Out of Phaze

Fleta was no human being, but she found this to be more cynical than she could accept. To allow his own son to be in danger of death, just to snoop on the plans of other Adepts! She could not express her anger openly, for Stile was an Adept who had greatly benefited her Herd and many other animals, but it prompted her to to something almost as foolish. “Dost thou know I love Mach?” she asked.

Stile gazed at her with disturbing speculation. “I know that thou didst always care for Bane,” he said.

“Not Bane. Mach. From Proton-frame. I love him—and methinks he loves me.”

“That can never be,” Stile said, and turned away.

Fleta started to speak, but the Lady caught her by the arm and urged her out. When they were clear of the room, the Lady said softly: “Bait not my husband, Fleta. He hath much on his mind.”

Bait? They did not believe her!

And why should they? A human man, the son of an Adept, loving a unicorn? Or a golem from the other frame, with a unicorn? Why should anyone take that seriously?

She had struggled to come here, to bear news they didn’t need. The love she felt was a thing of no consequence to them.

“I thank thee, Lady,” she said. “I shall go to my Herd.”

But the Lady’s hand was on her arm. “Dost thou suppose I know not what it means to love one from the other frame? But Mach can come here only at the expense of our son.”

And how could that be? Of course they would not give up their son!

Then the Lady was holding her, and Fleta was sobbing into her shoulder. The Lady did understand—but understood also the cost. It was not a cost Fleta could ask of them.

Fleta disengaged and left the castle. About to change back to her natural form, she spied an approaching figure.

It was Bane. He had returned, as his father had said he would. Now the bad Adepts had no hostages.

Bane looked at her. He looked exactly like the man she loved. “How dost thou feel about Mach?” he asked.

Fleta dissolved into tears again.

“I know not what be right,” Bane said.

“Thy father will tell thee,” she said. Then she changed, and galloped away, ashamed of her longing. Of course she could not condemn her friend Bane to exile in Proton-frame, for the sake of her own private joy with his other self.

She proceeded back to the Herd Demesnes, knowing she had to talk to her dam, Neysa. She had to know— what she did not know.

She located the Herd by nightfall. She checked in with the Herd Stallion, who was her uncle Clip. She was safely out of heat now, so this visit was all right. Belle, Clip’s first mare and still his favorite, grazed nearby, her mane glinting iridescently. But it was Neysa she had come to see.

Soon Neysa joined her, separating from the Herd. Neysa’s equine head was turning gray now, and her white socks hung lower on her rear feet than they had in youth, but she remained a handsome small mare. She had returned to the Herd when her breeding years passed; she had had to remain apart when her brother assumed the leadership, but now there was no problem. She still spent much of her time elsewhere, however, because she had friendships with many of the venerable wolves of the werewolf pack, and of course with Stile and the Lady too.

They changed to human form and sat under a shade tree. “And didst thou get bred?” Neysa asked.

“Nay. I—found other occupation.”

“Thou didst not come into heat?”

“I did, but. . .”

Of course her dam had to have the whole story. Fleta told it. “And now Bane be safe, and Mach be back in Proton,” she concluded. “And I love Mach.”

Neysa understood about hopeless love, of course. “When thy season comes again, thou must be at the other Herd,” she said. “Naught e’er can come of thy interest in a man.”

“Yet, if he returned, as he said he might, for a visit—“

“Get bred, get a foal, and be friends with the man,” Neysa advised. ‘That be the way it must be. That be the way thou thyself didst come into existence.”

“But if he stayed—“

“Fleta, he be a man, son of an Adept!” Neysa reminded her. ‘Thou canst ne’er forget that!”

“But why must we be apart? An he love me too—“

But Neysa changed to mare form and dismissed the notion with a harmonica chord from her horn. She had never been one to entertain dreams of the impossible.

Fleta realized that there was no more acceptance here for her wild dream than there had been at the Blue Demesnes. Yet she was young and impetuous, and still could not give it up. For without Mach, her life had no meaning.

She sighed. Then she changed to mare form, played a chord of parting to Neysa, and set off across the plain toward the Werewolf Demesnes.

That journey took some time. She paused for the evening, grazing while she slept on her feet, and resumed it in the morning.

She reached the Pack later in the day. The hackles of the wolves rose as they spied her, but then they recognized her as the filly of Neysa, and escorted her in to meet the leader, Kurrelgyre.