Диана Джонс - A Sudden Wild Magic

The sigils spread to rows of print, most of them routine reports. Defense Horn was still having problems with those otherworld rockets. Housekeeping Horn was inundated, because a year’s supply of goods had come over on the last of the tide. They requested help from either the cadets or the servicemen to unload capsules and stow provender. It would have to be the cadets who did that, because the newest recruits had been over for two days now and presumably knew their way around — enough to haul goods anyway. The servicemen had only come over in the carrier that brought the Ladies of Leathe, and thanks to those ladies, he had not even seen them yet. They should be about through with the rest of their induction by now. But here was Healing Horn — for which read Edward— wanting to see him about those same servicemen. Not yet, Edward, for Observer Horn was reporting some considerable etheric troubling centered on that spot in otherworld which they had learned to connect with the most useful mageworkings. And Maintenance had another leak in the atmosphere.

Maintenance Horn came first. That was a cardinal rule. The High Head indicated that they had his attention.

“It’s due to the tides, sir,” said the Duty Mage, briskly materializing in the mirror. “Tides always cause trouble, and this one’s bigger than usual, and there seem to be eddies. We’ve thrown up some patching wards, and they’ll hold till tonight, but I’m afraid it’s going to take a full-scale mage work to get it properly sealed.”

“Get Augury and Calculus to give you their best times for the ritual then,” the High head ordered. “I’ll have fifty mages stand by.”

Back to routine, he thought comfortably as the image of the Duty Mage dissolved. He called up Ritual Horn and gave them his instructions. Then he summoned to his reflector the otherworld site Observer Horn was so excited about. There was very little going on now. Hellband! It was high time something happened there. The Ladies of Leathe were not the only ones who were getting impatient. But the corner of his eye was catching the winged sigil flashing repeatedly in its mirror — Edward’s sigil — which meant that his friend wanted him urgently. He let Edward know he was free.

“Coming now,” said the mirror.

There was a delay while Edward traversed the corridors and ramps. As a healer, Edward claimed not to be very adept at projecting to a mirror. Oh, he could do it right enough, he always said when challenged, but walking was good exercise, and besides, having walked to where a person was made him feel as if he was truly meeting him. The other ways, he said, smacked of illusion.

Equally typically, when Edward actually arrived, he slid apologetically among the door-veils, ducking his head under the lintel. He always did duck, despite the High Head having several times stood him in the doorway and proved to him it was plenty high enough. And he advanced equally apologetically to put two steaming mugs on the worktop.

“I thought you could do with some coffee,” he said, “after Leathe first thing in the morning.”

“Rather than brandy?” said the High Head.

“Not straight after breakfast,” Edward said, “though I did consider beer — Oh, blast you, Lawrence! Why do I never see your jokes?”

“You usually do in the end,” said the High Head. “So what did you want to see me about? To make sure I hadn’t become a Leathe puppet overnight?”

Edward laughed. The High Head was gratified to see that the possibility had never occurred to him. “Great gods, no! No, it’s about this year’s servicemen — I imagine you haven’t had a chance to see them yet. I’m afraid you’re in for a shock when you do.”

“You mean the numbers are down? I saw that from the list. What happened? My guess is that the Ladies of Leathe quietly slung two-thirds of them off so that the Inner Convent — whom the Goddess bless! — could have plenty of space in the transfer carriage.”

Edward shook his head. “No, it’s not that. I talked to some of them, and they all say that this is all of them there ever were. I’m afraid it’s worse than that, Lawrence. It looks as if every single district that owes us service, in every single Fiveir, has sent the absolute legal minimum, and on top of that, almost every lad is wrong in some way. I’d say the Corriarden district turned out their youth prisons for us. There’s a lad from one of the north Trenjen places who can barely write his name— though he seems to have the rudiments of magecraft, so he’s within the letter of the law, just. And as for the rest, I’ve seldom seen a set of sorrier physical specimens. About the only normal one is the son of the Pentarch of Frinjen, and he’s only come because he had to — he’d be too old for next year’s batch — and he’s sulking like an infant over it. The rest are frankly demon fodder.”

“What?” said the High Head. “Even from the Orthe? What have they sent?”

“A spavined centaur,” said Edward, “and a gualdian with two left feet.”

The two of them looked at each other. The Other Peoples of the Orthe were under the king’s direct rule. Normally they took pride in sending the best of their youngsters for the year’s service on Arth, and it was not unusual for them to send several members of all five Peoples. If they, too, had dispatched only the very least they were obliged to send, then things were bad indeed.

“I’m not saying the king’s been got at by Leathe,” Edward said anxiously. “Though he could have been.”

“I doubt it.” The High Head got irritably to his feet and strode from wall to window to wall. “The king may be as scared of Leathe as the rest of us, but he can hold his own or he wouldn’t be king. I suppose we can be grateful to His Majesty for not coming here and giving us a piece of his mind like the Ladies of Leathe. Instead, he’s simply made it plain that the entire Pentarchy has lost confidence in Arth. Edward, it’s not my fault. I’ve worked like a demon to pull us out of the mess Magus Peter left us with. I’ve got everything running smoothly again — now this! What am I supposed to do?”

“Try to get some results on the latest experiment before the flooding at home gets much worse,” Edward said. “And drink that coffee since I troubled to bring it.” As the High Head stared at the mug as if it were an object from otherworld, he added, “I’ve got the assorted jailbirds, morons, and cripples lined up in the exercise hall. Want to come and give them your induction talk?”

“Give me five minutes,” said the High Head. He picked up the mug and drank absentmindedly. “I know I’ve been telling you all along that I’ve got a bad feeling about this flooding project, and I suppose this may be why. But I have a horrible sense that there’s worse to come. Do you?”

Edward shrugged. “Foreknowledge is not a thing I get much. Except about death, of course. I do feel a certain amount of death coming, I’m sorry to say. But,” he added, sidling his apologetic length toward the doorway, “that’s not unusual for a community the size of Arth. I’ll have a Duty Mage put those servicemen through some exercises while they wait. It’s always possible half of them will die of that.”

Bad feeling or not, the High Head got swiftly to work to push his project onward. Using the correct imagery, he bent his mind to the necessary spoke of the Great Wheel. There, he deftly and expertly hooked up the threads of thought belonging to his otherworld agents and led the whole bundle to the specially crafted spindles on his worktop. The spindles spared him trouble by translating to matter again and giving him the result in his main reflector.

There were a good many agents out there. They were necessary, not only for information, but to balance the continuous stream of ideas that had lately been flowing from otherworld to Arth and the Pentarchy. The High Head, being in a hurry, took most of them into his mirror in clusters, each twist of thread representing a center of intelligent activity in that world. Most reported, as they had been doing all this past month, that the effects of Arth’s project had been noticed. Otherworld seemed aware that its climate might be getting hotter and its seas rising. But not much yet was being done about it. Otherworld ran about wringing its hands and talked of planting appropriate vegetation or banning certain technology it believed harmful.