Anthony, Piers - Mode 02 - Fractal Mode

241 Pages·2016·0.84 MB·English

by  Anthony Piers

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www.ABBYY.cobm y Piers Anthony www.ABBYY.com
Mode Book 2
CHAPTER 1 NONA
The child was clumsy and rebellious. This was the remedial class, and he had no taste or talent for
music. He wanted to be outside playing tag-ball. Still, Nona had never expected him to bite her.
Music was fundamental to the culture of Oria, and every child had to learn at least one instrument. This
ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0
www.ABBYY.coom ne would never be proficient, but he had to master the basics, or suffer consequences. The teacher did www.ABBYY.com
not want to call on a despot for punitive magic, so she tried kindness first. She assigned the prettiest and
most talented music assistant to this difficult case. "If you can't do it, no one can, Ana," she murmured.
She used Nona's pseudo name, not knowing her real one; only one other living person knew that. Well,
perhaps another knew it, but that one would never tell.
Nona smiled. The boy was only nine, the required age for the onset of musical training, but even at that
age they could be moved by an attractive woman. She was two months shy of her second nine, in the
interim between the completion of her training and the onset of legal maturity. Everyone assumed that
she would become a music teacher, but she had serious private doubts. She dared not express those
doubts, for if the despots learned her secret they would destroy her.
She approached the boy. "Hello, Jick," she said pleasantly. "Why did you choose to play the lute?"
"I didn't," he said. "I don't want to. I hate it."
So his parents had required him to use this instrument. It was not her place to second-guess them. "Well,
perhaps you will like it better when you get to know it," she said with careful cheer. "Let me help you
get set."
She set his left hand on the stem of the junior instrument, his fingers on the frets. She guided the other
hand to the body of it. "You hold it before you, like this," she explained, getting it into the right position
for playing. "With this hand you pluck the strings, and with this one you adjust their tones. See, you can
make several notes from a single string." She pressed on his left forefinger with her right forefinger, on
the string, to demonstrate the effect.
Instead of moving as she indicated, he jerked his head suddenly forward and bit her finger, hard.
Nona shrieked, wrenching her hand away. The flesh tore and blood welled out.
The headmaster appeared. He snapped his fingers. The pain abruptly abated-and the boy screamed. The
man had performed an instant transfer spell, causing Jick to suffer Nona's pain. There was a muffled
titter from others in the class; they knew it served him right.
But in his agony, the boy threw down the lute, smashing it. Nona was busy inspecting her hand, trying to
assess the damage, but she knew that this incident had already escalated dangerously. She was apt to get
the blame for letting it happen.
"Go home and have your mother tend that," the headmaster said with a deceptively gentle voice. "I'll
deal with this." His expression turned ugly as he faced the boy.
Then Nona knew that the man had been watching, probably by means of an illusion in another room,
and knew exactly what had happened. He was technically a theow, but had a despot ancestor, and so had
more magic than was normal for a theow. That was why he was in charge of the school: he could
enforce discipline. She put her finger to her mouth, licking off the blood, and hurried out, relieved.
As she walked down the road from the school, she concentrated on her injured finger. The pain was
returning as she got out of range of the transfer spell, but she should be able to craft an illusion of
healing that would help.
ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0
www.ABBYY.coUm nder her gaze the torn flesh knitted itself back together, and the color became normal. The pain faded,www.ABBYY.com
and her finger looked whole. But of course that was only the way it seemed; the damage remained,
under the spell. Only the despots could do the potent magic.
She walked on out of the village and up the path to her house, which was nestled a bit apart. At first she
had not understood why, but later she had learned: it was because of the secret. Her folks had made this
isolated house and moved here twenty years ago, in anticipation of her presence. Now she understood
how wise a decision that had been.
Her mother was weeding beans in the garden beyond the house. Nona realized with a small shock that
the woman looked old. She was in her fifties, having gotten Nona late, and now seemed to be aging
more rapidly than she should. Nona felt a pang of guilt, suspecting why that would be. Stooped
shoulders, gray hair, deep facial lines-yet the goodness of her shone through the fading shell of her
body.
