A Sudden Wild Magic

Tod came to himself. He was sick, disorientated, and rather cold.Some of the chill seemed to be due to the garments his uniform had been transmuted into, which left his arms largely bare and struck him as decidedly tight in the crotch, as well as inadequate for the climate of wherever this was. He seemed to be lying face downward on cold, varnished boards listening to the chilly patter of rain. There was a pair of shoes hazily within his line of vision, and he wondered querulously why. As he turned his face to focus on them, the shoes moved — an impatient sideways shuffle. A man’s voice from above them said, “Are you with me yet?”

Tod groaned. “Oh, probably,” he said. He sat up, considerably increasing his wretchedness.

He was in a cheerless alien room. Everything in it was like the contents of rooms he was used to, in that he could recognize a sofa, a table, a cooking stove (Why? Did aliens cook in their living rooms, the way all the shops in Leathe sold lipstick?), a yellow mat on the varnished floor, and a chest of drawers; but each item was subtly and distressingly different in its proportions, its color, and the substance of which it was made. It all added up to something that seemed to belong to another dimension entirely — which, he realized miserably, was exactly what it did. He thought he might be going to be sick.

To take his mind off it, he raised his eyes from the impatiently shuffling shoes to the man who was wearing them. He was fair-haired and a total stranger. He was wearing what Tod recognized as an alien version of a sober formal suit, and his blond hair was cropped in a manner that even Brother Wilfrid would have found excessive, since it left the man only with an interesting golden wave drooping across his forehead. Despite this, he was undeniably good-looking. Behind him was the window against which the rain pattered.

“Who are you?” Tod said. At the sight of that cold, wet window, his teeth began to chatter.

“I was Brother Antorin — I’m called Tony here,” the other answered. “Drink this.”

Tod bent dubiously over the mug that was thrust into his chilly fingers. To his surprise, it contained coffee — coffee thin and unfragrant and no doubt subtly shifted from the drink he knew, but drinkable all the same. He drank, and his teeth clattered on the rim. “Where is this?”

“Pengford, Surrey — in what you call otherworld,” Brother Tony replied. “These are my lodgings, but they’ll be yours from now on. The High Head tells me you’ll be taking over from me. I’ve been posted to Hong Kong instead, thank the Goddess! It looks as if all my obedience has paid off at last. What’s your name? You’re new since my time in Arth.”

“Tod,” said Tod. Shaken though he was, he did not want to antagonize this Brother by confessing he was heir to a Fiveir.

“Lucky,” said Brother Tony. “I’m fairly sure that’s a name here too, so you won’t need to get used to a new one. Now, what else do you need to know?”

Probably everything, Tod thought. At the moment all he could think of was how wretched and how cold he was. Anxious inspection showed him that his feet were in light, laced shoes, but at least they were still feet. The crotch-clutching lower garments were heavy blue cotton, inside which his legs were icy, but still legs; and above those he proved to be wearing a short-sleeved yellow thing of much thinner cotton. Below the little sleeves every hair on his arms stood up with chill, but he still recognized his own arms when he saw them. Funny. On Arth they had given him a distinct impression that he was about to be changed into something quite other. “Have you,” he said, “anything warm I can wear?”

“I expect so.” Brother Tony went and rummaged in a lower part of the chest of drawers, saying over his shoulder, “You’ll find the climate in this sector averages a good ten degrees below what you’re used to — unless you’re from North Trenjen, of course. That’s one of the many reasons why I’m so glad to be going to Hong Kong. Here. This should do.”

He tossed Tod a heavy woollen floppy thing made of gray-brown knitting. The maker of it had industriously twisted the stitches into an ornate plaited pattern. It looked ethnic. After turning it around several times, Tod discovered it had sleeves. Possibly it was a wool-work smockfrock. When Tod put it on, it came nearly to his knees, but at least it was warm — although he had a shamed moment when he was glad his parents could not see him in it.

“It’s called a jumper,” Brother Tony told him. “The people here have queer names for things, but they’re actually much more like real people than the experts of Arth seem to think. Are you feeling better now? We’ve not got much time if I’m to show you the ropes before my flight leaves.”