Was he falling in love with Fleta?
Bane closed his eyes, trying to drive away the specter of that forbidden emotion, but could not. He knew he should never have undertaken this foolish spying mission; he should have stayed well away from his other self’s chosen. Now it was too late.
Fleta turned her head, glancing back at him with one eye. She was aware of the reactions of his body, and knew that something was bothering him.
And what could he tell her? Nothing! She was innocent; he could only bring her grief by expressing his illicit passion. So he simply petted her shoulder. “You are a truly good creature, mare,” he said. “I would not cause you harm for all the frame.” That much was true.
They camped for the night near a stream. Instead of grazing, this time, Fleta became the hummingbird and filled up on the nectar of flowers, while he made a fire and roasted wild potatoes he dug out. Then she assumed girlform and came to join him for sleeping.
“But I thought thou wouldst graze,” he protested weakly.
“Nay, I prefer to be with thee, Mach,” she said, removing her cloak and spreading it as a blanket for them.
Another night with her body warm against his? He owed it to her and to his other self to avoid that! But what could he say? The Adepts were surely still checking on them.
Unable to find sufficient reason to demur, and uncertain whether he even wanted to, he acceded. He lay down with her, and she embraced him, nuzzling his ear.
“There be spoor,” she whispered. “There be scent. We be followed.”
This was completely unexpected. She had had reason of her own to get close to him! Her attention, at least, was where it should be.
“Canst make love to an unconscious man?” he whispered back.
“Aye.” She chuckled.
He smiled. Any Adept watching them would have no concern; they would be obviously engaged in romance. Meanwhile, he would find out what was going on.
He murmured a spell of separation, and his spirit traveled up out of his body. He looked down: yes, it certainly looked like active sex from here! At least he need have no guilt for this; it was none of his doing.
He oriented, making a swift circuit of the region, and in a moment he spied it: a party of goblins camped not far away. But why hadn’t he been aware of them? He had not been paying proper attention.
He moved close up—and discovered why. There was Adept magic protecting the party—a spell of concealment. Fleta, being a unicorn, was resistive to magic practiced on her, so had been able to pick up hints, while Bane had not. However, his spirit was not subject to the same limits as his body. He could perceive the shimmer of the magic force; indeed, he passed through it with extreme caution, for his presence could disturb it, alerting the Adept who had set it.
This party could only be here to spy on Mach and Fleta. The Adepts were not merely watching, they were keeping a force close by. Why?
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.