Nona hurried out to her. "A boy bit my finger," she explained as she approached. "The headmaster sent
me home to get it tended. I made a spell to hide it."
The woman took the proffered hand. She touched the finger, and there was no pain. She had no magic of
this sort, but much experience of the natural kind. "This one?" she inquired with a lift of one brow.
"Yes. He bit so hard he tore my flesh. The headmaster made a transfer spell, so the brat got the pain
instead of me, but I still have the injury. I hope it won't hurt my playing!"
"Child, this finger is not injured," the woman said.
"I covered it with illusion," Nona reminded her.
"I think you did more than that."
Startled, Nona looked at her finger. She flexed it. There was no discomfort. She touched it with her other
hand, and found no injury. She lifted her eyes to meet her mother's gaze. "But-"
"I believe you," her mother said. "You are maturing."
Nona fell in beside her and helped pull weeds. They did not speak much, because it was never possible
to be certain that a despot wasn't magically listening, but they had long experience at communication
with minimal speech.
Nona remembered how her magic had gradually come upon her. As a child she had learned to convert
her pease porridge to sweet pudding, and thought that others did the same. Later she learned that their
conversions were mere illusion, while hers were actual. Similarly, when she conjured a living bird to her
hand, it was real, while others fashioned only the semblance.
Her mother had cautioned her to restrict herself to illusion whenever in company, and not to tell anyone
of her abilities. This was because only the despots were supposed to practice significant magic, and a
theow who did it would be in peril. The despots used magic to suppress the theows, and reacted fiercely
to any conceivable challenge.
So it was that Nona had lived, if not a lie, a charade. She could do significant magic, but no one knew.
ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0
www.ABBYY.coNm o one except her mother. Not even her father, though perhaps he suspected. www.ABBYY.com
Actually they were not her birth parents. They had somehow known that they would have a changeling,
and had prepared for it. When their only baby was born, they had taken him out at night to the town
meetinghouse and left him. Before dawn they had returned and taken the changeling: Nona.
Who were her natural parents? Nona did not know. But she did know this: she was the ninth born of the
ninth generation. The ninth of the ninth. That was what accounted for her magic.
And she was the one who might have the power to rid fair Oria of the despots, according to the legend.
If she could only discover how.
That was why she had had to be hidden. Had the despots known there was a ninth of a ninth, they would
have razed whole villages to destroy that baby. So her natural parents had given away an early baby,
hiding the fact that it had ever been born, in this manner reducing the count. Then when they birthed the
ninth, it was reckoned as the eighth, and they did not have a ninth. That eighth was then exchanged for
another, so that if the despots became suspicious, they could verify that there was no special magic in
that boy. The magic was in the lost one, Nona. Nona, called Ana, so that the significance of her real
name would not give her nature away. For her name meant "ninthborn." The people did not know, but
the body did; the magic was in her, and it was growing. To all others, she seemed to be the first and only
child of her mother, who had had difficulties in her birthing and could not bear another. There was no
magical threat in a firstborn theow, and little in a female, so her concealment was effective.
Now she had manifested another ability: heating. She had cured herself of a troublesome injury, without
even realizing. Illusion could be marvelous, but in the end it was transitory. Real magic lasted. Her
healing, supposedly a mask over injury, had eliminated the injury itself.
They came to the end of the row. "Come inside," her mother said. "I will bandage your hand."
Because they could not let it be known that the healing had taken place. After a week, yes, but not after a
day. After less than an hour, actually.
Nona followed her mother to the house.
A week later the bandage was reduced to a thin wrapping around the finger, and that was masked by a
spot illusion. Only those who actually touched her hand sensed the bandage. In a few more days she
would remove that, and wear only a small scar-which would actually be illusion, because her finger had
healed scarlessly.
