A Sudden Wild Magic

With the verve of long habit, Brother Tony swung the wheel of the motley little monster to chug down the sloping driveway of the most fawn-colored house of the lot. The little piece of grass in front of its clean new prim facade was adorned with sparse mauve-flowering bushes. “Here we are,” he said, and before Tod could move, he was hauling his smart luggage out of the rear seat. Having done this, he presented the keys of the subcar to Tod. “She’s all yours.” Leaving his luggage in the driveway, he went with jaunty steps to the front door — which was labeled with a tastefully crooked 42—and pushed a button there. Tod could hear the result inside. Ping-pong it went, dulcetly. Tod stood on the doorstep, resigned, as little tripping footsteps approached the door inside.

The woman who opened the door was plump and about Tod’s own height. Her hair was most carefully done in a sheeny, close-fitting way, with burnished fair highlights evidently applied afterward. Her face was exquisitely made-up, and the same care had been applied to the rest of her. The triangle of skin revealed above her bosom by her long floral robe was soft and white; the hand that held the door was equally soft and white, adorned with oval shiny pink nails and gold rings with diamonds in them; her small feet in high-heeled floral mules were as soft and white as the rest of her visible skin.

“Tony?” she said. Immaculate black eyelashes lay wide around her eyes as she stared at Tod.

Brother Tony leaned over Tod’s shoulder. “Paulie, let me introduce my good friend Roderick,” he said, and clapped Tod on the shoulder he was leaning over. “I just know the two of you will get on like a house on fire. Now I must fly — taxi’s here.” He retreated briskly and picked up his luggage. Tod looked around to see him climbing into a square, high black vehicle which had drawn up beyond the drive.

“Where’s he going?” Paulie said — not unreasonably, Tod thought.

“Hong Kong, I think,” Tod said.

“Oh.” The lash-rimmed eyes turned back to Tod. Paulie’s carefully pink mouth smiled. Behind that, she had an air of being slightly bewildered.

“Well, won’t you come in, Roddy?”

Arth knew its stuff. Tod reluctantly advanced into a small, shiny hallway as Brother Tony’s taxi pulled away, where he stood smelling the several perfumes emanating from Paulie. She had certainly been waiting, all prepared to meet Tony, he thought while she was shutting the front door, but she was accepting a scruffy-looking substitute without a blink. Fear and hatred of Arth grew in him. She led him forward into a sitting room as carefully decorated as she was herself, with not a shiny cushion nor a little brass ornament that was not evidently placed exactly so. She induced him into a soft, clean chair and sat beguilingly on a tuffet at his knees. Tod’s misery increased.

“Do you want a drink, Roddy?”

“No, thanks.” It was not that he did not like plump women, Tod told himself. His taste ran to all sorts. But this Paulie’s plumpness had a solid, sorbo-rubber look to it, and looked hard to dent. As one who had had his arms around Zillah only — yes, it really was only a couple of hours ago! — Tod felt decidedly off plumpness. But there was more to it than that. Paulie was so carefully got up, perfumed and coiffured and jeweled. He found he kept remembering the time, a year or so ago, when he had accompanied his father on a state visit to Leathe. The Ladies who had met them there were all equally carefully dressed and perfumed and lacquered. And they had talked to him in the same soft, high, charming voices that Paulie was using at this moment.

“Tell me all about yourself, Roddy.”

One of the Ladies of Leathe — Lady Marceny it was — had said almost exactly that, in the same sweet, condescending tone, and Tod had been very scared indeed. Afterward August Gordano had opined that he was quite right to be scared. “Always trust your instinct, boy, where those kind of women are concerned. If they notice you, they want something. They eat men for breakfast — and never forget it!” While Tod did not give this Paulie credit for being quite as dangerous as Leathe, the memory of Leathe came to him so strongly with her that it made him thoroughly uneasy. And it was fairly clear to him that she, too, ate men for breakfast. He understood now why Brother Tony was so cheerful about going elsewhere.

“All about myself,” he said. “Well, actually I’m an exile from a pocket universe called Arth where all the residents are mages. Most of them are in the business of spying on you people, as a matter of fact, but not being able to get a really close view, they sent me to be a spy in your midst. My real home—”

He stopped because Paulie was swaying about with laughter, her arms plumply clasped around her knees. “Oh, Roddy! Tony told you to say that, didn’t he? He spun me just the same yarn when I first met him! Tell me what you really do before you make me die laughing!”