Out of Phaze

One golem turned ponderously and stomped inside, while the other maintained watch. Soon the first returned. “Come!” it boomed. Mach wondered how a creature that did not breathe could boom, but realized that magic could account for it.

They followed it inside. The paneling inside was brown, but in varying shades, so that it was not oppressive. They came to the central hall, where a handsome brown-haired woman stood. She wore a brown gown and brown gloves and slippers, and her hair was tied back by a brown ribbon. This was of course the Brown Adept. Mach had rather expected her to be brown-skinned; she was well tanned, but that was the extent of it. Maybe the first person to hold this office had been literally brown.

“Fleta, it has been many months!” the woman said. “And Bane—“

“He be not Bane, Brown,” Fleta said. “He be Bane’s other self, from Proton-frame.”

Brown’s brown eyes studied Mach. “Aye, now I perceive the difference! But I thought there was no communication between the frames anymore.”

“Only in our case, sir,” Mach said.

“Dost call me ‘sir’?” she said, amused.

Mach was abashed. “In my frame, only Citizens wear clothes. I—“

She laughed. “I remember the Citizens! Stile and Blue fought them, and in the end I helped. Call me Brown; if thou art not the son of Stile, thou’rt the son of Blue.”

‘The son of Blue,” Mach agreed. “I am called Mach, and I am a robot.”

“A rovot be very like a golem,” Fleta put in quickly.

“Only now I’m in Bane’s body, and he’s in mine. We need to switch back, but don’t know how. So we were going to go to the Blue Demesnes, but demons and goblins prevented us, so we looped around and came here.”

“So that be why the monsters stir!” Brown exclaimed. ‘They be in pursuit of thee!”

‘That’s the story,” Mach agreed. “We don’t know why. We’re hoping you will help us.”

“Of course I will help,” Brown agreed. “I will send a golem bird to the Blue Demesnes, and thy problem shall be resolved. Meanwhile, the two of you be welcome here; the golems will protect you from the goblins.”

“O, thank thee!” Fleta said, going and hugging Brown. The Brown Adept snapped her fingers, and a brown bird flew in to perch on her wrist. It looked authentic, but evidently it was a golem; this was an impressive evidence of the woman’s skill. “Go tell the Blue Adept to contact Brown,” the Adept told it. ‘The matter be important.”

The bird flew away. “It can speak?” Mach asked.

“Nay,” Brown said, smiling. “It understands only where to go, but Blue will know I sent it not frivolously. We should hear from him in two hours.”

They had an excellent meal, and Brown provided better clothing for Mach; his homemade apparel was quite ragged. Brown was an easy woman to know; it was evident that she had a high regard for Stile and Stile’s son, and she was quite interested in what Mach had to tell of Proton.

“But now that I have met Fleta,” Mach said in passing, “I am not as certain I really want to return to Proton. If she can’t go with me—“

Fleta tried to caution him, but Brown was on it immediately. “So thy relationship with the mare be more than convenience?”

“Nay,” Fleta said.

“Yes,” Mach said. “I think I love her.”

“But that cannot be, in Phaze,” Fleta said. “Thy kind and mine do not love.”

“And thee,” Brown said, fixing her gaze on Fleta. ‘Thou dost not love him?”

Fleta’s lip trembled in the way it had. “I know it be forbidden.”

“But thou dost love him.”

“Aye,” Fleta whispered.

‘Then why dost thou help him to return to his frame?”

“Because he and me can never be, and his world be there.”

“I am not sure of that,” Mach said. “But if I stayed here, Bane would be trapped there, and I know that’s not right.”

“So it be hopeless as well as forbidden,” Brown said. “I think I cannot help the two of you in that.”

“No one can help,” Fleta said, turning on Mach a look of such misery that he leaped from his chair and went to hold her.

At this point there was an interruption. A globe of mist appeared above the table. It formed into a shape of a man’s head. “So the apprentice and the animal are getting friendly,” the head remarked.

“What dost thou do here, Translucent?” Brown demanded angrily.

“Our agents have discovered that the young man be not what he appears to be,” Translucent said. ‘This be not the apprentice Adept, but his other self from Proton.”

“So I have already ascertained,” Brown snapped. “Be it for this thy minions persecute this couple?”

“Persecute? Hardly. This young man represents the only known contact with the other frame in a score years. We have long regretted lack of contact with those of Proton, and would have this lad relay messages there for us. For this purpose we sought him, and are prepared to reward him handsomely.”

“By sending demons and harpies and goblins after him?” Fleta demanded hotly. “Some reward!”

“Watch thy tongue, animal, lest thou lose it,” Translucent said to her.

“Don’t call her animal!” Mach flared.