Fractal Mode

Chapter 14

leg while he nuzzled her ear again, and she had to tolerate this for the sake of the appearance they had to make. He had abruptly become most intriguing, in an entirely different way.

"But I had no special magic," he continued. "Only the skill of illusion we all share. And my parents did not seem to expect more of me. How could that be, if I was the ninth? This concerned me. I did not at first understand that the effect is limited to the female line. Then I realized that there could have been a double mask. I did not closely resemble my siblings, though none ever teased me about it; indeed they helped me to be more like them. I could have been from another family- exchanged for the true ninth."

His hand was resting high on her leg, but he was not moving it now. His interest was only for show. She, in contrast, was far more interested than she had been. Stave was after all no ordinary young man; he was bound to her in the most special way. He was in a sense her brother, and in a sense her protector.

She moved to put her mouth at his ear. "I never guessed!" she breathed. Then she touched her teeth lightly to his lobe.

"Hey, now you"re biting!" he protested.

She mussed his hair. It was fun flirting, now that she knew it would lead nowhere. "You are getting fresh for a first date. Get your hand off my leg."

He looked regretful. "Oh." He removed his hand.

She embraced him. "You should not be too quick to believe what a woman says."

He held her close and breathed into her ear again. "So when I came of age to wander, I walked from village to village, staying only long enough to see every person who was my age. When I came to this one, and saw you, I knew. You could have been one of my foster sisters. Then I looked at your parents, and they were fair like me. And your father-"

He paused. He brought his right hand around and turned so that his wrist was before her eyes. There was a small wine-colored stain-exactly like the one on her father"s wrist. There was no doubt of it: he was the son of her parents.

He had had as much reason to come here with her as she had with him. She had been looking for the Megaplay-ers; he had been looking for his alternate. His expression of diffidence had been only a cover.

Now she knew his question, and she trusted him with the answer. She glanced around, and spied a dry stem of grass. She picked it up. "I will give you an illusion," she said. In her hand it became a rose, its hue matching her dress, its bud just opening. She handed it to him.

He took it by the stem and brought it to his nose, pretending to smell its perfume. Then he froze, for just a moment. He brought it closer and actually touched his nose