Robot Adept

He infiltrated the main tent. There was a goblin chief. He was settling down for the night. Goblins were more at home in the dark than the day, but since these were evidently following Bane and Fleta, they had to match their schedule to that of the day-dwellers; otherwise they would get no rest at all.

That meant there would be no real activity while he spied. He could not learn why these goblins were following him. Surely they had better reason than just keeping track of his whereabouts, that the Adepts could do more efficiently from a distance!

He considered a moment, then decided to go for double or nothing. The Adepts were taking an extraordinary step, having a physical presence near him, protected by their magic, so it had to be worth his trouble to find out why. Maybe they just wanted to protect Mach and Fleta from possible harm—but maybe they had some treachery on their minds.

He returned to Fleta. She was still working over his inert body. Well, almost inert; it seemed that certain reactions could occur even in the absence of consciousness, and she was evoking one of those.

“Fleta!” he said.

She did not hear: he had no voice in this state. But if he returned to his body to talk to her, he would lose the rest of his spell, which would be a waste of onetime magic.

He drew close and overlapped her head. “Fleta!” he said.

She jumped, looking wildly around.

“It’s me, Bane,” he said. “In spirit. I need thy help.”

She stilled. “Bane,” she whispered. “I hear thee.”

“A party of goblins is tracking us. I need to know why. Canst get up and cause them to react while I listen? Mayhap they will utter what I would hear.”

“Aye,” she whispered. “This body be not much fun, anyway.”

“Good thing, tease! Thou dost not want me in love with thee too.”

She looked thoughtful, and he feared he had said too much. Then she drew herself up, picking up her cloak. “Do thou wait here, beloved,” she said aloud. “Must needs I go do what none can do for me.” She became the unicorn.

“That way,” Bane said, overlapping her head again. “I think they mean us not harm, but push not thy luck. If thou canst make them stir, to avoid discovery—”

She made a nicker of acquiescence and set out for the goblin camp.

Bane hurried back to the camp ahead of her. In spirit form he could fly, for his spirit weighed nothing; whether he could travel more swiftly yet, but imagining himself there, he wasn’t sure, and wasn’t inclined to experiment at the moment. This was magic his father had devised: he did not grasp all its aspects.

He entered the chief goblin’s tent and hovered. Suddenly he wondered: could he overlap the goblin’s head, as he had Fleta’s, and read its thoughts? Probably not; he had not read Fleta’s. All he might do was give away his presence.

A goblin sentry burst into the tent. “Kinkear!” the sentry exclaimed. “The ‘corn be coming toward us!” Kinkear roused himself with a start. “Why?”

“She has a load to drop.”

“And she’s going to drop it here?” Kinkear cried. “What a mess, an she blunder across us by sheer chance! Our whole plan could be discovered! The spell be not effective an a ‘corn step straight into it!”

“Aye. What must we do?”

“Alert the others. Break camp instantly. Stay clear o’ her!”

The sentry disappeared. Kinkear hastily rolled up his bed and hauled down his tent. “Just my luck,” he muttered to himself. “She drops dung, and my mission be in deep manure! Tan’ll tan my hide, an I bungle his trap!”

So the Tan Adept was behind this! Already this device was paying off. But why should Tan be after Mach? His daughter had already verified Mach’s authenticity to her satisfaction; it was Bane she was after.

Now he heard Fleta. She was coming through the grass, evidently looking for just the right place to do her job. She sniffed the air. This camp was downwind from Bane’s body, by no coincidence, and the unicorn’s coming in this direction was no coincidence either; who wanted to spend the night in the breeze from her own manure?

“Get it o’er with, mare!” Kinkear muttered. “Return to thy stud, let him screw thee to the turf—and when he change back to his opposite, then shall we screw him to the turf.”

So it was Bane they were after! They wanted to be on hand after the exchange, and catch him. That was exactly the treachery he was looking for.

The goblins had dispersed through the field, leaving no sign of their camp. But in so doing some of them had strayed beyond the limit of the concealment spell. Fleta, with her sharp senses in the unicorn form, had to have spotted these, but she gave no sign.

She wandered over to a spot where one goblin cowered under a tangle of grass. For an instant it seemed she would stumble over him. Then she turned around, set herself—and let go her dung directly on top of him. He couldn’t even curse, lest he give away his presence.

Satisfied, perhaps in more than one sense, she walked back toward her camp.

The goblins busied themselves reforming their camp. They all had a good chuckle over the fate of the unlucky one. Their crisis was over.