Fractal Mode

CHAPTER 7—EARLE

IN the early eons, the anima governed our world you call Jupiter, and the women had the magic and ruled the men. Earle was too virile for this, and resolved to bring the animus and set things right. He was the firstborn son of the firstborn son, down through the eight generations since the anima had taken hold. He alone had the power, for the amazons had killed all the other perfect firstborn males on all the other worlds. Jupiter was a tiny world in an almost endless chain of worlds along a filament that went into a dead-end curl. This alone accounted for its being overlooked by the dread forces of the anima. They had killed most firstborns here too, but had been somewhat lax in the outlying provinces, so his family line had escaped.

So Earle had magic, and he dared not show it. But if he could bring the animus, then he could found a new and glorious age of men, replacing the tyranny of women. Yet how could he accomplish his purpose? He didn’t know, and did not dare inquire. So to his friends and associates he was merely an ordinary peon with a certain flair for music who might, were he lucky, be employed to entertain the amazons at court instead of having to labor as a weed-chopper. Actually his power of music, too, was greater than others knew; he could hammer the dulcimer so cleverly and sweetly as to charm the very bees of the flower fields into dancing, and the honey in their combs to added sweetness. But he had the caution to mute this ability too.

He reasoned that since he was the firstborn of the firstborn, eight times over, his answer might lie at the first world of the first world, which he believed was the head of a chain of eight. That is, the origin world, from which all others derived. So if he went to that world, he might succeed.

How could he travel there? He knew it was possible to travel along the filaments, for his ancestors had done it. But the secret was known only to the red-cloaked amazons, who would not tell any black-cloaked peon. He had to find out for himself.

Yet there were legends that circulated furtively among his people, and they hinted that the right person might be able to do it if he stood in the light of the filament and wished hard enough. Was Earle the right person? He hoped so!

So he buckled on his sword, used a spell to reduce his precious magic dulcimer to pocket size, and traveled to the East Sea. It was a far distance, so when he was sure no one was watching, he used his magic to fly, and this was much faster, though it also tired him faster. He had to rest for a day once he reached the sea. Then he risked using his magic to enable him to breathe the water, and he walked down under the surface until he came to the crevice and the filament. He bestrode it and wished with all his might that he might travel along it to the larger world at its other end.

Suddenly he was flying along the filament, so fast he was amazed. It was working! He shot straight along, passing many smaller worlds whose folk never noticed, and landed at the larger one, called Sol by certain folk. This, by his reckoning, was the seventh world in the chain, his own world of Jupiter being the eighth.

But it was so big! Judging by the height of the trees, which were in proportion, it was about thirty-six times as far across as Jupiter. It had been wearing to fly across part of Jupiter; how could he fly from one end of Sol to the other? And what of the yet larger worlds to come, which would make Sol seem as small as Jupiter now did? There had to be a better way! So he approached a native of Sol. It was an aspect of Earle’s magic that he could tell whether a person was friendly or unfriendly, and he selected the friendliest one in the nearest village of giants.

But when he flew to that house, he was taken aback. It was a red-clad woman! An amazon! Surely no member of the ruling class would help any man to reverse the anima, especially not one who stood about two of her inches high.

Yet his magic indicated that she was the most likely prospect. So he explored the matter. He flew in a window and sat on the sill and watched her. She was monstrous, of course, but also beautiful. Her hair was dark brown and waist length, her face pretty, and her body marvelously well formed. Had she been his size, he would have loved her immediately. Except that she was a red amazon and he a black peon.

Could his magic be wrong? If it was, then he was lost, for he would never complete his journey without help. So he nerved himself and addressed her. He did not try to use words, knowing that their languages would differ, but illusion was a common mode of communication. He made a picture of himself, greatly expanded, and flashed it before her face.

She paused in her activity, which happened to be making a tasty-looking cake from grains of wheat. She made an illusion of her own, a giant question mark.

Earle introduced himself. “Earle,” the image of him said, tapping his chest.

The woman smiled. She tapped her breastbone. “Kara,” she said. Then she turned to look at him directly, tuning in on him with her magic. If she turned hostile now, he would be finished, for his magic was no greater than that of an ordinary amazon, and Kara was a big amazon.

Indeed, she caused him to float to her hand, and he knew he would not be able to escape her power. She held him up before her face and inspected him closely. Her mouth opened, and he feared she was going to eat him. She could bite him in two without effort! Then she smiled again, remaining friendly. He was greatly relieved.

