Fractal Mode

Chapter 9

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.

These had been the possessions of the Megaplayers, even in their destruction suggesting the immense power of that lost age. What giants had wielded these mighty instruments? What could their music have been like? What could have caused these