The man dropped into a bush. He scrambled up and fled, having had enough. Darius felt fear, and knew that Seqiro was assisting the man on his way. Nona was breathing hard, but was all right. They retreated up the road, leaving the village behind.
“We did not handle that smoothly,” Darius remarked, trying to smile.
“At least we learned what we needed to,” Nona said. “This world has nothing for us.”
They rounded a turn in the road, about to cut back into the forest to rejoin the rest of their party. But a black-clad man was riding a horse at a gallop toward them, evidently having been alerted. Probably there had been more than one familiar, and a party had been sent out to intercept the suspicious strangers before the first familiar had been stunned. This was trouble.
“Oh, he’ll have magic matching mine!” Nona exclaimed. “I don’t know what to do!”
“Try a fireball,” Darius suggested, hurrying back to take Seqiro’s lead again.
She tried, but he felt her failure. “I can’t do it, here. It just doesn’t work.”
Darius realized that the Virtual Mode had limits which did not perfectly match those of any one of its component anchor Modes. So Nona was actually a better magician there than in her home Mode, while being restricted on other Modes, just as he was. Some day he would like to know exactly what the rules were. They surely had a sensible pattern, if only he could fathom it.
But right now they had a pressing problem, and he had no better idea what to do than Nona did. Colene liked to type him as a leader, but he really wasn’t; she was the leader. When things got difficult, sometimes he figured out a good course, and sometimes he just blundered through. Colene thought of him as the King of Laughter, as if he had executive power and was happy, but his power was more like that of a public servant, and happiness was not really its essence. Distributing joy had its down side. He really was no adventurer by choice.
Meanwhile the black-cloaked horseman was charging toward them, and now he heard another set of hoofbeats from the village: another despot. They were trapped.
Oh, for pity’s sake! Colene’s thought came. Let me handle it.
Darius was glad to agree, and so was Nona. Both of them let Seqiro bring Colene’s mind into theirs, so that she could for the moment act for them.
The first despot arrived, his horse coming to a halt with a spray of pebbles from the road. He was a saturnine man with a scar on his forehead. “Who are you, theows?” he demanded roughly.
“We don’t have to answer to you,” Darius said for Colene. It was an odd experience, letting his mouth speak her words. “We are on a mission for my master, who brooks no interference.”
The despot scowled. Suddenly Darius was lifted into the air, magically. “Identify your master, or he will lose you.”
Then the despot rose into the air. His jaw dropped; he was not doing it himself. Colene had made Nona do it. “Does your master care to lose you too, scarface?” his mouth inquired belligerently.
Both men dropped abruptly, as the despot oriented his power on himself to counter the outside force. That meant that Darius was free. He reached for his club, but was abruptly frozen in place. He was able to move only his eyes, and maintain his balance so he wouldn’t fall.
“What goes?” the other despot called, arriving on his horse. He must be the one now controlling Darius.
“These theows have magic,” the first replied. “I think we have a foreign despot here in disguise. His tongue is too insolent to belong to a theow.”
“Then he’s not protected by the covenant,” the second said. “We don’t have to treat him fairly unless he identifies himself. He forfeits his rights.”
Colene had only gotten them into deeper trouble! Darius knew that Nona could not hope to prevail against two despots. Darius himself could do nothing; he remained frozen by the despot’s magic.
“Then let’s take his things,” the first despot said. “I’ll take that excellent horse.” He grabbed Seqiro’s halter.
“And I’ll take this excellent woman,” the second despot said. He grabbed for Nona, who screamed and sailed up into the air herself.
“That’s not this man’s doing,” the second despot said, astonished. “I have him covered. That has to be the woman herself! We have an amazon here!”
“These strangers must be from another world,” the first despot agreed. “This is several times as remarkable as we thought.”
“Well, she’s one lovely creature, and I want her,” the second despot said. “You hold her while I rape her.”
“I’ll take over the man,” the first despot said. “You hold her yourself.”
Darius felt a subtle change, and knew that the magic freezing him in place was now wielded by a different despot. Meanwhile Nona screamed again, discovering her magic canceled by that of the second despot. That man now grabbed her ankle and hauled her down physically.
Then a burst of terrible fear smote them all. Seqiro had sent out the strongest possible emotion. Both despots fell back, mistaking the fear for their own, not understanding it. Nona, released for the moment, descended slowly back to the horse. Darius, similarly released, quickly brought out his three icons, activated them, put one arm against Nona’s leg and Seqiro’s side, and moved the icons from Here to There.
But as he did so, both despots grabbed for Darius and Nona. The wrenching came, and the three were back in the forest glade—and so were the two black-clad men.
“Oh, no!” Colene cried. “The despots came too! And Angus is off in the sky.”
The freeze clamped on again. Darius couldn’t act, even to move the icons. He saw that Nona was fighting off the second despot again, his magic canceling hers, making the combat physical. Darius knew that the scene had changed but not the situation: the two despots had too much magic.
Then the first despot grunted and fell. Darius was freed. He saw Burgess moving his trunk to cover the other despot. A stone flew out, striking the second despot on the head. Burgess was taking both men out!
“Okay, conjure us all out of here, Darius,” Colene said. “We want to lose these despots before they wake up.”
“No, better to conjure the despots out,” Darius said.
“Say, yeah! Do it.”
He brought out two blank human icons. He took a hair from the head of each despot and stuck it onto an icon. He touched each icon to the mouth of each despot, to get saliva, and in the process picked up some breath too. Then he activated the icons, and designated Here and There. He moved the two icons, and the two despots disappeared.
“Great!” Colene said. “Where’d you send them?”
“Back to their castle,” he said, indicating the castle, whose topmost turret was just visible through foliage.
“But you haven’t been there, so you don’t have it perfectly zeroed in.”
“Correct; they may arrive imperfectly zeroed in. Such as in the moat. It may be uncomfortable.”
She laughed. “That’s right! We don’t care if they get bruised in transit. They sure won’t mess with us again.”
Darius nodded. “However, this has been a chancy endeavor. If Burgess hadn’t taken those despots out, we could have been in real trouble.”
“Such as some of us getting raped or killed,” Colene agreed. “And never making it back to Oria or the anchor. Yeah, when I saw what happened, I told Burgess to let ‘em have it in the heads. They never expected that kind of attack. We’re going to have to plan the next planet for less bungling. We sort of did this one by the seat of our pants, and that’s no good against despots with magic.”
“At least it reminds us how bad the despots of Oria were,” Nona said. “I thought that chaos was worse than rule by the despots, but now I think it isn’t.”