Letters to Jenny by Piers Anthony Page A

like mine, you won’t find it very interesting at first glance, but the more you look at it the more fascinating it will become as you try to figure out just what’s
with
this weird design. All from an obscure mathematical formula. So remember: there’s a whole lot more to math than the awful stuff they teach in grade school, and the higher math resembles the lower math much the way a beautiful princess resembles a squalling baby. I’ll be getting into this when I write
Fractal Mode
, the novel with that picture I described on the record album jacket—you know, with the huge stone dulcimer and the girl in the red dress. I don’t know which fascinates me more, the dulcimer or the damsel or the Mandelbrot set imagery I’ll draw on. So I will write to Mr. Mandelbrot, to make sure it’s all right to do that.
    Now let’s see—now stop that snoring, I know you aren’t asleep!—I was going to mention that I have put a scene in
Isle of View
with a princess and a unicorn. See, I knew you weren’t asleep! Actually there’s a dragon in it too; I hope you don’t mind. It’s a nice story that they make into a bad dream for Fracto (no relation to fractal!) the mean cloud. You see, Fracto hates nice things, so this really nice tale drives him to thunderation. But Jenny Elf picks up on it too, and for her it’s a nice scene. So the novel is progressing, slowly because a lot of other stuff came in this week, but it is getting there, and Jenny Elf is—well, can you keep a secret? She turns out to have a magic talent. Mundanes don’t, but she’s from the World of Two Moons where there is magic. So she has magic. It’s that when she sings, which she doesn’t like to do in public—I mean, who does?—a fancy forms, sort of like a daydream of a really nice scene, like a sweet princess and a nice castle, and anyone who hears her sing but isn’t paying attention enters the fancy too, and enjoys the scene. But anyone who is paying attention can’t get into it. This makes it sort of hard to verify her magic, as you might think. But it’s there, and it helps her stave off the awful fate the goblins are planning for her. Oh, I know it’s not Magician class magic, but it’s good enough.
    Tell your mother thanks for the copy of Andrea Alton’s novel she sent. I am buried in reading right now—I have to read a fantasy novel for a publisher, for a blurb—that’s a comment they can run on the cover, to encourage others to buy it—and I’m a slow reader. But in due course I’ll get to this one, so tell her not to get too impatient about getting it back. I see it has cat folk on the cover, which makes sense; anyone you folk know relates to cats, right?
    I must stop; it’s supper time. Keep getting better, Jenny—I know I’ve said that before, but you know, I wouldn’t want you to change your mind and start getting worse. May you dream of elves and unicorns and fractals—oh, all right, you can leave out the last.
    Apull 28, 1989
    Dear Jenny
,
    I heard something about something—details are obscure, because nobody is talking, but I think it was a whistle. I had to piece it together from secret fragments, and parts of it may be missing, but here is the unauthorized version of the incident.
    Things were quiet at the Cumbersome Hospital, and the folk there were going about their various businesses. The doctors were counting their money in the Doctors' Club, the nurses were running around with big needles to give patients shots, the patients were hiding under the sheets hoping the nurses wouldn’t find them, and the cooks were preparing something horrendously awful for the next meal. In short, everything was routine.
    Suddenly there was a piercing whistle. It reverberated through the halls and made every person stop. What was that? The sound was so compelling that all the doctors, nurses and cooks charged up to Warp 7 to find out where it came from. They traced it to Jenny’s room, and they all arrived there at once and