The errant boy, Jick, had been severely disciplined. He now wore a muzzle. It would be long before he
bit another person-and if he did, he might be subject to the discipline of the despots, who well might
conjure away his teeth. Nona had been relieved of her assisting, not because they thought her injured or
culpable, but because it was policy to let things settle after an incident.
She used the time to query her mother, when they could converse with minimal risk. Her father worked
at the castle as a horse trainer, so was no problem in the day. It was not that he would willingly betray
her secret, but that the despots could use their terrible magic to get anything from anyone who knew
anything. Only complete lack of suspicion protected her. So she acted like a somewhat spoiled juvenile,
sleeping late, until her mother hinted strenuously that she should help with the field-work. Then,
grudgingly, she went out to tackle the relentless weeds beside her mother, and only then, their real
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www.ABBYY.copm urpose masked by the charade, did they talk. Even so, it was in interrupted segments, so that any www.ABBYY.com
magical eavesdropping would pick up only an innocuous fragment.
Nona would soon be eighteen. If she did not find out how to save Oria before then, she might not be able
to thereafter. She was the only one of all the theows who could do it. This was her window of
opportunity.
"But why not longer?" she asked.
Because, her mother clarified in snatches between weeds, a woman's magic came to her through her
ancestry, and departed through her babies. With each baby she had, she would lose part of her power,
until the ninth would take the last of it, and she would be no more than an ordinary caretaker. In
addition, she would have to care for the children, and that would anchor her to her house. She could not
afford to marry, or if she did, she could not afford to have children.
"But I don't want to anyway," Nona protested. Indeed, whether because of her raising or her nature, she
was appalled by the prospect of becoming a brood mare. Romance she could handle, but that notion
stopped short of baby birthing.
Her mother only smiled sadly. Marriage and babies and deepening poverty were a theow woman's
destiny; everyone knew that. It was an aspect of the system. Only those who had significant magic lived
well; the others got along as well as they could. Those who became too poor to sustain themselves,
whether because of age or depletion, disappeared: the despots had little tolerance for burdens.
"But how?" she asked.
That was the key question. She had more or less understood the answers to the others, for they were
common knowledge. But since the magic power Nona had was no more than that possessed by the
despots, that was not enough to oppose them. It merely signaled her nature. Perhaps it would continue to
grow as she aged-but not if she started having babies. Since it would be hard to avoid having babies if
the despots remained in power, that prospect seemed insufficient.
"You must ask the Megaplayers," her mother murmured, hardly loud enough to be heard.
The Megaplayers! But they were long gone, now hardly more than a memory. Only their giant stone
instruments remained, weathering at the brink of the sea, awesome monuments to the greatness of the
past. Of course the despots would not have a chance if the Players returned! Yet surely the Megaplayers
were dead.
Her mother shook her head. "They live."
How could she know that? But Nona trusted her. The Players lived.
Still, how could she find the Players, to ask them anything? And if she did, why would they pay any
attention to her? She was only a lowly theow woman.
Her mother smiled. "Music."
If there was one thing Nona excelled at, it was music. She had a natural talent for it, enhanced by her
magic, which sublimated in this expression. Now she realized that the Megaplayers had to be musical.
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www.ABBYY.coCm onsider their instruments! www.ABBYY.com
So she had her answer. She would have to seek the Players where their instruments lay. She would have
to appeal to them, and if they responded, they might act to abolish the despots. It would be easy, for
them, for the magic of the Megaplayers was like none known since.
Yet what had banished the Players, long ago? Surely it could only have been some power even greater
than they. Where was that power now?
Nona shook her head. Whatever the answers were, she had perhaps two months to find them. Then she
would be eighteen, and her fate would pursue her.
She could not risk a trip alone to the instruments. This was not because there was physical danger, for
the region was sanguine. It was because it might alert the suspicion of the despots. She had to have a
seemingly unrelated pretext to go there.
