Robot Adept (20 page)

Snotnose punched him in the belly. The two exploded into a fight, landing on Agape’s exposed torso. Three other goblins hauled them off, while a fourth made ready to rape her. But this left nobody holding her legs.
 
She brought them up kicking, scoring on the face of the would-be rapist.

Ouch! His head was like rock. He seemed not to notice the kick, while her toes were smarting in her slipper. He threw himself down on her, trying to get into place.

She hooked her feet behind him and applied a scissors squeeze. His body was relatively puny; now she was managing to hurt him! But other goblins were piling on again, and in a moment her feet were unhooked and her legs wrenched apart.

“What’s this?” a new voice cried.

All goblins froze. This was evidently their leader, the chief whom they wished to avoid until they got their business done.

“We are supposed to capture the ‘corn unharmed,” the chief said. “Remember, her body’s the same as the friendly one. Damage it, and we’ll alienate the friendly one, when she returns.”

“We weren’t going to damage her,” the goblin between her legs protested. “Just have a little fun with her.”

“Well, ‘corns have funny notions about damage,” the chief said sardonically. “Tie her—and don’t let go o’ her horn.”

Grudgingly, the goblins tied her, finally wrapping a strip of cloth about her head to cover her forehead.
 
Then they let her go, with a few final pinches at succulent portions of her torso. If she hadn’t known before why Bane hated goblins, her understanding was improving now.

Trool had warned her that the Adverse Adepts were searching for her. This was confirmation.
 
Then she remembered the amulet. Her hands were tied, but the chain remained around her neck; the goblins hadn’t noticed it, having been paying too much attention to the flesh of her body.

“I invoke thee,” she said to it, hoping it didn’t have to be actually in her hand.

Nothing happened.

She felt a surge of dread. If the amulet couldn’t help her, then she was lost, for they had already made her captive. At least Suchevane had escaped. If only they had perched in their flying forms, out of reach of goblins! But had some hungry night-hunting hawk spotted them—

“Very well, ‘corn,” the chief said. “Who be ye?”

Agape didn’t answer.

“Speak, or hurt,” the goblin warned.

“Go soak thy snoot in a sewer,” Agape replied. Then she was amazed; she had not intended to say that, and it was not the way she talked!

“Speak, or we shall bite thee on the tender feet!” the chief said.

“Hear me well, fecal-face,” she said evenly. “An thou put one foul toothmark on my tender foot, the Adept’ll put sixteen handsome teethmarks in thy foul bottom. Thou canst not touch me!” What was she saying?!

“She talks like a harpy!” one of the other goblins said, impressed.

“An thou beest the creature we seek, that be true,” the chief admitted. “An thou turn out other, we shall chain thee spread o’er an anthill while we take turns raping thee to death. Now answer: what be thy name?”

“An I tell thee aye, I be the one thou dost seek, an thou dost take me to thy employer, an he know I be not, then willst thou rue the day and night that thou didst set thy smelly posterior on this globe,” she said grimly. “An I tell thee nay, and thou dost set thy minions at my body, an the Adept learn I after all be the one, then willst thou rue the very thought that sent thy sickly sire slumming to conceive thee on the stinking slut that bore thee.”

Even the chief took stock at this point. This was evidently not the precise language he had anticipated from the captive. Certainly it was nothing she had in tended ever to say to anyone! What had happened to her mouth?

Then it came to her: the amulet! She had invoked it, and it was working! Already she had talked the goblin into a situation in which he dared neither to take her in nor to maltreat her.

The goblin pondered. He grimaced. “There be no help for it except I take thee in,” he decided. “That be the lesser gamble.”

“Not so, thou son o’ an infected slug,” she retorted.
 
“Thou canst save thy putrid skin only by releasing me unharmed and reporting that thou didst discover naught in these parts.”

He stared at her. “Truly, do I wish we had found thee not!” he exclaimed. “Yet an I free thee, and thou dost turn out to be the one, then there be no spot under the earth safe to escape the vengeance o’ the Adept!
 
