Then something sinister started. It wasn’t anything in the scenery, which was reasonably ordinary. It was something in Colene’s feeling. Something ugly was festering. Was she turning suicidal again?
She glanced at Provos—who was already looking at her. Then Colene realized that the ugliness was being transmitted from the other woman’s mind.
Provos put her hands to her head as if to squeeze something out. Colene picked up the woman’s alarm. This wasn’t something in Provos, it was something being forced on her. Something mental, like a nightmare.
Colene took the woman’s arm and urged her across the next boundary. It didn’t help. Now it was plain that some mental thing, perhaps like a telepathic horse, had fixed on Provos and was turning her mind into horror.
They stepped back into the prior reality, but it didn’t help. This was something that crossed realities. Seqiro had been able to do that, when contacting Colene the first time; she had found him physically by orienting on him mentally. There were many telepathic animals, in their various realities. This must be a telepathic slug or mindworm, feeding off the thoughts of other creatures, or perhaps driving them to it so it could feed on them physically.
“We’ve got to get out of its range,” Colene said. She would not have understood what was wrong with Provos if she had not been able to read the mind horror directly. Since Colene’s ability was as yet vestigial, it was surely much worse for Provos herself. The woman wasn’t used to mental ugliness. Colene had had some experience, because of her own suicidal depression. Maybe that was why she was more resistant to this attack; the monster preferred healthy minds.
They ran on, and the realities changed, becoming crystalline and mountainous, with sharp little crystals underfoot. Colene was glad now for the knee-length boots. But they could not escape the mind predator, whose strength kept growing. Provos was almost unfunctional, responding only to Colene’s direct hauling on her arm. Maybe the thing didn’t need to bring its victims to it physically; maybe it could just suck out the mind across the realities. This was a new kind of threat, but as bad as any.
The hills became mountains, and the mountains mesas, with flat tops high up. Colene and Provos were in a valley channel, crunching blue, red, green, and yellow crystals with each step. In the sky were pastel-colored clouds. Suddenly Colene recognized this type of scene, from what Darius had told her: this was his home reality! They were approaching his anchor.
“We’ve got to get out of the Virtual Mode!” Colene gasped. “There’s an anchor close by! Come on!” She dragged the woman along, still orienting on the faint rightness that was the route to an anchor. Had the mind-thing been attacking Colene herself, she wouldn’t have been able to do it, for the horror would have blotted out the awareness. That had happened to Provos; Colene could feel it.
They ran on. Provos stumbled, and fell, and Colene fell with her, dragged down by her own hold on the woman. Pain lanced through them both: the sharply pointed crystals had stabbed through their clothing and punctured their skins.
Colene scrambled up, cutting her hand in the process, and lifted on Provos, who seemed not to feel the physical pain. Blood was flowing, soaking their clothing, but they couldn’t worry about that. “On! On!” Colene cried. And in the back of her mind she realized that this was the first time in a long time that her blood had flowed when she hadn’t cut herself. When she wasn’t being suicidal.
The rightness became so strong that Colene realized that they must be at the verge of the anchor. But they weren’t physically on it; they were to one side. Where was it?
With horror of another kind she realized that it had to be up on one of the mesas. They had to climb to the top. But how could they? The sides were so steeply angled that they were cliff-like.
“Come on!” Colene cried, hauling Provos after her as she circled the most promising mountain. It wasn’t big around the base, but they did cross several reality boundaries in the process.
Then Colene found what she had hardly dared hope for: ladder steps. There were people here, and they did come down off their platforms sometimes, so they had made notches in the stone. In fact there were parallel series, so that one person could climb while another descended.
“Up!” Colene cried, shoving the woman at the right-side ladder and taking the left herself. Colene climbed a few rungs. “Up! Up! It’s the only escape!”
Provos stared at her vaguely, preoccupied by the torment within. Colene tried again. She put all her strength into trying to project her thought mentally. Up! Escape the monster! Up!
It got through. Provos grasped a rung and hauled. Once started, she moved rapidly; she was used to vertical houses and in good condition for climbing. Colene had to scramble to keep up.
Gasping, they reached the top. The mesa was only a few feet across, roughly circular, and it was empty. Had they come up here for nothing? No, the anchor had to be here.
Colene took Provos' arm. She stepped to the center of the circle.
Reality changed. Not on this mesa, but on the adjacent one, whose top was about sixty feet away across the chasm between them. It now had a house. Or perhaps a castle, girt by a small forest.
Colene stepped toward it, still holding Provos, passing through the anchor. Suddenly the horror in Provos’ mind abated. They had escaped the monster!
But that monster would surely catch Provos again if she stepped back into the Virtual Mode. They had to hide here for a while, until the thing lost interest.
Where could they go? They could not reach the larger mesa, unless they climbed down the cliff and walked back through the crystalline valley. They were already bleeding from their prior tangle with those crystals.
But this was Darius’ reality. Magic worked here. There would be people who could help. All she had to do was get their attention. She hoped.
Colene waved at the other mesa. “Help!” she cried.
To her gratified surprise, it worked. A man appeared at the brink of the other mesa, looking across at her. He seemed surprised. She could pick it up in his mind as well as his expression.
“I’m Colene!” she cried. Then she had a better idea. “Darius!”
“Darius!” the man echoed. And disappeared.
But in a moment he was back, with a woman. The woman studied them, and Colene felt an odd but not alien touch on her mind.
The woman consulted with the man. Then both of them jumped across the gulf to land on the small mesa with Colene and Provos. Magic, indeed!
“I’m Colene, Darius’ friend,” Colene said. “This is Provos, also his friend. We are trying to help him, but need help ourselves.” Could they understand her? She feared they could not, because that wasn’t their kind of magic. But they should know Darius, and know about the Virtual Mode.
“Colene,” the woman echoed. She was perhaps forty, but in good condition. She wore a tunic, and under it showed the bulge of her huge diapers. Grown women wore diapers here, Colene remembered, to conceal their sexual attributes. “Provos.” She did understand that much. Then she pointed to the man: “Cyng Pwer.” And to herself. “Prima.”
“Prima!” Colene echoed. The one whom Darius had rescued from the captivity of the dragons, and whom he would marry, so that Colene could be his mistress. Odd as it seemed, this was no rival, but an important and vital friend, for marriage to Darius would kill Colene.
Prima brought out a little figurine that was made up to look like herself. The Cyng did the same, with his looking like him. Then each brought out another doll, a blank one, and quickly doctored them to resemble Colene and Provos. Colene obligingly provided a hair, some spit, and a breath, and Provos did the same. This was a type of magic they understood.