Split Infinity

CHAPTER 7 - Neysa

He must have gasped, for the mare raised her head alertly. She had, of course, been aware of his approach before; horses—unicorns?—had sharp hearing. She had not been alarmed—which itself was remarkable, if she were wild—so had continued grazing. Equines were like that; they startled readily, but not when they thought they had the situation in hand. Evidently this little lady unicorn was much the same.

This was a fantasy world, where magic evidently worked; he had already established that. He still felt the bum on his neck where the amulet-demon’s chain had scraped. So why shouldn’t this world have magic animals too? That made perfect sense. It was only that he had never thought it through, before assuming that these were horses. Was there, actually, much difference between a horse and a unicorn? Some artists represented unicorns with leonine bodies and cloven hooves, but Stile distrusted such conceptions. It could be that a true unicorn was merely a horse with a horn on the forehead. In which case this one would do just fine for him; he could ignore the horn and treat her as a horse.

Stile had not taken time to fashion a lariat; he had been more interested in surveying the situation, and in the memories this experience evoked. Now he decided: this was definitely the animal he wanted. With no rope, he would have to improvise. He doubted she was tame, but she might not be man-shy either.

He walked slowly up to her. The unicorn watched him warily. There was something about the way her horn oriented on him that was disquieting. It was with- out doubt a weapon. It tapered to a sharp point; it was a veritable spear. This was a fighting animal. Scratch one assumption: he could in no way afford to ignore that horn.

“Now my name’s Stile,” he said in a gentle voice. “Stile as in fence. You may not know about that sort of thing, though. I need a—a steed. Because I may have a long way to go, and I can get there faster and better if I ride. I am a very good endurance runner, for a man, but a man does not compare to a good h—unicorn. I would like to ride you. What is your name?”

The unicorn blew a double note through her horn. This startled Stile; he had not realized the horn was hollow. He had been speaking rhetorically, expecting no response. Her note was coincidental, of course; she could hardly be expected to comprehend his words. It was his tone of voice that mattered, and the distraction of it while he approached. Yet that note had sounded almost like a word. “Neysa?” he asked, voicing it as well as he could.

There was a fluted snort of agreement—or so it seemed to him. He reminded himself to be careful how he personified animals; if he ever got to believing he was talking with one on a human basis, he’d have to suspect his own sensibility. He could get himself killed, deluding himself about the reactions of a creature with a weapon like that.

“Well, Neysa, what would you do if I just got on your back and rode you?” He had to keep talking, calming her, until he could get close enough to mount her. Then there would be merry hell for a while: a necessary challenge.

The unicorn whipped her horn about in a menacing manner, and stomped her left forefoot. Her ears flattened back against her head. The language of unicorns was obviously like that of horses, with absolutely clear signals—for those who knew how to interpret them.

She might not comprehend the specific meaning of his words, but she knew he was encroaching, and was giv- ing adequate warning. If he tried to ride her, she would try to throw him, and if he got thrown, he would be in serious trouble. This was indeed no tame animal; this was a creature who knew of men and did not fear them, and when sufficiently aggravated would kill. A wildcat was not merely a housecat gone wild; a unicorn was not merely a horse with a weapon. The whole psychology differed. Neysa’s every little mannerism told him that. He had no doubt, now, that there was blood on her horn—from other creatures who had failed to heed her warnings.

Yet he had to do it. “Neysa, I’m sorry. But a demon tried to kill me, not long ago, and in this frame of magic I am not well equipped to protect myself. I need to get away from here, and I’m sure you can take me so much better than I can take myself. Men have always depended on horses—uh, equines to carry them, before they started messing with unreliable machines like automobiles and spaceships.” He stepped closer to her, hand outstretched, saying anything, just so long as he kept talking.

She lifted both forefeet in a little prance and brought them down together in a clomp directed at him. Her nose made a hooking gesture at him, and she made a sound that was part squeal and part snort and part music—the sort of music played in the background of a vid-show when the horrible monster was about to at-tack. This was as forceful a warning as she could make. She would not attack him if he departed right now, as she preferred simply to graze and let graze, but she would no longer tolerate his presence. She was not at all afraid of him—a bad sign!—she just didn’t like him.

Now Stile remembered the folklore about unicorns, how they could be caught only by a virginal girl; the unicorn would lay his head in her lap, and then an ambush could be sprung. Probably this had been a cynical fable: how do you catch a mythical animal?

With a mythical person. Implication: virgins were as rare as unicorns. Clever, possibly true in medieval times —and beside the point. How would it relate to a man and a female unicorn? Would she put her head in his lap? Only to un-man him, surely! More likely the matter related to riding: only a person pure in spirit could ride a unicorn—and in such myths, purity was defined as sexual abstinence and general innocence. Stile had no claims to such purity. Therefore this could be a very difficult ride. But mythology aside, he expected that sort of ride anyway.

“I really am sorry to do this, Neysa,” Stile said. And leaped.

It was a prodigious bound, the kind only a highly trained athlete could perform. He flew through the air to land squarely on the unicorn’s back. His hands reached out to take firm grip on her mane, his legs clamped to her sides, and his body flattened to bring him as close to her as physically possible.

