Out of Phaze

Then she stumbled. Mach hastened to join her, putting his arm about her waist. But she sagged, too tired to keep her feet.

“The hummingbird!” he exclaimed. “Change to that form!”

“Nay,” she whispered. “It takes more energy to fly than this!”

“Not to fly,” he said. “To perch! You carried me; let me carry you, now!”

She turned her head to him. She nodded. She became the bird. He put out his hand, and she flopped in it. He lifted her to his shoulder, and there she perched, her little claws anchored on his homemade shirt.

“Sleep, Fleta,” he said. “I will climb this hill.”

Climb he did. It made him feel good to do his part, his strength filling in for hers. His legs were stiff, but he had plenty of remaining energy. As the way became steeper, he hauled himself up by grabbing handholds on saplings. He hoped he got them wherever they were going. It was so dark now that he could barely see the next tree before him.

There was an angry squawk from ahead. Startled, Mach paused.

“Who the hell art thou?” a voice screeched. “Stay out o’ my bower!”

 “A harpy!” Mach exclaimed with dismay. He gripped his axe. Fleta, on his shoulder, was so tired that she didn’t wake.

“What didst thou think it be—a damned goblin?”

“Yes,” Mach said. Could he escape her surveillance in the darkness, or were they in for another horrible I chase? The harpy laughed raucously. “Well, no such luck! Come not near me, lest thou catch the tailfeather itch!” Mach knew he should shut up and hide, but something nagged at him. Why was this foul creature talking instead of attacking or summoning her cohorts? “I’m just a weary traveler,” he said. “I have no tailfeathers to itch, but I will detour around your bower. I apologize for bothering you.”

“Thou dost what?” she screeched.

“I apologize for bothering you,” Mach repeated.

“Nobody doth apologize to a harpy!”

“I don’t want any trouble, I just want to get somewhere where I can rest for the night.”

“Thou dost speak strangely. Who be ye?”

“I am called Mach.” If she knew his identity, his name made no difference now. “I am a robot.”

“What kind of monster be a rovot?” she demanded.

“One that looks like a human being.”

“Oh, hell, come into my bower,” she said. “I be lonely for company.”

Stranger yet! Was it a trap? Well, might as well spring it as have it pursue him. Mach climbed forward.

He parted a thick curtain of leaves and came into a snug chamber padded with ferns. There was a tiny bit of glow, so that he could ascertain its approximate size and see the form perched on a stick at one side. This was the harpy.

“Why, thou dost be a man!” she exclaimed.

“I said I looked like a human being.”

“Aye, that be true. And a bird on thy shoulder.”

“My companion.” Fleta was stirring now; what would she think of this interview?’

“I be Phoebe,” the harpy said.

Mach checked through his memory. “I know of a bird of that name. Nondescript, except that it wags its tail.”

“Aye, that be why the name,” she agreed. She rustled about as if to make the point. “But it be uncomfortable as hell, and not just in the feathers.”

“You really do have a tailfeather itch?”

“Aye, and no cure, so I be exiled from my kind.”

“You mean you’re not part of the pursuit?”

“What pursuit?” Phoebe demanded.

“We’ve been chased by harpies, demons and goblins,” Mach said. “We don’t know why.”

“I know naught o’ that! I’ve had no contact with my kind in a year.”

Could he believe that! Or was she just trying to lull him while others closed in?

“No offense—but you don’t smell. The other harpies I encountered—“

“I wash my feathers daily to keep down the itch, but always it returns,” Phoebe said. “An’ another o’ my kind come near, it will spread. That be my curse.”

Fleta jumped off his shoulder, then materialized as her girl form. “Know thou my nature?” she asked the harpy.

“A werebird! Ne’er saw I the like before!”

“Nay. Unicorn.”

“And thou comest to roust me out o’ my bower? For shame, ‘corn; I have no quarrel with thee!”

“Willst swear so on my horn?”

“For sure, an thou attack me not.”

Fleta parted the leaves of the bower wall and stepped out.

The harpy peered after her. She shrugged with her wings. “Hell, trust must begin somewhere, and I have no life worth living alone.” She half-spread her wings and hopped out after Fleta.

Mach followed her out, not certain what was happening.

Outside, he could just make out the dark unicorn shape. Fleta lowered her horn, and the harpy hopped up to it. The horn touched her feathers. “I swear I have no quarrel with thee,” the harpy said.

Fleta fluted.

“What, turn about?” Phoebe asked, evidently understanding her. “What for?”

Fleta played several notes.

‘That?” the harpy asked incredulously. “Thou wouldst?

An affirmative note. Mach tried to fathom what this was about, but it baffled him.

The harpy turned about, and Fleta put her horn on the creature’s tailfeathers. For a moment there seemed to be a kind of radiance, but Mach could not be sure.

“Mine itch!” the harpy cried. “Gone!”

Fleta returned to girl form. “Grant us rest in thy bower for a day, and all’s repaid,” she said.