“Which you now know have no special significance, though they may be archaeologically relevant,” Angus said. “However, your despots may believe otherwise. They may assume that those are what you seek. If you go to them, and perhaps even enter them—”
“Enter a giant petrified musical instrument?”
“The image in your mind suggests that Kara’s mandolin is there, whose hole is at the level of the sea. If you entered that, and then were conjured away, they might assume that that was the anchor. They might destroy it, but leave the real anchor site alone.”
“Colene is right!” Nona exclaimed. “You are a genius!”
“However, there remains the problem of hiding until Colene returns with the information. You must keep yourselves safe, or it will still go for nothing. I have one more suggestion, which may not appeal to you.”
“I’m sure it is a good one,” Nona said. She remained amazed at the intelligence of this giant. Provos had been entirely correct in selecting Angus to convert.
“It is that you go inside the world.”
Nona’s heart seemed to constrict. “The inner world!” she said. “Where the demons dwell!”
“They are not demons, but the descendants of people and animals and plants that entered that realm long ago,” he said. “I have made a study of them too, for they are part of the history of what we are. They exist I think in every world, large and small. They are no longer conventional in appearance, but many do have human intelligence, and perhaps human emotions. They surely do not like the despots, who kill anything strange on sight. They might give you sanctuary.”
“It would be a terrible gamble,” Nona said, appalled.
“Perhaps it is not a good suggestion. I could bring you back here.”
“No, we have to be close to the anchor, because the despots will be near it even if they don’t realize exactly where it is, and Colene and Provos will be exposed.”
“I will not be able to go with you, inside your world. It is too small for me. But I could carry images of all of you away, perhaps decoying the despots.”
“That should be good,” Nona agreed. “But Angus, if we are successful, and the anima comes to Oria, what will you do? Jupiter will still be animus.”
“I will return to my normal pursuits. My life is not a bad one. The events occurring on Oria will have no effect on Jupiter, and there will be no onus attaching to me here. This will be merely an interesting sidelight in my life, of no interest to others.” He seemed a little sad.
“You don’t suppose there could be a woman of the anima on Jupiter, who—”
He smiled. “I doubt it. These are rare occurrences. In any event I would be too old for her. But I thank you for the thought.”
“And I thank you for your help. You surely are the Megaplayer I sought.”
His image faded. She was alone again. Now she was able to sleep. She dreamed of Kara, looking like herself, and of Earle, looking like a cross between Angus and Darius.
IN the morning Angus carried them to the region of the spike on the rad, and invoked the filament magic. He was larger, and his range was farther, so they went directly to a worldlet in the spike of Oria. This was so small that there was no place on it for Angus to stand; he merely touched it lightly with his hand, the one holding Seqiro. Nona gazed down in the world, and from this vantage it did indeed look like a bug, as Colene described it, with a crude heart-shaped body and a round head and stubby legs of different sizes. Filaments extended out from the head like elaborate feelers, and from the legs like webs. Still, this was a world, surely with its tiny people, its despots and its theows, its families and its children, with their dreams and frustrations. What a marvel of scale this universe was, with worlds and people of every size, and similar cultures everywhere though they hardly communicated with each other or even knew of each other’s existence.
Yet by similar token she now knew that this universe was only one of many, and that the others were similar in having their people and dissimilar in having their different rules of magic. So in some, men could conjure living folk, and in some horses could do mind-magic. What an exciting larger framework that must be! If only she could visit it! But of course her place was here in her own reality, on her own world, ordinary as it now seemed.
Angus oriented on the filament, going the other way, and conjured them along it. Suddenly they were on the head of Oria, and everything except Angus was normal. Except that this was the part of Oria Nona had never before seen: the western spike, with its base in the diminishing series of heads. Like Jupiter, only much smaller.
Now they moved into their plan. They split into two groups, with Seqiro and Darius together, while Nona, Colene, and Provos remained with Angus. Nona concentrated to locate and alert her prior familiar, the bat, and cause it to fly out to a spot near the despots’ castle. She had never before tried to do this at such a range, but was successful. Seqiro’s range was limited, but contact with a familiar was a different kind of magic. When the bat found a glade in the forest that was unoccupied, Darius conjured himself and the horse there. The two disappeared, and would rejoin the others when they had rescued Stave.
Angus floated up high and began the daylong flight across the world. Now it hardly seemed different from their other travels; the forest and fields spread out between the rads exactly as on Jupiter or on the little worlds at which they had stopped. But on this one she had direct personal experience of the human events.
She had time to think during the flight, and that was unfortunate. She was worried about Stave, and Seqiro and Darius. Had they been able to rescue Stave, or had they just gotten themselves in trouble? Colene had told her to go for the rescue, but if it failed, what was Colene’s loss? Her man and her wonderful horse!
She looked at Colene. They could not talk now, because their languages were gibberish to each other and Seqiro was not here to join them. They were similarly isolated from Angus. They knew what they had to do, but they had been rendered into temporary strangers. The loss of Seqiro was painful.
Colene met her gaze and nodded yes.
Nona was startled. Could the girl have the mind-magic?
Colene seemed surprised too. She held up her hand with her thumb and forefinger almost touching, as if to say “this much.” A little bit of mind-magic? The ability to receive a few thoughts, but not to send them out?
Colene nodded. But she seemed unsure. As if it were a talent she was just learning, perhaps from her association with the horse.
Nona had an idea. She made a slate, and a piece of chalk. She showed it to the girl. She drew a circle on the slate, then erased it. Then she held the slate up so that it faced away from Colene, and drew a triangle. She looked past it at the girl.
Colene lifted one hand. Slowly she traced the outline of a figure in the air. It was a triangle.
Nona turned the slate around, showing the triangle. Colene broke into a smile.
Now they had something to do to divert their minds. Nona drew other figures, and Colene traced them with her finger. She was always right. She was picking it up from Nona’s mind.
Then Nona drew another triangle, but formed a mental image of a square.
Colene looked perplexed. Finally she drew a figure with seven points, but evidently wasn’t sure of it.
Nona turned the slate around, showing the triangle. Then she tapped her head, and drew the square superimposed on the triangle. The two together formed a figure with seven points. Image and thought had merged, and Colene had received both.
The girl looked awed. She really was doing mind-magic! Nona remembered what it had felt like to discover that she had the power of healing, or the power of compaction. It was wonderful, but also somewhat frightening. What did such magic mean? How would it change her life? Was she truly glad to have it?