A Sudden Wild Magic

While they placed this unsavory heap on the only table, the higher mage who chaperoned them stood tapping his boots with his stick— officer’s baton? wand? none of the women were sure which it was — and gazing at some point above all their heads.

“Vigilance upon you is relaxed,” he announced. “You will not any longer be closely watched, and you may go anywhere in the citadel within reason. You will be told if you overstep the bounds. And you will be careful not to interrupt any mage in his work.” So saying, he summoned the two young mages with a flick of his stick and departed, conveying them before him with the tip of it pointed at their backs. It was as if the young men were marched off at gunpoint.

As the doorway folded shut, feelings inside the room were divided between suspicion that this announcement was a trick to get them to talk, and disgust at the nature of the lunch.

“At least we can talk about this food,” Flan said. “What are those horrible-looking black bits?”

“Burnt meat,” said Sandra.

Helen put forward a long-fingered hand and squeezed one of the gobbets in a cautious finger and thumb.

“Oh, don’t!” Zillah said. “It looks like a slug.”

This earned her a startled look from Judy and a reproof from Roz. “There’s no need to be disgusting,” Roz said. “Well, Helen?”

“Someone burnt the meat and then soaked it in water to make it soft, I think,” Helen said. “It may be the way they do things here.”

None of them could manage much of the stuff, and Marcus refused to eat anything at all; although this, Zillah suspected, was because he had spent most of the morning eating bread and jam. “Oddie dug! he shouted. Encouraged by Flan’s shuddering laughter, he threw a handful of black gobbets across the room.

„Marcus has it right,“ said Flan. „Ardy poo for breakfast and oddie dug for lunch. What a gift with words your child has, Zillah.“ She might be angry with Zillah herself, but she did not feel Roz had the slightest right to treat Zillah so peremptorily. Having, she hoped, made that clear, she said, „Well, Roz? What say we test out this permission to go anywhere we like?“

„Suits me,“ said Roz. The two of them departed without another word. The veiling of the door opened to let them through without any difficulty, and no mage appeared, either to stop them or escort them.

Sandra said unbelievingly, „It looks as if that mage meant what he said. In that case, I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to find their kitchens and I’m going to tell them a thing or two.“

„I’ll come with you,“ Helen offered quietly. „Suppose we take the plate of stuff back with us? That will give us an excuse to go there.“

Sandra thought this was an excellent notion. The two of them set off, carrying the large platter between them; with everyone’s forks stuck into it at random and Marcus’s handful of gobbets reposing on top. This left Zillah with Judy and Marcus. We’re the two shell-shocked ones, Zillah thought, looking at Judy sitting very upright against the wall. Judy’s eyes filled with tears from time to time. Otherwise there was almost no expression on her slightly droll face. She looked like a sad Pierrot. Zillah did not feel like crying. It was more that she had a blank, disconnected feeling, rather light and feverish — the way she had always thought a person might feel if they were coming around after a lobotomy. She simply could not get used to the fact that she was not missing Mark any longer. By coming here, she had put it out of her power to hope, and her misery was gone. Oddly enough, it did not seem to make her feel relief.

But there was Marcus to look after. „Do you want to go for a walk, Marcus?“ Zillah said dubiously. As far as she could work out, he should have been resting — or was it getting ready for bed? She felt more than a little jet-lagged herself. Every rhythm in her body was telling her that, though it was afternoon in Arth, it was quite another time on Earth. If Marcus was feeling the same, he would be restless and irritable.

He agreed, „Awk,“ at once and held out his hand to be taken.

„I’ll come too,“ Judy said, somewhat to Zillah’s surprise.

The three of them went out through the almost unfelt folds of the doorway into the blue corridors beyond. Judy said nothing and seemed to rely on Zillah to choose a direction. Zillah let Marcus tug her the way he wanted to go. She rather thought he was making for the kitchens.

If he was, Marcus had made a mistake. He stumped doggedly up one of the circling ramps, towing Zillah, with Judy sleepwalking behind, and plunged through a wide area of veiling at the top. The brightness and blueness on the other side made Zillah blink. There was a smell of asepsis. In great busy quiet, mages in pale blue gowns were working beside a sort of bier on which lay a young man with a handsome, friendly face, evidently dead. Because his fair hair was trailing backward, it took Zillah a second to recognize Tam Fairbrother.