Neysa stood in shocked surprise for all of a tenth of a second. Then she took off like a stone from a catapult. Stile’s body was flung off—but his hands retained their double grip on her mane, and in a moment his legs had dropped back and were clamping her sides again. She bucked, but he clung close, almost standing on his head. No ordinary horse could buck without putting its head down between its front legs; it was a matter of balance and weight distribution. Neysa managed it, however, providing Stile with just a hint of what he was in for. Normal limits were off, here; this was, for sure, a magic animal.

She reared, but he stayed on her like a jacket. She whipped her head about, spearing at him with her horn —but he shifted about to avoid it, and she could not touch him without endangering her own hide. That horn was designed to spear an enemy charging her from the front, not one clinging to her back. It took a special kind of curved horn to handle a rider; she would never dislodge him this way.

So much for the beginning. Now the unicorn knew that no amateur bestrode her. It would require really heroic measures to dump him. For Stile, when he wasn’t trying to gentle an animal, was extremely tough about falls.

Neysa accelerated forward, going west toward the chasm cracks he had spied from the spruce tree—then abruptly braked. All four feet skidded on the turf. But Stile was wise to this maneuver, and remained secure.

She did a double spinabout, trying to fling him off by centrifugal force—but he leaned to the center of the turn and stayed firm. Abruptly she reversed—and he did too. She leaped forward—then leaped backward. That one almost unseated him; it was a trick no ordinary horse knew. But he recovered, almost tearing out a fistful of her mane in the process.

Well! Now she was warmed up. Time to get serious. Neysa tripped forward, lowering her body—then reared and leaped simultaneously. She fell backward; then her hind feet snapped forward and she performed a flip in air. For an instant she was completely inverted, her entire body above his. Stile was so startled he just clung. Then she completed the flip, landing on her front feet with her body vertical, finally whomping down on her hind feet.

Only the involuntary tightening of his hands had saved him. A horse doing a backflip! This was impossible!

But, he reminded himself again, this was no horse. This was a unicorn—a creature of fantasy. The mundane rules simply did not apply here.

Next, Neysa went into a spin. She galloped in a tightening circle, then drew in her body until she was actually balanced on one forefoot, head and tail lifted, rotating rapidly. Magic indeed. Stile hung on, his amazement growing. He had known he would be in for a stiff ride, but he had grossly underestimated the case. This was akin to his fight with the demon.

Well, maybe that was a fair parallel. Two magical creatures, one shaped like a humanoid monster, the other like a horse with a horn. Neither subject to the limitations of conventional logic. He had been foolish to assume that a demon that superficially resembled a horse was anything close to that kind of animal. He would remember this lesson—if he happened to get out of this alive.

Now Neysa straightened out, stood for a moment-then rolled. Her back smacked into the ground—but Stile had known when to let go. He landed on his feet, and was back on her back as she regained her own feet. “Nice try, Neysa,” he said as he settled in again.

She snorted. So much for round two. She had only begun to fight!

Now she headed for the nearest copse of trees. Stile knew what was coming: the brush-off. Sure enough, she passed so close to a large trunk that her side scraped it—but Stile’s leg was clear, as he clung to her other side in the fashion of a trick rider. He had once won a Game in which the contest was trick riding; he was not the finest, but he was good.

Neysa plunged into a thicket. The saplings brushed close on either side, impossible to avoid—but they bent aside when pushed, and could not sweep off a firmly anchored rider who was prepared. She shot under a large horizontal branch, stout enough to remove him—but again he slid around to the side of her body, avoiding it, and sprang to her back when the hazard was past. Real riding was not merely a matter of hanging on; it required positive anticipations and countermoves to each equine effort. He could go anywhere she could go!

Neysa charged directly toward the next large tree, then planted her forefeet, lifted her rear feet, and did a front-foot-stand that sent her back smashing into the trunk. Had he stayed on her, he would have been crushed gruesomely. No game, this! But Stile, now wise in the ways of unicorns, had dropped off as her motion started. He had less mass than she, weighing about an eighth as much, and could maneuver more rapidly when he had to. As her rear feet came back to the ground. Stile’s rear feet came back to her back, and his hands resumed their clutch on her mane.

She snorted again. Round three was over. Round four was coming up. How many more tricks did this phenomenal animal have? Stile was in one sense enjoying this challenge, but in another sense he was afraid. This was no Proton Game, where the loser suffered no more than loss of status; this was his life on the line. The first trick he missed would be the last.

Neysa came onto a grassy plain. Now she accelerated. What was she up to this time? It didn’t seem so bad—and that made him nervous. Beginning with a walk, she accelerated to a slow trot. The speed differential was not great, as a slow trot could be slower than a brisk walk. In fact. Stile had worked with lazy horses who could trot one meter per second, rather than the normal three or four meters per second. The distinguishing mark was the beat and pattern. In walking, the horse put down the four feet in order, left-front, right-rear, right-front, left-rear, four beats per cycle. Trotting was two-beat: left-front and right-rear together, followed by right-front and left-rear together. Or with a right lead instead of a left. The point was that the motion of each front foot was synchronous with one hind foot; in some cases the front and rear moved together on the same side. But there were only two beats per cycle, the pairs of feet striking the ground cleanly together. It made for a bumpy but regular ride that covered the ground well, and looked very pretty from the side. A slow trot could be gentle; a fast one could be like a jackhammer. But a trot was definitely a trot, at any speed; there was no mistaking it. Stile liked trot-ting, but distrusted this one. He knew he had not seen the last of this mare’s devices.

