Virtual Mode by Piers Anthony

Author:Piers Anthony [Anthony, Piers]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, General, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780246138606
Google: mA3ongEACAAJ
Amazon: 1469244136
Goodreads: 15949329
Publisher: Grafton
Published: 1991-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Time had passed, and nightfall was approaching. He had come a long way, and his legs were tired, but he was surprised at how fast the day had passed. He had not even paused for lunch, and was only now getting hungry.

Was it possible that the length of the day changed along with other things, in other Modes? Yes, that did seem possible. Too bad he did not have a time piece of the type Colene had. It was a little device she wore on her left wrist, which helped to cover the scars there. Tiny pointers moved in it, indicating the hour of the day. Superfluous in Darius’ Mode, of course, where things happened when they happened. But now that time might be changing, such a device might have enabled him to verify just how much difference there was.

Colene. She kept returning to his thoughts. On one level he recognized this quest as foolish, because he had already found the answer. He could go home and marry Prima and have an excellent career as Cyng of Hlahtar. She was older than he, but that was irrelevant; Hlahtar’s wife was neither for love nor offspring, but for a ready source of joy to spread. Prima was the best possible source. But he was intent on Colene, who offered him none of that. All she offered him was private love.

Well, that was what he wanted. He would fetch Colene, then see about Prima. It might be foolish, but it was what he wanted. At least he knew that Kublai had a good situation during his absence.

He came to a lake at dusk, or perhaps the shore of a sea. There was no such body of water within walking distance in his Mode, but he had long since recognized that though geography changed gradually, it also changed significantly, and it resembled that of his home only in the immediate vicinity of his anchor. Were he to become trapped in the Mode in which he stood at this moment, and walk back through it the way he had come until he reached the spot where his anchor was supposed to be, he would probably find a completely different geography.

The Modes changed vertically as well as horizontally, as if each sliver of mica had a different pattern that matched that of its neighbor slivers only when they were close. It was possible that when he had made the first foray into Colene’s Mode, it had been to the same geographic spot in her Mode as the one he had left in his.

He searched out a tree whose larger branches spread from one Mode to another. That was ideal. Prima had shown him that a tree was a good place to spend the night, removed from nocturnal creatures of the ground. But attack could come, and the best way to deal with it was to avoid it—by stepping into the next Mode. If he could do so without leaving the tree, so much the better.

He drank from the lake, washed, and ate from his pack.

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