Colene laughed so hard she nearly rolled off the hand. “The punishment sure fits the crime!” Then she sobered. “And what about the third?”
Nona considered. “Then I suppose I will have to choose a man to marry. It is expected; there have to be offspring.”
“That’s easy! You’ve got Stave.”
“I suppose I do,” Nona agreed. “I do owe him that. He is certainly a worthy man.” It should not be any worse with him than with any other, she thought, considering that she didn’t want to marry at all.
What did she want? She wanted an impossible dream. She wanted to go with the bold girl and the magic man and the magic horse, and explore the other universes. To be free, unbound, without obligation to strangers. But she couldn’t say that.
“So I guess you wouldn’t even want to do anything crazy, like bugging out on it all. Like going on the Virtual Mode, where you wouldn’t be queen, and maybe wouldn’t even have any magic, and might get wiped out at any time.”
The girl’s words were in her own idiom, but her meaning was clear, thanks to Seqiro’s translation. It was indeed her foolish desire. But Nona knew the girl did not want her along, for excellent reason. So she would not ask. She averted her face, trying to stifle the tears.
“Damn it, woman!” Colene exclaimed. “Not only are you prettier than me, and have way more magic than I ever will, and you can play music the way I never could, you’re way nicer too! You’re everything I wish I was!”
“No, you have such courage and generosity,” Nona protested. “You went back to your world to get the information I needed, and you risked your life to fight a despot to give me time. I owe you so much, and I would trade places with you, were it possible. You are the kind of decisive person I will never be. You deserve to be queen, as I do not.” In fact Colene might even like it, as Nona did not. “Perhaps I could teach you some of my music, before you go. I have taught music to a number of students. Seqiro makes it easy to tame familiars, and perhaps he can help similarly with music. In just a few hours, perhaps—”
“You’re the very last woman I want near my man or my horse! You could take them both from me, just like that.”
“I am sorry,” Nona said. “But when you go, you can close down that anchor, and—”
“We do need to close down an anchor,” Colene said. “Because Provos and I found a bad mental monster near Darius’ anchor, and it may be lurking there again, so we won’t get through. If We take out an anchor, the realities will spin until we latch onto a new one, and then the Virtual Mode will stabilize again, and it’ll be all new paths, but we should be able to get through. We hope.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“But it doesn’t have to be your anchor. Provos is going home; she’s through with the Virtual Mode, and Slick and Esta will never want to go back to Earth. So that’s the one to dump. After we go there with her, on the familiar route, to be sure she’s safe. We don’t want to change an anchor first, because there might be a new sea or something cutting her off from hers.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Nona said. “You must do what you feel is best.”
“So will you come with us?”
Nona blinked. “You can not mean—”
“Listen, I did some thinking, and I realized that I’m sort of right between you and Esta. You’re older and better than I am, and Esta’s younger and suffered worse than I ever did. I’m sort of helping her to be more like me, to stand up for herself and know she’s worth something, no matter what happened before. But meanwhile how do I get better myself? And what I realized was that if I ever want to be anything like you, I’d better start acting more mature. It’s no good to torpedo someone else who doesn’t deserve it. I’ve just got to improve myself. To damn well learn to be the kind of person I want to be. To study you. Darius and Seqiro like you, and Provos doesn’t care, and I—I thought you’d want to be queen, but Seqiro says you’d just about rather die, and I know about that sort of feeling. So I want you too. Maybe it’s my suicidal nature again, my deathwish, forcing me to flirt with the worst possible threats. I know how there’s that attraction between you and Darius. Because you’re both great people, and I do like you too, and maybe I can learn enough from you to be what I want to be, and win him fair and square, and if I can’t, then I don’t deserve him. And in that case, there’s nobody I’d rather have marry him or whatever than you. So will you come?”
Nona gazed at Colene for a moment, mentally untangling her convoluted logic. She had called the girl brave and generous. How right she had been! Then her last barrier fell, and she dissolved into tears.
THE two great red roses of the Megaplayers’ stone-hammered dulcimer were glowing. The anima had come, and changed them, and the way was open.
Nona held the hand of the girl Esta, for Nona was an anchor person and could conduct another person across the Virtual Mode. Yet it was Esta who had the greater experience here, and she was glad to share all she knew of it. Darius conducted the man Slick, leaving Provos and Colene to show the way. Seqiro, loaded with the supplies they had recovered from the former despots, including Colene’s strange science-magic bicycle machine, followed, keeping them all in touch with each other. There were timid dragons and other oddities. It was exactly the kind of adventure Nona delighted in.
Then they stood at Provos’ anchor and watched the woman, man, and girl cross out of the Virtual Mode. It was done, and Provos had already forgotten almost their entire association. She saw no more than the bright future for herself and her family. Only Esta turned back momentarily, to wave. Then Provos did the final thing, and the anchor let go.
The forested world spun around and through the other forested realm in which the four of them stood. Nona was awed, though she had been warned. Whole sections of scenery collided without colliding, and the nature of reality changed fantastically around them.
Then it stopped. Things stabilized. Another anchor had been set. A new Virtual Mode had formed. Before them stood the strangest monster Nona could have imagined.
“Uh-oh,” Colene said.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I had this novel scheduled for writing during the first three months of 1991. But I have hired a research assistant for a year, Alan Riggs, and naturally I want to do my heavy research while I have him, not when I don’t. So I set up to do my World War II novel, Volk, the fall of 1990. I started Volk in 1980, ten years before, but found no market for it. Publishers wanted only science fiction and fantasy from me. They insisted on typecasting me. It didn’t matter whether I could be competent in a new genre (I can be) or how good a novel it was (contrary to critics, I do know how to write), or whether I had something original and evocative to say (I did); they were tuned out. I have chafed under this idiocy for long enough, and now I am doing something about it. More on that in a moment.
But I knew that other commitments could fall due in this period, causing Volk to run a month or two into 1991. That would squeeze Fractal Mode, and the contract deadline dictated that this must not happen. So I moved the novel up to AwGhost, SapTimber, OctOgre of 1990. Better early than late. Then interruptions came, such as a couple of conventions I had to attend to promote my works, and half a spate of interviews, and it ran into NoRemember. I hate to travel, and I’m not all that keen on conventions, and I’m tired of interviews, but such things seem to be the price for what I want to do, so I do them. So this novel ran a bit overtime, but since I did it early, I’m okay.