So she did the obvious: she made a date with Stave to view the sea. The fact was that the place of the
instruments was a rendezvous for lovers, because of the bracing sea air and the lingering magic of the
region. But she specified afternoon, thus signaling that the prospects for romantic involvement were
limited. He, however, was free to hope that if the afternoon excursion turned out to be successful, there
would be an evening liaison on another occasion. He was happy to agree to the date.
The day was beautiful. There had been recent rain, and the meadows were greening. Even the dread
castle of the despots, at the crest of the highest hill, looked almost pretty. Of course it had not been built
by the despots; they had merely moved in after the Megaplayers left. So whatever beauty it possessed
was what lingered despite its present occupancy.
She wore her best red theow tunic with the matching slippers. Stave, more sensibly garbed in his dull
blue work tunic, was taken aback. "You'll soil it on the grass!" he protested.
"Not if I don't sit," she replied.
"Of course," he agreed, politely masking his disappointment. Couples normally sat near the brink of the
cliffs, looking out over the waves, and drew close when the sea winds were chill. It was a most seductive
pretext. Hands could stray as far as desired or tolerated, concealed under those tunics. In fact, almost
anything could be done under tunics, when both parties wished.
She did not want to turn him off, however. She had no intention of getting serious, but Stave was a
decent young man who deserved decent treatment. Had she desired a settled life and babies, he would
have been as good a choice to share them with as any. "If I do sit, it will be on you," she said. "So that
my tunic will not touch the ground."
He pondered that as they walked. There were ways and ways to interpret it, and some of them were
intriguing. His disappointment faded.
There was a bark to the side, and a blur of white. Cougar had spied them, and was running to join them.
He was the village dog, of mixed breed, not at all like a cougar, but somehow he had acquired that name.
Normally only the despots kept animals, but sometimes they allowed one to wander unattached. Cougar
loved adventure, and a trip to the instruments was that, by his definition. Indeed, it was said that a tryst
wasn't complete without the dog.
ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0
www.ABBYY.coSm tave picked up a stick. "Fetch, Cougar!" he cried, hurling it ahead of them. www.ABBYY.com
The dog launched himself in pursuit, joyfully. But as the stick landed, it assumed the likeness of a
skunk. As the dog caught up, the skunk turned tail, making ready to spray.
"You shouldn't tease him," Nona murmured.
"He's too smart to tease," Stave replied.
Sure enough, Cougar charged right in and caught the skunk in his jaws. He had not been fooled by the
illusion. But, in a seeming act of retribution, he brought the stick back not to Stave but to Nona.
She reached down to take it, using her own illusion to convert the skunk into a bouquet of flowers.
"Thank you, Cougar," she said, patting him on the head.
"You're welcome, lass," the dog replied.
She elbowed Stave in the ribs. "Watch you don't get bitten in the hind pocket!" the dog said in a more
feminine voice.
Cougar wagged his tail. He enjoyed being part of an illusion.
There was a rumble of thunder. They looked, and there beyond the castle a storm was building,
appropriately sinister. However, it was unlikely to come in this direction, and if it did, they would have
time to return to the village before it struck. There was even a rainbow, probably the work of an idle
villager, because the angle was wrong for it to be natural.
They reached the place of the instruments. Nona handed Stave the bouquet, which became the skunk
again as he took it. She ran ahead, up to the very brink, and stood looking out. Cougar did the same, to
the right, sharing her spirit.
The sea wind sought her out and tugged at her hair and the skirt of her tunic. Both material and hair
flowed to her left, and the air stroked every part of her body with an intimacy she would not have
permitted in anything else. She was exhilarated. She shaded her eyes with her left hand and waved to the
sea with her right. She wished she could be here forever.
Then she looked down. The cliff at whose brink she stood was no ordinary work of nature. It was a
monstrous stone musical instrument, a hammered dulcimer without its strings, rising five body lengths
above the heaving surface of the water. Two giant stone roses were set in it, red with green leaves
despite the weathering of the stone. In these alone the old magic lingered. The rest of the instrument was
scarred with cracks and chips, and the top was overgrown with moss and grass.
