A Sudden Wild Magic

Looking along their faces, he had a sense of deja vu. This felt just like his speech to the servicemen, except none of these women struck him as second-rate. They all gave him a sense of quality. But what was the same was that they were all — he knew it — potential troublemakers — including the child, who was raising his voice in some kind of complaint.

“Please silence your infant,” he said politely.

Zillah’s face flushed all over. There was a sense of anger. Of powers. But the child stopped his noise.

“Thank you,” he said. “Now, Arth and its Brotherhood were founded a thousand years ago on the king’s orders, for a double purpose: first, so our charter states, to protect the Pentarchy and, by our researches, to strengthen the realm; and second, to provide the young men of the five provinces with proper teaching in magework. This citadel was made so that the Brotherhood could employ its arts in peace and seclusion, and a very holy ceremony was performed to create it. A piece of the Sanctuary of the Goddess was raised and moved to this place, which afterwards became Arth. Now, you will understand from this that Arth is in a special position: not only is it in existence solely by favor of the Goddess, but it is also at once very potent and very fragile. We in Arth have to be very careful that, while we take advantage in our mageworks of the special vibrations of this citadel, we do not in any way unbalance them. If we did, Arth would be destroyed. For this reason, all of us in Arth—” He paused impressively. They were listening patiently, waiting for him to stop. “All of us in Arth,” he repeated, “take solemn vows of total celibacy. The Goddess exacts extreme penalties from those who break those vows. Now, you are all women. I must therefore ask you to understand, and to respect the oath we take.” Ah, that got to them! They were looking alarmed — shocked, in fact — and impressed. “I believe you take my point,” he said. “Thank you. Someone will be along with food for you shortly.”

He swept out. He did not hear Flan say, “Obvious, isn’t it? Work on these vibrations with a bit of kamikase sex, and who needs virus-magic?”

“Tantric,” agreed Roz, and cackled hilariously.

3

The food was appalling. What was not tasteless and tough, swimming in some weak liquid, appeared to be some kind of cereal — large, off-white mounds of it — that looked like rice but, as Flan said, tasted like overcooked potato. They were none of them hungry after their experiences. Most of them could not eat it. Marcus deliberately overturned his bowl on the floor and smacked the resulting sloppy heap severely and often.

“Ardy poo,” he stated. “Dummy ay.” No one asked Zillah to translate.

But after a night under one thin blanket on a hard wooden bed, every one of them was ravenous. They were given a jug of brown liquid that— possibly — partook of the nature of both tea and coffee, and, to their dismay, the cereal again, this time cold but fried.

“Oh, looky, looky!” said Flan. “Potato Krispies!”

“Snap, crackle, sug,” Zillah agreed.

“And I like my popcorn hot,” Roz said morbidly. “Is this drink toffee or kea, or neither?”

“Cooking’s not really my scene,” Sandra observed, “but it wouldn’t take much to make me go in that kitchen and try. Even I could do better than this.”

“You wouldn’t be allowed,” said Roz. “This is the way they mortify their flesh for the Goddess. This is not food, it’s religion, friends.”

“Not religion — magic,” Helen said in her quiet way.

“Oh, you mean we’re supposed to transmogrify it into bacon and eggs like they all do?” said Flan. “Abracadabra—kippers! No, still the same old ardy poo.”

Zillah was not surprised that Marcus spat the stuff out. She was scooping it off the floor when they were summoned by two solemn young mages. “They go in pairs, to chaperone one another,” Flan said in a stage whisper. Both young men went scarlet, but pretended not to hear. They guided the party decorously along corridors and dizzy blue ramps to the outer office of the High Head. There an elderly mage told them to wait. The High One wished to ask each of them some questions.

The High Head meanwhile was looking at the full report Edward had handed him over breakfast. All the survivors were in good physical condition, it seemed, but none, except for Flan Burke, appeared to be athletes. The child was healthy too, but Edward was at a loss to think what sport a child so young might compete in. So was the High Head. He intended to find out.

He had them in one by one, starting with Judy. Edward had stated that she was the least stable and most likely to give the real truth if pressed. But Judy simply and doggedly repeated the story Roz had given, and then burst into tears. “All my friends are dead!” she sobbed. “And I don’t know why. Lynne just died. She was talking to me, and then she was dead — just like that!”

The High Head was not used to people crying. He got the woman out of his room as fast as he could and called in Roz.