So needs must I bring thee to him intact, and tell him thou art but a suspect, and my punishment then may be slight.”

“Until I tell him how thou didst have thy minions hold me whilst thou didst shove thy puny thing in me,” she said. “Then I think I had better be not the one thou seekest, for an I be the one, thou willst find thyself suspended by that thing from the nether moon.” She had not even realized that there was a nether moon!
 
This was obviously hyperbole, but nonetheless effective.

He looked glumly at her, not commenting.
 
“An if I be not the one, as it be needful for thy health that I be not, then why bring me in at all?” she concluded persuasively. “I be nothing but mischief for thee, either way.”

“I shall take thee to my superior,” he decided. “The decision be his. Let him free thee or ravish thee; it will be out o’ my domain.”

He had figured out a way to pass the buck, she realized. She was stuck with captivity. Still, the tainted tongue foisted on her by the amulet had bought her some time, and perhaps it would befuddle the superior goblin as readily as it had this one. She had never before realized what a weapon a tongue could be! Trool had warned her that this was not a pretty spell; he had known whereof he spoke.

They left her tied, and spent the remainder of the night in the oasis. Then, in the morning, prompted by her harpy-tongue, they gave her some bread and water and leave to relieve herself. Then they started on their way to the goblin headquarters. They gave her back her cloak, and some food, and did not molest her. But it was a wearying walk, hours in the rising sun, bearing north.

Then something appeared on the horizon to the southwest. The goblins looked back over their shoulders, alarmed.

And well they might be, for it was a huge wooden figure, striding rapidly toward them, its face fixed in an ominously neutral expression. Obviously it intended them no good.

“A golem!” the chief muttered. “We’ll have to fight it.”

The goblins lined up, drawing weapons: sticks, daggers, and the net. The golem strode up without pause.
 
What did this mean?

Then Agape saw the form of a bat perched on the figure’s head, and understood. Suchevane had brought help!

The golem arrived. The goblins attacked it. Their weapons had no effect; its wooden limbs were impervious. Then it swept its hands around in a double circle, at the goblins’ head level, and knocked over every goblin within range. Its wooden arms were like clubs!
 
Very quickly the goblins had had enough. They fled.
 
The golem stopped, the bat hopped down—and Suchevane stood there. “Agape!” she exclaimed, as she hurried to remove the bindings. “How glad I be that thou be not hurt!” She paused. “Or did—?”

Agape opened her mouth to reassure her friend.

“Whom dost thou think thou art talking to, guano brain?”

Oops! The spell was still in operation!
 
Suchevane looked startled. Quickly, Agape lifted off the amulet and threw it away.

The vampire smiled with understanding. “The amulet! Thou didst invoke it to befuddle them!” Agape smiled agreement. “And thee, thou quarter wit! Now let me be!” Then she closed her mouth, appalled.

But Suchevane understood. “Thou canst not abate a spell by throwing away its origin,” she said. “Needs must it pass of its own accord. Come, change form, and the golem will take us to the Blue Demesnes.” Agape was glad to keep her mouth shut and comply.
 
She became the hummingbird, and Suchevane the bat, and they both perched on the golem, who strode pur posefully for its home.

Before long the blue turrets of the castle appeared.
 
The Blue Demesnes! A lovely older woman, also garbed in blue, came out to meet them as they arrived.
 
They changed back to girlform. “This be Agape, Lady,” Suchevane said. “She whom I told thee of.” The Lady Blue extended her hand. “I am glad to meet thee at last,” she said graciously.
 

“Well, I be not pleased to meet thee, thou harridan,” Agape snapped. Then, appalled anew, she slapped both hands over her mouth.

“She be under geis!” Suchevane said instantly. “The Red Adept gave her an amulet, to conceal her identity—“

The Lady Blue smiled with comprehension. “Mayhap my son can abate it somewhat,” she said. “I have heard much about thee, Agape.”

Agape’s mouth opened. She stuffed her right fist into it, stifling whatever it had been about to say.
 
