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

though they used the same body; their manners differed. His
distraction of the moment had dulled his perception. "Why
were you pursuing us?"

"You can be hard to locate, Adept," Mach said with a
smile. "The other Adepts watch you, of course, but I never
bothered to spy on you. I prefer to search you out at need.
So I assumed a form I knew you would recognize as alien to
Phaze. But then you wanted to make a game of it, so I played
that game. I did not realize that would put Neysa in the way
of the founder spell."

A game! Stile realized that he had been dull; he should
have realized that. Had he just taken the trouble to sing an
identification spell, instead of letting Neysa runЧ

"Dam Neysa, if I may ..." Mach said. Abruptly the
woman straightened, her pain gone, her hands and feet un-
kinking. The Robot Adept had freed her without showing any
sign of magic; no sung spell, no gesture. It was a power Stile
could only envy. Originally Mach had been clumsy with
magic, his attempted spells going awry, but after the Red
Adept had trained him with the Book of Magic he had be-
come the most powerful of all the Adepts, Bane included. He
should have been on Stile's sideЧhad Stile not blundered ca-
lamitously.

Neysa resumed her unicorn form, and Stile mounted. They
moved out of the Lattice. Mach awaited them at the edge.

"I thought we weren't associating," Stile said with a smile
as they emerged. "Aren't you on the other side?"

"Would I be, if we had the past five years to live over?"

"No." Indeed, the major reason for Stile's opposition to
Mach's union with Fleta had been nullified by events. He had
needed an heir who was Adept, and offspring by that heir
who would also be Adept, so as to have the continuing power
to hold off the Adverse Adepts. He had thought that there
could be no offspring of man and unicorn, and that a robot
could not become Adept. Had he known what was to happen,

UNICORN POINT 19

he would have welcomed Mach as a savior, instead of op-
posing him as an interference.

"I gave my word, and Bane gave his," Mach said. "We
would have chosen otherwise, and still our sympathies lie