Robot Adept

Bane had not been here for some time, but he recognized improvement. Suchevane had evidently wasted no time in setting the castle in order. Even the old troll looked better; his red robe was clean, and he stood with a certain pride he had not evinced before, despite his enormous magic. A woman could do that for a man; Bane was in a position to know. He had never anticipated such a combination, but it seemed that Agape had engineered it.

“We come on business,” Bane said. “I be Bane, not Mach; we have maintained a masquerade to ascertain the threat posed against thy side by the Adverse Adepts.  But Mach promised, and so did I, to seek a way that Fleta might breed with a man and bear a foal. Fleta has helped me in my mission; now I would help her in her desire, and for this I ask thy help.”

“Thou shallst have it,” Trool said. “What be the threat against us?”

“They mean to smite me with the evil eye, and enamor me of the Tan Adept’s daughter, that I may change sides and work with Mach for them. They know not that I be not Mach, at the moment.”

“Thou hast practiced deception,” Trool said. “That were a violation of thy truce.”

“I think not,” Bane said. “I be on thy side; I made no deal with Translucent. Mach still honors that.”

“Thou art on my side, agreed,” Trool said. “Therefore to me falls responsibility for this abridgement o’ the truce.”

“But they be abridging it also, by setting a trap for me!” Bane protested.

“Aye.” Trool walked in a circle, pondering. “I had thought not Translucent would do that.”

“Translucent agreed only to let Tania test me,” Bane said. “I think he be not part o’ this scheme.”

“If I may comment?” Suchevane said cautiously.

“Always,” Trool told her, not bothering to conceal the delight he had in her presence.

“Methinks it best to know exactly where the guilt lies,” she said. “An Bane go into the trap, and spring it, then mayhap those behind it will be revealed. Then will we know who keeps the truce, and who does not.”

“Aye,” the troll said. “Then can I deal with those who kept it, to make it right.”

To Bane it seemed that this was quibbling over a technicality. But Trool was vital to the cause, so he said nothing. He would have to face Tania. The others assumed that he could withstand her, because his love for Agape was true; how could he tell them otherwise?

“Now will I research on breeding,” Trool said. He shuffled from the chamber.

“He will be a while,” Suchevane said. “Come, eat, rest; I will see to the amenities meantime.” She did so, and their comfort was complete. They no longer had to maintain the pretense of being lovers.

But Bane’s gloom continued. Not only was he uncertain about his emotion, he was now in doubt about his integrity. He and his father had worked out the masquerade, to spy on the plotting of the Adverse Adepts. This had seemed justified—but it was evident that the Red Adept did not consider it so. The more Bane mulled it over, the more it seemed to him that he had allowed his standard of integrity to be governed by that of his enemy, and the less he liked it. Yet had he not spied, they would not have known about the enemy’s marshaling of forces for physical action, or about the plot against him personally. Could it be right to hold to a standard that ensured defeat?

Tormented by the ethical riddle, he went to see Trool.  The troll was deep in the Book of Magic, doing the research he had promised. “If I may . . .”

The troll looked up. “It be possible for dissimilar species to breed, but not easy,” he said. “I be on the details now.”

“That be gratifying, but that were not my concern.”

Trool merely looked at him.

“I came to apologize for putting thee in an awkward position,” Bane said. “I thought what I did to be right, but now I fear it be not. I would make amend, an I knew how.”

Trool nodded. “I be of a species with a little concept o’ right,” he said. “It fell to me to make up for wrongs done by my kind. I did it only by dedicating my life to the right I perceived. Do thou that likewise, and thou hast no further apology to make.”

“I know not whether I can,” Bane said.

Trool closed the book. “The mare?”

“I know not whom I love,” Bane said. “It were Mach who swore the triple Thee to Fleta; I ne’er did to Agape. Not in Phaze, where the splash—“

“The mare loves thee not,” Trool said.

“Aye. She be true to her own. But I—what o’ me?”

“Love be not a thing I understand,” Trool said. “It be yet too new to me. Still, I suspect that love unreturned cannot be true, and must needs be based on other than it seems.”

“But I must face Tania, who will strike at my emotion,” Bane said despairingly. “An my love for Agape not be true, I be vulnerable! Mine inconstancy can doom me—and our side.”

Trool nodded. “I tell thee again, I be no expert in this realm. I thought no woman would care to associate with me, and least of all the loveliest. But it be in my mind that thy doubt of heart be not normal. I met Agape, and if there be one who be the match o’ Fleta, it surely be she.”