How long had it been since the Players left? No theow seemed to know, and if the despots knew they did
not tell. How long did it take for waves and weather to make stone crumble? Nona shivered. Longer than
the time required for nine generations, obviously. Far longer, surely.
She looked to her left. There was a giant mandolin, its stone also cracking apart. The grass and moss
outlined its entire top surface in green, and its hole was a dark cave into which the waves crashed. To
her right was a great fiddle, in similar ruin.
ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0
www.ABBYY.coTm hese had been the possessions of the Megaplayers, even in their destruction suggesting the immense www.ABBYY.com
power of that lost age. What giants had wielded these mighty instruments? What could their music have
been like? What could have caused these beings to depart, not only leaving their music behind but
dumping their treasures into the sea?
Nona tried to imagine the Players, and could not. She tried to fathom the playing of the instruments, and
could not. It was all too far beyond her. Yet somehow she had to find the Megaplayers and call on them
to return. To deliver her people from near slavery. If only she could!
She stepped to the side, then back. She hopped. She shifted her weight and turned her body to an
imaginary rhythm. She spun about, her skirt flaring out, her brown hair wrapping around her face. She
felt a faint beat, as of distant marching or a baby's heart. She heard a faint sound, as of a delicate melody
hidden behind crashing waves.
In a moment she was dancing. At first she set her feet deliberately in the patterns of the dance. Then
something took them, and she abandoned herself to it. She stepped and whirled, kicked and leaped. The
beat intensified, carrying her with it. She saw the world turning around her, the sky above, the sea
below, and she was not in it but of it. She floated, she soared!
"Ana!"
She fell, abruptly released from the spell. Stave caught her, his strong arms bearing her back from the
brink. "You were going to leap!" he exclaimed apologetically.
She realized that it could be true. Something had imbued her, and she had let go of her own will. It had
been glorious- but now she realized how readily that possession could have swept her over the cliff and
into the surging sea. Actually that would not have meant her death, because she had developed the
power to fly, or at least to float in the air and to propel herself by attempting to conjure heavy objects to
her. But if she had gone over the cliff, and fallen, and used that power to save herself, her secret would
have been out, and that would have meant her death at the hands of the despots.
"Thank you," she panted. "I-I lost control."
"I never saw anything so beautiful," he said. "You danced as if the Players had taken your feet! Your
legs were so lovely when your skirt floated up. Where did you learn those steps?"
The Players... Could it be? Had she made contact? The prospect awed her. But what could she say to
Stave?
For a moment she was nonplussed, knowing that she could not afford to have him guess that she was
tuning in on the music of the Megaplayers, but also that it would not be right to lie about it. The magic
she sought was the essence of truth; a lie would taint and perhaps nullify it. Yet if she distracted him by
waxing romantic, she would be deceiving him in another way. She had no intention of marrying him.
"Just how far did my skirt rise?" she inquired, forcing a blush. This was about as much of a ploy as she
cared to try: diverting him to a minor matter.
"Oh, not that far!" he said quickly. But it was obvious from the dilation of his pupils that it had been too
far. Yet maybe that had solved her problem: he had already been distracted. It was not the way she
would have chosen, but perhaps it was just as well.
ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0
www.ABBYY.co"mI tell you, Ana," he said as she hesitated. "I always thought you were, well, distant. Not the sort of girl www.ABBYY.com
to take on a date. I came here with you mainly from curiosity. But when you danced-you are a truly
comely woman-it would be easy to love you."
"Don't do that!" she exclaimed. Then she had to laugh. "I mean, I didn't mean to-"
She saw him grow subtly tense. He felt rebuffed. "You just wanted to see what kind of impression you
could make on a man when you tried?"
"No, I-"
"Well, I'll tell you: you made an impression on me!"
This was getting worse. "Stave, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"
He smiled, not comfortably. "You're trying to say that you didn't know how well it would work, or if it
would work at all, and it worked too well? I understand. You had no more interest in me than I had in
you. You just wanted to try the dance and see. Now you know: it works. So it's time to fetch whoever it
is you're really interested in, and make your skirt flare up for him, so-"
"Stave, no!" she cried, chagrined.