Next she broke into a canter: three-beat. Left-front, then right-front and left-rear together, and finally right-rear. Like a cross between a walk and a trot, and the ride a kind of gentle swooping. All perfectly conventional, and therefore not to be trusted. She had some-thing horrendous in her canny equine mind!

Finally she reached a full gallop: a modified two-beat cycle, the two front legs striking almost but not quite together, then the rear two. A four-beat cycle, technically, but not uniform. Beat-beat, beat-beat, at the velocity of racing. Stile enjoyed it; he experienced an exhilaration of speed that was special on a horse—unicorn. Motored wheels could go much faster, of course, but it wasn’t the same. Here, as it were in the top gear, the animal straining to the limit—though this one was not straining, but loafing at a velocity that would have had another one straining—

The unicorn shifted into another gait. It was a five-beat—

Stile was so surprised he almost dropped off. No horse had a five-beat gait! There were only four feet!

No horse—there he was again. He kept forgetting and getting reminded in awkward ways. This gait was awful; he had never before experienced it, and could not accommodate it. BEAT-beat-BEAT-BEAT-beat, and over again, bouncing him in a growing resonance, causing him to lose not his grip but his composure. He felt like a novice again, fouling himself up, his efforts to compensate for the animal’s motions only making it worse. As a harmonic vibration could shake apart a building, this fifth-beat was destroying him. He would fall—and at this breakneck velocity he could . . . break his neck.

Think, Stile, think! he told himself desperately.

Analyze: What is the key to this gait?

His hands were hurting as his clutch on the unicorn’s mane slowly slipped. His thigh muscles were beginning to cramp. Stile was expert—but this creature had his number now. Unless he could get her number too, soon.

Four feet, five beats. One foot had to repeat. Number the steps: one-two-three-four—where was the repeat? Fingers slipping...

BEAT-beat—that sound was less than the others, like a half-step. But half a step had to be completed by—another half-step. Like a man catching his balance when tripped. Two half-steps—that was it. Not necessarily together. The second and fifth. The right rear foot—as though stumbling, throwing off his timing. Compensate—

Stile started to catch on. He shifted his weight to absorb the shock and irregularity. BEAT-absorb-BEAT-BEAT-absorb. It was tricky and unnatural as hell, but his body was finding the dubious rhythm, get-ting the swing. Mostly it was his knowledge of the pattern, of what to expect. No more surprises! His leg muscles relaxed, and his hands stopped slipping.

Neysa felt the change, and knew he had surmounted this challenge too. She turned at speed—and Stile’s in- ertia almost flung him off her side. A gradual turn at high velocity could pack more wallop than a fast turn at low speed. But she had to shift to a normal gallop for the turn, and no equine living could dump Stile with a normal gallop.

Realizing her mistake, the unicorn changed tactics.

She slowed, then suddenly went into a one-beat gait. This was another surprise, in a ride full of them. It was like riding a pogo stick. All four of her feet landed together; then she leaped forward, front feet leading-only to contract to a single four-point landing again.

But Stile had ridden a pogo stick, in the course of his Game experience. He could handle this. “No luck, Neysa!” he cried. “Give up?”

She snorted derisively through her horn. It was al-most as if she understood his words. But of course horses were very perceptive of tone, and responsive to it.

She turned. She had been going north, having curved in the course of her running; now she bore due west. Round five was coming up.

The grass gave way to packed dirt, then to clay, then to something like shale, and finally to rock. Neysa’s hooves struck sparks from the surface, astonishing Stile. She was traveling fast, to be sure—faster than any horse he had raced. It felt like eighty kilometers per hour, but that had to be a distortion of his perception; such a speed would be of interworld championship level, for a horse. Regardless, hooves were not metallic; this animal was not shod, had no metal horseshoes, no nails. Nothing to strike sparks. Yet they were here.

Now she came to the pattern of crevices he had spied from the tree. They loomed with appalling suddenness: deep clefts in the rock whose bottoms could not be seen. Her hooves clicked between cracks unerringly, but Stile didn’t like this. Not at all! One misstep would drop a foot into one of those holes, and at this speed that would mean a broken leg, a tumble, and one man flying through the air to land—where? But all he could do was hang on.

The cracks became more plentiful, forming a treacherous lattice. His vision of the crevices blurred, because they were so close, passing so rapidly; they seemed to writhe in their channels, swelling and shrinking, now twisting as if about to burst free, now merging with others or splitting apart. He had noted a similar effect when riding the Game model train as a child, fixing his gaze on the neighboring tracks, letting them perform their animations as he traveled. But these were not rails, but crevices, getting worse.

Neysa danced across the lattice as Stile watched with increasing apprehension. Now these were no longer mere cracks in a surface; these were islands between gaps. Neysa was actually traversing a chasm, jumping across from stone to stone, each stone a platform rising vertically from the depths. Stile had never seen such a landscape before. He really was in a new world: new in kind as well as in region.

