Free Blue Adept by Piers Anthony

qualifying Game, remember? What did you do on your last trip there?”
    “The werewolves and the unicorns helped me to establish my identity as the Blue Adept,” Stile said, grossly simplifying the matter. “I do magic now. But I have to fight the unicorn Herd Stallion to preserve Neysa from breeding for a season.”
    “I like Neysa,” Sheen said. “But doesn’t she get jealous of the Lady Blue?”
    “No, they are oath-friends now. Neysa knows my destiny lies with my own kind.”
    “With the Lady Blue,” Sheen said.
    Stile realized he had carelessly hurt Sheen. “She is not of this world, as you pointed out.”
    “That’s what you think. It’s a different world, but she’s here too. She can’t cross the curtain, can she? So she must have a double on this side.”
    Stile suffered a shock of amazement. “That’s right!   There must be another self of her living here. My ideal woman, all the time right here in Proton.” Then he caught himself. “An ideal—“
    “Oh, never mind,” Sheen said. “We both know I’m not your kind, however much I might wish to be.”
    “But why did you tell me—“
    “Neysa helped you reach the Lady, didn’t she? Can I do less?”
    There was that. Sheen identified with Neysa, and tried to emulate her reactions. “Actually, I can’t afford to go looking for her now—and what would I do if I found her?”
    “I’m sure you’d think of something,” Sheen said wryly.   “Men usually do.”
    Stile smiled. “Contrary to appearances, there is more than one concern on this male mind. I am fated to love the Lady Blue, though she may not be fated to love me—but how can I love two of her? I really have no business with her Proton-alternate.”
    “You don’t want to see her?”
    “I don’t dare see her.”
    “My friends can readily locate her for you.”
    “Forget it. It would only complicate my life, and it is already somewhat too complicated for equanimity. How long can I continue functioning in two frames? I feel a bit like a bigamist already, and I’m not even married.”
    “You really ought to settle this.”
    He turned on her. “Why are you doing this?” But he knew why. He had hurt her, and she was expiating the hurt by exploring it to the limit. There was a certain logic in this; there was always logic in what Sheen did. They both knew he could never truly love Sheen or marry her, any more than he could have loved or married Neysa. Sheen would always love him, but could never be more to him than a temporary mistress and guardian.   “You’re right,” she said, her pursuit abated by his pointed question. “It is best forgotten. I shall store it in the appropriate memory bank.”
    “You don’t forget something by remembering it!”
    “We have a Tourney to win,” she reminded him, aptly changing the subject in the manner of her sex.  
    “You understand,” he cautioned her. “I can not reasonably expect to win the Tourney. I’m not at my peak Game capacity, and in a large-scale double-elimination competition like this I can get lost in the crush.”
    “And if you lose early, your tenure as a Proton serf ends, and you’ll have to stay in Phaze, and I’ll never see you again,” Sheen said. “You have reason to try. We need to find out who has been trying to kill you here, and you can only pursue an effective investigation if you become a Citizen.”
    “There is that,” he agreed. He thought of the anonymous Citizen who had had his knees lasered and gotten him washed out as a jockey. The series of events that action had precipitated had paradoxically enriched his life immeasurably, introducing him to the entire frame of Phaze—yet still an abiding anger smouldered. He had a score to settle with someone—and Sheen was right, it was an incentive to win the Tourney if he possibly could. For the winner would be granted the ultimate prize of Proton:
    Citizenship. Runners-up would receive extensions of their tenure and the chance to compete again