Out of Phaze (41 page)

“Suchevane,” he called. “Are you sleeping?”

She snapped awake. “Aye. Sorry.”

“Do that again, and I’ll—“ He cast about for a suitable threat, but the only thing he could think of for a creature like her wasn’t what he cared to say.

“That be no threat to me anyway,” she said.

He felt himself blushing. “You read my mind?”

‘The mind of any male be much the same.” In her presence, surely so. Then he thought of a suitable threat: “I’ll whack you with my paddle and knock you out of the boat.”

“I would change form and fly away,” she said. But she remained awake, evidently not wishing to get knocked. In such manner they kept themselves going through the night. As daylight resumed their sleepiness faded. But now hunger set in. “Dare we pause to eat?” he asked. “I have supplies.”

“I think the time be very close,” she said. “An we delay an hour, mayhap an hour too late.”

And they couldn’t risk that. So, hungry, they continued working.

And as the day waned, they approached the great White Mountain range. “The ledge of the unicorns be there,” Suchevane said. “But still some distance. I know not whether we be in time.”

“Can—can you change form and fly ahead, and see?” he asked. “I can keep the canoe moving meanwhile.”

“That distance? Aye, now. But it will be slower for thee,” she pointed out.

“I realize. But I’ve got to know.”

“Aye.” She shipped her paddle, changed, and flew up and ahead. Mach continued paddling, trying to put extra strength into it so as to maintain speed, but knew it wasn’t enough.

The bat returned. It landed on the seat, and changed. “She be there,” Suchevane said. “I did not approach, for that would have taken too much time; I returned the moment I spied her. She be trudging up toward the ledge, just a few minutes distant from it.” She resumed •paddling, and the canoe picked up speed.

“Then we’re in time!” Mach exclaimed.

“Nay,” she said sadly. “She will reach it before we do—and then we shall be at the bottom, while she be at the top. No way to stop her, unless perchance we call and she hear.”

They paddled furiously, and the canoe fairly leaped along, but the spell of endurance had not allowed for this extra energy, and they were now tiring. Mach saw sweat staining Suchevane’s black halter, and her hair was becoming a stringy tangle, and he himself was panting. But the high face of the cliff was coming into sight.

Far up, on the ledge, stood a tiny figure. Mach knew it was Fleta, locked in her human form. If only she waited until he could get close—

And what would he have to say to her, then? That he had decided to leave her forever and return to Proton! What glad news would that be for her?

There was a faint ripple in the air. As it passed through him, Mach thought he heard his name cried out with hopeless longing.

“Nay!” Suchevane gasped.

Horrified, Mach saw. Fleta had just leaped from the ledge, and was doing a graceful swan-dive into the pool of darkness below.

He could not reach her in time—and could not catch her if he were there. The height of the fall was far too great. She would be dashed into oblivion on the rock below.

As if it were in slow motion, he watched her plunge, her arms outspread. He knew it was for love of him she had done this, to free him from the need to be with her. But he could not let it happen!

He cast about for some magic to use to save her, but in the pressure of the eternal moment his thoughts were glacial. He could not make a rhyme, let alone sing it! And if he could, how could his puny magic prevail against that of an Adept? All he knew was that he loved her, and could not let her go. Not for any reason. And still she dropped.

“Thee!” he cried into the void that separated them.