Now Neysa was leaping, using her one-beat gait to bound from one diminishing platform to another. Sometimes all four feet landed together, in a group, almost touching each other; sometimes they were apart, on separate islands. She was obviously conversant with this place, and knew where to place each hoof, as a child knew where to jump amid the squares of a hop-scotch game, proficient from long practice. Perhaps Neysa had mastered this challenge in order to avoid predators. No carnivore could match her maneuvers here, surely; the creature would inevitably misstep and fall between islands, perhaps prodded by the unicorn’s aggressive horn, and that would be the end. So her trick gait made sense: it was a survival mechanism. Probably the five-beat gait had a similar function. What terrain was it adapted to?

Neysa danced farther into the pattern. The islands became fewer, smaller, farther apart. Now Stile could peer into the lower reaches of the crevices, for the sun-light slanted down from almost overhead. Had it been only six hours from the start of this day? It seemed much longer already! The fissures were not as deep as he had feared; perhaps two meters. But they terminated in rocky creases that could wedge a leg or a body, and they were getting deeper as the unicorn progressed.

This was a test of nerve as much as of agility or riding ability.

As it happened. Stile had the nerve. “Let’s face it, Neysa,” he said. He tended to talk to horses; they listened well, politely rotating their pointed furry ears around to fetch in larger scoops of his sound, and they did not often talk back. “We’re in this together. What would I gain by falling off now? A broken leg? If it’s all the same to you, oh prettiest and surest-footed of equines, I’ll just stay on.” He saw her left ear twitch as if shaking off a fly. She heard him, all right, and was not pleased at the confidence his tone exuded.

But the acrobatic challenge was not what the unicorn had come for. Suddenly she leaped—into the depths of a larger crack. It was two meters wide, shallow at the near end, but bearing lower. The sides seemed to close in as she plunged deeper. Where was she going? Stile did not like this development at all.

Neysa swung around a chasm corner and dropped to a lower level. This crack narrowed above; they were in a partial cave, light raying from the top. Cross-cracks intersected often, but the unicorn proceeded straight ahead.

A demon roared, reaching from the side. Where had it come from? A niche at the side, hidden until they were beside it. Stile ducked his head, and the thing missed him. He glimpsed it only briefly: glaring red eyes, shining teeth, glistening horns, talon claws, malevolence. Typical of the breed, no doubt.

Another demon loomed, grabbing from the other side. Stile flung his body away, and this one also missed. But this was getting bad; he could not afford to let go his grip on Neysa’s mane, for it was his only purchase. But he soon would need an arm to fend off these at-tacks.

The unicorn’s strategy was clear, now. She was charging through the habitat of monsters, hoping one of them would pluck the unwanted rider from her back. The demons were not grabbing at her; they shied away from her deadly horn, instead snatching from the sides.

They seemed akin to the demon of the amulet that he had fought before, except that their size was constant. Stile knew he would not survive long if one of these monsters nabbed him. He had already learned how tough demons were.

He would have to compromise. Neysa could not turn abruptly, for these crevices defined her route. The demons stood only at intersections and niches; there was not room enough in a single crevice for unicorn and demon. So this was a set channel with set hazards. He should be able to handle it—if he were careful.

Another intersection; another demon on the right. Stile let go Neysa’s mane with his right hand and lifted his arm to ward off the attack. He did it with expertise, striking with his forearm against the demon’s forearms, obliquely, drawing on the power of his forward motion. The leverage was with him, and against the reaching demon; Stile was sure of that. There was art to blocking, no matter what was being blocked.

Neysa felt his shifting of weight and tried to shake him off. But the channel bound her; she could not act effectively. Her trap inhibited her as much as him. It was evident that the demons were not her friends; other-wise she would simply stop and let them snatch him off. No, they were enemies, or at least un-friends; she neither stopped nor slowed, lest the demons get her as well as him. They probably liked the taste of raw unicorn flesh as well as they liked the taste of human flesh.

In fact, she had taken quite a risk to get rid of him.

She just might get rid of herself, too.

“Neysa, this is no good,” Stile said. “This should be between you and me. I don’t like demons any better than you do, but this shouldn’t be their concern. You’re going for double or nothing—and it’s too likely to be nothing. Let’s get out of here and settle this on our own. Whoever wins and whoever loses, let’s not give the pleasure of our remains to these monsters.”

She charged on, straight ahead, of course. He knew he was foolish to talk to himself like this; it really accomplished nothing. But stress gave him the compulsion. The demons kept grabbing, and he kept blocking.

He talked to them too, calling them names like “Flop-face” and “Crooktooth,” and exclaiming in cynical sympathy when they missed him. He forced himself to stop that; he might get to wanting to help them.

Stile was quite nervous now; he knew this because when he turned off his mouth he found himself humming. That was another thing he tended to do when under stress. He had to vocalize in some fashion. Upon occasion it had given him away during a Game. Bad, bad habit! But now the refrain became compulsive. Hummm-hummm-block, as a demon loomed; hummm-hummm-block! Stupid, yet effective in its fashion. But the demons were getting more aggressive, encroaching more closely. Soon they would become bold enough to block the channel ahead—

One did. It stepped out directly in front of the unicorn, arms spread, grin glowering. It was horrendously ugly.

