Fractal Mode

Chapter 3

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