A Sudden Wild Magic

„You’ve got it wrong, Josh,“ Tod said, with his arm affectionately over the centaur’s flank. „The little fellow was actually calling you a horse.“ Josh laughed. Tod nodded cheerfuly at Zillah. „Nice to see you again. What’s wrong? This place giving you the slopes?“

Zillah came upright again in the greatest relief. „Yes, but I’m all right now.“ Tod had made it all right, by being so normal.

„It does that to me too,“ said the third one of the group, leaning on Josh’s other side. „All the open places give me the slopes. That’s because space really is bent here, you know. The more of it you can see, the more it shows.“

Zillah looked at him with interest. He was not as odd as the centaur, but she could not help feeling he might in fact be even odder. He looked human, skinny and fair, but there was a sort of inner shining to him, and his eyes were tremendous — as were his hands and feet. Like an undernourished version of Michelangelo’s David, she thought.

„Let me introduce,“ said Tod. „The fellow keeping Josh upright on the other side is Philo. He’s a Peleisian gualdian, if that means anything to you. The centaur is Horgoc Anphalemos Galpetto-Cephaldy, or Josh to his friends.“

„Pleased to meet you, lady.“ Josh deftly swung Marcus around to sit astride at his back, where Marcus nestled against the blue jacket looking blissful, while Josh held out a large, pale hand to Zillah. It was warm when Zillah took it, horse-warm. The young-man-seeming part of him was all over larger than human. It would have to be, she thought, to match the horse part. The patch that had covered his eye the day before was gone, showing healing cuts above and below, although the cuts were hard to see for the big liver-colored horse-mottle that crossed his face and spread into his hair.

„I’m glad you’re better,“ she said.

„I’m fine,“ he said. „Thanks to Tod.“

Philo came forward and held out a hand almost as big as the centaur’s, but not as warm when Zillah grasped it. He seemed shy. But when Zillah smiled, he smiled too, and his smile was big and sly and confiding. „We should add that Tod’s full name is Roderick Halstatten Everenzi Pla—”

“No, don’t!” Tod said, wincing. “Tod will do.”

“He’s heir to a Pentarchy,” Josh explained. “It bothers him.”

Since it evidently did bother Tod, Zillah said to him, “How come you’re the only person in this place who understands what Marcus says?”

“I have six elder sisters,” Tod said wryly. “My parents kept grimly on until they got the required boy-child. Apart from being brought up in a houseful of hysteria and general henpecking, this means I have nephews. And nieces. Dozens of them. Some of my earliest memories are of having to understand baby talk so that I could tell the little bleeders that I was their uncle and they couldn’t have my toys.”

They began to walk as Tod talked, to another of the archways, all in a group in the most natural way. It was clear all three young men assumed Zillah was one of their number. And she was too, in some strange way, she thought, looking up at Josh’s laughing face and over at the prattling Tod. Something eased within her. She had friends. This was something she had seldom found possible before. She had never been able to fall easily into a relationship, the way other people could — yet here she was, chatting away as if she had known all three of them for years. She felt as if she had known them for years. Each of them felt familiar: Josh’s awkward strength, Philo’s slyness and sweetness, Tod’s insouciance. She smiled at Philo, and in the most natural manner, he came around Josh to lean against her.

6

Roz halted in a large unveiled archway and struck an attitude, feet apart, hands on hips. She felt good. Every line of her said Woman! And it worked. Without her needing to project her presence at all, the heads of the blue-clothed mages bending over their work in the room beyond were turning toward her, one and one, then hurriedly and guiltily turning away. She could almost see the flickers of lust playing across them. Good. This was doing what she had come to do.

After a moment one of the higher brothers hastened across to her, selfconsciously adjusting his short-horned headdress.

“Am I somewhere I shouldn’t be?” Roz asked as he opened his mouth to speak.

He shook his horned head and looked flustered. “Not at all. This is Observer Horn. Where did you wish to be?”

She knew this was not what he had been going to say. He had meant to turn her out. Good. “Mind if I look round then?”

“Not at all, not at all. Let me show you around.” He led the way toward the rows of busy mages. Roz followed, stalking high, knowing he was conscious of every movement she made behind him. She felt like the cat that had the cream.

7