A Sudden Wild Magic

The High Head hastily switched to the centaur instead. Maybe spavined was too strong a term. But the youngster was swaybacked, with the horse ribs showing. And the front legs were knock-kneed, each knee with a large callus showing where they knocked. The equine coat was a mealy gray as mousy as the gualdian’s hair, and the boy-body as skinny as the rest. A charcoal dapple, which ought to have been on the equine barrel, was splattered across the boy’s face and pale hair instead. The king may have thought this some kind of joke on Arth, the High Head thought, but I don’t find it funny. Not funny at all.

“We don’t go so far as to ask you to take the Oath we of the Brotherhood all swear,” he was saying meanwhile, “but we do require you, while you are in Arth, to keep to the terms of the Oath as if you had sworn it.” Before the uneasy movements of the lads could amount to a real protest, he went on swiftly, “We honor the Goddess by our Oath. We take Her seriously here in Arth, and we worship Her regularly. She rewards us by giving us greater powers than we would have in the Pentarchy, by which we control the rhythms that hold this very citadel in place. So you see that the Oath—”

Here the centaur boy, rendered thoroughly uneasy by finding the High Head staring straight at him, was unable to control his bowel. His droppings fell with a most audible splat. There was smothered mirth. The young centaur shifted from hoof to hoof in hideous embarrassment, and his dappled face was scarlet. He clearly had no idea whether the rules required him to clear the mess up, as he would have done instantly at home, or to go on standing to attention and pretend nothing had happened.

This was a frequent problem with centaurs. The High Head solved it by briskly conjuring the long-handled covered pan and broom from the side of the room into the centaur’s hands. “There you are, Galpetto. Clear it up.”

The mirth rose to a glad roar, much of it rather jeering, and the centaur hastened to turn himself around and set to work, looking as if he wished the floor would open. No bad thing, the High Head thought. There needed to be some kind of joke after the solemn talk of Oath, though this was not quite the joke he would have chosen.

He spoke for a short while longer, outlining the tutoring they would have, the recreations and the duties. And it was typical of this substandard group that none of them were attending. The joke had been too much for them. He could feel their minds wandering, cloacal quips building up, and, in some of them, a resolve to make a butt of Galpetto. Usually the High Head ended his speech with a genial wish to them to enjoy their year of service. You may have come here because you were obliged by law to come, the usual ending went, but there is no reason why doing your duty should not be fun as well. Now he found he had not the slightest desire to say this.

“One last thing,” he said. “I spoke of Oath and I spoke of rules. When I said you must observe both, I meant it. May I remind you that you are under Brotherhood law while you are on Arth, and the Brotherhood’s punishments for lawbreakers are severe. If you break our laws, you will be punished, by us, in our way, and you will not enjoy it.”

He swept out, hoping he left them considering this.

III Earth

1

“The capsule’s nearly ready,” Amanda said, looking up from the student essay she was marking. “Do you want to come and see it?”

“Who else is going to be there?” Zillah asked. She managed to keep her manner entirely neutral. I’m getting good at that, she thought.

“Nobody, I hope,” said Amanda. Zillah relaxed, unhappily, and dabbled one hand in the large bowl of crumble mix on the table beside her to show both herself and Amanda she was truly relaxed. If Mark had been going to be there, she dared not go — and yet the hope, the horrible hope, attacked her that he might be going and she might have a chance of seeing him again. Even after two and a half years, she could not trust herself.

“Nobody?” she said.

The sisters were sitting in Amanda’s kitchen, a comfortable, light, spacious room, in which every detail was planned for convenience and beauty together, and in which every detail was also slightly battered from having been used by children. To Zillah’s mind, this added to the comfort. Without the battering, she was sure the place would have been as soulless as a magazine advertisement for a kitchen.

Amanda reached for the cup of tea beside her and took off her glasses. “Most of the people making the thing can only get there at weekends,” she said, “but the ones who live nearest work on it in the evenings when they get out of their jobs. I usually drop in by bus on my way to the university — to make sure it’s going right and to check the wards on the warehouse and so forth. But I make sure to keep my visits as random as possible. Today I’m at home. So I thought I’d go there by car at a totally different time.”