A Sudden Wild Magic

Tod was given an all-over gossamer-thin suit with smickering suction-soles. The soles were the only things that impeded him as he walked into the big, tranparent bubble of the rescue port. The rest of the suit was Arth’s secret, some kind of time-tested magework that allowed a man to breathe and move normally while protecting him from vacuum, germs, and even fire. Exploring it as he walked, Tod thought it was simply a hundredfold thickness of any mage’s usual protective circle — in which case, it must have taken years to make. However it was done, it was a wondrous efficient thing. The High Head may have intended this as a punishment, but Tod felt like a schoolboy on a treat. He stared out and around into the cerulean blueness beyond the port’s bubble and finally detected the silvery flash-flash of the rogue capsule turning over and over as it fell toward the citadel from about the ten o’clock position.

“This is something like!” he murmured. Up till then he had hardly believed there really was a capsule.

It was coming fast, too, enlarging rapidly as he watched it. Behind him, safe inside the walls, a monitoring mage murmured reports of what he was able to gather from the shocked minds inside the thing. Another, from Calculus, spoke crisp figures about speed, position, and deflections due to the storm the thing itself was arousing. Some other higher Brother was relaying orders to ranked mages from Ritual Horn, who were supposed to apply the brakes to the hurtling object. Tod could also hear various kinds of rescue teams gathering in the bubble at his back, but they kept away from him because, of course, he was in disgrace.

“Now!” said the higher Brother. Tod felt the force go out.

They had done it, too! The rotating silver shape swept to one side and whirled out of sight beyond the blue wall of the citadel. But they had cut it fine to Tod’s mind. The thing had surely all but impinged on the nearly unseeable veil that held Arth’s atmosphere. Still, why grumble? They had deflected it. Now presumably they had to slow it down enough to maneuver it into the funnel of veiling that led to the rescue port.

4

It was close and fuggy inside the Celestial Omnibus. That hissing, Zillah thought. We’re all going to die. A voice spoke, from somewhere in the central part where no one could go. “Be calm,” it said. “Please attend.”

It was a deep male voice that struck ringing echoes from the walls in a way none of their own voices did. Marcus stirred at the sound of it and came awake quite peacefully. Even Judy stopped whimpering.

“I speak for the Brotherhood of Arth,” the voice continued. “Have no fear. The Goddess has permitted you to enter Arth. Our skills will bring you safely to the citadel. Be calm and you will see.”

The accent struck Zillah as Scottish at first, but it also had a burr to it that suggested Cornwall. Whatever, the deep, measured speech was decidedly soothing. Thank you! Bless you! she thought.

And thinking that, she found she could see the citadel the voice spoke of, in a sort of round white viewport that floated just in front of — or maybe just behind — her eyes. Marcus had no doubt that the sight was in front of him. He stretched out a starfish hand and made his pigeon noise. The place — building? — lay below like a toy, an improbable blue castle sprouting hornlike turrets in all directions from a flat base. Turrets and central block had windows of all sizes, but there seemed to be no doors. Some of the turrets supported open gold devices like crowns, multiple ladders, and many-petaled flowers.

A babble of exclamations greeted it from down the front end of the Celestial Omnibus, and Judy’s voice demanding, “What is it? What are you all looking at?”

He means just what he says — the voice — Zillah thought. If you don’t panic, you can see. Poor Judy.

She watched the castle enlarge with incredible swiftness. We are going fast. Will they ever stop us?

The thought had hardly entered her mind before something caught the Celestial Omnibus and steered it sharply away sideways. Gravity altered too, not so sharply, but inexorably. Zillah found herself able to stagger forward up the aisle and guide herself and Marcus into a seat not quite halfway along. Behind her, bodies of people she did not want to look at subsided to drape over seat-backs or flop into the gangway. Up front, Flan and Roz were forcing Judy into a seat.

None of this interfered with the vision of the castle. They were sweeping over it, above it, and down the other side.

“They’ve put us in a braking orbit, I think,” the gawky girl said very coolly from up front.