Free Unicorn Point by Piers Anthony Page A

he feared he would get in trouble if he changed his mind now.
    In this batform he could hear very well, but mainly in the range he needed for echo location. He could see, but not as well as he could in boy form. He could smell satisfactorily, and now he used this sense to do what he needed to do. If he had figured this correctly, there should be—yes, there was one: the smell of a wolf trail.
    He landed in a tree near the trail. This was not the one the three outgoing cubs had used. This one came from farther north, and the smell of it was stale. It should do.   He settled down to wait. He was tired from his brief flight, for his bat wing muscles were not well developed. He might have a long wait.
    He did. He slept, then foraged nearby for berries. Vampire bats in Phaze did not eat a lot of blood; that was for special occasions. Fruits and insects did nicely for the most part, and in the human form they ate what human folk did. Indeed, they were completely human in that guise, which was one reason he had thought to hide among them. However, they were not the only half-human species.
    He hung upside down from a shrouded branch and slept again. Night came, and he wanted to forage, for bats were more comfortable in the dark, but he didn’t dare; he had to be by this path when the wolves came.
    Where was Granddam Neysa now? Surely most of the way to her brother’s herd. She would probably turn the golem over to another unicorn while she grazed—no, she surely would know by now that it was a golem, so would not pause there, lest others discover that. She would dally only briefly, then move on, not really resting or eating until she reached the Blue Demesnes. Flach felt homesick, missing her company, and that of Stile and the Lady Blue. He missed his dam Fleta too, and was painfully sorry he had had to deceive her; he knew she would be distraught by his disappearance, when she learned of it. She would be horrified that he had gone alone into the wilderness, and she would fear he was dead.   If he changed to human form, he knew he would cry. But he did not, because the magic of such a change could be noted, and that could give him away. He had to wait until it was time, and then change only when it could be covered by another creature’s magic.
    All next day he waited, and all next night. The loneliness was almost overwhelming. He thought of Nepe, and won dered whether she had escaped. He thought she must have, because there had been no further communion between Mach and Bane. Of course, Mach might be trying to reach Bane, and Bane wouldn’t know unless he came to their rendezvous, so maybe it didn’t prove anything. The two had to overlap, physically, each standing in the same geographic spot of their frames; that was why they always exchanged at the same place, near the Red Demesnes. Flach and Nepe could contact each other from anywhere; he wasn’t sure why they were different from their fathers, or why no one else could do it, but he thought it had to do with their mixed ancestry.   He kept reminding himself that his isolation was a good sign, because it meant that no one had discovered his disap pearance, or if they had, they had no idea where to find him.   The critical period, as Grandpa Stile had impressed on him, was the first week. That was when his absence would be discovered, and when the search would be most intense. Af ter that the risk would diminish, though he could never afford to get careless.
    Late in the afternoon of the second day, he jolted awake.
    They were coming! Down the trail from the northwest: wolves!
    This was his next critical step. He could lose it all here. If anything went wrong—
    The first wolf pup came into view. Flach let go of the branch, dropped, spread his wings, and looped back up. He hovered before the nose of the pup, who abruptly halted, surprised.
    Two other pups came up, and then the bitch who was guiding and guarding them. They stared at the erratically behaving bat. The