“And consorts. I forgot that thou rememberest not.” She smiled brilliantly and bobbed her cleavage about, enjoying her youthful form as only an old hag could. What height was to men, he thought, breasts were to women. “Come, my charming; I will introduce thee around.” A chance to meet other Adepts—one of whom might be his murderer! This was serendipitous, an unexpected wind-fall.
Yellow conducted them to a woman reclining on a white couch, and garbed in a sparkling white gown. She was of indeterminate middle age, and somewhat stout. “This be White,” Yellow said, indicating her with a half-contemptuous twist of a thumb. Then she jerked the thumb at Stile. “This be Blue, and Lady.”
The White Adept lifted snowy lashes. Her eyes were ageless, like swirls of falling snow. “Reports of thy demise seem to have been exaggerated.”
“No exaggeration,” Stile said. “I seek my murderer.”
“May I be far from the scene of thine encounter,” White said, unalarmed, and turned her wintry orbs back to the field where several unicorns were practicing their acts. Stile remembered that the White Adept had been in the market for a white unicorn; Yellow had mentioned that, at their first encounter. He hoped no such creature had been captured.
Yellow led them on. “Methinks thy appearance here stirs greater commotion than shows,” she murmured with grim satisfaction. “It is well known that thou’rt possibly the strongest current Adept, and that thou hast cause for vengeance. Blue was ne’er wont to attend these functions before. Only be certain thou hast the right party, before thou makest thy move.”
“I shall,” Stile said through his teeth. Now they approached a man in black. He glanced incuriously at Stile as Yellow made the introduction. “Black ... Blue.”
“We have met before,” Stile said evenly.
Black peered at him. “I recall it not.”
“In thy Demesnes, a month ago.” Had it been so short a time? Stile felt as if an age had passed since he had first entered the frame of Phaze and assumed the mantle of the Blue Adept. Subjective experiences had made the days seem like months. Even his encounter with Black seemed impossibly distant. Yet Black was the same, with his line tapering off into the ground, no doubt attaching him to his castle. Black was made of lines.
Black’s linear brow furrowed. “No one intrudes on my Demesnes.”
“With my companions, a unicorn and a werewolf.”
Slowly recognition flickered. “Ah—the man of the Little Folk. I recall it now. I thought thee dead ere now.” He squinted. “Why didst thou not show thy power then?”
“I came in peace—then.” Stile frowned. He did not like the Black Adept, who had imprisoned him and left him to starve. Yet he could not assume this was the murderer he sought. Black really had no interest in the things of other Adepts; he was a recluse. It was surprising that he had bothered to attend the Unolympics. And if he had murdered the Blue Adept, he certainly would have recognized him more readily than this! Finally, Stile knew the nature of Black’s magic: he conjured with lines, not golems or amulets. “If thou intrudest similarly on my Demesnes, I may treat thee with similar courtesy.”
“I can conceive of no circumstances in which I would intrude on thy Demesnes, or associate with the likes of Yellow,” Black said coldly.
“Until thou hast need of a potion or an animal, my arrogant,” Yellow said. “Then thou dost bespeak the crone fair enough.” She led Stile on.
“These people make me nervous,” the Lady Blue murmured. “Never did my Lord take me among them.”
“Thy Lord had excellent taste!” Black muttered from behind.
“So Blue is not thy Lord?” Yellow inquired with a touch of malice. “What fools these peasants be!”
“Call not the Lady Blue a peasant!” Stile snapped, instantly angry. He felt as if he walked among a nest of scorpions.
Yellow’s potion-pretty face twisted into something no girl her apparent age could manage. “I call her—“
“What she is,” the Lady Blue interjected quickly. “Ever have my folk been villagers, farming the land and raising animals, and no shame in it.”
Yellow mellowed. “Aye, no shame in the management of animals. Methinks thy peasant status ceased when thou didst marry Blue. I withdraw that portion of my remark.”
Adepts evidently weren’t accustomed to giving away anything voluntarily! “That portion?” Stile demanded, unappeased. He realized he was behaving exactly like an Adept, but was not in the mood to back off. “Thou leavest her a fool?”
“That were readily abated,” Yellow said. “I have love-potions that—“
“Enough!” Stile said. “The Lady is a widow; I merely assume a role that the Blue Demesnes be not demeaned, and that the great wrong done the Lady may be avenged. I am not her Lord.”
“Passing strange,” Yellow murmured. “With power to enchant an entire unicorn herd, he exercises it not on the Lady who is as lovely as any mortal can be and as spirited as a fine animal and who is legitimately his by right of inheritance. Methinks it is the man who is the fool.”
“Mayhap by thy definition,” the Lady Blue said.
