Диана Джонс - A Sudden Wild Magic

“Blood!” screamed Maureen. “That was real matter!” Joe’s reply was “I want out. up this way?”

“I don’t care anymore,” she said. “I’d do anything.” He said, “You might have to. You realize we’re stuck with one another after this, do you?”

She knew he was right. The nightmare enwrapment meant that she knew he knew a myriad small, disgraceful things about her, for instance, the way she had pushed poor old Flan Burke into going in the capsule just in order that Flan might not rival her in the troupe. And she knew the same things about him. What he had done to that man Wilfrid in Arth, for example. Wilfrid may have deserved it, but Joe had been vile, just vile. These and thousands of other pieces of knowledge bound them so tight that nothing short of murder could release them — and even murder was out of the question, for what one thought, the other would know. “I’ll settle for that,” she said.

“Me too,” he said. “Up now. I think this is how. It’ll take a while.”

Eventually there was a sense of rising. Altogether elsewhere, in the sealed flat, their two flaccid bodies stirred on the sofa.

Gladys was crying. “I’m all right,” she told everyone mendaciously.

“I knew Jimbo had an enemy. I thought he was running away from it, but I see now he was just waiting his chance to come here. But he was a good friend of mine — Oh, good God, my girl! Haven’t you ever dressed a child before? Let Auntie Gladys. Put him down on the table. Give me his clothes. Is this all he’s got? Lord, it’s filthy!”

She was briskly heaving Marcus back into his pyjama suit when the other centaurs charged in among the trees and galloped shouting across the lawn, overturning the fire tripods as they came. She turned around.

Her face was fit to look at by then. “If someone doesn’t do something, I’ll —!”

The king, in some tranquil, unguessed manner, contrived to surround the table in a bubble of peace. His mages gathered into it. Against a dark background of running centaurs all intent on smashing things, pursued hither and thither by a redheaded young man in wellies, who seemed to want to stop them, the king looked at the weary company gathered around the table. Tod was sitting on it with his arms around Josh.

“I don’t think we have broken the law,” Josh said aggressively.

“Not at all,” said the king. “It is a year since your service began. Besides, things have changed, over in Arth.” He nodded pleasantly to the girl who had tried to dress Marcus. “Thank you, Miss Aliky. I think you’d better return to Ludlin with us. Your cover is probably blown.” His round glasses went on to focus on Philo, leaning on the end of the table in the rags of a green cotton dress. “I take it you were able to help this young gualdian?”

Aliky giggled. “Not that much. He’s better at illusion than anyone I’ve ever met. All I did was put the idea in his head, Your Majesty.”

Philo grinned, soft but tired. “I almost had fun hunting the mansion for myself — but I was scared silly really, sir. I think only Zillah gues— oh!”

Everyone glanced at Zillah and Herrel perched face-to-face on the corner of the table, and saw that they were lost to everyone but each other.

“That makes two good women gone,” Tod murmured regretfully to Josh.The king had looked on to Paul. “Hallow Isle?” Paul nodded in a way that was near a bow.

Gladys by now had done up every snap on the pyjama suit. “There. Dirty but warm. Majesty, there is the matter of stopping this one’s mother from—”

“Too late,” said the king.

Gladys glanced keenly at Herrel. The jester’s clothes now enclosed a normal man, with an air of Mark to him. “I see what you mean. Now what?”

“Things are actually much improved,” the king said. “Zillah, I think, must have had the sense to call on someone to balance. And that abomination which inhabited Lady Marceny had sucked up a surprising amount. I felt a great wad of something tear loose when it went. This has made things a great deal better, although a little still remains. Zillah and her son, for instance. Excuse me, sir.”

He tapped Herrel’s shoulder, firmly. “Yes, you. Would you mind telling me your plans for the future?”

Herrel turned reluctantly, saw who it was, and stood up. “My idea was — well, Zillah wants to live here, and I suppose the estate is mine now. I’d like to secede from Leathe and make Listanian part of the Orthe. Is that possible, Your Majesty? It’s been a dream of mine ever since I was a boy.”

“It seems a good idea,” said the king. “But—” He sighed and shook his head at Gladys, because Herrel had already turned back to Zillah. “So we are still less than balanced. I take it you are returning, madam?”

“Of course,” said Gladys. “I’ve more than twenty cats — unless that daughter of mine has put them in the pot. There’s no knowing with that girl. Yes, I am going back — just as soon as someone’s told me what I do about global warming when I get there. That’s what started all this — the mess Arth made of my world — and I tell you straight, I don’t go without an answer, Majesty.”

“Here is your answer,” said the king. “You must take the ex-High Head of Arth back with you.”

At this Gladys said, “Oh, look here! The poor man!” and the High Head said, “Your Majesty, I refuse.”

“You may not refuse, either of you,” the king said. “Magus Lawrence has in his head all the lore of Arth, which is a very great weight of ideas. He also started your global warming. It is therefore just that he try to put it right.”

“Your Majesty, I don’t know how—” the High Head was forced to confess.

“Then you must go there and try,” the king said. “It is my will. Go now.”

Tod had never felt the king raise his will before. The force of it astounded him. Everyone stirred under it, like trees in a breeze. The High Head bowed. Gladys stood up in a clack of beads and held out her hand to him. “Come along, dear.”

He took her hand and they walked away toward a wood in the distance, not quite in the space where the centaurs still rushed about. “I have foresworn women,” everyone heard the High Head warn Gladys as they left.

“That’s all right, Lawrence,” her voice answered. “I’ve been a widow for years. But you’ll have your stomach cared for. I hope you like cats.”

The going of Gladys deprived Marcus of someone to talk to. He was warm now, and no longer frightened, and beginning to feel lively. He looked hopefully at Tod, but Tod, for some reason, was doubled over in fits of laughter. He looked at Philo and Josh and saw they were in the not-just-now-I’m-tired mood. Aliky didn’t know enough; nor did the serious men holding lights. He looked at Zillah. No, she and the man who walked on ceilings were not-now-I’m-busy. That left only one. Marcus pulled the king’s sleeve and pointed a starfish hand at the busily galloping centaurs.

“Ort bake ow,” he remarked. “Bad doubt.”

The king stared at him. “I do beg your pardon. I didn’t quite catch that.”

Diana wynne jones is the critically acclaimed author of several charming novels for younger readers. She lives in Bristol, England.

[an article DWJ wrote for Medusa about writing this first fantasy for adults — hilarious! http://www.suberic.net/dwj/medusa.html]

[scanned anonymously in a galaxy far far away]

[A 3S Release- v1, html]

[October 20, 2007]

An AvoNova Book William Morrow and Company, Inc. New York

a sudden wild magic is an original publication of Avon Books. This work has never before appeared in book form. This work is a novel. Any similarity to actual persons or events is purely coincidental. AVON BOOKS A division of The Hearst Corporation 1350 Avenue of the Americas New York, New York 10019 Copyright © 1992 by Diana Wynne Jones Published by arrangement with the author