Free Out of Phaze by Piers Anthony Page B

branches littered the ground between the trees.
    “An thou dost try to bop a dragon on the snout with a mere stone, thy hand and half thy arm will pay the forfeit,” she pointed out.
    “Unless I threw the stone.”
    “Then thou wouldst not have thy weapon anymore.”
    “Urn. Maybe an axe, then.” He walked back to the slope, peering at the offerings. He found several nicely fragmented stones with sharp edges. When he found one of suitable shape, he kept it and started his search for a handle. “Are there any vines around here?”
    “Vines? Thou meanest to tie up the dragon?”
    He laughed. “No. To tie on my axehead.” He found a stout stick of suitable size.
    She wended her way among the trees, and soon found a vine. She tugged at it, but it would not come free from the tree. He joined her, setting his hands above hers and hauling down hard, but only succeeded in hauling himself up. He lost his balance and fell into her. She let go, and they both tumbled to the ground.
    “Clumsy oaf!” Fleta exclaimed, trying to extricate herself from his involuntary grasp. “Willst tear my cloak!”
    “Sorry.” He helped her get free, somewhat diffidently, because she kept reminding him of a Citizen. Nevertheless, the brief contact reminded him forcefully how nicely endowed she was, in the feminine sense. His breakup with Doris in Proton still stung; it would be nice to—
    But of course he knew almost nothing about this pretty young woman. She seemed to know a lot about him, or about Bane, so lacked that disadvantage. She had come to join him in the crater, apparently intentionally, because she took him for her old friend. Yet there were ways in which that association seemed other than ordinary friendship. She had kissed him, and gone naked for him though it was not her normal state. Yet again, she had not signaled any actual sexual involvement between them. It was almost as if she were his sister, or perhaps half-sister, close enough to have no secrets or shame, yet distant enough to be aware of him as a male. Of Bane; this intimacy obviously did not extend to Mach. Mach found himself jealous of that intimacy, of whatever nature.
    Meanwhile they had a challenge in this vine. It was good that it was tough; he needed strength. But how could he get a suitable length of it for his purpose?
    Aha! He brought over his axehead stone. He held the vine firm with one hand, and sawed with the sharp edge of the stone. In a moment the vine parted. He had his cord.
    He used the stone to split the end of the stick, then wedged the stone into that cleft, so that the sharp edge was at the side. He wound the vine around and around this joining, drawing it tight. He pulled the tag-end into the crevice below the stone, so that it was caught firmly. Fleta surveyed the result dubiously.
    “That be an axe?”
    “A crude one. It will have to do.”
    “It will take more than that to stop a dragon.”
    “Then I will use it to make more than that.” Mach took his axe and chopped at a sapling. The head started to work out of its cleft, and the cord tried to unravel; he had to rework both more carefully. But he managed to fashion a pole about two and a half meters long. “A staff,” he announced.
    “A dragon would chomp it off,” Fleta said. But she seemed halfway impressed.
    Mach checked the ground again, picking up a number of smaller stones. “And what be these for?” Fleta inquired.
    “For distance operations. I’ll throw them to keep monster away.”
    “Canst throw well?”
    “In my own body I have perfect aim; it comes from long experience in the Game,” he said.
    There was a swirl in the air, and vapor formed. Bud in a moment it dissipated. “What was that?” Fleta asked alarmed.
    “It resembled the effects when I tried to do magic,” he said. “But I wasn’t—“
    “Thou didst speak in rhyme!” she exclaimed.
    “. . . aim,. . . Game,” he agreed, remembering. “But I had no magic in mind; it was an accident.”
    “If