Robot Adept Read online

  Robot Adept

  The Apprentice Adept

  Book 5

  Piers Anthony

  Contents

  Chapter 1 Phaze

  Chapter 2 Proton

  Chapter 3 Agape

  Chapter 4 Fleta

  Chapter 5 Spy

  Chapter 6 Amoeba

  Chapter 7 Troll

  Chapter 8 Tourney

  Chapter 9 Masquerade

  Chapter 10 Filly?

  Chapter 11 Magic

  Chapter 12 Oracle

  Chapter 13 Pole

  Chapter 14 Chase

  Chapter 15 Table

  Chapter 16 Decision

  Chapter 1

  Phaze

  Suchevane stood in the canoe. She was obviously fatigued to the point of collapse, and in a misery of mixed emotion, but she remained such a stunningly beautiful figure of a woman that the rest hardly mattered. “I must needs fly home,” she said. “I may not, I think, associate with ye folk longer.”

  “I understand, vampire maiden,” Mach replied, looking up from his place at the rear of the canoe. “I thank you for your great service, and hope that we may at least remain friends.”

  “Mayhap,” Suchevane agreed. “I did it mostly for thee, Fleta, and glad I am that thy life be safe and thy love secure. Would I had such love myself.” She gazed for a moment at the fading brightness around them. “Would that any man evoke such splash for me!”

  The woman in Mach’s arms lifted her head, gazing at her friend through tear-blurred eyes. “Wouldst thou had such love thyself,” Fleta agreed. “Fare thee well, dearest friend!”

  Then Suchevane lifted her arms like wings, and with effortless elegance even in her fatigue became a lovely bat, and flew into the haze. Exhaustion made her flight ragged, but she would get where she was going.

  The watery bubble floating beside the canoe bobbed gently. “I be not partial to vamps,” the face of the Translucent Adept said within it. “But that one might almost tempt an Adept.” The bubble spun, so that the face reoriented on the canoe. “I will, an thou wishest, provide thy craft a tow to my Demesnes.”

  “Accepted, Adept,” Mach replied. Then he lowered his face again to Fleta’s face, and lost himself in her.

  The watery bubble moved, and from it stretched a watery line that touched the prow of the canoe. Bubble and canoe floated through the air, gaining speed, traveling through the closing night.

  Mach and Fleta, victims of forbidden love, were on their way into the power of the Adverse Adepts.

  Mach woke to the sound of lapping water. He looked, and sure enough, their canoe was on the surface of a large lake or small sea. “How strange!” he exclaimed.

  Fleta woke. “Art well, my love?” she asked, concerned.

  “We’re on water,” he explained.

  She laughed. “It be strange to see a boat on water? Mayhap in thy frame, rovot, but not in mine!”

  He smiled ruefully. “I enchanted this canoe to float in air, that’s all. I was surprised.”

  The watery bubble ahead of them rotated so that the face in it faced back. “Willst be yet more surprised, youngster, in a moment.”

  Fleta stretched, arms bent, her breasts moving against him. “Must needs I call on nature,” she said. “Let me change.” She drew away from him.

  “Don’t leave me!” he protested, abruptly wary. “The last time you did that, I almost lost you forever!”

  She abruptly sobered. “I thought only to spare thee evil, then,” she said. “Fear not, I shall return to thee very shortly.” Then she leaned into him and kissed him with such passion that his burgeoning doubt was sublimated into joy.

  While he sat half-stunned by the delight of her, she stood much as Suchevane had, and abruptly became the hummingbird. The bird was glossy black, with golden little legs and beak; it darted forward to muss his hair with its wings, then shot away.

  Mach shook his head, half in rue; he was a bit jealous of her instant shape-changing ability, and wished he could simply change and fly like that.

  That gave him pause for thought. He was a novice Adept, wasn’t he? He had managed to perform magic on occasion. What were his limits? The real Adepts could do amazing things; could he do likewise, if he only mastered the magic?

