A Sudden Wild Magic

“This is a map of otherworld,” he explained. He was perfectly aware that she kept trying to divert him, and it amused him. He simply answered her questions and went on. “I’m showing you otherworld first because it’s one of the three main types of land distribution in this cluster of universes. Look at it carefully and tell me whether it in any way resembles your own world.”

“It’s a map?” It resembled to Zillah more the lights and lungs of an animal hung in a butcher’s shop. “Sorry. It means nothing to me.”

Another gesture. The butcher’s shop dazzle was replaced by another, mostly a large pear shape with a crab wedged against it, trying to eat it. Zillah was already shaking her head when she recognized a sort of Africa in the pear shape. And could the crab be a version of Australia? Antarctica? High Horns was using some form of map-projection that was squashed and sideways and alien to her, and showing her a world not really anything like Earth, but — The moment she saw this, Zillah realized what the butcher’s shop had been. Earth! My world! The one he calls otherworld and a debased version and they all do research on! It had all been there, dangling and sideways, Europe, Asia, Greenland, the Americas, Africa, and Australia masquerading as the meat hook. Now she understood what Amanda had been talking about, and the reason all the other women were here. Guilt flooded her, along with shock and anger. How could she have been such a fool as to blunder in on what had to be a commando action? How could the mages of Arth so coolly tamper with Earth? How dared they?

To cover up her feelings, she kept shaking her head. The High Head dismissed his second projection with something of a showman’s gesture. He was unable to resist the flourish because, if her world was like neither of these, it had to be even closer to his own than he had realized. The pear and the crab vanished, and with panache, blue on white — like the United Nations! Zillah thought — two new shapes came to hang in the air. The larger, if you stripped away outjutting lands like Britain, Spain, Greece, India, Japan, and then tilted the whole lot downward, was not so unlike Europe and the bulk of Asia. The smaller was — somewhat — like North America, if you turned it sideways and south.

“That’s it,” said Zillah. This projection was almost saying Choose me! anyway.

“Then we must be very near neighbors,” said the High Head, rejoicing. It should be simple to get these castaways home before long. He used his sword-wand as a pointer. “This larger blue mass is the Pentarchy, where everyone on Arth was born, and this other is Azandi. If your home looks anything like this, it must be quite close.”

Zillah could see the idea pleased him. She could not think why. Her mind was still roaring with shock and anger, which she knew he would notice unless she was careful. She could feel her hands shaking. She tried to disguise her feelings as excitement. “Well, fancy that!” Lord, how artificial that sounded! She clasped her hands together and clamped them between her knees to stop them shaking. She leaned forward as if eagerly. And spoke almost at random. “I’d never have believed it — never for a moment! — because my world is so much more creative than yours.”“How do you mean?” asked the High Head.

He was offended. Zillah realized that her anger had fooled her and somehow slipped out sideways. She bit the tip of her tongue. Otherwise she was going to give the obvious answer: Because your world sponges on mine. “Well — I suppose I meant — well, this fortress is so bare. Don’t any of the mages paint or sculpt or — compose music or anything?”

“If we do,” the High Head answered austerely, “it goes into our work. Magework is creative and leaves us little room for hobbies.” He was taken aback. Zillah’s power had risen about her until she appeared to him to be enfolded in golden, feathered flame. He could not understand why a trivial thing like artwork could be that important to her. But there was no accounting for alien ideas. His main thought was that he had been right about Zillah: she was the important one among the castaways, and it behoved him to treat her with respect, or her world might become a hostile force on the Pentarchy’s doorstep. “Why,” he asked, with as much courtesy as he could muster, “does this trouble you so much?”

There seemed no way on but honesty. Zillah blurted, “It — it seems so sterile. And — I get the feeling that this fortress needs something more creative.”

“Ah no,” the High Head politely corrected her. “What you have sensed is that all Arth, and particularly the citadel, is precariously balanced. It certainly has needs. Our work is performed very carefully to supply the needs without upsetting the balance.” He stood up to show the interview was at an end. “Any extra activity — music, artwork, and so on — would influence the vibrations in a way that might destroy the balance.”