“Yes, I won’t let Seqiro get lost,” Colene agreed. “And warn me long before we step into any pit! I don’t want to have to haul him out!”
Even Ddwng smiled briefly. “I wondered whether you would raise this matter. It was evident that none of you were traveling randomly. How do I tune in? I was aware of no path before; I laid out my paths only geometrically, to intercept those who crossed the blank realities. This is not a physical thing?”
“It is a mental thing,” Darius said. “In your Mode you do not employ magical or mental mechanisms. Magic simply does not operate; I experimented and verified this. I assumed that the same applied to the mental component, but discovered that it did not. The monster was simply a human child with a freak mental talent. It may be that your people have had this ability bred out of them, but that they can recover it with effort and training.”
“We shall try to broaden our gene pool with this in mind,” Ddwng said.
Darius knew how serious that was. Had it not been for that reproductive threat against Colene, his decision might have been different. “So for your own security, you need to be able to use your mind this way. You need to be able to feel the route. I’m not sure how you can do this, except by trying to blank your mind to other things, until you develop a subtle awareness of direction.”
Ddwng considered. “And if I can not?”
Darius shrugged. “You will be dependent on the rest of us to guide you. Should I suffer an accident, Provos or Colene can continue.”
Ddwng glanced at the other two. Provos seemed uninterested; her future was blank at the moment. Colene was leaning against her horse, also seeming unconcerned, which probably meant the opposite. “I prefer to master this now.”
“That could take forever!” Colene protested. “Why don’t you practice it on the way?”
That only set Ddwng more firmly. “We shall wait here until I succeed.”
Colene made a face. “Suit yourself, Emperor.”
Ddwng stood at the anchor and closed his eyes. “Nothing,” he reported after a moment.
“You are used to making demands which others must receive,” Darius said. “For this you need to be receptive. I am not sure how to guide you in this. Perhaps it would be better to wait—”
“I may be getting it,” Ddwng said. “Something very faint, a distant thought—a strong thought. I—”
He looked surprised. Then the universe turned.
Not quite literally. The land seemed to tilt, yet it was level. But the palace chamber tilted, sinking down, and Ddwng with it, while the rest of them remained as they were. The Emperor looked surprised but helpless to stop it.
Provos lurched into Darius, bearing him back toward Colene and the horse. Hold on!
He grabbed onto the harness on the horse’s body. The horse was a comfortingly stable object right now, while the rest of everything slowly went skew. Ddwng and his chamber sank all the way out of sight, and another floor or ground level descended. This level was a tree-filled landscape. Its trees tilted with it, seemingly unaffected.
Darius stared, his eyes unfocused. The forest was passing through the plane the three of them and the horse stood on, but there was no physical contact. Above it came a setting of lesser plants and shrubs, no trees. That entire setting swung through undisturbed.
Another scene swung down. This was a barren desert similar to the one they had crossed coming to this anchor. What was happening?
Ddwng freed his anchor.
It was not a voice but a thought. It felt like Colene. The desert swung down, gaining velocity. Another desert replaced it, and another.
He tried to speak, but somehow could not. There was no air, but he was not gasping. He seemed to be in suspended animation, though he could move. Anchor? Ddwng wouldn’t do that!
Seqiro took over his mind and made him decide to free the anchor.
The horse? Darius stared at the more rapidly moving scenes, which were now sliding through at a blurring rate.
Seqiro is telepathic. He has linked us. I didn’t tell you before, because we had to fool Ddwng. We caught him by surprise when he opened his mind, and before he knew it he had freed the anchor, and he’s gone. Now we have to find another, so he can’t connect up again.
A telepathic horse? Darius had never suspected such a thing! A thought from outside had made the Emperor do what only he could do, and release his anchor, cutting his Mode free of the Virtual Mode? Darius had honestly intended to deliver on his commitment to Ddwng, despite his detestation of the necessity. But now, astonishingly—
Yes. It was the only way. I planned it, but I couldn’t tell you or anyone. Seqiro tuned in on your mind, so I know how you love me. He says you have a marvelously straightforward and honest mind, no trouble at all to relate to. It was wonderful sleeping in your love last night. But I couldn’t tell you, because—
Because he would not have broken his word to Ddwng. Colene had intended all along to do this. Yet she had pleaded with him to cooperate with Ddwng!
I lied. To fool Ddwng.
She had lied—to them all.
I had to do it! It was the only way!
She had practiced deliberate deception. She had broken her given word. In the process she had rendered his pledge void.
Oh-oh.
How could he love a dishonest woman?
The chaos turning around them shifted its nature. There was sound now, as if the Modes themselves were humming. It was music, but neither pleasant nor innocent.
The passing Modes were forming a new pattern in their larger perspective. Instead of resembling some changing Earthly landscape, with mountains lifting and sinking like ragged waves, they became geometrical. Three-dimensional crystalline outlines formed, changing their configurations in odd ways. Lines and balls passed through, strung in endless spirals. Light flared in divergent colors, each color inconstant, becoming a nucleus for lesser flares, and lesser yet, and on. Well-defined shapes became cloudy, dissolving into other well-defined shapes; the cloudiness was only in the inability of the observer to fathom the nuances.
Fractals! It was Colene’s amazed realization.
There came a shape like a hairy bug, growing rapidly larger, with fire playing about its fringe. Within that fire loomed expanding curlicues, and within them spiderweblike structures linked to each other by smaller webs, and within those patterns forming seeming tunnels to infinity.
The change was slowing, as if the final orientation was coming into alignment. The new anchor was being set.
Then the whirling Modes abruptly firmed. They came to a sudden stop, with no physical impact. It was as if the Mode on which the four of them stood had been still, and the rest of all the universe had stopped their motion.
They stood at the verge of a strange stone cliff overlooking a heaving sea. Into the face of the cliff were set two enormous red roses. Before them was a young woman in a red dress. A stiff sea breeze was blowing her thick black hair to the side. Beyond her was a green valley, and beyond that a hill on which perched a stone castle.
The weird music was stronger now, not loud but penetrating to the gray matter of their bones and the marrow of their minds.
The girl seemed as startled to see them as they were to see her. Darius knew that they had just connected with a new anchor Mode, and that she was the anchor person. But the young woman had no prior experience with Virtual Modes, to her, the three of them and the horse had just appeared from nowhere.