  The more he considered, the better he liked the notion. He had conjured this air-floating canoe that had given him such good service; that was by any reckoning competent magic. He had nullified the suicide spell on Fleta by the force of his declaration of love: the triple Thee. While that was not an ordinary type of magic, neither had the spell on her been ordinary. She had asked the Red Adept to give her an amulet that would cause her to lose her ability to change forms, so that when she dived off the mountain she would be unable to save herself by changing to hummingbird form and flying away. The Red Adept, reluctantly, had granted her this. Mach had reversed Adept magic! Surely shapechanging himself would be a comparatively minor enchantment. All he had to do was work out the appropriate spells.

  Fleta returned, humming up to perch on the canoe’s front seat, then shifting to girlform. She had evidently completed her business. That was another advantage of shape-changing: the nectar of just a few flowers could feed her, and she remained fed when she shifted to a far more massive form. Similarly, one bird dropping could clean out her system, for the human form as well. Magic took little note of scale.

  “Going down,” the Translucent Adept’s voice came from ahead. Then his bubble dipped under the surface—and the canoe followed. In a moment they were sinking through the greenish water, but breathing normally; the water seemed like air.

  Fleta moved back to take his hand. “Adept magic spooks me,” she confided. “I wish—”

  He silenced her with a kiss. He knew what she wished: that they could be together without the intercession of the Adept. But it seemed that this could not be, for their union was opposed by her kind and his, so they were constrained to accept Translucent’s hospitality.

  They continued down. Fish swam by, gazing with moderate curiosity at the canoe; apparently they had seen things like this before. Then the bottom came into view, and it seemed again as if they were floating through air, with the rocks and seaweed and sea moss like the terrain of some jungle land.

  Now that land turned strange. Orange and blue-green sponges spread across it, and corals reached up like skeletons, and peculiar flowerlike, tentacled things waved on yellow stalks. At first these were small, but as the canoe progressed they grew larger.

  Mach looked down below the canoe as they passed a long log. No, it was a pipe, with a spiral band wrapping it, getting larger in diameter as they traveled along it. Then they came to its end—and there was a big round eye gazing up at him. The thing was a living creature!

  “A giant nautiloid,” the Translucent Adept exclaimed from ahead. “Creature o’ the Ordovician period o’ Earth. I have a certain interest in the paleontology o’ the seas.”

  Beyond the eye were about eight tentacles, which reached for the canoe but stopped short of touching it. Mach was just as glad. “It looks like an octopus in a long shell,” he remarked.

  “That might be one description,” Translucent agreed. “It is related, in the sense that the nautiloid is an order o’ molluscs, as are modern octopi and squids. But these are far more more ancient examples; the Ordovician was approximately four hundred million years ago.”

  “You sound like a scientist!” Mach remarked. “Yet you are an Adept.”

  “No incongruity there! The separation o’ magic and science on this planet occurred only a few centuries ago; prior to that, our history is common. The magic is employed in restoring ancient creatures who exist no longer on Earth or elsewhere. All Adepts be scientists in their fashion; it be merely that we specialize
in the science o’ magic, and turn it to our purposes exactly as do our counterparts in the frame o’ Proton.”

  A creature vaguely like a monstrous roach swam across the canoe, startling Fleta. “A trilobite,” Translucent said, evidently proud of the creatures of his domain. “And see, here comes a sea scorpion.”

  Indeed, the thing resembled a monstrous scorpion, almost a meter long. Fleta shrank back from its reaching pincers. “At ease,” Translucent rapped, and the scorpion flipped its tail and swam quickly away. It was evident who was master here.

  They came to a hill rising from the ocean floor, and the canoe bumped to a halt. “Here is thy honeymoon isle,” Translucent announced. “Secure from all intrusion, guarded by the trilobites and scorpions and nautiloids.”

  “Does that mean we be prisoners?” Fleta asked nervously.

  “By no means, mare,” the Adept replied. “I promised ye both a haven for love, and freedom to do as ye pleased. Ye be free to depart at any time—but naught can I promise an ye depart mine Demesnes, for my power be limited beyond.”