Her curiosity satisfied, she sought to put him aside, her interest in this novelty fading. She meant him no harm, but she had other things to do.

This was not what he wanted. He needed her active help, not her mere tolerance. How could he convince her to take him seriously?

His desperate eye fell on a monstrous long-necked mandolin hanging on her wall. Music—she was musical!

He generated a picture of himself playing his dulcimer.

That got her attention again. Her eye went to her own instrument. Then she looked at him, there in her hand.

He brought out his tiny case and took out his dulcimer. He sat and crossed his legs, then used magic to restore his instrument to its proper size. He set it against his legs, which was not the best position from which to play, but would do in this emergency.

He took his two little hammers and struck the strings. The music came out, clear and strong, every note a delight. Now he could let his full skill manifest, and he reveled in it, making music that was almost painfully beautiful. All that was good in his soul was evoked in that sound, as his hammers moved with blinding cleverness across the strings.

Kara listened. At first her eyes widened slightly with surprise to discover that his skill was genuine; then she relaxed and let it carry her.

When he was done with the piece, she set him carefully on a pillow and went to fetch her own instrument. She sat and played it, and the sound came out so deep and resonant that Earle himself was charmed. She was not as skilled as he, but she was good enough. She was also absolutely beautiful herself as she played, her hair rippling in waves as her body swayed to the music, her bosom gently heaving.

Then they played a piece together, his tiny sound magically amplified to match hers, and it was a truly enjoyable experience. Never before had Earle allowed himself to indulge his full proficiency, and this would have been a delight even had he not done it in the company of a lovely giant amazon.

After that, her interest was changed. She wanted to communicate further with him, to learn all about him. He realized that the music had done what his magic could not: it had moved her heart.

They talked, exchanging illusions. He showed a map of his origin world, though that could hardly have surprised her, considering his size. Earle, encouraged by her surprisingly positive attitude, finally made so bold as to show his mission: travel to the center of the universe, where he hoped to invoke the animus.

He waited, knowing that now she would destroy him, if she was going to. But she merely considered. Then she smiled. I HELP YOU, her pictures indicated.

Earle was amazed and gratified despite her consistent friendliness. Yet also doubtful. Could he really trust an amazon giant? It seemed he had to. Besides, she was lovely.

So Kara tucked him into her breast pocket, and flew into the sky of Sol. She traveled much faster than he could have, because her flight magic was in proportion to her size. Still, it was a long journey, because she lived on the head, at the west end of Sol, while the filament onward connected at the East Valley. He found it a comfortable ride, for her great bare breast beneath the pocket was marvelously soft and warm and supple. After a time he slept, secure and cushioned in the pocket, and that was pleasant too.

He woke as she came to land at the verge of Jupiter’s East Sea. She stumbled as her feet touched; she was tired.

“Rest!” he cried, making a picture of a pile of pillows, of a woman lying down, of eyes closing.

She smiled, agreeing. But first she had things to do. She went to squat in bushes, not bothering to remove him from her pocket. Earle, intrigued, peered down as she hiked up her skirt. She seemed to be exactly like a woman of his own planet in every detail he could see, except for size. He began to wish she were his size, for though she was an amazon, she was a perfect woman. Indeed, her status as an amazon added to her allure. He had been close only to peon women, intriguing in their white tunics, and had seen amazon women only as imperious members of the elite class. But the amazons, having more leisure than the peons, could afford to make themselves beautiful, and some of them were extremely so. As this one was, in every part.

Kara made herself a bowl of gruel and mug of cocoa and fell to. Earle was surprised again; this was common fare, not the elegant repast expected of a member of the governing class. But it seemed she was too tired to get fancy, and had no need to be artificial. He liked that. He conjured his own gruel and cocoa, and ate where he was, in her pocket.

Then he had a need of his own. He made a picture, getting her attention. It showed the bushes.

She had the grace not to smile, this time. She lifted him out and held him on her flat hand, and he then flew down to where he could do his business in privacy. He could have flown directly from her pocket, but preferred to check in and out, as it were, so that she would always know where he was. This seemed safest, considering that his whole body was somewhat smaller than her little finger.

