A Sudden Wild Magic

“Zillah,” said the High Head. There was somehow no doubt which woman Edward meant. He knew a sudden surge of annoyance, even actual anger, that Edward had presumed to want Zillah, when it ought to be obvious she was — was what? In some discomfort, the High Head realized that he had been, in some odd way, regarding the woman Zillah as his. He seemed — he could not think how — to know her extremely well, in a special way, and he was certainly not going to let any other Horn Head take over the job of interviewing her. No, this was absurd. He should not be thinking this way. He had better let someone else (provided it was not Edward) speak with her in future. But he still thought he should ignore Brother Wilfrid’s complaint that Zillah was harming the vibrations by corrupting the servicemen. Brother Wilfrid was, in his way, a fanatic. Nor was there anything amiss with the vibrations. “I do, of course, lock their quarters with the strongest possible wards every night,” he said, possibly changing the subject again.

“I’m sure,” Edward said rather dubiously, “that is very wise.”

4

The women knew perfectly well they were locked in at night. “I can tell a ward when I see one,” Roz said, “even if I hadn’t tried to get past the veiling and found I couldn’t.” She paced up and down past the rows of sleeping cells. “What I don’t know is if they listen in on us or not.”“Oh, they don’t,” Judy told her. “I asked Edward, and he was shocked I thought they would.”

“You asked?” Roz said. “You fool!”

“Why not? He’s nice. In fact,” Judy said, with rather tremulous defiance, “he’s so innocent, I feel a beast most of the time, knowing I’m here to undermine him.”

“We’re not here to be nice!” Roz said disgustedly. She marched to stand looming over the others as they sat about on the floor. “Okay. So we’re here trying to do the best we can without the virus-magic. It’s obvious from what we’ve all heard them say that the best way to undermine this place is to spoil the vibrations by getting as many of them as possible to break their Oath. I’ve been working on that principle anyway. I’m up to twelve. Two High Brothers and ten mages. How about the rest of you? Sandra? Flan?”

“Who made you leader?” muttered Flan. She hugged her knees and rocked like a Kelly clown. This gave her repeated little sights of the smug smile playing over Roz’s face. Confronted by that smile, she had not the heart to add Brother Instructor Cyril to Roz’s string of scalps. The look on the man’s face when she kissed him to shut him up — no, it was too much. And then Alexander, the dark young mage, was something very special.

But Roz was impatiently tapping a foot. So what could she say, except that her movement class somehow doubled every time she went near Ritual Horn? And dozens of other brothers crowded hopefully in the veiling of the doors. “Dozens,” she said.

“Yes, but how many?” Roz demanded.

“I’ve lost count,” Flan said airily, “except that they’re queuing up.”

“You can’t have managed more than fifteen in the time,” Roz said suspiciously. “Let’s call it fifteen. Sandra?”

Sandra seized gratefully on Flan’s lead. “They’re queuing up for me too, Roz.” Something surely was going to happen with High Brother Gamon soon; though, windbag as he was, it was going pretty slowly — so slowly that she didn’t kid herself that the other mages in Calculus had not made bets on whether it would happen at all. And Sandra was enjoying it, in a way she had never enjoyed it before. He was so courteous, so considerate. It was courtship, that was what it was, in the old-fashioned sense, and all the while there she was sabotaging his divinations. It was a shame. Sandra was aware that she might be beaming and that her eyes were a trifle misty. “Say fifteen,” she said hurriedly.

“Forty-two,” said Roz. She was looking rather less smug, now it seemed that Flan and Sandra had both exceeded her score by three. “Helen?”