Neysa never slowed. Her horn speared straight forward. As it touched the demon, she lifted her head. There was a shock of impact. The creature was impaled through the center, hoisted into the air, and hurled back over the unicorn’s body. Stile clung low, and it cleared him.

Now he knew why most demons gave way to a charging unicorn. They might overwhelm a stationary unicorn, but a moving one was deadly. Stile could hardly imagine a more devastating stroke than the one he had just seen.

And a similar stroke awaited him, the moment he fell off.

The beat of Neysa’s hooves changed. She was driving harder now—because she was climbing. Stile peered ahead, past her bloodstained horn, and saw the end of the crevice. They were finally coming out of it.

The demons drew back. They had become too bold, and paid the penalty. The intruders were leaving any-way; why hinder them? Stile relaxed. Round five was over.

They emerged to the surface—and plunged into liquid. The northern end of the cracks terminated in water. A river flowed down into them,, quickly, vanish- ing into the deeper crevices—but to the north it was broad and blue. Neysa splashed along it; the water was only knee-deep here.

The river curved grandly, like a python, almost touching itself before curving back. “The original meander,” Stile remarked. “But I don’t see how this is going to shake me off, Neysa.” However, if he had to be thrown, he would much prefer that it be in water. He was of course an excellent swimmer.

Then the water deepened, and the unicorn was swimming. Stile had no trouble staying on. Was she going to try to drown him? She had small chance! He had won many a Game in the water, and could hold his breath a long time.

She did not try. She merely swam upstream with amazing facility, much faster than any ordinary horse could do, and he rode her though all but her head and his head were immersed. The river was cool, not cold; in fact it was pleasant. If this were round six, it was hardly a challenge.

Then he felt something on his thigh. He held on to the mane with his right hand, wary of tricks, and reached with his left—and found a thing attached to his flesh. Involuntarily he jerked it off, humming again.

There was a pain as of abrading flesh, and it came up: a fishlike creature with a disk for a head, myriad tiny teeth projecting.

It was a lamprey. A blood-sucking eel-like creature, a parasite that would never let go voluntarily. Another minor monster from the biological museum exhibits, here alive.

Stile looked at it, horrified. Magic he found incredible; therefore it didn’t really bother him. But this creature was unmagical and disgusting. He heard the loudness of his own humming. He tried to stop it, ashamed of his squeamishness, but his body would not obey. What revulsion!

Another sensation. He threw the lamprey away with a convulsive shudder and grabbed the next, from his side. It was a larger sucker. There was little he could do to it, one-handed; it was leather-tough. He might bite it; that would serve it right, a taste—literally—of its own medicine. But he recoiled at the notion. Ugh!

The noxious beasties did not seem to be attacking the unicorn. Was it her hair, or something else? She could hardly use her horn to terrorize something as mindless as this.

Neysa kept swimming up the river, and Stile kept yanking off eels, humming grimly as he did. He hated this, he was absolutely revolted, but he certainly was not going to give up now!

The unicorn dived, drawing him under too. Stile held his breath, clinging to her mane. It was work for her to stay under, as her large equine belly gave her good flotation; he was sure he could outlast her. She would have to breathe, too.

She stayed down a full minute, then another. Only the tip of her horn cut the surface of the water like the fin of a shark. How long could she do it? He was good at underwater exploits, but he was getting uncomfortable.

Then he caught on: her horn was a snorkel. She was breathing through it! She had no air-limit. His lungs were hurting, but her neck was too low; he could not get his head high enough to break the surface without letting go her mane. If he let go, he surely would not have a chance to catch her again; she would stab him if he tried.

But he had a solution. He hauled himself up hand over hand to her head, where her black forelock waved like sea grass in the flow. He grabbed her horn. It was smooth, not knife-edged along the spiral; lucky for him!

There seemed to be little indentations along its length: the holes for the notes, at the moment closed off.

His head broke water, and he breathed. She could not lower her horn without cutting off her own wind—and she was breathing too hard and hot to risk that. Equines had a lot of mass and muscle for their lungs to service, and she was still working hard to stay below.

Neysa blew an angry note through her horn and surfaced. Stile dropped back to her back. He yanked off two more eels that had fastened to him while he was below, as if his cessation of humming had made them bold.

Neysa cut to the edge of the river and found her footing. She charged out of the water. Stile had taken round six.

North of the river was a slope rising into a picturesque mountain range. The highest peaks were cloud-girt and seemed to be snow-covered. Surely she was not about to essay the heights!

She was. She galloped up the slope, the wind drying out her hair and his. What an animal she was! An ordinary horse would have been exhausted by this time, but this one seemed to be just hitting her stride.

The pace, however, was telling; Stile could feel her body heating. Horses, with or without horns, were massive enough to be short on skin surface to radiate heat. Therefore they sweated, as did man—but still it could take some time to dissipate the heat pollution of over-exertion. She would have to ease up soon, even if her muscles still had strength.

She did not. The slope increased; her hooves pounded harder. One-two, three-four, a good hard-working gallop. She was not even trying to shake him off, now, but she surely had something excellent in mind. The grain-grass turf gave way to fields of blue and red flowers and goldenrod. More rocks showed, their rugged facets glinting cruel deep gray in the sun. The trees became smaller. Wisps of fog streamed by.