He returned in due course to her hand, and she returned him to her pocket. Then she made the pillows he had suggested, and lay down on her back. She made a blanket, and when the mosquitoes came, she made a bottle of perfume that seemed to repel the bugs as much as it attracted Earle. He needed no pillows or blanket; he had as soft a mattress as he could wish, and her body warmed him.

But she did not sleep. He understood the problem: she had performed an extraordinary feat of magic, flying the entire length of the planet, and that aspect of her was depleted. It was like having painfully sore muscles, that would not let a person relax enough to sleep.

Earle, having rested and slept during the long flight, had plenty of energy. He decided to try to help her to relax. He brought out his dulcimer and made it the proper size. He sat on her breast, there by the pocket, and played his music.

Kara smiled, appreciating his effort. She relaxed. But not enough. Something more was needed.

So he made a picture for her, angling it so that she could view it comfortably without lifting her head. It was of a fence between pastures, and a flock of sheep in one. But the grass was greener in the other pasture, so an enterprising sheep leaped over the fence, landing with a musical thumping of his four hooves. Naturally it was followed by another, and another, making an endless chain, all of them jumping to the music. It was the standard device used by his folk; his mother had put him to sleep when he was tiny with just this vision. Counting sheep—and soon the monotony of the distraction caused relaxation and dreams.

Kara smiled with wan appreciation, but even so did not relax quite enough to sleep. So he put a goat in the line, and then a deer, and then other animals, until finally he had bouncingly fat hippopotami doing it. They made heavy music as they struggled across. Kara enjoyed the show, but not enough. So he made images of himself, black-cloaked men, hurdling the fence, one after the other.

She laughed, and joined in the picture: red-cloaked women of the same size alternated with the men. The hems of their garments flared as they came down, showing their legs. Each one who landed had her dress rise a little farther, until at last one hem flared so high that her most private region was revealed. Whereupon the man who followed her, staring at the legs and perhaps a bit more, tripped on the fence and fell on his face. Such was his distraction that his smile remained even after his face made a dent in the sod.

The red woman turned back and came to the black man solicitously. She helped him up. The other figures faded out, leaving only those two beside the fence.

Earle was amazed. This was an interactive illusion! He had participated in games and contests in which peons tried to best each other’s images, but the only interaction was when one blotted out another. He had known that amazons had superior illusion, and realized that his own facility was equivalent, but had never dared play the game this way. Now, with an amazon, he was doing it, and it was wonderful.

The picture woman did not let go of the man once he was stable. Instead she embraced him. The man looked exactly as startled as Earle felt: just how friendly would an amazon get with a peon, even in illusion?

Well, maybe he should find out. It wasn’t as if any of this was real. It was just a game, a distraction from Kara’s tiredness, so she could sleep. So he made as bold as he dared. His figure returned the embrace, and moved his face slowly toward her figure’s face.

She did not pull away. Instead, her face met his. They kissed. There was a marvelously romantic melody.

Earle’s heart was pounding. A peon man was kissing an amazon woman! In fact, an Earle image was kissing a Kara image. That was not only remarkable, considering the extreme difference in their stations, it was wonderful. He wished he could kiss Kara like that. But of course it was impossible. She was playing a game with him, teasing him, as women were wont to do with men.

Her huge real hand came up to her bosom. Earle quailed. Had he taken the image too far, and she was now going to take him out of her pocket and throw him away?

But her hand only touched him, her fingers squeezing him ever so gently in the pocket, then relaxing. It was reassurance, not censure. She liked the image-game.

He put away his dulcimer and wrapped his arms around her forefinger and hugged it. Her hand remained, resting on her breast, no weight on him. She did not object.

Earle had hardly dared believe before, but now he began to. Kara was lonely, as he was, so was willing to play a game with images that she would never have done in reality. Yet how far would she go, in illusion?

The image had frozen in place. Now motion resumed. The woman disengaged and stepped away from the man. But she did not depart. She drew off her tunic and stood before him in her glorious nakedness, except for her slippers. Then she removed these too. Somehow that magnified the effect. She waited.

The image man hesitated, then slowly pulled off his own tunic and stood in his slippers. He hesitated again, but the woman waited. So he took off the slippers too. Earle had to decide in what state the man should be presented, and decided that any man in that situation would be most ardently inclined. So as the slippers came off, the masculine desire of the image man manifested. Certainly Earle himself was in such a state of desire, futile as it might be. How would the image woman react?

