A Sudden Wild Magic

“Hey!” Philo called from above, panicking too. In his distress, he lost his hold on whatever was wrapping them in, and the dark wormhole instantly became a noisy, sinister little trap, filled with echoes, scufflings, the trickle of water, and the roaring of an unfelt wind.

Zillah found herself suddenly terrified, and furious with the pair of them. They were being such wimps! “Hang on to his tail, you fool!” she screamed at Philo, and “Come on!” at Josh. She heaved angrily on his hand. Power rose at her need, and wrapped her round.

In another trampling rush, during which the unfelt wind rose to become the roaring of a gale, the three of them staggered on down and were then, abruptly and briefly, weightless in a vortex, which caught them, whirled them, and then, with shocking suddenness, shot them forth into blazing light.

VIII Earth

1

There was a way, Maureen thought. Her eyes were closing, and pricking from the smoke with which Joe was filling the flat. She could turn her own tiredness to her advantage—use it, in fact — if only she could get Joe off guard. Then she could sleep as long as she liked. She promised herself sleep, held it out as a reward to herself for doing just this last extra piece of hard work. The trouble was, it was mental work. Even wide-awake, that was the kind Maureen was least adjusted to.

She rubbed her eyes to stop the pricking. Held out the reward. Sleep. Carrot to donkey. “I can’t think why you do this dirty work,” she told Joe.

He stopped in the act of stubbing his latest cigarette into the loaded ashtray. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I can’t think how they induced you to come here and spy. You’ve told me how you hate it. And I know nothing would induce me to go to your place and pretend to be something I’m not.”

He looked at her suspiciously, but she had put just the right amount of contempt and boredom into her voice. He laughed. “You’d do it, all right, if you had no choice. They made sure I had no choice, didn’t they?”

“How could they?” Maureen wondered. Her manner suggested he had to be lying. “You’re at least as powerful a magician as I am — and you know I’m not one to be caught easily. You had your work cut out to set this up, and I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t been tired to death.” She pretended to think. “You mean they caught you when you were tired too?”

“Of course not,” said Joe. “They caught me with a woman.”

She laughed, lightly and incredulously, and admired herself for how well she did it. “Cloak and dagger! Incriminating photos! I don’t believe it!” God, this was hard work!

“That’s not how they do things on Arth,” Joe said, with equal contempt. “Mind you, it was a put-up job, I’m sure of that now. There were these two girls who came over with the embassy from Leathe. Antorin and I were both fresh from Oath — you won’t know what that means, but you can take it from me you feel — well, caught — boxed up before you’ve had a chance to look around — and we were the two who were told off to guide the party. And I still don’t know how they worked it, but it wasn’t long before there was only these two and us two. Fresh young things. Both swore they were scared to hellspoke of all the mageworkings going on in Leathe and said they hardly knew any magecraft themselves. We believed them. We were fools, but Oath takes you that way. You realise it’s too late and you wish you’d stayed quietly at home in the Pentarchy.”

He was distracted. Behind him, on the arm of the sofa, the half- extinguished stub end smoked in the ashtray, a thin, irritating wisp.Maureen kept her eyes on it. Concentrated on it as an annoyance. I wish he’d put it out properly! It kept her awake. It also kept a trivial idea at the front of her mind in case he started to notice what she was doing. Very slowly, she started to edge her mind forward to his. “Oath? What Oath?”

“You swear celibacy. It makes sex illegal,” he said irritably. His eyes were fixed on misery a universe away. “I see now I was never cut out for it. I fell for that girl — I was like a rutting bull — well, you know how I get — and I swear to the Goddess I’ll never forget until I die the way they all came bursting in, her Lady, my High Brother — loads of people — and the High Head walking through the lot of them. You feel a right fool. You want to be sick. And of course my sweet little girl who doesn’t know any magecraft obliges them all by holding me helpless just as I am. If I ever get back, I’ll find her and I think I’ll kill her.”

Maureen’s mind continued to stalk forward, softly as a cat. “And what happened?” she said, still with her eyes irritably on that rising trickle of smoke.