Fleta realized that there was no more acceptance here for her wild dream than there had been at the Blue Demesnes. Yet she was young and impetuous, and still could not give it up. For without Mach, her life had no meaning.
She sighed. Then she changed to mare form, played a chord of parting to Neysa, and set off across the plain toward the Werewolf Demesnes.
That journey took some time. She paused for the evening, grazing while she slept on her feet, and resumed it in the morning.
She reached the Pack later in the day. The hackles of the wolves rose as they spied her, but then they recognized her as the filly of Neysa, and escorted her in to meet the leader, Kurrelgyre.
Kurrelgyre shifted to man form, and Fleta to girl form. He was grizzled, a veteran of many combats, and perhaps approaching the time when one of his offspring would kill him and take his place as leader. But he was friend to Neysa, and therefore to Fleta. "What brings thee here, filly?" he inquired.
"I would talk with Furramenin," Fleta said.
"And welcome," he said. Furramenin was his whelp by his favorite bitch, a lovely creature of Fleta's generation.
Soon they were talking, apart from the Pack. "Didst thou get bred?" Furramenin inquired eagerly, now in girl form. Soon enough she would have to leave the Pack for similar reason, traveling to one not led by her sire.
"Not exactly," Fleta said. As before, she had to explain, covering the story in fair detail.
"Oooo, with a man!" the innocent bitch exclaimed. "But of course it couldn't take!"
"It was only to prevent me from going on to a Herd," Fleta reminded her.
"Swish thy tail when thou sayest that!" the wolf exclaimed. "It was the man thou didst desire!"
"It was the man," Fleta agreed. "And after my season passed, he wanted it more, and his way, and – " She shrugged.
"And now thou art in perpetual heat for him."
"Aye, in a way. Ne'er before did I seek it for itself, for love of the one it was with."
"And who wouldn't? The whelp of an Adept!"
"Nay, he be from the other frame."
"So that be why he knew not it was impossible."
"Aye." Fleta looked at her pleadingly. "I have no life without him. But I know not whether he will return, and e'en if he does – "
"It still be impossible," Furramenin concluded. "A dream for a week, then back to reality."
"Yet if he does return, and wants me – "
"Adepts have concubines," the bitch reminded her. "Some they like better than their wives, if truth be known."
"But I want him all to myself!"
Furramenin shook her head. "Impossible," she concluded.
"Thou dost believe that?"
"Aye. This be Phaze; hadst thou not noticed?"
They talked about other things, and it was pleasant enough, but Fleta had learned what she had come to learn. The werewolves did not understand her desire either.
Next day she galloped on to the cave of the vampires. Here she talked with Suchevane, the loveliest of the vampires. In girl form, Suchevane had chestnut tresses that swirled luxuriantly to her pert bottom, and a figure that virtually drained the blood of males before she even touched them. She was notorious already for her liaisons with any males capable of assuming man form – vampires, werewolves, unicorns, genuine men (including Bane) – and some that only came close. Naturally she had the broadest of perspectives in such matters.
"But Fleta, it can't be serious!" Suchevane protested.
"I am serious," Fleta insisted with unicorn stubbornness.
"I mean, not from the human man's view. Any human man likes to play, but ne'er to marry other than his own kind. Think not I would remain single, an it were otherwise."
Grim news! If the lovely vampiress could not snag a human man, how could any ordinary animal expect to do so?
"Actually, the other species be none too keen on it either," Suchevane continued. "I had a really interesting fling with a werewolf, and he petitioned to his Pack to bring me into it, but they negated it."
"But they could not stop him from marrying thee, an he truly wanted to!" Fleta said.
Suchevane shook her head, and her hair swirled in a way Fleta had to envy. "Aye, they could stop him."
"But he could run away with thee – "
"Not after they tore him to bits."
Fleta stared at her. The vampiress was serious.
Suchevane shrugged. "Do what I do, 'corn. Be a private concubine, and seek no more. Accept thy place and live in peace. Half a pint o' blood be better than none."
It was good advice, Fleta knew. But it gave her no comfort. She didn't want to love Mach in shame.
So she repaired south to the castle of the Red Adept. This was on a conical mountain, with a path spiraling up to it. But the Adept did not live in the castle, which he had inherited from his predecessor; he lived below it, inside the mountain. For he was Trool the Troll, elevated to Adept status by the action of Stile – and the Book of Magic. All other trolls were truculent and to be feared, but not this one. Not by the friends of Stile.
She blew a chord of query, seeking admittance. In a moment a hole opened in the base of the mountain, big enough for a unicorn. She trotted in.
There was eerie fungus light inside. She moved on down the tunnel and into the central chamber. There was the troll, as ugly as any of his kind, carving a figurine out of stone with his bare hands. For this was the talent of trolls, to manipulate stone as if it were clay, and to carve either tunnels or objects from it. Usually the objects were weapons, but sometimes they were artistic. Lovely statues and amulets filled the chamber, each individual and fascinating in its own right. Though any troll could, only Trool did; that artistry had distinguished him from the others of his kind. That, and his constancy of character.
"I fear I cannot help thee, Fleta," Trool said before she had even presented her case. "I cannot change the ways of entire species, and would not if I could. And my power extends not to the frame of science."
Somehow she had known Trool would be aware of her. The Book of Magic gave him extraordinary power, even for an Adept. "I think thou canst," she communicated. She used the horn-language of her kind, speaking in notes and harmonies. Few others understood it, but the Red Adept had no trouble.
"But I would not," he said.
"What better be there for me?" she demanded with sharp notes.
"Let me fashion thee a shape in his likeness, that the Brown Adept can animate as a golem."
"Nay!" Fortissimo.
"Stile be such an animation," he reminded her. For Stile's body had returned to Proton, animated by the Blue Adept, who had lost his own body. A golem body had been carved by the troll, and animated by the Brown Adept, and Stile's soul had infused it. In all things it had mimicked his natural body perfectly, except two: it lacked the bad knees of the original, and it could not reproduce. Stile's son Bane had been sired before the change of bodies.
"But it be Stile's real soul," she played. "What thou dost offer me be merely Mach's appearance – and that exists already, in Bane. It be only Mach I want, none other."
"An the golem of Proton come again to Phaze, neither his kind nor thine would permit what thou dost desire," he said.
"Aye. So it be hopeless. Therefore must thou give me what I come for."
"How shall I face thy dam, an I do this?"
"Thou hast no need to tell her."
The Adept gazed at her sadly. "Since I can help thee not my way, must needs I help thee thy way. But I like it not. Choose thy form."
Fleta changed to girl form. "This be the form in which I came to love him," she said, speaking the human tongue for the first time.
"I fear I will do penance for this," Trool said. He handed her an amulet. "Invoke this, when thou art ready."