It charged the donkey, its horn lowering to point forward.

  The onus was on him, as predator, to dispatch the prey within one minute, or forfeit the game.

  The donkey took off, running fleetly. The illusion expanded to fill in the surrounding terrain: a grassy plain, bordered by mountain ranges to north and south. It was a miniature of the frame of Phaze, with the seas at east and west and the dread Lattice at the center: the network of deep crevices in which demons lived. The animals were bounded by these natural features, and could not go beyond them. But there was plenty of room to maneuver.

  The unicorn was faster than the donkey, and its horn was capable of making a lethal thrust. In thirty seconds Lysander had almost closed the gap. The donkey dodged, but so did the unicorn; the imagination that made the creatures go was limited by their natural abilities. The Chief had to act.

  He did. The donkey became a tiger, whose paws skidded as it turned to face the unicorn.

  Lysander veered aside. The tiger was trouble. True, the unicorn could spear the feline with the horn—but the tiger knew how to avoid horns, and if the first thrust didn’t score, the tiger would pounce and bite. The prey had become the predator.

  Now the tiger had one minute to bring down the unicorn, or forfeit. The onus had shifted.

  Lysander elected to remain with the unicorn, because there was an advantage in avoiding change. An animal could be used only once; then its sign was taken down, and it was retired. If one side used up all its animals, and the other saved a number, that other side would have a significant advantage in the end game. That player would be able to use a fleet animal to catch the other, then shift to a killer animal for the finale.

  The unicorn took off. The tiger leaped after, but already the unicorn was at speed. The tiger put forth its best effort, and gained, but it was evident that it would be unable to close the gap within a minute, if at all. Tigers were good for the short run, but not for the long, while unicorns could run all day if they had to. The Chief had to change forms again, or lose by default. That onus was a deadly thing!

  The tiger became a flying dragon. The onus was still on the Chief, because it belonged to the last form change, but the minute started fresh from the moment of that change. Lysander had gained a long-range advantage, because he was on his first animal while the Chief was on his third, but that dragon could finish the game in the short range.

  Indeed, in a moment the dragon was looming overhead and orienting its snoot for a fiery blast. He had to change!

  He changed to a salamander, and stared up at the dragon. The dragon did a doubletake and popped into a blind eel. The eel fell to the ground and wriggled desperately away. The Chief had been caught by surprise and made an error; he should have continued his attack, because though a magic salamander was immune to fire, it wasn’t immune to teeth. The Chief had confused it with a basilisk, whose stare could kill; the Chief had taken the handiest way to stop the meeting of the eyes by adopting an eyeless form.

  Lysander scrambled after the eel, who wasn’t well suited to motion on land. The eel heard the noise and hastily became a hawk, who flew away without looking back.

  Lysander had definitely come out ahead in this encounter. The Chief had used two more forms to his one, and still had the onus. And Lysander had done it on a bluff, for this was neither basilisk nor magic salamander, but an ordinary one, harmless to anything larger than a fly.

  As the Chief was about to realize. The hawk was coming back, and it would make short work of the salamander. One snap of its beak—

  Lysander burrowed down into the grass, trying to hide. If he could remain clear for another thirty seconds—

  The hawk came to the ground, and changed. Lysander couldn’t see the change, but he knew it had occurred, because a bird on land did not make that slithering sound. That was either a lizard, or—

  The head of a snake loomed over him. It struck down—as Lysander became a mongoose.

  He spun about to face the snake. It was a simple black racer, not venomous to man but deadly enough to a salamander. But the mongoose was able to kill even the most deadly snakes. Lysander had the onus now. He dived in—

  The snake became a wolf. The wolf’s jaws snapped at the mongoose—

  Lysander became a giant serpent. The serpent’s jaws opened to take in the wolf.

  The wolf became a bear. A bear was a lot tougher animal than many supposed; it could handle just about any other animal its size, and anything smaller. It swiped at the serpent’s head.

  Lysander became a rhinoceros. He swung his nose-horn viciously at the bear—who became a monstrous roc, a bird capable of catching up a rhino in its talons and carrying it away. Indeed, those talons closed on the rhino’s body, and the great wings spread. In a moment he would be lifted up. He could be carried high and dropped; any fall over five or six feet might kill him.

  But he didn’t change. He let the bird haul him into the air. The roc carried him over a nearby rocky region, and let him go.

