If only it could be possible! But she was thirty-six times his height, and he was so small to her that she could have eaten him in one mouthful. So she might as well be toying with his love; it made no difference in any practical way. Their fancies were the only place where it could happen.
IN the morning they made the long flight down to the nearest house. Kara put forth special effort, buttressed by Earle’s own effort, and was able to fly much faster and farther here than on Sol. Thus they covered a distance that would otherwise have been unthinkable. By day’s end they were at the base of the rad, near the house.
They spent another night, resting physically but not emotionally. Though it seemed that their imaginations had been exhausted in the prior session of shared illusion, they discovered new resources and made another wonderful experience of it. Kara even tucked him into that valley between her gently heaving breasts, so that he could get just a notion of what it might be like in reality. Earle would have forgotten his mission entirely, had he had a way to do with Kara physically what he did in image. But that was a choice he lacked, except to the extent he could stroke a tiny section of her flesh with his hand. She either liked him, or was really teasing him, or both.
Next day they approached the native, in much the way Earle had approached Kara. They perched invisibly on a windowsill and formed a tremendous illusion picture for the benefit of the man as he got up. They decided to use Kara’s image, suspecting that this would impress the giant, but Earle’s clothing, for the man was a black-clad peon.
It worked. The man was interested. He made images of his own, inquiring who they were and what they wanted of him. They explained that they were explorers from smaller worlds, and that they wanted to go to the center of the universe and bring the animus. But why would Kara, a woman, want this? the man inquired in pictures. Because, she replied in pictures, she believed that the worlds were becoming decadent under the anima, without much vigor, and she thought it would be more interesting under the animus. The situation of many women, she explained, was not much improved under the anima, for only one woman could be queen, and the queen tended to be jealous of her prerogatives. Perhaps if the burden of power was lifted from the shoulders of women, they could revert to their natural inclination to please men.
Earle found this interesting. Was it really the way she felt, or was it merely to persuade the native to cooperate? If she meant it, it was one more reason he wished he could really be with her. She was truly the ideal woman.
The peon decided that this effort was worth supporting. The way his eyes traveled across Kara’s image might have had something to do with it. Her image’s assumed white cloak, being unfamiliar, tended to fade out when she was concentrating on difficult concepts, leaving the more familiar body exposed. That was enough to make any man amenable.
When the man discovered just how much smaller Kara was, he was disappointed, but he remained interested in the mission. So he joined them, and they flew up to perch on his head. They used magic to clean out the germs near the base of the most convenient hair on his head, and made a shelter there. They stocked it with the comforts of home.
However, the native had no magic other than illusion, because he was both peon and male. He could not fly across the world to the East Valley. But Earle and Kara had discovered how to share their magic powers. They united their wills again, and reached down into the will of the native, and enabled him to draw on the techniques they possessed. Magic was not so much a matter of power as understanding, it turned out, and their understanding was being lent to him.
The man rose up and flew. Delighted, he sailed rapidly across the world, carrying them along. He flew high, so that the amazons of the Milky Way would not spy him, and came down only at the shore of the East Valley Sea.
After resting another night, and sharing delicious visions with each other but not with the huge native man, Earle and Kara proceeded with the giant into the sea and to the filament. Their ability enabled the native to do what he had never before imagined, and he sailed up along the filament toward the next world.
So it was that they went to the fifth of the worlds in the chain, which was so big that they didn’t bother to try to imagine it. And the fourth, third, and second, each one equivalently larger, and finally the first. This was the true center of the universe, so extensive as to be beyond comprehension. Yet its people were the same, in proportion, as were those on all the lesser worlds.
They proceeded, in their chain of eight that resembled one with something in his hair, to the East Valley. Here they descended into the sea and stood athwart the filament there—except that this time there was no filament, for this was the origin world, the beginning of the universe.
The monster man of the First World got down so that his head was under the water by the very tip of the crevice. The giant of the Second World in his hair climbed down to be even closer, and put his head farther into that crevice. So it went, until the giant of the Sixth World, the Milky Way, got down with his head as close in as it could get.
Now it was Earle’s turn to act. He dismounted from Kara’s pocket, as she stood in their house on #6’s head. He made his way down to the very focus of the cleft and stood there alone. “Animus, I invoke you!” he cried, exerting his will.
Nothing happened. Could it be that his immense journey had been for nothing? That this was not the way to invoke the animus?
Then he heard the sound of Kara’s mandolin. She herself was out of sight in the murk of the mighty East Valley Sea, but her music reached down to him and touched his soul.
He brought out his dulcimer, made it full size, and set it up. Then he played on it, exerting all his skill.
Now he felt it take effect. The music had once again been the key. The world was changing, invisibly, and with it its dependent worlds, as the animus coursed along the filaments, through to the least significant extremities of the universe. It was done.
But there was no apparent change. The giant men did not seem to have magic, and Kara had not lost hers. Had their effort after all foundered?
“No,” Kara’s picture reassured him. “The thing has happened. The anima now governs the worlds. But its effect is subtle, because your magic remains. Mine is gone, but you are imbuing me with yours, so I can function as before. It is our children who will feel it. Our sons will have magic, and our daughters will not. In a generation all will be changed.”
Oh. He had not realized that it would not be instantaneous, for the men. Perhaps that was just as well, for it meant that the worlds they traveled would not be instantly chaotic. At least, not completely so.
THEY made the long journey back. On each dawningly chaotic world they left its giant native, and took the filament forward to the next. So it was for seven diminishing levels. Then they were back at Sol, Kara’s home.
Earle suffered agony of heart. “Oh, Kara,” his image said to hers as the two embraced. “I don’t want to leave you! I have deprived you of your magic, and without me you will have none.”
“I would have you remain with me, were it possible, for other reason than that,” her image replied, kissing his. “But this is no world for you. You must return to your home, where you will be honored.”
“I am uncertain of that,” he replied. “The amazons will not be pleased to know that I have deprived them of their power, and the peons will not yet have that power. The amazons will take great delight in executing me.”