Robot Adept

“Aye, Agape be more alien than Fleta, and a fine person, and I do love her. I feel great guilt at this doubt, that I know should not exist.”

“Exactly. Do thou allow me then to test thee for a geis.”

“A geis? I have no geis!”

The troll rose and fetched an amulet from a crowded collection on a shelf. “Do thou hold this a moment.” Bane took it. The small carved charm resembled a wooden flower, intricately carved. But as he held it, it glowed.

“There it be,” Trool said. “There be a geis on thee.”

“But I be near-Adept! How can there be magic on me, and I not know it?”

Trool took back the charm. “I think thou dost know it.”

“A love-geis!” Bane exclaimed. “Only partially effective, because of my own power, but insidious! Enough to—“

“The Adverse Adepts have set a trap for thee when thou dost return to Phaze. Could they not have prepared it before?”

“And when it worked not well enough, they set a worse one!” Bane said. “When I exchanged before, with Agape—“

“Whom they thought would be Fleta,” Trool fin ished.

“I thought her Fleta!” Bane said. “At first. Then did I learn she was not.”

“So the impact of the spell was blunted, leaving thee with a partial passion of Fleta that thou didst not recognize. But the geis remained there, drawing thee to ward her.”

“And mayhap I devised this masquerade, that I might—“

“A geis can be insidious.”

Bane nodded, immensely relieved. “Canst banish it?”

“Aye.” Trool brought another finely crafted amulet; the troll had a real talent for carving. This one resembled a wooden heart. “Invoke it as thou willst.”

Bane took it. “I invoke thee!”

The amulet flashed brightly. The light encompassed him, and drew in to him, centering on his heart.  “Wouldst take Fleta to bed?” Trool asked.

“Aye, an it be required.”

“Dost love her?”

Bane smiled. “As a person, aye. As a lover, nay. I respect her and cherish her, but I would not seek her to wife.”

“And Agape?”

“I seek her to wife.”

“Then the geis be abated,” Trool said. “Thou canst now face Tania.”

“Aye!” Bane said with his first real confidence. “Ah, Adept, I thank thee! What a burden thou has lifted from mine heart!”

“I do it because it be right to do,” the troll said. “But it pleases me that it also assures the welfare of the one who helped me gain mine own love.”

“But that she must hide aboard her own planet, to escape the Contrary Citizens,” Bane said, sobering.  “Until an accommodation be achieved. Mayhap that will come soon.”

“Soon,” Bane agreed fervently. “Ah, long I to be with her again!” Then his thought turned to another aspect. “Which Adept put that geis on me?”

“It seems to have been an elixir-spell. There be deep enchanted springs in the mountains, and if the Purple Adept had cause to oppose thee—“

“He did! And he could have had a demon or goblin deliver the elixir the moment we exchanged, and depart unseen.”

“And when they learned that Agape exchanged with thee, they thought the geis lost,” Trool said.

“So they set up for a more effective ploy. Now at last does it all make sense!”

Trool smiled. “I shall have thine other answer to morrow.”

Bane took the hint. “I thank thee for both, Adept!” He retreated from the chamber as Trool reopened the Book of Magic.

Next day Trool presented that answer: “The mating must be done thrice, once in each of the ‘corn’s forms, when she be in heat. A spell o’ fertility must be invoked at each occasion. The forms o’ the breeders must match.  Their love must be true, and their desire for offspring true. In this manner can crossbreeding be accomplished.”

“Mine heat comes upon me in mere days!” Fleta exclaimed. “Must needs I have Mach back in time!”

“Aye, it be time to exchange back,” Bane agreed.

“But I fear thou canst not achieve it on this occasion.”

“Why not?” she demanded.

“I have just learned the manner of form-changing.  It be Adept-quality magic. I fear it be beyond Mach.”

“0, aye,” Fleta agreed, crushed.

“But mayhap in time can he master it,” Suchevane put in.

“In time,” Fleta agreed, brightening somewhat. “Yet would I be with him for mine heat. It be the only time I truly crave what delights him always.”

“Aye,” Suchevane murmured, understanding exactly.

“But that must come only after the mock-exchange, to seem to bring me to Phaze,” Bane reminded her.

She smiled somewhat perfunctorily. “Aye; we have labored at a masquerade to deceive the Adverse Adepts! How glad I be to see the end o’ that!”

“Aye,” Bane breathed, knowing that his own relief was other than hers.

“But must needs I confess,” she continued after a moment, “that an I could, I would return to Proton frame for the Tourney.”

“The Tourney!” Bane exclaimed, amazed. “What would a unicorn do in such a thing?”

“Ah, what indeed!” she agreed, sighing. “Yet have I a foolish longing for the thrill I found in that contest, so like the Unilympic yet so different too. At first I liked Proton not, but as I came to know it . . .” She spread her hands. “Grazing the plains be just not the same, anymore.”

So she, too, had been struck by a certain illicit longing! That made Bane feel better.