Fractal Mode Read online

  Fractal Mode

  Book 2

  The Mode series

  Piers Anthony

  Copyright © 1992

  Cover art by Daniel R. Horne

  ISBN: 0-441-25126-9

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1 Nona

  Chapter 2 Colene

  Chapter 3 Darius

  Chapter 4 Oria

  Chapter 5 Jupiter

  Chapter 6 Angus

  Chapter 7 Earle

  Chapter 8 Secret

  Chapter 9 Virtual

  Chapter 10 Rabble

  Chapter 11 Slick

  Chapter 12 Duel

  Chapter 13 Esta

  Chapter 14 Deal

  Chapter 15 Radical

  Chapter 16 Anima

  Author's Note

  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 one would never be proficient, but he had to master the basics, or suffer consequences. The teacher did 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.

  Under her gaze the torn flesh knitted itself back together, and the color became normal. The pain faded, 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. No one except her mother. Not even her father, though perhaps he suspected.

  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 di
scover 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 purpose masked by the charade, did they talk. Even so, it was in interrupted segments, so that any 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. Consider their instruments!

  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.

  Stave picked up a stick. "Fetch, Cougar!" he cried, hurling it ahead of them.

  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.