He glanced up. There were good cloud formations, pink above green and yellow. A heavy purple cloud was slowly descending, and below it the trees on their common dais were extending their black leaves, ready to draw nourishment. The light of the sun was refracting through a colorless cloud, its beams re-radiating out to be intercepted by the other clouds, each of which took its color from the color of the light it received.
It was good to be home!
A figure appeared on the main dais. The man spied Darius. He made a gesture, and a bridge appeared, spanning the ragged gap between them.
Darius stepped onto the bridge, and felt his weight diminishing. It was what Colene would have called a virtual bridge: it acted like a real one, but it was mock. He was able to use it because his weight was being reduced almost to nothing. Pwer had simply invoked a miniature bridge with a figurine, and was marching the latter across the former. Darius had allowed him to make the figurine because it was essential to the process of traveling to another reality. Otherwise, the magic would not have had effect.
He completed his crossing and stood before the Cyng of Pwer. “You return alone,” the man said.
“I found her,” Darius said. “I love her. But I misjudged her. She was depressive.”
Pwer was startled. “How could you make an error like that?”
“There is no transfer in her reality. I judged by appearances, not direct mental contact, and she laughed much. But it was because she liked me. Her contacts with me were limited, and her joy was limited to her time with me. Her underlying nature was suicidal.”
“Your power did not work there?”
“Not at all. I thought it did when I kissed her and felt love, and she felt love, but it seems we were each generating our own in the company of the other. I was entirely dependent on verbal language. Much of my time was spent learning it, so that we could communicate. It was in that period of close association that we came to love each other.”
“You should have brought her.”
“I could not marry her! It would have killed her.”
“And what will she do, alone?”
That made Darius pause. “She—she could kill herself.”
“Could? You fool! She surely will!”
“We can’t know that! Maybe her experience with me will change her outlook, and she will become less suicidal.”
“Unlikely, since she is slated to die anyway.”
“What?”
“Don’t you remember? Only those who are destined to have little effect on their realities can be removed from them. That is why the Chip oriented on her.”
“I know. Yet in her case, it seemed to me—” Darius shook his head. “I blinded myself.”
“The Chip was set to orient only on those whose impact is minimal. Some may have more impact by dying than by living. But in most cases, an early death best accounts for it. This may usually be by accident or disease, but it is evident that your young woman will soon kill herself.”
“I left her there, to do what she would, alone!” Darius cried, stricken. “I lost track entirely. I forgot the larger picture.”
“Whereas here she could have been with you, and at least died happy.”
“But she did not believe. She fetched me the key, but thought it was my fantasy. She did not want to commit to one she thought crazy.”
“She surely believes now.”
“Surely now,” Darius agreed, crushed. “I should have insisted—but when I knew I could not marry her—”
“Cyngs of Hlahtar do not remain functional indefinitely. You might have married her when you gave up the post.”
“I was a fool,” Darius said.
“Will you now settle to the normal course?”
Darius thought of marrying a woman he did not love, instead of Colene. “I can not.”
“Or try the Chip again?”
He thought of searching for another woman of a suitable nature to love and marry. “I can not.”
“Then it appears we have a problem.”
“There must be another way!” Darius exclaimed. “I must go to her again! She would come with me, now that she believes.”
“There is a way. But it is fraught with complication and danger.”
Darius grasped at it. “What way?”
“Before, we set up the simplest connection between realities, as it were a line. It is possible to set up a more complicated connection, if more than one point is established, as it were a plane. The line could be flung out and recalled only once, but the plane would be more durable.”
“A Virtual Mode!” Darius breathed.
“A what?”
“A temporary Mode that crosses other Modes, like a block of mica sliced crosswise. It would be possible to walk from one part to another, from this Mode to her Mode.”
“I had not pictured it that way, but it is true. However you picture it, it may be the way to do what you desire. However, the complications—”
Darius was abruptly certain. “Describe them.”
“Because it would entail some time away from this Mode, you can not go without finding another Cyng of Hlahtar to serve in your stead, at least temporarily. One as competent as you.”
“There is none!”
“Not among those who have not yet served.”
Now Darius understood his reference. “A retired Hlahtar? But none of them would serve again!”
“Not unless the inducement were considerable.”
“What possible inducement could there be? They have wealth and power and respect already; they need nothing. None would wish to suffer the agonies of depletion and wife discarding again.”
“You might inquire.”
“And if I can get one to serve, you will set up the Virtual Mode?”
“After this warning: no person who has gone this route has returned. We do not know whether each has found what he sought and been satisfied, or has died. We know nothing, except that we shall wait with no expectation for your return.”
That was why another Hlahtar had to serve in his stead.
DARIUS was at the moment poorly acclimated to his native Mode, having been so long unable to do any magic, but he did not wait. He did not know how long Colene would linger before letting the rest of her blood drain away.
He walked into the forest and found several twigs and bits of vine. He bound these together into a crude man-figure. Then he pulled out five hairs from his head and tucked them into the two legs, two arms, and one head of the figurine.
Now he had made an icon of himself. It was crude, but it should do.
He touched his tongue to it, anointing it with his saliva. Now it was twice tuned to him, to his solid and his liquid. All it required was his air.
He breathed on it. “You are the icon of the Cyng of Hlahtar,” he murmured, activating it and tuning it in. Then he set it on the ground and marked a circle around it. He also marked several irregular shapes, and a wavy line. “You are here, among these trees, and near this river.” He marked a square a short distance away, with several points beside it. “The Castle of Hlahtar is there, beside the mountains.” Then he jumped the figure from the circle to the edge of the square.
The world around him wrenched. He caught his balance, almost falling. Yes, he was clumsy after the layoff! But he was here before his castle, having conjured himself here by the use of sympathetic magic. It was good to be able to travel normally again!
He lifted the icon to his mouth. “You are inert,” he breathed on it. It wouldn’t do to carry an active personal icon around with him, its feedback from his motions interfering with his activities! He put it in his pocket—and realized that he was not in his normal attire, but in the odd clothing of Colene’s Mode. It was a good thing he had decided to come home before visiting the former Hlahtars!