Phaze Doubt

If he changed form again, the mouse would get away; he had no specific mouse-catching forms left, having labored to save the largest predators instead. If he hadn’t used up his weasel—

Maybe he could bounce fire back on his nose. It would hurt his own flesh, but it would fry the mouse, and that was what counted.

He put his nostrils against a rock and blew out fire. It bounced, but to the side. He tried again, and missed again. He needed a rock with a hollow, that would cup and reflect the fire-Suddenly a gong sounded. The minute was up, and he had not destroyed the mouse. Since the onus was his, he lost by default.

The game was over, and Chief Oresmite had won. Lysander had tried his hardest to win, and thought he had the win assured, until that last astonishing ploy. He had been fairly beaten, and now was obliged to give the figures to the enemy. Yet, somehow, he was relieved.

Only later did it occur to him that he had blundered crucially. He had been a roc when the Chief was a sheep; the Chief had become a mouse. Lysander’s blunder had been in changing to the dragon. All he had had to do was maintain roc form and fly away, and the Chief, stuck with the onus, would have lost in one minute.

Flach and Weva stood before Mischief, and lifted their flutes. They played, and Lysander remembered the magic, figurative and literal, of Clef’s music. Flach was good, because of his unicorn heritage, but Weva was better, because of her Hectare heritage. That, of course, was why she had been brought into existence. Only a Hectare mind, trained also in magic, could handle the figures Lysander’s algorithm had produced.

The magic came, much stronger than before, almost tangible. The two set aside their flutes, but the music continued, generated by their minds.

Mischief began to run the figures on a screen. It was a massive array: thousands of numbers jammed together. But Weva’s eyes were on them, and they were being fed through to her mind, and changing the music. No human mind could have done it, but hers could, with the support of her companion.

The world began to change, as the paths for each atom of matter were defined, and the push from the Magic Bomb began. The merged frames would slide around the black hole, nothing changing within them, but everything changing beyond them. Like a cover on a piece of equipment, turning without altering its shape or nature; it was the nature of the universe that was changing instead.

There was a shudder. Dust sifted down. Elves and human beings glanced around alike in alarm. This had the feel of an incipient earthquake, and they were underground.

The shuddering intensified. Cracks appeared in the stone.

“It’s going wrong!” someone cried.

The computer screen went blank. Then the single word ERROR flashed, blinking.

“We kept faith with thee!” an elf cried at Lysander. “Thou didst promise true figures!”

“My figures are true!” Lysander replied. “The error must be somewhere else!”

“Cease playing!” Oresmite rapped, and the music halted. “There be error somewhere, but Lysander has honor; he would not cheat on this.”

“Then he made a mistake!” Flach said.

“I made no mistake,” Lysander said. “Every figure checked. It must be in the translation.”

“Nay, none there,” Weva said. “We play true!”

“If we resume not soon, the detonation of the Magic Bomb will destroy us regardless,” Flach pointed out. “Now be the time; the paths must be set.”

“The time factor!” Echo said. “We’re accelerated, but how does it relate to the rest of the frames?”

“We allow for that,” Weva said. “Our music relates.”

“The Poles!” Lysander said. “Their times are different. Do you allow for that?”

“Yes, o’ course,” she said. “Twelvefold for the East Pole, a hundred and forty-four for the West Pole. I were made there; I would forget my home region not.”

“And the North Pole? The one that’s slower than normal time?”

Weva looked stricken. “Slower! I adjusted for faster!”

“Can you correct for that?”

“Aye. Now.” She lifted her flute again, and Flach quickly joined her.

“Rerun the figures, Mischief!” Lysander said. “The error is being corrected.”

The figures reappeared on the screen.

They resumed playing, and in a moment set aside the flutes and continued. This time there was no shuddering; the magic intensified, and there was a feeling of something colossal shifting, but it was smooth. It was working.

Yet there was in the background an almost imperceptible disharmony, a keening as of something not quite right. The error had caused them to start over, slightly delayed; did that make a difference? If so, it could be cumulative, and...

Lysander did not care to finish that thought. He had been an agent for the other side, but he had made a deal, and now was bound to see it through. He would not care for the irony of having his original side win through default. Not after he had resigned himself to the prospect of living, and of love with Echo.