There was a noise. Naylor looked, and spied Colene.
“The alien theow bitch!” he exclaimed, amazed. The vulture veered and flew down. “Where is the man?”
“My man isn’t here,” Colene said, but her words were unintelligible to the knave. “It’s just you and me, you misbegotten animal-part!” The last insult was beyond Nona’s power to decipher, but she was sure that had Naylor understood it, he would have been enraged.
The vulture flew near the girl, circling her, trying to sniff out any companion. But there was none. Nona was on the other side, hunched amidst a copse of saplings, hoping the bird did not smell her.
Naylor took a step toward Colene. “No man? You’re a decoy, then! He’s guarding the theow bitch at another site.”
Colene’s bravado became seeming fright. She retreated.
Naylor strode after her. “You can’t escape! You and I have unfinished business.”
The girl turned and fled, running around the curve of the rad. Naylor extended his magic and caused her to float up, her feet moving helplessly, and she still tried to run. He held her there, struggling in the air, while he took his time walking across to her. He was still wary of the possible proximity of her man, with his terrible magic.
Nona had her chance, thanks to Colene’s suicidal bravery. She walked quietly to /R7. It was a miniature of the rads they had been traversing. Its little head pointed up. She counted off from the head, until she found /R8, which was down toward its inwardly curving base. It was about the size of the head of a fancy ornamental pin.
Colene screamed. Nona jumped, and looked to see the knave’s hands on the girl. He was ripping off her odd clothing, exposing her body, and she was unable to move her limbs to resist. Nona had to try to help her.
Stick to your business! The thought came through with surprising clarity. The girl might be screaming, but she knew exactly what she was doing. She was putting on a show for the man, keeping him distracted. There was fear in her thought, but also rage, and determination. She was going to make this scene last as long as she could. Nona could not be concerned with her, right now; she had to get her own business done, in time to save Colene and the world.
But now how was she supposed to find /R9? It was, as Colene had warned, too small to see. Even its extended filament was too small.
But Nona did not have to see it. She was the ninth: she should be able to sense it. She extended her finger to the place it had to be, at the base of the head of the /R8 pin. Then she extended her sensitivity, trying to tune in on it as she would with a familiar.
She felt a tingle. It was there! The key filament!
“Nona!” It was Colene, calling verbally. “He sees you! You’re visible!”
Nona glanced back over her shoulder. Naylor had let go of the naked girl and was starting toward Nona. He was about to use his magic on her. She had concentrated so intensely on the key point that she had let her other magic go—and now she could not use her magic in her defense without losing that delicately tingling connection.
But the knave was reorienting his magic too. Colene dropped to the ground behind him. He could not focus his magic on both Colene and Nona, and he knew that Nona was the more dangerous one. But the girl would not let him go. She bounded up immediately and launched herself at the man from behind. She tackled him, causing him to fall.
Naylor cursed and tried to strike at her with his fist. But Colene caught his hand with one of hers, brought it to her mouth, and bit it. He yelled with the pain, for the moment forgetting about Nona. The girl was truly fighting him, with her suicidal fury, tooth and nail; it was impossible for him to ignore her. Colene so desperately wanted to escape with her man and horse to the Virtual Mode, so as to be free of Nona, that she was absolutely fearless and without restraint.
Nona concentrated on the tingle. She sent her spirit into it, and suddenly she saw the key filament, magnified enormously. It seemed to surround her, its power expanding.
A hand fell heavily on her shoulder. “Get away from there!” Naylor cried.
Nona realized that he must have used his magic to stun Colene, and now was free to stop Nona. She might fight him on an almost even basis if she let go of her contact with the filament. But what would be the point? She would have saved herself at the expense of her destiny.
The hand was trying to pull her away. The fingers dug cruelly into the flesh of her shoulder. But his magic was not fastening on her, to make her lose her volition. Because he was using that to keep Colene suspended in air, still struggling; the girl was far more dangerous to him physically than Nona was, because of her determination and courage.
Nona wrenched her shoulder away and reoriented on the filament. But he grabbed at her again.
“You know your family is gone?” Naylor demanded of her. “We declared them nonproductive, a burden on society, and they disappeared. You are alone.”
Nona was stricken. Her dear mother and father!
“Don’t listen to him!” Colene screamed. “He’s trying to distract you without magic!”
Because he was using his magic to restrain Colene. He was using anything he had—and he might be lying.
Nona threw the rest of her being into the connection with the filament. “Anima, invoke!” she cried with her voice and soul.
She felt herself falling into it. She passed into the /R9 filament, and through the /R9 rad, and the /R8 rad, and on through the series of them, so swiftly that it was no time, yet also nine generations. She expanded to embrace the whole world with her being,
Then she was back in her body, at the seventh rad, and the magic was off her. She stood, throwing off Knave Naylor’s hand. She invoked her magic, and caused him to float helplessly. He had no magic to oppose her.
The anima had come.
But what was she to do with him? She could not let him go; he would only attack someone again. He was a rapist.
Then she knew. The four of them had visited just one of the many occupied chambers inside the world. There were many others, and surely some were more brutal than others. She had a place for him.
Colene lay nearby, naked and bruised from the fight and the fall when Naylor’s magic let her go. Nona went to her and touched her, healing her. The girl sat up. “Did he—?” Nona asked, but already she knew that the man had not gotten that far. How could any man rape a spitfire like that?
“No,” Colene said. “Did you—?”
“Yes. It has changed. No man has magic now.”
“So the women have it?”
“No. But their daughters will. The age of the despots is over.”
“And we can go back on the Virtual Mode,” Colene said.
“Yes. But first you must get dressed.”
Colene looked down at herself, and laughed.
AFTER that it was straightforward. Angus returned to carry them back to Nona’s home village, where the celebration was in progress. The despots were moving out of their castles all across Oria, though they could have defended them. The question was whether it was to be a peaceful transition or a violent one, and the despots preferred to keep it peaceful. That way they would not be slaughtered when the magic came to the daughters and finally overwhelmed them.
Riding for the day on the giant’s hand, they discussed what was to be. “What will be your first act as queen?” Colene inquired.
“Oh, of course I will honor the deal we made with the rabble, and allow four thousand of them to emerge to the surface.”
“Well, that was easy,” Colene said. “What about your second?”
“I will banish Knave Naylor to the nether region reported to have the ugliest and most aggressive women. He will learn about rape!”