A Sudden Wild Magic

“I canceled the milk,” said Joe. Maureen jerked awake, very much amazed that he had attacked her only with this. “But there’s enough milk in the fridge to keep us going,” he said. “Do you want some cocoa?”

“No,” she said, and yawned ostentatiously. She needed to yawn anyway, so the only thing to do seemed to make it look like boredom. She was so tired.

“And of course, I cut off the telephone,” Joe continued, “though not physically. Don’t imagine British Telecom’s going to come here wanting to repair it. No one’s going to find anything wrong with it, but anyone who tries to get in touch with you is going to get wrong numbers — unless they persist, in which case they’ll get your answering machine with your voice saying you’ll be away for a while.”

Maureen blinked at him. He was lounging at the other end of her sofa, creasing the chaste oatmeal cushions with his weight and looking extremely smug. “Very clever,” she said, “to think of taking all the obvious precautions.” She could not understand why he had not attacked her while she dropped off into a doze there for a moment. Or — she met his eyes. They were heavily, almost pruriently surveying her. Could it be that what she had here was a hunter getting a buzz off entering into the feelings of his prey? She thought so. It would be just like Joe. He wanted to play cat and mouse for a while. If so, could she use it? Keep him occupied while she counterattacked or called for help. There were several Names that should answer her call.

“Don’t even think of it,” said Joe. “I’ve got it fixed so that not even your pet entities are going to hear you. Take a look.” He gestured with his can of lager.

Maureen looked. He had brought his wards to visibility: there was no doubt that he was a truly skilled operator. They hung all around the room, tenuous as cobwebs, roiling a little like clouds, and hard as concrete. She reached up to the nearest. Her fingers met a chilly hardness that she knew she had no hope of penetrating while Joe was awake and aware. She trailed her fingers across its rough, icy surface and thought. He had to sleep, too, in the end. She only had to wait it out. She only had to wait until the raiding party released that virus-magic into Laputa- Blish, and then Joe’s precious bosses would all be disabled, and anything Joe learned would be no use to anyone. It would give her great pleasure to tell him that when the time came. So, how long before it came?

Maureen let her hand trail back into her lap, hopelessly. Keeping the look of blank dismay on her face, she felt for her precognitive powers and let them fill her, gently and surreptitiously. What she found chilled her worse than Joe’s clammy wards. It had gone wrong—would go wrong. There was — would be — death. Future or present death, she had no means of knowing because — this was the fact that truly dismayed her — there was a time difference between the two worlds. The difference might be years, or months, or only minutes. It was not regular. Now she saw this, Maureen remembered Gladys muttering something about time not running the same in Laputa-Blish. She had not paid much attention then.

Gladys had muttered in her most senile manner, something about “Long or short, short or long, who knows?” and nobody attended to Gladys when she went like that. Now it occurred to Maureen that this was a mistake. When Gladys was acting fretfully gaga, it could be that she was functioning at a level none of the rest of them could reach.

Death, delay, things gone wrong, but still a blink of hope. Someone was — or would be — still trying, though Maureen could also see opposition and great evil from a quarter no one expected. This could ruin everything: it would certainly cause further delay. Good God! It could be that she would be shut up with Joe, never daring to sleep, for the next year! There was no question of waiting it out. She would have to defeat him, and soon. And how was she to do that when she was so goddamn tired?

2

Gladys paid off her faithful taxi driver and shambled up her path, muttering fretfully in the foggy white of coming dawn. “Tired, Jimbo. I’m too old for this all-night ritual stuff.” Around her were the mushroom scents of wet garden. Things grew. A trill of birdsong swept across the trees. “Thanks,” Gladys muttered. “Pretty. Too tired to appreciate.” Jimbo clinging to her skirt was as draggled as she was. She stumbled over him slightly as she went into the house, which was unusual; but then an unusual effort had been put out by both of them. And the capsule had gone off safely and the Wards of Britain were up, so it had been worth the effort. “Tea,” she mumbled, shuffling among the jungle plants to the kitchen. “Hot. Wet.”

She had it brewed. She had her hands wrapped around the warm belly of the mug. She was sniffing its fragrance and putting it to her mouth to drink when the phone rang.