Stile craned his neck to look back—and was amazed. Already the Meander River was a small ribbon in the distance, far below. They must have climbed a vertical kilometer! Suddenly the air seemed chill, the breeze cutting. But the unicorn was hot; again small sparks flew from her feet as the hooves struck the rocky ground. Fine jets of vapor spurned from her nostrils.

Vapor? Stile squinted, unbelieving. Those were jets of fire!

No, impossible! No flesh-creature could breathe out fire. Living tissue wasn’t able to—

Stile nudged forward, freed one hand, and reached ahead to approach the flame he thought he saw. Ouch!

His fingers burned! That was indeed fire!

All right, once more. This was a magic land. He had accepted that, provisionally. The laws of physics he had known did not necessarily apply. Or if they were valid, they operated in different ways. Horses generated heat —so did unicorns. Horses sweated—this creature remained dry, once she had shed the river water. So she got rid of excess heat by snorting it out her nostrils in concentrated form. It did make sense, in its particular fashion.

Now the air was definitely cold. Stile was naked; if they went much higher, he could be in a new sort of trouble. And of course that was the idea. This was round seven, the trial of inclement climate. Neysa was not suffering; she was doing the work of running, so was burning hot. The cold recharged her.

Stile got down as close to his mount as he could. His back was freezing, but his front was hot, in contact with the furnace of Neysa’s hide. This became uncomfortable. He was trying to sweat on one side and shiver on the other, and he couldn’t turn over. And Neysa kept climbing.

Could he steer her back down the hill? Unlikely; trained horses moved with the guidance of reins and legs and verbal directives—but they did it basically be-cause they knew no better. They were creatures of habit, who found it easiest to obey the will of the rider. This unicorn was a self-willed animal, no more tract-able than a self-willed machine. (Ah, Sheen—what of you now?) If he did not like her direction, he would have to get off her back.

So he would just have to bear with it. He had to tame this steed before he could steer her, and he had to stay on before he could tame her. He found himself humming again. It seemed to help.

Neysa’s feet touched snow. Steam puffed up from that contact. She really had hot feet! She charged on up the side of a glacier. Ice chipped off and slid away from her hooves. Stile hummed louder, his music punctuated by his shivering.

Crevices opened in the glacier. Again the unicorn’s feet danced—but this time on a slippery slope. Her hooves skidded between steps, for their heat melted the ice. Those sparks were another heat-dissipating mechanism, and though the snow and ice had cooled the hooves below sparking level, there was still plenty of heat to serve. Her body weight shifted, compensating for the insecure footing, but a fall seemed incipient. Stile hummed louder yet. This was no miniature Game-mountain, under a warm dome, with cushioned landings for losers. This was a towering, frigid, violent landscape, and he was afraid of it.

The cloud cover closed in. Now it was as if the unicorn trod the cold beaches of an arctic sea, with the cloud layers lapping at the shores. But Stile knew that cloud-ocean merely concealed the deadly avalanche slopes. Neysa’s legs sank ankle-deep in the fringe-wash, finding lodging in ice—but how would she know ahead of time if one of those washes covered a crevasse?

“Neysa, you are scaring the color right out of my hair!” Stile told her. “But I’ve got to cling tight, be-cause I will surely perish if I separate from you here. If the fall through the ledges doesn’t shatter me, the cold will freeze me. I’m not as tough as you—which is one reason I need you.”

Then the first snow-monster loomed. Huge and white, with icicles for hair, its chill ice-eyes barely peeking out through its snow-lace whiskers, it opened its ice-toothed maw and roared without sound. Fog blasted forth from its throat, coating Stile’s exposed portions with freezing moisture.

Neysa leaped across the cloud to another mountain island. Stile glanced down while she was in midair, spying a rift in the cover—and there was a gaunt chasm below. He shivered—but of course he was cold any-way. He had never been really cold before, having spent all his life in the climate-controlled domes of Pro-ton; only the snow machines of the Game had given him experience, and that had been brief. This was close to his notion of hell.

Another snow-monster rose out of the cloud, its roar as silent as falling snow. Again the fog coated Stile, coalescing about his hands, numbing them, insinuating slipperiness into his grip on the mane. Stile discovered he was humming a funeral dirge. Unconscious black humor?

Neysa plunged through a bank of snow, breaking into the interior of an ice-cave. Two more snow-monsters loomed, breathing their fog. Neysa charged straight into them. One failed to move aside rapidly enough, and the unicorn’s flame-breath touched it. The monster melted on that side, mouth opening in a silent scream.

On out through another snowbank—and now they were on a long snowslide on the north side of the range. Four legs rigid, Neysa slid down, gaining speed. Her passage started a separate snowslide that developed into a minor avalanche. It was as if the entire mountain were collapsing around them.

It would be so easy to relax, let go, be lost in the softly piling snow. Stile felt a pleasant lassitude. The snow was like surf, and they were planing down the front of the hugest wave ever imagined. But his hands were locked, the muscles cramped; he could not let go after all.

