Colene hurried to catch up with her. “But that’s directly away from—”
She broke off, because the woman had disappeared.
But in a moment she reappeared, as Colene stepped across the same plane of reality. That was the nature of travel through the Virtual Mode: a person saw an entire reality, or at least as much of it as any person saw from one spot, but this was not exactly illusory so much as unapproachable. Because every few steps took the person up another rung of the ladder, as it were, and it was like looking out at another floor of an endless building. Maybe like an elevator with glass walls, which hovered at each floor but gave admittance to none that was not an anchor. That wasn’t a perfect analogy either, but would do for now. Each floor was real on its own terms, but might as well be illusion, because the elevator just didn’t stop there. And the moment it crossed the line between floors, everything on one floor disappeared, and everything on the next one appeared. The layout of each floor might be almost identical, but the people would change.
Indeed, this new reality looked the same as the last. The castle remained, and the fields and fences. But this was just another sliver of mica in the block, and it had its own identity.
Probably there were despots there, and even maybe a gruff king, a voluptuous queen, and a dastardly knave. But their names would differ, and they would look different. Probably magic worked. But not quite as it did in Nona’s reality. And of course no one had visited from the Virtual Mode. No girl from Earth, no telepathic horse.
They crossed the next border between realities, and the next. There was no sensation, merely the spot disorientation of seeing the scenery shift slightly. One reality had a field of sheep; then they were gone and it was an overgrown pasture. The distant castle remained on the top of its hill—actually a fortified rad, but who really cared?—and looked much the same. But why was Provos going there? What did she remember?
In fact, as Colene understood it, Provos had very little memory when traveling through the Virtual Mode, because her memory was of her future in a particular reality, and they were in any one reality only a few seconds. How could she know where to go?
Colene paced the woman, bothered. Obviously Provos did remember enough to make her certain of her direction, but it couldn’t be of these transitory realities. Was it of one beyond, where they did stay, so she was merely headed for it? Colene had not had more than passing association with the woman before; Provos had traveled with Darius. But unless Colene had gotten things muddled, Provos’ memory did not work that way. She had to be in a specific reality before she started to remember its future.
So why was the woman heading so purposefully somewhere? Colene wished she could at least ask.
Well, maybe she could. She waved a hand, signaling Provos. When Provos looked at her, she asked, “What are you up to?” and plastered a really confused look on her face to get the message across.
“You are tired?” Provos asked. She spoke in her own language, but Colene understood well enough. It really did seem that she was developing telepathy, from her association with Seqiro. It had been wonderful, verifying this with Nona, and it made her feel a lot better about leaving Darius and Seqiro with her. Nona was a decent person. That had come through along with the symbols she had been thinking. So now Colene could understand Provos, but Provos couldn’t understand Colene. Because it seemed that Colene’s little bit of telepathy was just one-way: receiving. But that didn’t matter all that much, because Provos didn’t remember the past anyway, so most dialogue with her was truncated.
But she hadn’t answered the right question. Colene pondered a moment, then decided that her luck might be better if she made it the right question. “I have a concern.” That could be taken as an indication she was tired.
“My home,” Provos answered.
“Where are we going?” Colene asked, getting the feel of it. She pointed ahead, making her query-face. This was information, but it still didn’t address the issue. It was Colene’s home they were supposed to go to, and she was sure the woman understood that, because Seqiro’s telepathy had made it plain.
“Because we need supplies,” Provos replied, touching her back.
It was like an exploding lightbulb. “Why are we doing this?” she asked, spreading her hands in simulated bafflement. Because the despots had taken their supplies. They had had to change to local tunics, and of course Seqiro had been stripped of his burden. Without Nona’s magic, Colene wouldn’t even have panties now. Since they could not eat on the Virtual Mode, because food, like other things, disappeared with the crossing of the realities, they had to carry their supplies with them, and these supplies had to be from one of the anchor realities. They had headed almost naked into the Mode, and would never survive it—unless they got supplies. So Provos was heading for her own anchor, which must be close, where she could get those supplies. She didn’t need to remember the realities they passed on the way; all she had to remember was that they spent a while at her home getting stocked up.
Suddenly Colene was very glad it was Provos she was with. None of the others had thought of this aspect, in their focus on the immediate problems of Oria. Had Seqiro come here, they would have been stuck, because they did not dare return to his reality. They had barely escaped it before, and could not sneak back. Not with unfriendly telepathic horses there. Assuming it was even within reach. But Provos, with her future memory, must have known that her own anchor was close enough, and could be used to solve this problem.
Colene wanted to thank her for that insight and action, but didn’t see how she could do it now without confusing things. She should have done it at the outset. So she just kept the pace.
Now the castle was changing, by small stages, as they advanced toward it. So was the landscape. The contours of the Mandelbrot set fuzzed, becoming more like conventional earthly hills and valleys. They were leaving the region of fractals. Maybe that was just as well, because that was one weird universe! If they had gone into anything even stranger, they might have had a real problem getting through.
Provos continued purposefully down through the valley, then on up the hill. The woman was a determined walker! The castle loomed larger, and not just because it was closer. It now covered a more extensive section of the hill, and the walls towered up several stories. Against what kind of enemy were these ramparts intended to defend?
They stepped into one more reality—and there was a dragon before them. A big wingless fire-breathing creature with metallic scales. Both of them abruptly stopped. The dragon was between them and the castle.
The dragon heard them, and turned its head. Its near eye fixed on them.
Of course they could escape it merely by stepping into an adjacent reality. But if they stepped back, the monster might be lurking for them the moment they resumed forward progress. It would be better to step forward, seemingly into it, but crossing to a new reality before reaching it. Except that Colene’s logic warred with her common sense. Nobody walked toward a horrendous fantasy dragon!
Then the dragon uttered not a roar but a squeak. It turned tail and fled toward the castle. Astonished, they watched it go. It remained visible because it had no reality boundaries to cross; it was in its own universe, and they could see it as long as they stood where they were.
The dragon charged up to the castle—and inside. No one challenged it. The drawbridge cranked up after it.
It was a dragon castle. And the dragons were terrified of people.
Colene exchanged a glance with Provos, who presumably remembered a similar occurrence in the near future.
Sure enough, in a moment another dragon arrived. The drawbridge lowered to let it in, then lifted again.