Still, there was a lot of earth to move, and none of the three women were in physical condition to maintain such effort. In the end it was mostly Darius and Seqiro, both sweating profusely as they labored. By the close of day, the job was done. The formerly mounded and pitted terrain had been rendered into a level field.
The little folk were delighted. “We did not think you would do all of it!” their spokesman exclaimed. “We must reward you, O giants of another world.”
Colene tried to demur, knowing that there was nothing the local folk could do to repay such heroic effort. “It is merely our thanks for your hospitality,” she said.
“We still have the rest of the planet to traverse,” Darius reminded her. “We can’t walk it all; we’ll need to conjure ourselves there. If they can show us good locations to land—”
“However,” Colene continued smoothly, “we could use the favor of some information. We are afraid we will accidentally step on some of your people as we travel the length of the planet, so we prefer to conjure ourselves there. But we need to have a series of clear landing sites, lest we do harm arriving blindly. If you could provide information—”
“In the morning!” the spokesman agreed eagerly. “We are amazed that you possess such exotic magic.” That reminded Colene that Darius’ ability to conjure living folk was unknown in this universe; she would be more careful what she said about it henceforth.
Meanwhile, the natives put on a show for the entertainment of their giant guests. Their material magic remained weak, for their new generation of women were still girls, but their illusion was strong. They generated huge pictures (for them) against the backdrop of night, making images of their dancing—and it was truly evocative dancing. It was a costumed re-enactment of their overthrow of the despots across the world, after the animus had changed. It showed the despots, deprived of their magic, bowing down, and the theows assuming the mantle of dominion. The women performed a symbolic finale that suggested the magic their daughters would have, but was incidentally quite sexy. Especially when they threw off their red tunics and danced naked. She could feel Darius’ appreciation. He did not regard the illusion pictures as real, so felt free to watch them intently. She would remember that; would he watch her dance naked if he thought she was an illusion image?
So they slept again. Colene was getting to like this little planet. It was remarkably similar to Oria, except for size; it would not have been possible to tell that its size differed had the five of them not been there for contrast. The proportions of the people were the same, and when they jumped, they took the same amount of time to land. There simply was no change because of the scale. This was just not a science reality.
In the morning the little folk had the information. There was a suitable site beside the lake that separated the main head from the body, forty miles away, and another near the East Sea. They could do it in two hops, if they wished, or one.
“These are longer jumps than we did before, on Oria,” Darius said. “The filament isn’t the same. Better to try the forty, then the hundred.”
They set up for it. It was clear that the little folk meant well; their minds were quite open to Seqiro. The site was described as completely accessible, and Provos remembered no difficulty here. So Darius conjured Seqiro there first, then used his linkage with the horse’s mind to conjure the others in turn to the vicinity. Colene was the first to follow Seqiro; then came Nona, Provos, and Darius himself.
Now they stood at the edge of the much larger lake separating the head from the body. It was quite similar to the one they had left, in all respects apart from size. That was the nature of this fractal universe: everything was self-similar.
They made a similar series of conjurations to the East Sea. This was just like the one they had left on Oria, only much smaller. But they decided to rest one more day before making the final conjuration to Jupiter.
RESTED, they used a new weighted diving bell to march down under the water. This time the journey was brief, and soon they stood astride the East Filament.
They joined together, in bodies and minds, and sailed up along the filament. This time Colene saw even more: how they zoomed along at lightspeed (or magic-speed), down into the juncture of three rays, and indeed it seemed like another dimension, for she felt as if they were accelerating toward infinite velocity while traveling a path extending toward infinity. Then suddenly the infinities met and canceled, and they were zooming out of the well and toward Jupiter, which now loomed awesomely huge.
They landed on the smallest feasible head of the head of one of the major projections on the side of Jupiter. The connected heads became much larger than Oria, and Jupiter itself was almost unimaginable.
Now there was no concern about stepping on the natives. Rather, they would have to be concerned about being stepped on by the natives. The tiniest head might be small, but Jupiter was large, so the natives would be Jupiter-scale. This was certainly the home of the fabled Megaplayers; the size was right.
But first they had to rest, for Darius and Nona were exhausted by their joint effort of travel. Colene decided to make herself useful by harvesting a berry or grain of wheat and making a nonmagical meal for them. However, she needed water, and wood for a fire. So she and Seqiro got busy.
Provos joined her without being asked. They had camped at the edge of a forest of what appeared to be literally mile-high trees; there was plenty of wood in the form of fallen twigs, which were full-sized logs to them.
There was a lake nearby. Colene headed for it, but Provos held her back. “There is a bad memory,” she explained.
So they took another path. Colene looked to the side, to see what might be on the one she would have taken.
She saw an ant. It was a foot long. Suddenly she realized that their most immediate danger was not the Megaplayers.
CHAPTER 6—ANGUS
DARIUS nodded, watching. He was tired, but he still did not care to let Colene go into a strange world alone. An ant, twenty times the size of what he had known. That would be the least of it. What about the birds and snakes?
“Seqiro, can you stun animals?” he inquired, not raising his voice. He had found that it was not the sound, but the thought that counted; the speech tended to focus the thought suitably. The horse was with Colene, but well within mental range. Darius wanted their dialogue to be private, and the horse could pick that up too, and would honor it.
I can, if their minds are not closed. Human minds tend to be guarded, even in realities where telepathy is not known, but animal minds tend to be open. I have been fortunate in my ability to attune to the minds of the smaller folk, perhaps because some of these are animar like Nona.
“Then you may be our main protection against monsters, as well as our main means of communication with the human giants here.”
I will do what I can.
He turned to Nona. The young woman was spread out on her magically made pillow-mattress, attractive though she wasn’t trying to be. “Can you conjure weapons?” Again, Seqiro could pick up both the thought and the person for whom it was intended. Also, which thought was to be relayed, and which was not. Darius was really coming to appreciate the horse’s ability.