She smiled and came to the man. She kissed him again, and pressed in closely, running her hands across his body as eagerly as he was running his hands across hers. Then they were in the throes of the kind of lovemaking that worked best in imagination: no miscues, no objections, no misalignment of actions. Everything was perfect, and her ardor matched his. Despite the perfection, it took a wonderfully long time to run its course, for illusion could endure for inhuman lengths.

Then the woman faded from the scene. Earle found himself embracing and kissing Kara’s huge finger. But Kara herself was relaxed. In fact, she had fallen asleep.

The shared image had finally distracted her enough so that she had tuned out her fatigue. That had after all been the point of it. But in the process, Earle had discovered something awesome. He was falling in love with the giantess.

IN the morning Kara evidently felt better, but Earle was nervous and confused. How could he love an amazon giant? The notion was ludicrous. Nothing could ever come of it. Yet his pulse raced as he gazed up at her face, and it raced again as he gazed across and down at her body. She was his ideal woman, in personality, magic, and form—except for her size. To her it had been a game of idle fancy; it should have been the same for him. After all, the same sequence that had aroused his ultimate passion had put her to sleep. That showed that even had they been the same size in life, she would not have taken any such relationship seriously. It was no more than innocuous diversion for her. A harmless flirtation without true emotional involvement. Only a complete fool would see it otherwise.

Earle knew himself for a fool.

She lifted him out of the pocket and brought him past the truly awesome valley between her breasts and on up to her face. She touched her lips to his head, then set him down. Was she deliberately playing with his feelings, as she had with his image? She was after all an amazon; they were notorious for their callousness toward peons. Yet his magic indicated that she remained friendly. He wanted to trust that magic.

They ate their morning meals, then made ready to travel. Kara made the water porous and breathable, and walked down under the sea to the nether crevice of the East Valley. But here she paused, and an image appeared.

It showed a black-clad man riding up along the filament toward the next world of what some call the Milky Way. A larger red-clad woman remained behind.

She wasn’t coming? Somehow he had assumed that she was. But why should she leave her world? She had no reason to bring the animus; it would only deprive her of her magic. She had helped him travel, and had played with him in fancy, and that was it. She would see him off, then return to her home.

But he did not want to go without her. His mission remained, but his day and night with her had done more than move his body. It had moved his mind. His heart.

He made a response image: a small black man with a large red woman, both traveling the filament. Then a reprise of their shared image of the evening, the two figures the same size, the man hugging the woman. He was telling her that he cared for her, however foolishly, and wanted her continuing company. That was all he could do. How would she respond?

She smiled. Then she made the effort, and abruptly they were sailing up along the filament between worlds. She had wanted only his confirmation, his invitation! Did that mean that she cared for him too, or merely that she sought a pretext for adventure? He still wasn’t sure why she should support his mission, because it would cost her her magic. But after last night he was not inclined to question her too closely about that.

For one thing, this was a much longer and more convoluted ride than the one he had taken alone from Jupiter to Sol.

In fact, it shot right past worlds of Jupiter’s size and larger, and in and out of small ninety-nine-ray stars in a seemingly endless progression. This was part of the huge ray structure of the star with which Jupiter was associated, which was not the one closest to Jupiter. That was because Jupiter was near the end of a formation reaching from Star 99 to Star 98. They were moving in toward 99, and it became glorious as they went, though the constant spins into and out of starlets were dizzying. Gradually Star 98 faded behind, and the light of Star 99 dominated. But as they whirled into its mighty vortex, he realized that it was composed entirely of starlets, which were composed of smaller starlets, in turn composed of yet smaller ones. He couldn’t focus on them; he had to orient on the larger filament, to stop from getting disorientation sickness. What a contrast to his straight-line travel from Jupiter to Sol!

Into the heart of 99, into a brief eternity where the endless filament met the infinitely small space, just as was the case with the myriad starlets which comprised the larger pattern. Then out again, whirling and whirling, but the larger filament was almost straight to the head of what appeared to be a tiny projection on a truly monstrous world. It was in fact a rad, of the same sort as was on Sol, and on any world: the boulderlike base for an emerging filament. But this rad was perhaps a thousand times the size of Sol, and the world was perhaps a thousand times the size of the rad. Earle simply could not get a proper perspective on it; his imagination was too small. He had not realized that the universe was quite this big.