  Mach’s powers of doubt came into play. “What is it you hope to gain from this?”

  “There be only one known contact between the frames, now,” Translucent said. “That be through thy two selves, in the two frames. An thou use thy power o’ communication on our behalf, we shall establish liaison with our opposite numbers, the Contrary Citizens o’ Proton, and gain advantage. An we use this lever to unify the frames for full exploitation, our wealth and power will be magnified enormously. It be straight self-interest.”

  “But I can contact only Bane, who is the son and heir of Stile, the Blue Adept of this frame,” Mach protested. “He opposes you, I’m sure, as my father Blue of Proton opposes the Contrary Citizens. If I work for you, as I think I must do in return for your hospitality, that is no guarantee that Bane will cooperate.”

  “Aye, none at all,” Translucent agreed. “Yet it be halfway there, and mayhap for the sake o’ his love there he will elect to join with us as thou has done. We prate not o’ the nebulous good o’ future generations that may or may not come to pass; we proffer honest self-interest, ours and thine, and believe that this be the truest route to success in any endeavor.”

  “I question this,” Mach said. “But for the sake of what you offer, which is the fulfillment of my love for Fleta, I will make my best effort to contact Bane and relay those messages you wish. I regard this as a deal made between us, not any signification of unity of interest beyond the deal.”

  “Fairly spoken, rovot man,” Translucent said. “We require not thy conversion, in language or in mind, only that thou dost betray us not.”

  “I will deliver your messages without distortion; my word on that is given. But I may not have complete control. If I should exchange again with Bane—”

  “Then thine other self will be in my power, here,” Translucent said. “But I will not hold him; he hath no deal with me. He will be free to rejoin his own, and thy filly too. But thy loyalty in this lone respect will be mine. My messages, when it becomes possible to pass them through.”

  “Agreed,” Mach said shortly. He was not completely pleased, but then he looked at Fleta and knew he had no choice. Their union would never be sanctioned by Stile or Neysa or any of those associated with them; only here with the Adverse Adepts could their love be honored.

  The love between a robot and a unicorn.

  The island—for so it seemed, though it was entirely under water—was a marvelous place. It was defined by a transparent dome similar to that of the cities of Proton, in which the air was good and the land dry. The dome held out the sea, and the creatures of the sea stayed clear because they were unable to swim or breathe here. Indeed, Mach and Fleta learned to make frequent circuits just inside the barrier, to spot sea snails, starfish, small trilobites and sea scorpions that had fallen through and were dying in the dryness. Mach fashioned a heavy pair of gloves so that he could handle such creatures safely; he simply picked them up and tossed them back through, for the barrier was pervious to matter other than air and water.

  Once a fair-sized nautiloid blundered through, its two-meter-long shell lying dry, its eye and tentacles barely remaining in the water. Mach picked up the front section, and Fleta took the rear point, and they heaved it back into the sea. The nautiloid sank slowly through the water, as if not quite believing its luck, then jetted away, shell-first, its tentacles trailing. It was heavy enough in air, but a bubble of gas filled much of its shell, making it buoyant in water.

  “Funny that there are no fish,” Fleta remarked.

  Mach checked through the files of his memory. He had been educated in paleontology along with all the rest, but it had been a survey course, scant on details. “I think true fish did not develop until the late Silurian, perhaps 330 million years ago,” he said. “So this is about 70 million years too soon for them.”

  “Latecomers,” she agreed wryly. “And how late be we, then?”

  “Well, in the Mesozoic 200 million years ago the reptiles evolved, culminating in the dinosaurs of about 75 million years ago. Only after they passed did the mammals really come to the fore, though they had been around for 100 million or more years before. Man dates from only the last 10 million years or so.”

  “We be very late!” she concluded.

  “Very late,” he agreed. “And of course man’s expansion into space occurred within the past half-millennium, and his discovery of magic in the frame of Phaze—”

  “Yet surely magic existed always,” she said. “Only we knew naught o’ its reality until we found the frames.”