"It's all right. There's someone I'd like to impress too. Can you show me how to do that dance?"
She stared at him. She had not tried to deceive him; he had deceived himself. But she had to accept it. If
he took the dance as a romantic prelude, instead of a connection to the Players, there would be no
suspicion.
"I can try," she said. "But it isn't something I learned. It just happened."
"Let's make it happen again." He set down the skunk, which became a stick as his hand left it. "You did
a side step, like this, and back. Then you hopped." He did these motions and he talked. He was nimble
on his feet; he knew how to dance. "Then something happened."
She had heard the distant rhythm of the Megaplayers! But she doubted that he would be able to hear it
too; he was not ninth born. Could she duplicate the dance without that music?
She tried. She set her feet in the remembered pattern, and her body moved, but the magic was not there.
"No, that's not it," Stave said, following her perfectly. "But the wind was taking your hair and skirt.
Maybe if I try it up at the brink." He walked to the verge, faced out as she had, and tried the steps again.
The wind caught at him, as it had at her, and the sound of the sea seemed to grow louder. Stave danced-
and it seemed almost that he was getting it. Certainly his tunic was flaring; if it went any higher she
would have to avert her gaze. Then he misstepped, and teetered on the brink.
Nona screamed, and Cougar barked. At the same time, she exerted her magic, drawing him to her by a
spell of attraction. Just enough to prevent him from falling outward. Stave caught himself, and dropped
to the ground, catching his fingers in the sod for support.
ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0 ABBYY PClDicFk hTerrae tno sbfouyrmer2.0
www.ABBYY.coNm ona ran up, her heart pounding. "I thought you were going over!" she said, dropping to her knees www.ABBYY.com
beside him.
"So did I," he confessed. "I almost got it, but then-"
"Enough! Get away from the edge. Don't dance any more. If-if you want something of me-"
He glanced into her decolletage as she leaned toward him. "I do. There is no other woman I wish to
impress. But I think-I think it is forbidden. Get your bosom out of my face before I forget."
She straightened up, smiling contritely. She had come to him in genuine alarm, thoughtless of her
appearance. The tunics of the theows tended to be too large in the neck region, so that women normally
held them closed with one hand when bending forward. Certainly she had given him something to see!
She was no longer embarrassed; the horror of his near fall over the brink had banished that. But she
played the innocent. "Forbidden?"
He got up and dusted himself off, then extended a hand to help her up. "Will you answer one question?"
Had he felt the faint presence of the Players? Suddenly she feared that he had. He might not have been
able to attune well enough to dance, but he might realize that something was there. She didn't want that.
Neither did she want to discuss it, because the despots could be eavesdropping with their magic.
So she did not answer. Instead she stepped up close and drew his head down for a kiss.
She could tell by the way his body didn't give that she wasn't fooling him. He did suspect.
Then he put his mouth down by her ear. "I felt it," he breathed, his moving lips actually touching her ear.
"I felt your magic save me. You can trust me."
Could she? He had made it seem like an endearment, as jf kissing her ear. In the process he had
eliminated both sight and sound, because not even a magic spy could hear such a faint sound beyond her
ear or see the motions of his lips against it. Yet suppose he merely wanted to learn something about her,
so as to curry favor with the despots by telling them? She could not risk it.
"Nona," he breathed.
She jumped. He had spoken her true name! But no villager knew that. Not even her father knew it, and if
he suspected, he would never have told.
Then, to cover her reaction, she spoke. "You bit my ear!"
"A love bite," he said. "Isn't this what we came here for?"
"I'm not sure." Indeed, she was in doubt. Was he going to require her favor, in return for his silence? She
did not see him as that type of man, but he had already expressed interest in her body. This could be a
dangerous game.
He drew her slowly in, and kissed her. This time she was the unresponsive one. He pretended not to
notice, then moved back to her ear. "Can you hear me?"