They landed on the tip of this projection of the Milky Way, a world of mind-numbingly vast dimension. Its surface was rough, and there were no familiar things, just balls and bags and sticklike things. Kara seemed as mystified as Earle was. These worlds were supposed to be similar, differing only in size.

Then they realized that they were so small for this world that they were the size of germs, those malicious little creatures that cast spells of ill-health on whomever they infested. No wonder it wasn’t recognizable! But it probably wasn’t safe either, because those germs could be as big as Kara, and Earle wouldn’t even make a meal for one.

So they cooperated on a vision, magnifying their perceptions until they could see on a scale a million times as large. Now it was apparent that they stood on the tip of the smallest head, looking down toward the main head, and beyond it the body of the rad, which was actually a tiny one deep in the crevice of Seahorse Valley, between the Milky Way’s own head and body. It was perhaps the least significant aspect of this world, and their entire system, down along the filament, was so minor as never to have been noticed by the folk here. This was not the most pleasant revelation for either Earle or Kara, but did not entirely surprise them.

Near this rad grew normal trees. It seemed to be regular farmland, with pastures and villages interspersing the forests. But a million times as big as what Kara had known, and even further removed from Earle’s experience. How were they going to communicate with anyone here, let alone get help? For it was obvious they would need help; this world was simply too large for them to handle themselves.

But Earle was determined to proceed. He made a picture: the two of them flying to the nearest native residence and making pictures for that person. They themselves might be far too small for the native to see, but their illusion images could be large enough. Illusion could be any size, for it was formed of nothing.

So they found shelter in a crevice of stone and rested for a day and night, because the journey along the filament had tired them both. They made food and drink and had a good meal, then relaxed and shared another same-size fantasy. This time they did not bother with a fence or sheep; his image and hers appeared directly. It was apparent that Kara enjoyed this as much as Earle did, whatever the nature of her underlying feeling. Such a thing was impossible physically, but in the image their representations hugged and kissed, and she ran her fingers through his hair and he ran his hands across her bottom, and their passion mounted to heights like those of the trees of this world, and they proceeded to an act of love whose perfection was limited only by their comprehensive imaginations.

If only it could be possible! But she was thirty-six times his height, and he was so small to her that she could have eaten him in one mouthful. So she might as well be toying with his love; it made no difference in any practical way. Their fancies were the only place where it could happen.

IN the morning they made the long flight down to the nearest house. Kara put forth special effort, buttressed by Earle’s own effort, and was able to fly much faster and farther here than on Sol. Thus they covered a distance that would otherwise have been unthinkable. By day’s end they were at the base of the rad, near the house.

They spent another night, resting physically but not emotionally. Though it seemed that their imaginations had been exhausted in the prior session of shared illusion, they discovered new resources and made another wonderful experience of it. Kara even tucked him into that valley between her gently heaving breasts, so that he could get just a notion of what it might be like in reality. Earle would have forgotten his mission entirely, had he had a way to do with Kara physically what he did in image. But that was a choice he lacked, except to the extent he could stroke a tiny section of her flesh with his hand. She either liked him, or was really teasing him, or both.

Next day they approached the native, in much the way Earle had approached Kara. They perched invisibly on a windowsill and formed a tremendous illusion picture for the benefit of the man as he got up. They decided to use Kara’s image, suspecting that this would impress the giant, but Earle’s clothing, for the man was a black-clad peon.

It worked. The man was interested. He made images of his own, inquiring who they were and what they wanted of him. They explained that they were explorers from smaller worlds, and that they wanted to go to the center of the universe and bring the animus. But why would Kara, a woman, want this? the man inquired in pictures. Because, she replied in pictures, she believed that the worlds were becoming decadent under the anima, without much vigor, and she thought it would be more interesting under the animus. The situation of many women, she explained, was not much improved under the anima, for only one woman could be queen, and the queen tended to be jealous of her prerogatives. Perhaps if the burden of power was lifted from the shoulders of women, they could revert to their natural inclination to please men.

Earle found this interesting. Was it really the way she felt, or was it merely to persuade the native to cooperate? If she meant it, it was one more reason he wished he could really be with her. She was truly the ideal woman.

The peon decided that this effort was worth supporting. The way his eyes traveled across Kara’s image might have had something to do with it. Her image’s assumed white cloak, being unfamiliar, tended to fade out when she was concentrating on difficult concepts, leaving the more familiar body exposed. That was enough to make any man amenable.

