A Sudden Wild Magic

The singing became audible, huge and throaty, as if the stones of Arth themselves were chanting. The High Head dithered toward his inner door, still incredulous. “Leave everything? If I were to talk calmingly to—”

“They’d tear you apart!” Edward said, pushing him. “Go! Run!”

The High Head looked yearningly toward his mitre and sword-wand on their stand beside his desk; but the chanting was now so near that he could feel the words even through the grinding of the stones. “What about you?” he said, coughing in the blue dust. “That’s murder on its way — I can feel—”

Edward knew with fatalistic certainty that he was now cut off from Healing Horn. “Never mind me. I’m not High Head. Run!”

To his relief, the High Head wasted no further time and dived away through his inner door. Edward, coughing and resigned, ducked his way out into the clearer air of the outer office, where the roaring was louder yet, and joined the two clerks at the veiling. Given luck, the avenging mages would assume he was simply kicking his heels here, waiting to see the High Head. But they would be furious to find the High Head fled, and they all knew Edward was the man’s one friend.

That man, friendless now, was speeding giddily down a steep blue stair, with its walls beating the murderous rhythm around him. Ramp was a courtesy title: there had never chanced to be a centaur High Head, and therefore no need to adapt the secret way to hooves. Stairs made unfamiliar going. He knew he dared not waste time stumbling. Every Horn Head was given the secret of Arth’s peculiar umbilical connection to its parent universe when he assumed office. With it, in case of emergencies that had never yet arisen, they were given the Ritual of Egress. The High Head saw he dared not assume that the chanting crowd baying for his blood contained no Horn Heads. He had angered them all too much. Therefore he galloped, wondering if his knees would hold out, wondering just how long it would be before some Horn Head discovered the hidden archway in his sleeping quarters and led the baying multitude down after him.

He had just reached the point where the stairway turned to ramp as it was joined by secret ways from other Horns when he knew that they were after him. The steady vibrations broke up. Though the joyful, idiotic rhythm of the conga kept on beneath the rest, there were other rhythms above it, angry and chaotic at first, then steady and trochaic — a sort of yammering double beat that reminded the High Head hideously of some Lady’s hounds in Leathe when she had a manhunt on. It filled him with fears from childhood he had hoped never to feel again. He swung into the ramp and sprinted, thankful it was all downward, blessing the memory of the founder-mage who had decreed regular exercise for every mage in Arth, and overwhelmed with humiliation. That he should be the High Head around whom Arth broke up! So shaming. He was even more shamed to think he had been afraid of the wrong group of women. Give me Lady Marceny any day! I’d trade her for that Roz and that Helen! he thought, to the regular slamming of his feet. How many Oaths broken? Edward’s for one. With whichever woman it was who had contemptuously told Edward the truth. The bitches had got inside and rotted Arth from the core. What did it matter then who knew?

He swung into another ramp that spiraled down among the reservoirs. The mages were closing. They must have sent the younger ones after him. They were too many for him, even with his superior magecraft, and with the vibrations all on their side—

His feet skidded, and he only just saved himself on the wall. The ramp was awash with running water. Here was a further horror. What those women had done to the vibrations had cracked a reservoir. A crack, with that weight of water behind it, only took bare moments to become a large split. Shortly a wall of water would be rolling down this ramp on his heels. The terror of it was such that the High Head spared effort from running to levitate. He heaved himself up an inch or so and sped on. Goddess, the double effort was tiring! And on the next ramp down, his raised feet were splashing, sending up great gouts of spray. He was forced to send himself up another foot and run crouching through the air under the lowered ceiling. He could feel — hear! — the rumble of escaped water following him now. He cringed against the ceiling and tried to put on a spurt, scrambling like a crab. Down and around. Down in front, the water was dimly banking, dammed by the secret portal, banking higher every scrambling step he took. The following water was close to thunder. Gabbling the Rite of Egress, he dived, praying for safety.

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