Suddenly they were out of winter, standing on a grassy ledge, the sun slanting warmly down. The cold had numbed his mind; now he was recovering. Neysa was breathing hard, her nostrils dilated, cooling. Stile did not know how long he had been unaware of their progress; perhaps only minutes, perhaps an hour. But somehow he had held on. His hands were cramped; this must be what was called a death grip. Had he won the victory, or was this merely a respite between rounds?

Neysa took a step forward—and Stile saw that the ledge was on the brink of a cliff overlooking the Meander River. In fact there was the roar of a nearby falls; the river started here, in the melting glaciers, and tumbled awesomely to the rocky base. Sure death to enter that realm!

Yet Neysa, fatigued to the point of exhaustion, was gathering herself for that leap. Stile, his strength returning though his muscles and skin were sore from the grueling ride, stared ahead, appalled. Enter that maelstrom of plunging water and cutting stone? She was bluffing; she had to be! She would not commit suicide rather than be tamed!

The unicorn started trotting toward the brink. She broke into a canter, bunched herself for the leap-Stile flung himself forward, across her neck, half onto her head. His locked fingers cracked apart with the desperate force of his imperative, his arms flung forward. He grabbed her horn with both hands, swung his body to the ground beside her head, and bulldogged her to the side. She fought him, but she was tired and he had the leverage; he had rodeo experience too. They came to a halt at the brink of the cliff. A warm updraft washed over their faces, enhancing the impression of precariousness; Stile did not want to look down. Any crumbling of the support—

Stile held her tight, easing up only marginally as she relaxed, not letting go. “Now listen to me, Neysa!” he said, making his voice calm. It was foolish of him, he knew, to speak sense to her, just as it was foolish to hum when under stress, but this was not the occasion to attempt to remake himself. The unicorn could not understand his words, only his tone. So he was talking more for himself than for her. But with the awful abyss before them, he had to do it.

“Neysa, I came to you because I needed a ride. Someone is trying to kill me, and I am a stranger in this land, and I have to travel fast and far. You can go faster and farther than I can; you have just proved that. You can traverse regions that would kill me, were I alone. So I need you for a purely practical reason.”

She continued to relax, by marginal stages, one ear cocked to orient on him, but she had not given up. The moment he let go, she would be gone. Into the river, the hard way, and on into unicorn heaven, the eternal pasture.

“But I need you for an emotional reason too. You see, I am a solitary sort of man. I did not wish to be, but certain factors in my life tended to set me apart from my associates, my peer group. I have generally fared best when going it alone. But I don’t like being alone. I need companionship. Every living, feeling creature does. I have found it on occasion with other men in a shared project, and with women in a shared bed, and these are not bad things. But seldom have I had what I would call true friendship—except with another species of creature. I am a lover of horses. When I am with a horse, I feel happy. A horse does not seek my acquaintance for the sake of my appearance or my accomplishments; a horse does not expect a great deal of me. A horse accepts me as I am. And I accept the horse for what he is. A horse pulls his weight. I respect a horse. We relate. And so when I seek companionship, a really meaningful relationship, I look for a horse.”

Neysa’s head turned marginally so that she could fix one eye squarely on him. Good—she was paying attention to the soothing tones. Stile eased his grip further, but did not let go her horn.

“So I looked for you, Neysa. To be my equine companion. Because once a horse gives his allegiance, he can be trusted. I do not deceive myself that the horse cares for me in the same way I care for him—“ He tightened his grip momentarily in a brief outpouring of the emotion he felt. “Or for her. But a horse is loyal. I can ride a horse, I can play, I can sleep without concern, for the horse will guard me from harm. A good horse will step on a poisonous snake before a man knows the threat is present. The horse will alert me to some developing hazard, for his perceptions are better than mine, and he will carry me away in time.

“I looked for you, Neysa, I selected you from all the herd before I ever saw you directly, because you are not really of the herd. You are a loner, like me. Be-cause you are small, like me. But also healthy, like me. I understand and appreciate fitness in man and animal. Your hooves are clean, your manure is wholesome, your muscle tone is excellent, your coat has the luster of health, the sheen—“ No, that was the wrong word, for it reminded him again of Sheen the robot lass.

Where was she now, what was she doing, how was she taking his absence? Was she in metallic mourning for him? But he could not afford to be distracted by such thoughts at this moment.

“In fact, you are the finest little horse I have ever encountered. I don’t suppose that means anything to you, but I have ridden some of the best horses in the known universe, in my capacity as a leading jockey of Planet Proton. That’s another world, though. Not one of those animals compares to you in performance. Except that you are not really a horse. You are something else, and maybe you think I insult you, calling you a horse, but it is no insult, it is appreciation. I must judge you by what I know, and I know horses. To me, you are a horse with a horn. Perhaps you are fundamentally different. Perhaps you are superior. You do not sweat, you strike sparks from your hooves, you shoot fire from your nostrils, you play sounds on your horn, you have gaits and tricks no horse ever dreamed of. Perhaps you are a demon in equine form. But I doubt this. I want you because you most resemble a horse, and there is no creature I would rather have with me in a strange land, to share my life for this adventure, than a horse.”

He relaxed his grip further as she relaxed. She was not going to jump, now—he hoped. But he wanted to be sure, so he kept on talking. It could be a mistake to rush things, with a horse.