Suchevane turned to Agape. “Mine alien friend, I must haste to my Flock before I be missed. I have business . . . and the Lady Blue knows thy situation and will keep thee safe till Bane return.” Indeed she had business! She wanted to go to Trool the Troll and speak her piece. Agape could not trust herself to talk, so merely nodded, then embraced the vampire tearfully.

Suchevane became the bat and flew to the northeast.

Agape gazed after her, abruptly lonely.

“Fear not for her,” the Lady said, mistaking her mood.
 
“I gave her a packet o’ wolfbane, which she can sniff when she tires; it will buoy her to complete the journey in a single flight, so that naught can befall her aground.” And that was the concern that Agape should have been having: for her friend’s safety after a tiring night.
 
She felt ashamed.

The Lady put her hand to Agape’s elbow. “Come into the premises, my dear. Thou surely dost be tired after thine experience, and will require food and rest.
 
My son be absent yet, but will return in due course, and then thou canst be with him.”

Agape suffered herself to be guided into the castle, but she glanced askance at the Lady. Didn’t Bane’s parents oppose this union?

The Lady laughed. “I see that thou dost have concern o’er thy status here. Agape. Do thou make thyself comfortable, and we shall have a female talk ere my husband return.”

Agape did that. She was glad that she had learned how to take care of this body, so that she was able to clean up and empty her wastes without complication;

In the afternoon, after a meal and a nap, she joined the Lady for their talk. The geis remained on Agape; the Troll had been right about its lasting effect! Thus it was pretty much a one-way conversation, with Agape merely nodding agreement at appropriate intervals.
 
“The opposition o’ factions o’ Adepts be longstanding,” the Lady said. “Adept ne’er liked Adept, till Stile came on the scene. Then he did what was necessary to separate the frames, for by their interaction they were being despoiled, and so he evoked the enmity o’ the despoilers. That be the origin o’ the Adverse Adepts; they liked each other not overly much before, and very little now, but they league in common interest. One did he befriend, Brown, and one did he replace, Red; all others be ‘gainst him, to lesser or greater extent. But Stile, who be also the Blue Adept, be strongest o’ Adepts, save for the one he promoted, Trool the Troll, who has the Book o’ Magic. So did he prevail, and the frames were parted.”

She looked at Agape, and Agape nodded. She had learned some of this from Bane, before, but knew that the Lady was merely establishing the background for her point.

“After the parting, the force o’ magic in Phaze was reduced by half,” the Lady continued. “Because o’ the transfer of Phazite to Proton, to make up for the Protonite mined there, that had caused the dangerous imbalance. But since the reduction was impartial, affecting all alike, it made no difference in the relative powers o’ Adepts, and things seemed much as before. But the Adverse Adepts resented this wrong they felt Stile had done them, and conspired ‘gainst him. They stifled his programs for better relations between man and animals, and wrought mischief in constant devious ways. Gradually their power increased, for they were many and we few. We knew that we needed new magic to hold them off, and our great hope was in our son, Bane, who showed early promise. An he grow, and marry, and have an heir like himself, belike we could hold off the Adverse Adepts indefinitely, and maintain a fair balance in our land, that evil not o’ertake it.” The Lady sighed. Agape wanted to speak, for she had known of this too, and understood, and intended to act to free Bane for that future his parents wished for him. But the geis constrained her, and she only nodded again.

“But there were no suitable young women,” the Lady said sadly. “The village girls were poisoned ‘gainst our kind; e’en I, a generation ago, would ne’er have married Blue an circumstances not been unusual. The only truly eligible woman is the daughter o’ the Tan Adept—one o’ the hostile ones. Bane played with animal friends, but o’ course these were not suitable for marriage. It be not that we be prejudiced ‘gainst the animals, for many be fine creatures, and we work closely with them and like them well. It be that they cannot breed with man. Therefore the future o’ our good works came into peril. It seemed we would have to deal with Tan, and be compromised accordingly; but the alternative was to lose all. It were not a happy position.” This was new to Agape. She kept her mouth shut and listened.