A Sudden Wild Magic

The next moment they were out, truly into Tod’s world, into a wide, moist meadow, where, by the light, it seemed to be midmorning. Gladys looked with interest at the small, chunky young man beside her, with his dapper little mustache and his neat cone of hair. He was looking at her with — well — politeness, and plainly wondering if she could possibly fit in anywhere. Indeed, as his eyes fell on the yeti boots, she could see it cross his mind that these were actually her own furry feet and that she might indeed be some kind of subhuman species. Gladys drew herself up. Every bead of her finery rattled. “Young man—”

“You’ve got an ether monkey!” he exclaimed. “I’ve never heard of anyone taming one of those!”

Gladys forgot her reproof and looked down at Jimbo. Jimbo, realizing he was in the presence of another person who could see him as she did, stopped his defensive scratching and sat up in the long grass with all his hands held out and his bright black eyes ruefully on hers. Not my fault, Gladys. “Is that what they’re called?” she said. “But he’s not tame, you know. He just decided to live with me soon after I was widowed. He never eats. It worries me.”

“They live on low-band energies,” Tod explained. “He’s had plenty. He looks to be thriving.” While he was speaking, Jimbo took his revenge on Tod for recognizing him by reciting to his extraordinary bead-hung and feathered companion Tod’s full name and titles. “But I’m Tod to my friends,” Tod told Gladys hastily. And he told Jimbo, “Come off it, ether monkey. You knew I was bound to suss you. You heard me say I’d been properly educated. You come from a spoke of the Wheel that—”

Jimbo did not want Tod to say where he came from. It was somewhere quite near hell, Gladys had always believed. “Yes, and he wasn’t any happier there than you were in this place you call Arth,” she said. “He had an enemy. That’s why he left. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a bit of work to do before we go on.”

From the moment she stepped into this meadow, Gladys had been feeling a brightness and exhilaration beyond anything she knew from Earth. There was a cleanness. Some of it was, no doubt, simply the air, which smelled infinitely less polluted than Earth’s. Tod, as he stepped back respectfully to let her work, was taking deep, long breaths of the air and smiling. But there was more to it than that. The lines of force, as Gladys tentatively reached for them, were far stronger and easily twice as clear as those of home. It was going to be a pleasure working with them. So why did she feel, at the back of all this glowing strength, that something was badly wrong?

“Hm — more than high time I came here,” she remarked. “Let’s ask a few questions.”

She took firm hold of the forces. They almost fell into her hands, so plain were they and so ready for use. What a world! She envied Tod. He must have been able to do this in his cradle! Selecting the correct line, and holding the others she might need ready and wrapped around the little finger of each hand, she softly exerted her power — gently, not to offend here where she did not belong. There was instant response. Oh, what a world! Politely and deferentially, she requested, “The Being who has care of the physical level here — I apologize for not knowing your name — may we speak?”

There was a slight troubling of the air in front of her, a whitening and ruffling of the meadow grass, and the Being was there, sliding into visible existence as if from a great distance that was at the same time only an arm’s length away. He hung before her as a narrow, vibrant man-shape in a robe of kingfisher blue and orange. His wings, like a stained-glass butterfly’s, were of blue and vermilion lozenges, outlined in jetty black.

“You are welcome!” he said. His eager voice fell into the brain and rang there, oscillating.

Gladys narrowed her eyes against the vibrancy of his form. It was febrile, it seemed to her. “Are you well, Great One?”

“Not quite,” the oscillant voice answered her. “But I am not sure what is the matter. The sea rises and the earth heats, and not according to the usual pattern. There seems no way to stop it.”

“Ah,” said Gladys. “I’ve met that problem too. When did it start, here with you?”

This was a mistake. The Being did not measure time in a way it could communicate to Gladys, and vibrated anxiously.

“Put it another way,” Gladys said quickly. “Why did it start?”

“Your pardon, powerful visitor,” the Being belled. “I came to you for the answer to that. Have you no answer?”

“Hm,” said Gladys. “Overtaxed in some way, aren’t you, My Lovely? Yes, of course you shall have your answer as soon as I can get it. But first, I need to speak to the One who rules the level beyond yours. Bear with me for a while. And, if you would be so good, put in a word for me with that One.”

“Willingly,” the Being oscillated.