When the man discovered just how much smaller Kara was, he was disappointed, but he remained interested in the mission. So he joined them, and they flew up to perch on his head. They used magic to clean out the germs near the base of the most convenient hair on his head, and made a shelter there. They stocked it with the comforts of home.

However, the native had no magic other than illusion, because he was both peon and male. He could not fly across the world to the East Valley. But Earle and Kara had discovered how to share their magic powers. They united their wills again, and reached down into the will of the native, and enabled him to draw on the techniques they possessed. Magic was not so much a matter of power as understanding, it turned out, and their understanding was being lent to him.

The man rose up and flew. Delighted, he sailed rapidly across the world, carrying them along. He flew high, so that the amazons of the Milky Way would not spy him, and came down only at the shore of the East Valley Sea.

After resting another night, and sharing delicious visions with each other but not with the huge native man, Earle and Kara proceeded with the giant into the sea and to the filament. Their ability enabled the native to do what he had never before imagined, and he sailed up along the filament toward the next world.

So it was that they went to the fifth of the worlds in the chain, which was so big that they didn’t bother to try to imagine it. And the fourth, third, and second, each one equivalently larger, and finally the first. This was the true center of the universe, so extensive as to be beyond comprehension. Yet its people were the same, in proportion, as were those on all the lesser worlds.

They proceeded, in their chain of eight that resembled one with something in his hair, to the East Valley. Here they descended into the sea and stood athwart the filament there—except that this time there was no filament, for this was the origin world, the beginning of the universe.

The monster man of the First World got down so that his head was under the water by the very tip of the crevice. The giant of the Second World in his hair climbed down to be even closer, and put his head farther into that crevice. So it went, until the giant of the Sixth World, the Milky Way, got down with his head as close in as it could get.

Now it was Earle’s turn to act. He dismounted from Kara’s pocket, as she stood in their house on #6’s head. He made his way down to the very focus of the cleft and stood there alone. “Animus, I invoke you!” he cried, exerting his will.

Nothing happened. Could it be that his immense journey had been for nothing? That this was not the way to invoke the animus?

Then he heard the sound of Kara’s mandolin. She herself was out of sight in the murk of the mighty East Valley Sea, but her music reached down to him and touched his soul.

He brought out his dulcimer, made it full size, and set it up. Then he played on it, exerting all his skill.

Now he felt it take effect. The music had once again been the key. The world was changing, invisibly, and with it its dependent worlds, as the animus coursed along the filaments, through to the least significant extremities of the universe. It was done.

But there was no apparent change. The giant men did not seem to have magic, and Kara had not lost hers. Had their effort after all foundered?

“No,” Kara’s picture reassured him. “The thing has happened. The anima now governs the worlds. But its effect is subtle, because your magic remains. Mine is gone, but you are imbuing me with yours, so I can function as before. It is our children who will feel it. Our sons will have magic, and our daughters will not. In a generation all will be changed.”

Oh. He had not realized that it would not be instantaneous, for the men. Perhaps that was just as well, for it meant that the worlds they traveled would not be instantly chaotic. At least, not completely so.

THEY made the long journey back. On each dawningly chaotic world they left its giant native, and took the filament forward to the next. So it was for seven diminishing levels. Then they were back at Sol, Kara’s home.

Earle suffered agony of heart. “Oh, Kara,” his image said to hers as the two embraced. “I don’t want to leave you! I have deprived you of your magic, and without me you will have none.”

“I would have you remain with me, were it possible, for other reason than that,” her image replied, kissing his. “But this is no world for you. You must return to your home, where you will be honored.”

“I am uncertain of that,” he replied. “The amazons will not be pleased to know that I have deprived them of their power, and the peons will not yet have that power. The amazons will take great delight in executing me.”

“True. Then I will go with you and protect you from their malice. As long as I am with you, my power will seem to remain, and it will daunt them. If it does not, I can simply step on them.”

Earle would have argued, but he now had two excellent reasons to desire her company, so he did not.

They took the filament together, and arrived at the East Valley of Jupiter. Kara waded out of the sea.

Then they paused to reconsider. Earle did not want her giant feet to trample on the peons. Where could they go, where Kara would be welcome? “I fear you have no more place on my world than I on yours,” his image said sadly.

Then she had an idea. “Is this not close to the origin of our species?” her image inquired.

