Диана Джонс - A Sudden Wild Magic

Know your men and keep them happy, the High Head thought, in considerable distaste at himself, as he cut the connection. That agent would now obtain him real information, quickly and in quantity. But since it did not do to play too many games with an agent’s feelings, the man would have to be replaced — just as he was likely to be most use. Pity. The High Head sighed as he detached all the threads of thought from the spindles and left the agents to themselves again. He stayed in the Wheel himself, however, for he still had his contact to make with the third important female. She was almost as hard to tag as the old one. He had discovered she had a life-partner, but, to his chagrin, the two seemed perfectly faithful to each another. All attempts to plant a lover had been wasted. He had no success in tagging her mind, either. It was not so much that she resisted his efforts as that she seemed totally unaware of them. He just slid off the surface of her mind.

But in the course of his attempts to tag her, he discovered that she had young. This was excellent. None of the young knew very much, but they served to inform him when the female was moving, and if there seemed to be any unusual excitement brewing. They had been most useful in charting the response to Arth’s last big test. The female had indeed been distracted by the small act of war Arth had organized, but when the noxious fumes had started drifting in from the continent — where the response of mageworkers had been surprisingly patchy — the young had told him that their dam had suddenly become alert and raced off to cooperate with the old female. The old one was known to them as “Auntie Gladys.” They seemed to like her. They were disposed to like the High Head too. They thought of him as “Earth Angel,” and they treated him with trust.

Then their usefulness had ended abruptly. The High Head had moved in on them as usual one day on a routine check. And found himself confronted with a sudden wild magic, passionate and strong. It was partly taught — enough to be conscious of itself — but hardly tamed, and it flung fluctuations all over the Wheel with a force that a full-blooded gualdian could hardly have equaled.

“How dare you!” it blazed at him. “Get out of these children’s souls this instant!”

The High Head had been forced to retreat before the power of its anger, vainly protesting that he had always treated these young with kindness, that they liked him, knew him well, named him—

“I don’t care what you think they think, or even what they think!” the wild magic stormed at him, and around him, and through him. “These are my sister’s children, and I’m not having you nosing around inside them! It’s unclean! And you’re not doing it ever again!”

True to its word, the wild one had turned and thrown a rock-hard protection around those young. It was like granite. Powered by anger, that shielding formed an impenetrable twist right through every band of the Wheel. Nothing the High Head knew could have broken it. He moved out, chastened. But shortly he realized that the wild one was not wholly aware of what she had done. In her semitutored state, she imagined her warding was inadequate. She was afraid it would break. She kept her attention on it and on those young, prowling anxiously over what she could see of her handiwork, testing its links, watching for him to try to invade it.

Laughably, she had forgotten to ward herself in the slightest. The High Head soon found that, provided he was very cautious and quiet, he could use the wild one just as he had used the young. She was a good deal more informative too, because she was to some extent in her sister’s confidence. But she was touchy. She tended to become aware of him if he tried to direct her thoughts in any way — though, so far, she had never connected his presence with “Earth Angel” — and he found it best to nudge up to her, make the most tenuous of contacts, and then hope she would think of what he wanted her to. She very often did. The hope of a High Magus of Arth was a powerful thing in itself.

This time, as he made delicate, delicate contact, she was fortunately musing alone. There was the usual sadness. There had been a very unfortunate love affair. It was to be supposed that her present unhappy musings were about that.

the emptiness. That time there was nothing there — horrible — like looking down a long, long well. But there was something at the bottom. He was down there and seemed the way he should be for the first time. Once I’d seen how he should be, what he let me have was almost as horrible as the well. Like a dead thing. But she was down there with him. She did it.

The High Head had not much idea what this was about. He waited. His subject went on to her mother next. This was an equally unhappy topic and seemed to inspire some of the wild rage he had encountered himself.

I could kill her sometimes. If she makes Amanda cry once more, I really might. Nasty thought. Stupid, though, two grown women cringing when the phone rings in case it’s their mother. She never ought to have had children — except she needed something to hate, and besides, we were both accidents anyway. Had Amanda in her teens when she thought life couldn’t do that to her, get her pregnant like common girls — and me late on when she thought she was too old for it to happen. But I’ll kill her if she gets at Amanda once more — for being kind to me, for God’s sake! Poor Amanda — when she’s got enough on her plate keeping this country safe.

Ah, here it comes! thought the High Head.

No, it’s the whole world this time, isn’t it? Or is it the universe? I get muddled. Are there really lots of other ones? Amanda seems to take it as proved there are lots. Or do I mean the cosmos? Cosmoses? Cosmodes? Anyway, lots. It wouldn’t take me long to step over into one just to get away from the bottom of that well — but I don’t think you can do it just like that, and anyway, I don’t want to muck up their greenhouse plans. And I bet I would. Born with two left feet, that’s me — as Mother likes to point out. Anyway, they wouldn’t choose me because of Marcus, bless him! But if I could find out how I’d—

Unfortunately, at this point she became aware of the High Head.

— Oh, bugger! There’s that bloody demon sniffing around again! I can feel it. Out, you! Get out! OUT!

Just as if he were a mongrel after scraps! The High Head retreated hastily. Her strength was such that his face stung with it and a vile vibration shook him from neck to coccyx. He had to sit still for a moment, recovering. But it was worth it! They knew they lived in a multiverse, though they had showed no sign of knowing that before this. As he picked his way through her ramblings, he gathered they were choosing a team— surely of those with the strongest magics — and about to take some action that must somehow involve the whole cosmos. Blowed if he could see what action, but otherworld could be relied on to take some bold, wild way — perhaps something on the lines of manipulating the tides between universes? This could well be it. Anyway, Observer Horn would soon be able to tell him. And meanwhile there were the new servicemen to talk to. Jovially he picked up his wand and his mitre and left for the exercise hall.

The two sparse rows of young men hastily came to attention as the High Head swept in, smiling, in all the awesomeness of the uniform of his office. Blue and silver glittered on him. The short cloak flared gracefully off one shoulder, jutting over the silver sword-wand, half concealing the great moon-badge on his chest. On his head, the great horned mitre raised him a kingly foot above men of mere mortal stature.