Robot Adept

“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 geas 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 geas 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 tomorrow.”

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.”

“O, 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 Protonframe 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.

Bane located Mach, coming toward the Red Demesnes, and knew that his other self was ready for the exchange. He approached a rendezvous with mixed emotions. He knew that this would spring the trap, and that the goblins would not seek to harm him or Fleta, but that when Tania appeared his love would be truly tested. The abolition of the geas had returned his emotional strength to him, and abated his gnawing guilt and doubt—but how strong was his love for Agape? He would soon know, and if it faltered even a little—

Mach had cried out the triple Thee to Fleta, and removed all doubt from all the frame of his commitment. But even in the absence of the geas, Bane feared his own love to be of lesser merit. What tragedy could befall them all, if—?

But he had to put it to this test. It was the only way to play out the masquerade, and to stop the Adverse Adepts without revealing how he had spied on them. If he prevailed, their chances against the Adverse Adepts and the Contrary Citizens would still be no better than even. If he did not, then all that his father had worked for in Phaze, and all that Citizen Blue had worked for in Proton, was in peril.

But he had to put aside such speculation. He had a lot to explain to Mach, in a very brief interval!

Bane elected to make the contact almost in sight of the red castle, so that Trool’s appearance would not be questioned, when the trap manifested. He walked to an open spot with Fleta, who was in girlform. He could feel the near approach of Mach. It was time.

He embraced Fleta. “I will return to you when I can, beloved,” he said, playing the role of Mach. Her body was as lovely as ever, and he liked her as well as ever, but the guilty tinge of sexual and possessive desire was gone; she was only his animal friend, as she had always been.

“Take care of thyself, Mach,” she replied. Then, with an impish smile: “And be not distracted by alien creatures.”