“Why, yes, as legend has it. The tiny subordinate world of Oria is fabled to have been the origin from which mankind spread across the universe.”

“Then on that tiny world must be the secret of size,” she said. “For as we have seen, every world has people and animals and plants in proportion to itself. Everything is self-similar; it is a guiding principle of our universe. They must have been magically changed to fit, and the first people must have known how to do it. That magic has been lost in the course of the eons, but perhaps it remains known on that one world, or can be rediscovered there.”

“The secret of size!” he said, excited. “If we had that, we could become the same in body as we are in image!”

“That was my thought,” her image confessed, blushing prettily.

Now Earle remembered how she had said “our children,” perhaps unconsciously, and he understood that she returned his love. She had not been teasing him; she had been giving him all that was possible.

So they flew a quarter circle around Jupiter, treading on no peons, and landed at the tip of the head of the head of the appropriate rad. Then they rode the filament out to Oria.

Oria was tiny. Every step Earle took was like twenty or twenty-five of his normal ones. For Kara, it was worse. To her, the natives stood only about the thickness of the cloth of her tunic in height, and were no more visible than an ant. To avoid squishing folk, she decided to wade at the edge of the water, or to fly, rather than to tread on land.

But where was the place to find the secret? They considered, and concluded that since this was the ninth world in the chain, it must be at the ninth rad. As it happened, that rad was well up toward the East Sea. In fact, it was under the East Sea. It was believed that mankind and all the animals originated under the sea, so this made sense.

They went there, and Kara stood over the rad, and set Earle down on it. They were right at the verge of the sea; the top of the rad formed an island just offshore, large enough for Kara to lie on.

Earle stood on it and brought out his dulcimer. Kara had hers, but it was reduced to the size of his for easy transport, and she saw no need to restore it yet. He was the one with the special magic, and only his music would do it.

He played, and the sound spread out across the sea and made it shimmer, and across the land and made it quiver. It reached into the sky, and the clouds shivered and turned to haze. “I feel it!” Earle cried. “I can change the size of the one for whom I play. I will make me large, to match you.”

“No, make me small to match you,” Kara said. “We shall still both be large for this world, and we can remain here together in comfort.”

Earle agreed. Since he now had the power, and could invoke it anywhere, they decided to get safely to the shore first. She quickly took him up and floated to the shore, where they sat side by side on the edge of the water, she towering over him as he dangled his feet in the water. To her, the bank was merely a rise, and the sea here barely covered her toes.

He played for her, and she began to shrink. It was working! Once started, the process continued by itself, so he put aside his dulcimer and reached up to hold her huge little finger.

It grew steadily smaller, until he was able to grasp her huge hand. The hand became smaller, along with her body, until at last she was his size. She got up and stepped out of the sea to stand before him. She had shrunk entirely out of her clothing and was naked.

Delighted, he embraced her and kissed her on the lips, physically, for the first time.

But she continued shrinking. Horrified, he tried to hold her, but she shrank in his arms. He took up his dulcimer and played, but the spell would not be reversed. It was running its course, heedless of his will. He had invoked a spell he did not properly understand, and now was paying the penalty.

Helpless, he watched her diminish. Her own mandolin, formerly a tiny thing in her huge hand, remained as it was, and now was far too large for her to play. It slid off the bank and partway into the sea. He was now too large to be her lover. She diminished to a quarter his height, to an eighth, a sixteenth. All he could do was shield her with his huge hand, preventing her from falling into the sea.

Then, less than a twentieth of his height, she stopped. She was now the same size as a native of this planet. Their problem of size remained; they had in effect changed places.

Suddenly he understood. “The magic makes a person fit the world!” he exclaimed. “It makes folk grow or shrink, depending on the world, so that thereafter they can reside there in comfort.”

She sent up an image: “Then join me, beloved!” the image cried.

Immediately, he played the music for himself. He began to shrink. He set down the dulcimer and the two hammers, for they were not affected, and his own cloak became too large for him. He stepped out of it, and back from the brink of the cliff, which was now quite formidable though it had been no more than knee height to him before. His dulcimer slid off, joining her mandolin, partly in the sea. It could not be helped.

He became her size, and stopped. Again he embraced her, and kissed her, and did with her the things they had done only in image before. Then they made new clothing for themselves and walked away from the sea. They were united at last.