“Now I thought I could conquer you, Neysa. I thought I could ride you and make you mine, as I have done so many times before with other horses. I see now I was wrong. I rode you, but you are not mine. You will kill yourself before you submit to the taming. I hardly know you, Neysa, but I love you; I would not have you sacrifice yourself to escape me.” Stile felt moisture on his cheeks and knew he was crying again, as he had with Sheen. Few things could move him that way. A woman was one; a horse was another. “No, do not hurt yourself for me! I grieve at the very thought. I will let you go, Neysa! I can not impose respect on you. You are the most perfect steed I could ever hope to associate with, but I will seek another, a lesser animal. For I must be accepted too; it must be mutual. I can not love, and be unloved. Go with my regret, my sorrow, and my blessing. You are free.” And he let her go, slowly, so as not to startle her, and stepped back.

“Yet I wish it had worked out,” he said. “Not merely because I can see how good you would have been for me. Not only because the love of such a creature as you, not lightly given, is more precious than anything else I could seek. Not only because you are another example of what I like to see in myself, in my foolish private vanity: the proof that excellence can indeed come in small packages. No, there is more than that. I believe you need me the same way I need you. You are alone; you may not be aware of it, but you need a companion too, one who respects you for what you are. You are no ordinary mare.”

He saw a scrape on her foreleg. “Oh, Neysa—you were hurt on that run.” He squatted to examine it. Pain lanced through his knees, and he fell over, dangerously near the brink. He clutched at turf and drew himself back to safer ground. “Sorry about that,” he said sheepishly. “I have bad knees .. . never mind.” He got up carefully, using his hands to brace himself, for rising without squatting was awkward. He had never fully appreciated the uses of his knees, until their capability was diminished.

He approached Neysa slowly, still careful not to startle her, then bent from the waist to look at her leg. “I could wash that off for you, but there’s no water here and I think it will heal by itself. It is not serious, and the blood helps clean it. But let me check your feet, Neysa. I do not want to leave you with any injuries of my making, and feet are crucially important. May I lift your left front foot?” He slid his hand down along her leg, avoiding the scrape, then drew on the ankle. “Easy, easy—I just want to look. To see if there are any cracks—cracks in hooves are bad news.” The foot came up, though the unicorn was obviously uncertain what he was doing, and he looked at it from the bottom. It was still fairly warm; wisps of vapor curled from the frog, the central triangle of the hoof. “No, that is a fine clean hoof, a little chipped around the edges, but no cracks. You must get plenty of protein in your diet, Neysal”

He set the foot down. “I should check the others, but I fear you would misunderstand. This is one thing a man can do for his horse. He can check the feet, clear the stones or other obstructions, file them down when they wear unevenly or get badly chipped. The welfare of the steed becomes the responsibility of the man. When food is scarce, the man provides. When there is danger, the man fights to protect the horse. Some animals who prey on horses are wary of men. I might face down a wolf, while you—“ He looked at her horn. “No, you could handle a wolf! You don’t need the likes of me; why should I deceive myself. I could tell you that to be the associate of a man is to be protected by the intelligence of a man, by his farsighted mind. That a man will anticipate danger and avoid it, for both himself and his mount. His brain makes up for his lesser perceptions. He will steer around sharp stones that might crack hooves. But why should this have meaning for you? You have savvy like none I have seen in any horse; you don’t need protection. I delude myself in my desperate need to justify myself, to think that I could in any way be worthy of you.”

A fly buzzed up, landing on Neysa. She shook her skin in that place, as horses did, but the fly refused to budge. Her tail flicked across, but the fly was on her shoulder, out of range. She could get it with her mouth, but then she would have to take her attention off Stile. The fly, with the canny ruthlessness of its kind, settled down to bite.

Stile experienced sudden heat. “Now don’t startle, Neysa,” he said. “I am going to slap that bastard fly, so it can’t bother you. Easy, now . . .” He slapped. The fly dropped. “I hate biting flies,” Stile said. “I have known them hitherto only through research, but they are the enemies of horses. I will not tolerate them on any animal associated with me.” He stepped back, shrugging. “But I am showing my foolishness again. You can handle flies! Good-bye, Neysa. I hope you are happy, and that you graze forever in the greenest pastures.”

Stile turned and walked away from the brink, listening only to make sure the unicorn did not jump. His heart was heavy, but he knew he had done the right thing. The unicorn could not be tamed. What a treasure he was leaving behind!

There was a strange rippling in the grass of the ledge. It had been occurring for some time, but only now was he fully conscious of it. It was as if he were in a pool, and a pebble had dropped in, making a spreading series of circular waves. But there was no water. What was causing this?

Something nuzzled his elbow. Stile jumped, startled; he had not heard anything approach.

It was the unicorn. She had come up behind him silently; he had not known she could do that. She could have run her horn through his back.

He faced her, perplexed, Neysa’s ears were forward, orienting on him. Her muzzle quivered. Her great brown eyes were wet, gleaming like great jewels. She lifted her head and nibbled on his ear, gently, cares-ingly. She made a little whinny, cajoling him.

“Oh, Neysa!” he breathed, lifted by an explosion of joy-he had won her, after all.