That did not abate her effort. It intensified it, because the prior reasons remained; it was simply that one more reason had been added. The truth, to her surprise, was that it was rather pleasant falling in love. It was like sliding down a snowy hill, reveling in the sensation of motion. Now, instead of using her artifices in a calculated manner, she used them naturally. Instead of forcing herself to put forth her best physical aspects, so as never to turn Bane off, she found herself putting forth also her best emotional aspects. Her increasing joy in his company buoyed her during the tedious details of the search. She no longer chafed at the time it consumed; she would be satisfied to have it continue indefinitely. She just wanted to be close to him. In fact, now when she joined him as he slept, she did not try to arouse him sexually; she merely lay beside him, satisfied that he tolerated this much. She wished she could kiss him, but she knew that was forbidden even more sternly than sex, because he could not accept it without implying that he liked her. With men, sex and love were two separate things, and of those two, their love was much harder to win.
Fleta, with the attunement any female had to such things, knew it as soon as Tania did, yet did not rage against it. Why? After some thought, Tania realized why: the mare understood that she had nothing to lose by this development. If Bane came to love Tania, while Tania did not love Bane, the leverage was hers; if Tania came to love Bane, the leverage might be his. Did the mare hope that Tania could be weaned away from the Adverse Adepts? That certainly could be. But there was a complication. One day when she happened to be briefly alone, she spied a toad. She stunned it with a glance, then went to step on it. It was her way to squash toads part way, so that thereafter they could not survive, but took days to expire in torment. But this time she set her foot on it and could not squash. It was not that her foot lacked the power, but that her will did. She did not want to hurt the toad.
She paused to consider this failure, appalled. Then, slowly, she realized the reason. It was her love of Bane: he would never torment a toad, or any animal. She could not love him without partaking somewhat of his qualities, so now she could not do to a toad what he would not. Not without going against the grain of her love. Not without becoming something he was less likely to be able to love. And there was another key: she wanted to be loveable, in his eyes. Well, it was a nuisance, but rather than forfeit the strange delight of her new emotion, she decided to abide by its dictates. “My apology to thee, toad, for stunning thee,” she murmured to it. “In a moment thou willst recover. Here, I proffer a fly for thee.” And she stunned a fat fly that was foolish enough to pass at that moment. It dropped before the toad. Soon after the toad recovered, so would the fly, and the toad would nab the fly before it got away. Then she departed, bemused by the incident and by its significance. She was becoming a gentle creature! She would have to hide this complication from her brother, who definitely would not understand.
They completed the unicorns, finding them innocent of concealing the boy, as expected. Now most of a year was gone. The trio had settled into a kind of camaraderie of familiarity, and Tania discovered that she was even getting to like Fleta. The mare was reliable and forthright, and had a cheery sense of humor that often brightened things. In the first weeks she had been subdued because of her loss of her son and her dislike of Tania, but as she gradually became acclimatized to the situation her natural nature came to the fore. She was no dumb animal; her mind was bright and inquisitive, and she loved a challenge just as Tania did. She was a fan of the Proton Game, and longed to return there and play again, but knew she could not. During their off hours she taught Tania the fundamentals and ways of the Game, making it interesting. They played little mock games, making grids on the ground, leading to short foot races or mumbledy peg or riddle-questions, and the time passed pleasantly. Tania no longer wondered why the Proton rovot had come to love her; she was a loveable creature.
They discussed the matter of the search, and decided to check the vampire bats next. It was Fleta who had suddenly come up with it: “Mayhap he became not a bird, but a bat! Midst the vamps could he fly and be himself, and learn but one new form!”
“Aye!” Tania exclaimed, joyed by this revelation. In her excitement she forgot herself so far as to hug Fleta, then was embarrassed. It was not that she detested the touch of an animal, for she did not; it was that she should never have let her real emotion show so obviously.
But later, reconsidering, she had another thought: Fleta had accepted the hug. There had been a time when the ‘corn would have reacted by changing form and stabbing violently with her deadly horn. Instead she had hugged back—and then been as embarrassed as Tania. Tania’s developing appreciation of Fleta had after all been returned. A few days later, between Flocks, at a time when they were apart from Bane, Tania braced her on it. “Methinks despite our best intent, we be becoming friends,” she said.
“I know thy nature!” Fleta flared. “What a fool I be, e’er to be friends to thee!” But then, after a pause, while Tania waited: “Aye.” For among her other good qualities was honesty.
“I thought thee but an animal, but I have come to appreciate thy ways.”
“I hated thee and all thy kind,” the mare returned. “But lately thou hast changed, or seemed to. Softer, more generous, seeking no longer to hurt those who ne’er hurt thee.”
“Thou knowest why.”
“Aye.”
They pursued it no further. Tania had fallen in love with Bane, and it had caused her to do what he liked, and that had changed her. But she could realize that love only at the expense of Agape, the alien female, and that Fleta could not abide. In fact, Agape had formidable friends in Phaze, for her tour here had put her into close contact with a number of folk. It was said that she had facilitated the union of the Red Adept and Suchevane, the beautiful vampiress, and that their son was named after her. Al, for Alien: a compliment, not an insult. No, Tania’s love of Bane was incompatible with her friendship with Fleta—yet both existed. So long as that love remained unfulfilled.
The vampires too turned out to be clean. The boy—or more likely the Adept Stile—had outsmarted them completely, utilizing a hiding place they could not guess. So they proceeded methodically through the various species of Phaze, knowing that Flach could have assumed any form and joined any tribe. The trolls, the ogres, the elves, the goblins, even the assorted tribes of demons: all had to be verified, no matter whose allies they called themselves. Years passed. Tania’s love for Bane, receiving tolerance but no acknowledgment, burned ever more fiercely. She had always been highly possessive and destructive, but this condition so transformed her that she was neither. She was satisfied just to be with him, and to act the way she believed he liked. This meant no more deliberate exposures of her body, for not only did that brand her in his mind as a slut, his experience in Proton inured him to the sight of female flesh. She no longer tried to join him as he slept; it was similarly counter productive. Oh, he liked the sight and feel of what she offered, but the fact of the offering generated more repulsion in him than attraction. She had made herself, at the beginning, an animal to him: a creature to be used rather than loved, and the uses were limited. So she labored constantly to be his ideal of a woman, and it was a challenge that be came increasingly easy. The most alarming thing about it was that she liked herself better, too.