Диана Джонс - A Sudden Wild Magic

“It might,” the king agreed intently.

“But there’s more,” Gladys said. “I’m glad we’ve had this talk, all the four of us together, and you happened to mention Tod, because things are really falling together in my head now. It’s what you said, Majesty, about Leathe getting this whole stream of stuff. I saw that stream, back in the early days. It’s like a great mains sewer, and I’m afraid I know what it is. You see, Tod told me he was set to spy on the man in our Inner Ring— he’s called Mark Lister, and he came out of nowhere suddenly with powers you wouldn’t believe, which always did puzzle me, but I was only just widowed then and I’d other things on my mind, like a row with my daughter, and who was to replace Len in the Ring, and so I kind of let him pass, if you know what I mean. Anyway, Tod said our Mark was the image of a man called Herrel in Leathe—”

“Stop there,” said the king. “I see. Herrel Listanian’s been puzzling us for some time. So not only has the woman Marceny committed an abomination, but she’s poisoned our world doing it. Good. Then I can safely close down Marceny.”

“It seems to me you’d do well to close down this Leathe as well,” Gladys observed.

“Unfortunately I can’t,” said the king. “The ex-High Head here will tell you how Leathe was legally established as the demesne of female mages soon after Arth was established.”

“I could go on for hours about it,” the High Head said bitterly. “It may have started as a safeguard, believe it or not, to separate male and female mageworkers. Now, to cut a long story short, Leathe is established by every magical and legal method possible. It would take a major revolution to unseat those women.”

“You never know,” said the king. “My hope is that it’s begun.” He sat forward. “I’m glad you came to me. Our Powers know what they’re about. As it happens, I am in a position to complete the picture. A regrettable part of our situation with Leathe is that I, too, have agents who spy for me. And reports came out of Leathe this morning that a centaur, a gualdian, a small child, and a young woman have suddenly arrived on the estate of Lady Marceny.”

The High Head and Gladys both cried out together.

“One at a time,” the king said mildly. “Brother Lawrence?”

“It’s impossible!” said the High Head. “I was going to say they couldn’t get out of Arth — but if there’s wild magic in question, I suppose I — But, Your Majesty, you know what they do to gualdians in Leathe. I’m one of the products of it — I know.”

“Yes, indeed,” the king said. “I have Philo very much in mind. My agent has instructions to assist him in every way. And you, madam?” He turned to Gladys.

She had her hands to her face. Jimbo was chittering and nudging her beaded knee. “Poor Zillah,” she said. “Majesty, she’s in love with Mark Lister, and she has power. The moment she sees the other half of Mark, she’ll know. And she’s going to try to put him together again. Majesty, Mark knows all the secrets of the Ring, and he’s a computer expert. That’s too many ideas.”

“It is,” agreed the king. “She’ll have to be stopped.”

“She will be,” said Gladys, and the grimness of her Goddess Aspect came over her. “I must get there at once and stop her.”

Zillah wished Marcus would settle down. He had had two-thirds of an Arth day, followed by most of a Leathe day, which ought to have been enough to tire any toddler, and he was still fretfully on the go. The possibilities of all the toys in the bag had long ago been exhausted. The room they were in was little help. It was not exactly a cell, but it was made of stone and only sparsely furnished. Since the light came from a barred grille outside and above the window, Zillah concluded it was a basement room, though she had not noticed going down any stairs when they had been brought here. The door was solid, and locked. Marcus was pounding on it at the moment. She wished he would stop, fall asleep for a while, or at least give her time to think.She needed to think of the things Lady Marceny had said. Somewhere among the woman’s saccharine words there had surely been something that might help her turn this hopeless situation around. But she could not think of anything, not with Marcus banging away at the door. She also felt she should worry about Philo and Josh, and think of Tod — a sort of moral duty to blame herself for causing disaster to people wherever she went — but she could not concentrate on that either. In fact, the only feeling she had room for, among the distractions Marcus made, struck her as entirely crazy: it was joy. A placid joy. Herrel was here. He would come. She only had to wait.

She told herself, without success, that this could be nonsense. The light from the grid was evening light now. No one had been near them, even with food, since they had been put in this room. Hope should be fading— except it was not hope: it was faith. All the same, since some of Marcus’s restlessness must be due to hunger, it was time to think of something else to take his mind off it.

Zillah got up off the flimsy cot-bed. “Here, Marcus. Stop banging, love. Let’s build a house in the middle of this room.”

Marcus turned and beamed. “Ow,” he agreed.

They assembled what little furniture there was and disassembled it. Marcus was good at taking things apart. He happily reduced the flimsy bed to a pile of rods and laths. For a while, he was diverted by being allowed to do something he had so often been prevented from doing, but he grew fretful again when Zillah tried to encourage him to build the pieces into a hut. Zillah persevered. They had quite a creditable Eeyore- hut made when the door opened and Herrel sauntered in.

Marcus greeted him with loud friendship. “Ow, ow, ow, ow!” he shouted, pointing at the edifice and beating with a spare bed rod.

Herrel grimaced. “Ow indeed. Were you thinking of keeping a pig?”

“OW,” Marcus repeated, conceiving he might have been misunderstood.

“Yes, I know it’s a house, fellow.” Herrel scooped Marcus off the floor, bed rod and all, and went on a remarkable walk with him, straight up the wall beside the window, upside down across the ceiling, and down the opposite wall. Marcus thought it was marvelous and flailed his rod enthusiastically. Showing off, Zillah thought. Showing me party tricks. Maybe showing me that’s what he’s like. These dispassionate thoughts did nothing to counteract her sheer joy. Herrel had come. Her faith was justified.

“More!” Marcus commanded, as Herrel descended to the floor.

“If that’s what you want,” Herrel agreed, and went on a second gravity-defying circuit, this time around the length of the room, up the door and down the far wall, forcing Zillah to back toward the window. She watched his gawky jester’s figure as it walked upside down, head almost brushing the top of the Eeyore-hut. A Joker, the Fool, the Hanged Man. Herrel was telling her all these things. Possibly he was also enclosing the room in some form of protection. She noticed he said nothing of importance until he arrived back, upright in the place where the bed had stood. “The centaur’s still in the grove,” he said. “They can’t budge him. And the little gualdian’s disappeared.”

“Phil — I mean Amphetron?” Zillah said.

“Bilo!” boomed Marcus from Herrel’s arms.

Herrel tapped him on the mouth. “Shut up, you. Neither you or your mother are good at secrets, are you? Fatal to come to Leathe if you can’t keep a secret. Yes, the gualdian. My mother sent sweet Aliky up to him a while back. I suppose the idea was to start with a bit of tempting kindness, but if the girl couldn’t fetch the centaur out of the grove, I can’t see her seducing a gualdian myself. Anyway, she never got a chance. She shot back down, screeching that the room was empty. Now there’s a major search going on. Have you any ideas on this? My mother sent me to ask you. I’m supposed to be interrogating you cruelly.”