A Sudden Wild Magic

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.”

Herrel said all this in a light, laughing manner and seemed to be addressing most of it to Marcus. Zillah tried to meet his eyes, but it proved almost impossible. He looked mostly at the top of Marcus’s head.