  But as he fell, he became a sparrow. Of course he had nothing to fear from being dropped! Not as long as he could change to another flying form. Now the Chief had used up his largest and second largest flying forms—the roc and the dragon—and would not be able to use them again. Lysander had both those forms in reserve. He was still gaining.

  But it would be foolish to let any opportunity pass. He needed to try for the quick victory, lest the Chief catch him first. He remembered seeing chess games where one player had pieces all over the board, but the other had the victory because of the position. Pieces were only part of it.

  The sparrow looped and flew in at the roc. The roc’s beak snapped down, but the sparrow was swifter at close quarters, and got by. It came up against the roc’s fur-feathered leg—and became a cobra. By the definition of the game, a poisonous bite affected any other creature, even another of its kind, if it scored well. Lysander opened his mouth and struck at the flesh of the leg.

  The roc became a gnat and zipped away; the cobra’s jaws snapped on nothing. And now he was in trouble, for he was in the air and falling.

  He became a hawk. The Chief’s hawk had been used before, and it could not return, and there were few other birds that could catch a hawk. But the onus was on Lysander; he had to do the catching, and this was no form for gnat-hunting!

  He pondered. The Chief would surely outwait him if he didn’t find a quick way to catch that gnat. A toad could do it—but the gnat would be flying high up, out of reach of a landbound creature. This was a problem!

  Then he had it. He became not a dragon, but a dragonfly. Dragonflies hunted smaller insects on the wing, and were strong flyers and efficient predators. He looped around and spied the gnat, who hadn’t gone far. Indeed, a gnat couldn’t get far in a few seconds, compared to a dragonfly.

  He revved up his four wings and zoomed in for the kill. But the gnat became a toad in midair, its mouth opening. Lysander realized that though the toad would fall to the ground, it would get the dragonfly first, and win; the fall didn’t matter.

  Caught by surprise, he found his mind blank. The toad’s sticky tongue came out, rooted at the front, catapulting toward him. He would be caught before he—

  In desperation he became another toad; he couldn’t think of anything else.

  The two loads collided in the air, and fell together.

  Lysander still had the onus. He had only seconds: should he assume a form to crunch the other toad, or wait for the Chief to change, so the Chief would be committed, and Lysander could immediately counter the form? The latter seemed better.

  But the Chief seemed to have the same idea. They continued to fall. What would happen if they both splatted into the ground? They were playing a game of chicken!

&
nbsp; Probably if they both persisted, it would be declared a draw, and they would have to play another game. Lysander was ahead in this game; he didn’t want to start another.

  That decided him. So what if he went splat immediately after; he should grasp the victory first.

  He became a weasel, which was more than enough to dispose of even the illest-tasting toad. He twisted around in the air and snapped at—

  The Chief became a hippopotamous—and he was just above the weasel! He would land and squash the weasel flat! He would die himself—but after the weasel. This was the strategy of suicide.

  Lysander became a horsefly and zoomed away. Such a change would not have been safe while the toad remained, but no hippo could nab a fly in the air.

  And the Chief became a dragonfly, borrowing from Lysander’s prior strategy, and winged swiftly after him. The onus was on the Chief, but he was playing with greater savvy now. Lysander was on the run—or in flight, in this case.

  He didn’t want to waste a good predatory form that would be immediately countered; he wanted to force the Chief to use up more of his forms, until he was starved for variety at the end and subject to a power play. He saw water below, and had a notion. He plunged toward it, the dragonfly gaining but not yet in range.

  He plunged in, becoming a fish.

  The Chief plunged after, becoming a pelican.

  Trouble! Lysander became an alligator just as the pelican’s beak closed on the fish. The beak closed instead on the hide of the alligator.

  Lysander whipped his toothy snout around to snap up the bird, and the bird became a giant sea serpent whose much larger toothy snout whipped around to snap up the alligator. Lysander was having trouble matching change for change, and couldn’t think of a good rejoinder on the spot, so became an elephant.

  The sea serpent stared. An elephant?

  But the water was not deep, and the elephant was only halfway submerged. It wrapped its trunk around the head of the serpent, tying its jaws closed, and pushed the head under the water. Drowning was as good as being bitten to death. Lysander had found a good predator form after all.

  The serpent became a fish and slid away. Lysander waited, knowing that no fish could hurt him here; the water was too shallow for any really big one. Nothing much could hurt an elephant. But the Chief had the onus, and would have to try.