He moved much faster this time, using magic to take himself as far along the route as it would. Magic seemed to have no difficulty taking him across Modes, in the region of the Virtual Mode where magic was operative. Beyond that he walked rapidly, with the confidence of his prior experience in two directions.
Soon he reached the lake. He had learned a lot here, from Prima. Now he became more cautious. He needed to get safely past the region of the dragons. But he didn’t depend on the tube alone. He had another sword, and also a heavy pair of shears which could cut through cord. For this he had more confidence in the shears than the sword, because they would be faster. He also had a fair coil of cord of his own, strong enough to sustain several times his weight without breaking. Experience counted.
He came to the geographic region of the dragons, which on the Virtual Mode was the same as the Mode of the dragons. This time he intended to keep the two separate! He paused to use his mirror tube before crossing each boundary. He could even see his footprints in the soft dirt, in places. To a creature watching, he would seem to appear, walk three paces, and disappear, leaving the prints.
Now he was almost at the place where he had been netted; he recognized the tree ahead from which the net had been suspended. There was no net visible, of course, because it didn’t exist in this Mode. But the dragons, or their monkey servitors, had surely restored the damaged one, ready to trap the next unwary Mode traveler.
He moved to the side, then slowly poked his forward mirror across. He turned it, so that the image in the near mirror swept across the region.
There was the net, cunningly set so that a creature who plowed into it would cause it to close and rise, completing the trap. There was no dragon in sight, but he knew how quickly one could come when a trap was sprung.
He pondered a moment. Suppose he threw something across into the net, then crossed behind the dragon when it approached the net? No, he could not move anything from one Mode to another except his own belongings, which he had no intention of risking. It would be better to avoid the issue. He knew how dangerous those dragons were, because they understood about the Modes.
He surveyed the section carefully, turning the mirror around. There seemed to be nothing to the side of the net. Yet how could the dragons be so sure of catching something at that particular place?
He became aware of an itching on one leg. He looked down. He was standing in a bed of nettles. Their spikes seemed to be actually clinging to his trousers and seeking to stab through. That was why: the path he had been following was the only place clear of the nettles. Animals in several Modes must have found the best place through, and it made sense for him too. He had followed it before without even being conscious of the nettles.
He looked beyond. The nettles extended as far as he could see. The mystery of the net’s placement was becoming less. There really was no other way through.
He could step cautiously, and cut the anchor line, disabling the trap, and go on quickly. But adjacent Modes tended to be similar. There could be another net in the following Mode, or a pit, or something worse. He did not like this region at all.
He decided to avoid the whole thing. He retreated through the Modes until he found a way through the nettles, then proceeded down the slope toward what had been the dragon’s camp in its own Mode. He came to the field, then turned and proceeded across Modes again. There had been no trap in this vicinity, so it was probably a safe crossing. Still, he slowed and tested each Mode as he came to that vicinity.
When he passed the one showing the cages in the valley, he was relieved. There were several Modes with cages; then they faded and the countryside resumed.
He considered whether to find a way back to his original path, which proceeded most directly through Modes toward wherever he was going. But there could be other traps along it, so he continued through the field, and then through the forest, until the slope changed and the hill became a plain. Only then did he return to his direct path, slowly.
Time had passed, and nightfall was approaching. He had come a long way, and his legs were tired, but he was surprised at how fast the day had passed. He had not even paused for lunch, and was only now getting hungry. Was it possible that the length of the day changed along with other things, in other Modes? Yes, that did seem possible. Too bad he did not have a time piece of the type Colene had. It was a little device she wore on her left wrist, which helped to cover the scars there. Tiny pointers moved in it, indicating the hour of the day. Superfluous in Darius’ Mode, of course, where things happened when they happened. But now that time might be changing, such a device might have enabled him to verify just how much difference there was.
Colene. She kept returning to his thoughts. On one level he recognized this quest as foolish, because he had already found the answer. He could go home and marry Prima and have an excellent career as Cyng of Hlahtar. She was older than he, but that was irrelevant; Hlahtar’s wife was neither for love nor offspring, but for a ready source of joy to spread. Prima was the best possible source. But he was intent on Colene, who offered him none of that. All she offered him was private love.
Well, that was what he wanted. He would fetch Colene, then see about Prima. It might be foolish, but it was what he wanted. At least he knew that Kublai had a good situation during his absence.
He came to a lake at dusk, or perhaps the shore of a sea. There was no such body of water within walking distance in his Mode, but he had long since recognized that though geography changed gradually, it also changed significantly, and it resembled that of his home only in the immediate vicinity of his anchor. Were he to become trapped in the Mode in which he stood at this moment, and walk back through it the way he had come until he reached the spot where his anchor was supposed to be, he would probably find a completely different geography. The Modes changed vertically as well as horizontally, as if each sliver of mica had a different pattern that matched that of its neighbor slivers only when they were close. It was possible that when he had made the first foray into Colene’s Mode, it had been to the same geographic spot in her Mode as the one he had left in his.
He searched out a tree whose larger branches spread from one Mode to another. That was ideal. Prima had shown him that a tree was a good place to spend the night, removed from nocturnal creatures of the ground. But attack could come, and the best way to deal with it was to avoid it—by stepping into the next Mode. If he could do so without leaving the tree, so much the better.
He drank from the lake, washed, and ate from his pack. He realized that this must be a lake, because the water was not salty. But he could not see across it. Then he drew out his light blanket, climbed into the tree, braced himself, wrapped himself, and settled down for sleep. He thought of Prima, who had slept in his embrace, sharing warmth. At the time he had wished it could have been Colene, but now he realized that Prima herself had been good company. She had been intelligent and practical and not finicky about niceties, an easy person to travel with despite the awkwardness of their arms being constantly bound together. She was not at all the kind of woman he had been looking for, consciously, but very much the kind he actually needed. Colene, in contrast, was young and pretty and devoted, matching his desire, but quite unsuitable for marriage to the Cyng of Hlahtar. So said his logic. So much for logic. He wanted Colene.
As he was nodding off, something occurred to him that woke him up again. If Colene was at the same spot on the globe as he, one Mode directly over the other, so that his first foray with the Chip had plunged him straight up or down—how could he reach her by traveling on the slant? He was walking horizontally, stepping down into each new infinitely thin Mode in the course of three paces. It wasn’t a physically vertical thing, or the slopes of hills would have put him into new Modes at a great rate. But he was definitely moving across the terrain. By the time he reached Colene’s Mode, he should be far from the spot on the globe he had started at, and therefore far from her. How would he be able to find her?