They shot sidewise, accelerating to horrendous velocity, passing right through the ice walls without touching them and zooming southeast. Plains, hills and forests shot by in blurs. Then they slowed and came to an abrupt halt. They were before the great brown wooden door of a brownstone castle from whose highest turret a brown pennant flew. Obviously the Brown Demesnes. Stile looked around. A muddy river flowed behind the castle, but none of its water was diverted into a moat. On its banks stood a sere, brown forest. It might be summer in the main part of Phaze, but it was winter at the White Demesnes and fall here at the Brown Demesnes. Neysa snorted, not liking it. Stile could appreciate why; the grass, too, was brown.
“Well, do we sneak in this time, or boldly challenge?” Stile asked the unicorn. She blew a note of negation, ending in a positive trill. “I agree,” he said, “I’m tired of sneaking. We’ll settle this openly this time.” He wondered whether it was true that one Adept could not directly enchant another Adept who was on guard. That notion seemed to be giving him confidence, certainly. He faced the door and bawled in as stentorian a voice as he could muster: “Brown, come forth and face Blue!” The huge door cranked open. A giant stood in the door-way. He was as massive as the trunk of an oak, and as gnarly. He carried a wooden club that was longer than Stile’s whole body. “Go ‘way, clownl” he roared. Clown. Oops—he was still garbed in that fool’s suit! Well, let it be; he didn’t want to mess with a nullification spell right now.
Stile was used to dealing with men larger than himself; all men were larger than himself. But this one was extreme. He was just about ten feet tall. If he swung that club, he could likely knock Stile off Neysa before Stile could get close enough to do anything physical.
Unless he used the Platinum Flute as a lance or pike ... But first he had to try the positive approach. “I want to meet the Brown Adept.”
The giant considered. His intelligence seemed inversely proportional to his mass. “Oh,” he said. “Then come in.” Just like that! Neysa trotted forward, following the giant. Soon they were in a large brownwood paneled hall. A man was there, garbed in a brown robe. He was brown of hair, eyes and skin. “What want ye with me?” he inquired, frowning.
“Nothing,” Stile said. “I want the Adept herself.”
“Speak to me,” the man said. “I am Brown.”
“Brown is a woman,” Stile said. “Must I force the issue with magic?”
“Thou darest use thy magic in my Demesnes?” the brown man demanded.
Stile brought out his harmonica and played a few bars.
“I dare,” he said.
“Guard! Remove this man!”
Giants appeared, converging on Stile and Neysa. “I want these creatures swept,” Stile sang quickly. “And bring the Brown Adept.”
It was as if a giant invisible broom swept the giants out of the hall. Simultaneously an eddy carried in a disheveled, angry child. “Thou mean man!” she cried. “Thou didst not have to do that!” Stile was taken aback.
“Thou’rt the Brown Adept?” But obviously she was; his spell had brought her.
“If I were grown and had my full power, thou wouldst never be able to bully me!” she exclaimed tearfully. “I never did anything to thee, clown!”
Appearances could be deceptive, but Stile was inclined to agree. Why would a child murder an Adept who meant her no harm? Unless this was another costume, concealing the true form of the Adept. “I am here to ascertain that,” Stile said. “Show me thy true form.”
“This is my true form! Until I grow up. Now wilt thou go away, since thou art not a very funny clown?”
“Show me thy true form of magic,” Stile said.
“Art thou blind? Thou didst just make a jumble of all my golems!”
Golems! “Thou makest the wooden men!”
She was settling down. “What else? I use the brownwood growing outside. But most of these were made by my pred —the prior Brown Adept. He trained me to do it just before he died.” A tear touched her eye. “He was a good man. It is lonely here without him.”
“Knowest thou not a wooden golem usurped the Blue Demesnes?” Stile demanded.
Her cute brown eyes flashed. “That’s a lie! Golems do only as told. I ought to know. They have no life of their own.”
Like the robots of Proton. Only some robots, like Sheen, and her sophisticated friends, did have consciousness and self-will. “Thou hast sent no golem in my likeness to destroy me?”
Now she faltered, bobbing her brown curls about. “I—I did not. But I have not been Adept long. My predi-pred—“
“Predecessor,” Stile filled in helpfully.
“That’s the word! Thanks. Predecessor. He might have. I don’t know. But he was a good man. He never attacked other Adepts. He just filled orders for them. Golems make the very most dependable soldiers and servants and things, and they never need feeding or sleeping or—“
“So another Adept could have ordered a golem in my likeness?” Stile persisted, piecing it together.
