“The same thing Marrella is,” Nona said.
Colene nodded. “So several of those early lines carried through, instead of just one. Of course they really aren’t the same as the Cambrian creatures, any more than we’re the same as the first chordate. But we can see the family affinities. I’ll just bet we don’t want to meet up with a modern Anomaly the size of a horse. No offense, Seqiro.”
“We don’t want to swim here, certainly,” Darius said. “But if we try to go around the lake, we’ll have to cross a section of the plain. Perhaps if we wait until night—”
“We’ll have to rest and sleep before then,” Colene said. “Seqiro can’t go forever on alert. He feels more crabs lurking already.”
“Suppose we build a raft?” Nona asked. “If we make it solid enough, it should be proof against attack from the water. Perhaps, also, Seqiro will be able to send fear to the water predator.”
“Worth a try,” Colene agreed. “I’m tired, and I guess everyone else is too, but maybe we can drag stuff out from the forest and lash together a raft.”
Darius lifted a hand in a no-way gesture. “A raft sufficient to support a horse? That’s an all-day project at least. Ask Seqiro how he’d like to stand on vine-lashed logs, too. What’s good enough footing for a human being may not do at all for hooves.”
Colene didn’t need to; the horse was already sending a strong disaster signal. “But then what can we make?” Colene asked. “There must be something. Something simple, easy, fast, and strong. I hope.” But her accompanying mood was depressive; she knew there was nothing like that available.
There was a stirring in the forest behind them. There was the crab again. “Okay, all together, now,” Colene said. “On three. One—two—THREE!”
Darius and Nona joined her in the shout, while Burgess fired a stone at the crab. The jolt of fear was weaker this time; Nona realized that Seqiro had not been exaggerating about the exhaustion of his mental resource. He had to get some rest.
The crab retreated again, but not as far as before.
“If only my magic worked, I could make a boat,” Nona said. “Just by transforming material.”
Colene pounced on that. “Some of your magic works, Nona! You made a familiar. So maybe some of your other magic works, too. Did you try all of it?”
“Yes. I tried levitation, telekinesis, transformation, shape-changing, and illusion. The illusion was just a bit of fog, with no control. I haven’t tried healing, because nobody’s been hurt, but—”
Colene held up her left arm. There were scars on her wrist. “See if you can heal my scars.”
That was a good way to test it, because Nona’s magic did work on scars too. She took the girl’s arm in her hands and concentrated. She knew right away that it wasn’t working, but she kept trying, just in case.
Colene glanced at her wrist. “No good, huh? Too bad. And that’s all your magic?”
“No it’s not,” Darius said. “You can change the size of things, too. Remember how you expanded the size of that dulcimer?”
“Why so I did!” Nona agreed, remembering. “That’s so recent, I had forgotten.” She paused, realizing how odd that sounded. “I mean, it’s magic I didn’t know I had, and so I tend still to think I don’t. Let me try.”
She picked up a twig of wood and concentrated. In a moment it expanded. It was working! She continued to focus on it, to be sure that there was no limit to this aspect of her magic, and it became so large she had to set it down. With the magic, its mass increased in proportion to its size. Still it grew, until it was a log, and then a large log, and then a veritable fallen tree trunk.
“You know something,” Colene said. “That could make a barrier to hold back Crabface, there.”
“But there’s plenty of wood here anyway,” Nona said, giving up. The trunk did not shrink; it remained as she had left it.
“Yes, but your talent should work on other things too,” Darius said. “Such as a model boat.”
Of course! She had overlooked the obvious. Darius was already carving on another piece of wood. He hollowed it out, then flattened the bottom, and thinned the sides. Soon he had a tiny flat-bottomed model boat. “Is this seaworthy?” he inquired.
Colene laughed. “Better carve a keel on it. And make oars or paddles, so we can move it across the water. I don’t think we’re experienced enough to handle a sail. But maybe we should have a net, too, so we can dip for fish.”
Darius made the keel adjustment, then carved several tiny paddles and poles. He set them in the boat.
Nona dug out her handkerchief. “This will make a net, when expanded.” She cut out a tiny swatch of the material, and set it in the boat with the other artifacts.
Then she took the model and set it at the edge of the water. She concentrated on expanding it, and it started to grow. Soon it was large enough for one person to get into, so she shoved it further into the water. When it was full size, it might be too heavy for them to move, and she didn’t want to have to shrink it again so they could launch it. How fortunate that this one other aspect of her magic worked, here.
But she did wonder about that. In the Julia Mode there was a current of power on which the magic drew, because no person could provide the enormous energy needed to do something like this. Was there a similar power current here in Shale, though the creatures here did not seem to have magic of their own? If so, why was it available for only two of her several types of magic? That seemed to suggest that there was some other factor operating.
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Colene said, responding to that thought. Then, again: “No offense, Seqiro,” She seemed to like teasing the horse, and the horse liked her teasing; Nona could feel the currents of good feeling passing between them. Seqiro shared his mind with everyone, but Colene was his truest friend.
“There are sources of power in my reality, too,” Darius said. “And some of my magic worked in Julia, and some did not. The same was true in the DoOon Mode. There must be natural power flowing through these realities, or perhaps some trace coming through the anchors, so that parts of our magic are operative. If we understood more about the Virtual Mode, we might be able to predict how our abilities would be affected.”
“Yes, Seqiro’s telepathy seems to work everywhere,” Colene said. “But it was diminished in Julia. Meanwhile I started to get a little bit of telepathy, maybe, in DoOon, and more in Julia, so maybe a Mode can enable a person to have power or magic she doesn’t have at home. Maybe the magic current in Julia is polarized, so it works only one way or the other, while in the other Modes it’s natural, so it’s not as strong for Nona but more general.” She looked at the boat, which was now huge. “Anyway, I’m glad Nona hung on to that type of magic, because it sure makes it easier to cross this lake.”
The crab was approaching again. “Look out, Seqiro!” Nona cried, for the horse was closest to the crab and facing away.
“Say,” Colene said. “You’re mentally tired, Seqiro, but not physically tired, right? Suppose you kick the crab in the snoot?”
Tell me when, the horse replied.
They watched as the crab came up behind Seqiro, lifting its huge claw to clamp on the horse’s rear. The claw seemed almost as big as the horse, but this was deceptive, because it was narrow in cross section.
“Now!” Colene cried/thought.
Seqiro kicked hard with both hind feet. One hoof struck the side of the claw, knocking it away and perhaps cracking it. The crab scuttled back again.
“All right!” Colene exclaimed happily. ”That’ll give it something to think about for a while.”