"Anthony, Piers - Adept - 06 - Unicorn Point" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

After a while Stile paused in his playing. "I remember
when you protested my power, old friend," he said.

She played a laughing bit of melody. She had forgiven him
his power a quarter century before, at the time he made his
Oath of Friendship to her. From that time on, all the unicorns
of her Herd, and all the werewolves of Kurrelgyre's Pack,
had been her friends too, charmed by the peripheral power
of that Oath. There had been no war between Herd and Pack,
despite significant changes in their compositions as members
grew and bred and migrated, and the Oath had become a
minor legend. It had been the proof of his status as the Blue
Adept, for only Adept magic could affect unicorns against
their will.

"Aye, I remember well," he continued, experiencing the
nostalgia of old times. "I was an injured jockey from the
frame of Proton, discovering the strange new world of Phaze.
I decided I needed a steed, and you were there, you beautiful
animal, the finest of your kind I had seen, and small like me.
I loved you that moment, but you did not love me."

Neysa played a note of agreement. Her horn was musical,
but she could talk with it in her fashion, and he understood
her well. All the advanced animals of Phaze could commu-
nicate well in other than the human mode, though not as well
as they could by using it, because the conventions of notes

UNICORN POINT | 3

or growls or high sonics were less versatile than the com-
pletely developed human languages.

"So then did I challenge thee, and mount thee and ride
thee, and thou didst try to throw me off, and we careered all
over Phaze!" he continued, playfully switching back to Phaze
dialect. "I think I kept my place chiefly by luckЧ" Here she
snorted derisively. "But then thou didst get set to leap from
the high point, and I thought we both would die, and I let
thee goЧand won thee after all." And she agreed.

"Then there came to me a woman, young and fair and
small, and lo! it was thee in human guise, and I learned what
it meant to befriend a unicom," he continued. "And now
we be old, and I have my son Bane and thou thy filly Fleta,
and they both be grown and have offspring in their fashion.
Were we wrong to oppose their unions? How much mischief
might we have avoided, had we accepted their pleas!"

Neysa did not comment. She, with her unicom stubborn-