Split Infinity

“Well, I’ll just have to go and look;’ Stile decided.  “I’ll check out each Adept until I find which one is dead, and see if that was me. Then I’ll be satisfied.  Only—how can I be sure that two aren’t dead, and I have found the wrong one?”

“No problem there,” the werewolf said. “Thine other self would have looked exactly like thee, so any who saw thee in his demesnes would know. And every Adept has his own peculiar style of magic, his means of implementation, that he alone commands. What style is thine?”

“Stile style,” Neysa murmured, permitting herself to smile fleetingly.

“Spoken, or sung, in verse,” Stile said. “Music summons the power. Which Adept uses that mode?”

“We know not. The Adepts vouchsafe no such in- formation to common folk. Often they veil their magic in irrelevant forms, speaking incantations when it may be in fact a gesture that is potent, or posturing when it is a key rune. Or so it is bruited about among the animal folk. We know not who makes the amulets, or the golem people, or the potions or graphs or any of the other conjurations. We only know these things exist, and know to our dismay their power.” He turned to Stile, taking one hand. “But friend—do not do this thing. If thou findest thine Adept-self, thou wilt become that Adept, and I shall have to bear the onus of not having slain thee when I had the chance. And Neysa too, who helped thee: lay not this geas upon her.”

Stile turned to Neysa, appalled. “Thou feelest that way also?”

Sadly, she nodded.

“Methinks she led thee to the Oracle to avoid the peril she saw looming,” Kurrelgyre said. “To destroy a friend—or turn an Adept loose on the realm. Here thou art safe, even from thy friends.”

“But I am bound by mine oath!” Stile said. He hoped he was getting the language right: thy and my before a consonant, thine and mine before a vowel. “I will not perform magic! I will not become the monster thou fearest. I seek only to know. Canst thou deny me that?”

Slowly Kurrelgyre shook his head. “We can not deny thee that. Yet we wish—“

“I must know myself,” Stile said. “The Oracle said so.”

“And the Oracle is always right,” the werewolf agreed. “We can not oppose our paltry judgment to that.”

“So I will go on a quest for myself,” Stile concluded.  “When I have satisfied my need-to-know, I will return to mine own frame, where there is no problem about magic. So thou needst have no fear about me turning into whatever ogre thou dost think I might. I have to return soon anyway, to get my new employment, or my tenure will expire.”

Neysa’s gaze dropped.

“Why carest thou about tenure?” Kurrelgyre inquired. “Remain here, in hiding from thine enemy; thou hast no need to return.”

“But Proton is my world,” Stile protested. “I never intended to stay here—“

The werewolf stood and drew Stile gently aside.

“Needs must I speak to thee in language unbecoming for the fair one to hear,” he said. Neysa glanced up quickly at him, but remained sitting silently by the garden.

“What’s this nonsense about unbecoming language?”

Stile demanded when they were out of Neysa’s earshot.  “I don’t keep secrets from—“

“Canst thou not perceive the mare is smitten with thee?” Kurrelgyre demanded. “Canst not guess what manner of question she tried to formulate for the Oracle?”

Stile suffered a guilty shock. He had compared Neysa in various ways to Sheen, yet missed the obvious one.  “But I am no unicorn!”

“And I am no man. Yet I would not, were I thee, speak so blithely of departure. Better it were to cut her heart quickly, cleanly.”

“Uh, yes. No,” Stile agreed, confused. “She—we have been—I assumed it was merely a courtesy of the form. I never thought—“

“And a considerable courtesy it is,” Kurrelgyre agreed. “I was careless once myself about such matters, until my bitch put me straight.” He ran his fingers along an old scar that angled from his shoulder dangerously near the throat. Werewolves evidently had quite direct means of expressing themselves. “I say it as should not: Neysa is the loveliest creature one might meet, in either form, and no doubt the most constant too. Shamed would I have been to lay a tooth on her, ere thou didst halt me. Considering the natural antipathy that exists between man and unicorn, as between man and were-wolf and between unicorn and werewolf, her attachment to thee is a mark of favor most extreme. Unless—chancest thou to be virginal, apart from her?”

“No.”

“And most critical of all: canst thou touch her most private parts?”

Stile reddened slightly. “I just told thee—“

“Her feet,” Kurrelgyre said. “Her horn. No stranger durst touch a unicorn’s magic extremities.”

 “Why yes, I-“

“Then must it be love. She would not else tolerate thy touch. Mark me, friend: she spared thee, when she learned thou wert Adept, because she loved thee, and therein lies mischief with her herd. Thou canst not lightly set her aside.” He touched the scar near his throat again.