  “Perhaps so,” he agreed. “There have been legends of magic and magical creatures abounding on Earth for many thousands of years. We believe that the development of the vampires and werewolves—”

  “And unicorns,” she said, shifting to her natural form. She was a pretty black creature, with golden socks on her hind legs and a long spiraled horn.

  “And unicorns,” he said, jumping onto her back and catching hold of her glossy mane.

  She played an affirmative double note on her horn. Each unicorn’s horn was musical, resembling a different instrument, and hers resembled the panpipes. This enabled her to play two notes at once, or even a duet with herself. All unicorns were natural musicians, but her music was special even for the species. She had had competitive aspirations, before her association with Mach caused the Herd to shun her.

  “I wish I could change the way you do,” Mach said, reaching forward to tickle one of her ears.

  She flicked her tail, stinging his back, and walked toward a grove standing in the interior of the island. There she abruptly lay down.

  “Hey!” Mach exclaimed, tumbling off, still hanging on to her black mane.

  But she changed back to girlform, so that he had a hold on her hair, and was not crushed by her mass. “No hay in this state,” she said, rolling into him.

  He used his hold to bring her face in to his. He kissed her. “How glad I am that I rescued you!” he exclaimed.

  “And glad I be that thou didst rescue me,” she responded. Then she tickled him on a rib.

  They rolled and laughed and made explosively tender love, then sought a fruit tree for food. This island, however magically crafted and maintained, was a paradise, with many bearing trees. It was always moderately bright by day, with the sunlight coming down as if diffused by beneficial clouds, and moderately cool by night, for comfortable sleeping. There was a house on it, but they hardly used this, because Fleta had no need of it and Mach had no desire for what she did not share.

  But as time passed, their satisfaction waned. “No offense to you,” Mach said cautiously, “but I find myself increasingly restive. Maybe it is because I am not accustomed to being alive.”

  “Dost miss those naked girls o’ thy frame?” she inquired teasingly. She was naked herself, having no use for clothing, here. She could appear in girlform clothed or unclothed, as she chose. Her equine coat translated i
nto a black cape, her socks to stockings, and her hooves to shoes. What happened to these items when she appeared naked, Mach had never ascertained; and she, teasingly, had never explained.

  “No, that means nothing in Proton, only that they are serfs. But with you—”

  “Have I not done my best to please thee, thy way?” she asked. “To have sex with thee when I be not in heat?” For she, being a unicorn mare, normally sought such interaction only when the breeding cycle demanded, and then with such intensity as to wear out any man. Her shape might be completely human, for this, but her underlying nature remained equine. The unicorns owed more to animal lineage than to human.

  “Indeed you have!” he agreed. “But I want more.”

  She frowned. “Mayhap another filly? Be thou eager to start a herd?”

  He laughed. “No, of course not! You are all I want, and all I love! But—”

  “Thou dost want me in other shape? I thought—”

  “No, Fleta!” he exclaimed. “I want to marry you!”

  She considered. “As the humans marry? Mating restricted one to the other, for all o’ their lives?”

  “Yes.”

  “But this be not the animal way, Mach. We have no need o’ such a covenant.”

  “I think I do. I think of you as human.”

  “I be not human,” she said firmly. “That be why thy folk—Bane’s folk—oppose our association o’ this manner. And my dam, Neysa—ne’er will she accept our union.”

  He sighed. “I know it. And I think we cannot have a valid marriage without the approval of your kind or mine. So we are forced to cooperate with the Adverse Adepts, whose policies I think I should oppose.”

  “I tried to free thee from this choice,” she reminded him.

  “By suiciding!” he exclaimed. “You almost freed me from the need to exist!”

  “Aye, I know that now,” she said contritely.

  “So here we are in paradise, with no future.”

  “Mayhap we could have a future, o’ a kind, if—”

  He glanced sharply at her. “You know a way to persuade our relatives?”