The Virtual Mode. One of the humans could explain it to you more effectively than I can, because they have the minds for it.
“But you have a good mind!” she protested. No. I borrow from the mind of the human being I am with. That is why it was necessary for me to achieve rapport with you before getting out of range of Colene’s mind. I did not want to revert to animal intelligence, and be at the mercy of the despots, to whose minds I have not attuned. Now I am borrowing from yours, and you lack the concept of the Virtual Mode, so it is hard for me to explain it. But I can tell you my experience, from memory. I stepped through the anchor with Colene, and we crossed into a new reality every few steps. The worlds changed around us, until they were like nothing we had known. We walked where a sea had been, but no water remained. Until we came to a reality where an Emperor made us captive. Then we escaped from him by freeing his anchor, and came to you, because you are the new anchor person.
“That I don’t understand at all! I am not an anchor! I am a person.”
This too is not easy for me to explain. Darius and Colene understand it, but we are not with them now. They say that it requires five points to fix four dimensions, and so our Virtual Mode has five realities and five people. You are the person who makes it possible for us to enter your reality. You can enter the Virtual Mode with us, but no other person here can unless you touch that person constantly. Except that something is wrong, and we can not use the anchor to return, because of the animus.
“Now, that I understand!” she said. “The animus gives men the power of real magic, leaving women only the power of illusion, which everyone has. But if I can find out how to reverse it, and establish the anima, then women will have the magic and men will be subservient. The despots will fall, and Oria will be the wonderful world it once was.”
Would that affect the anchor?
“I don’t know. But it would change the nature of our society, so maybe it would. If the anima came, I would be the queen of Oria, and I would do anything I could to help you.”
Provos believes that it does have something to do with the animus.
“Provos, the old woman? I hardly know her, or any of you, yet, and would like to.”
She remembers what is yet to happen, but nothing of what has happened. She remembered that we were not harmed by the despots, so we went there. But she does not communicate much, and Darius believes that if we listen to her too much, what she remembers will change. In his presence I understand this.
Nona considered. “Does she remember my association with you? I mean, beyond now?”
Yes. It has passed through her thoughts. We travel far, and you are with us. Finally some of us pass back through the anchor. I do not know why we all do not go, and Provos does not remember what those ones do away from the others, but they do return.
“Does she remember whether the anima comes?”
She does not seem to. But that may be because no one has asked her.
“Could it be that some of you travel because the others are captive?”
It could be. I am not apt at conjecturing.
“Well, maybe you will help me to bring the anima, because then you will be able to return to your Virtual Mode. Then I will be queen of Oria, and I’ll have to marry and bear children who have great magic. I dread that.”
Why would you be queen? I understood from the thoughts of my friends that this office was inherited.
“It is. Under the animus the firstborn son of the king becomes king after him. Women do not rule, as none of them have magic stronger than illusion, and theow men have similar weakness. It is the power of magic which governs, and it follows the firstborn. But under the anima the magic flows the other way, through the women, and the lastborn. So the last-born woman of the lastborn woman has the greatest magic, and must therefore rule. But to bring the anima, there must be a special pattern of births leading to a woman who matches the magical nature of our world. That woman is me. Because the world is now governed by the animus, I am the only woman with significant magic; I am the channel. But with the anima, all other women after me would have magic, according to their lineage, and all men would be reduced to illusion. Everything would change.”
As a horse, I am indifferent to rank and power of the human type. But most humans seem to desire it. Why do you dread it?
“Because it’s just another kind of captivity. I would have to marry, and have babies, and though with the anima these would add to my power rather than deplete it, I would not be free. I want to explore, to see new things, to act without regard to responsibility. I don’t want to exchange one form of oppression for another.”
This is the way Colene feels. But she also desires love.
Nona considered. “I don’t desire love, for that, too, is captivity. Yet I may not be able to avoid it. When I get close to Stave, and pretend to be loving him, so that the despots won’t know what I’m really doing, the pretense wears thin and I begin really feeling it. He feels the same for me, I know. It is a trap, but an alluring one. I don’t know what to do about that.”
Colene also has mixed feelings about Darius. She wants to marry him, but perhaps can not, because he must marry a woman with much joy, and drain that joy from her. She has no joy to spare; she has depression instead. So she must be his mistress only, and let him marry another, and she doesn’t like that. He has interest in other women, and she is jealous of them. She wants to breed with him, even though she is afraid of it, so that he won’t do it with someone else. He says she is young, and she doesn’t like that either.
“How old is she?”
Fourteen years.
“In my culture, that is too young for that kind of activity.”
In hers too. But in his culture it is all right, if both people have desire and understanding.
“But then he can—”
He honors the convention of her culture, because she is of it.
“He must be a good man.”
Yes. I believe he is correct. But Colene is my girl. I must go with her, however she feels, and help her in what way I can, even when she goes wrong.
“Yes, of course.” Nona wished she had a companion like that, because her own situation was precarious.
You are not excluded, Seqiro thought. I like you too. While we are here, I will help you, as you are helping me. I would be lost without a sympathetic human mind.
That was a wonderful relief, for the big horse had magic like none other known on Oria. “Thank you, Seqiro.” She leaned forward and hugged him as well as she could. She began to believe that she had a chance to accomplish her destiny.
There was a pause in their communication. Then the horse thought again: The despot is gone. He is beyond my range. It is safe to emerge.
“But is it?” she asked. “The despots have much stronger powers of illusion than the theows do, and can make pictures of scenes this far from the castle. They may be waiting for us to come out of the water so they can spot us.”
How do they do this? I saw the illusion pictures they made, but did not understand how that was done.
“They use their creatures,” she explained. “They see through the eyes of animals who serve them, and craft illusion pictures from those images, which they project for anyone to see. This is beyond the powers of theows, but ranking despot women can do it, and all despot men.”