A Sudden Wild Magic

Maureen looked and found a huge and regular disturbance approaching. Overhead, the fabric of everything was dented and pounded inward, as if a company of four-legged giants were marching towards them across a hammock made of thin veiling. The sepia was trodden to sick pink in bulges. And whatever the giants really were, they were striding straight for their two enwrapped nebulous bodies.

Both pushed and pulled frantically to get out of the line of advance, but the striders seemed to sense their presence and altered their course to follow. Closer and closer, until Maureen caught a whiff of their nature — something wild, but harnessed by a malevolence that had its origin in this place. Closer still. The malevolence almost unbearable, right on top of them. As the leading monstrous dent came bulging down upon them, Maureen freed her arms, scarcely knowing what she did, and pushed, hard and desperately. Joe’s arms were free too. He stretched up and heaved at the thing’s underside. Between them, they caught the strider at one side. That seemed to unbalance it. It, and the bulges that followed it, appeared to stumble and tip, and then veer ever so slightly. Maureen tilted her head and watched the whole train of striders pace off into sepia distance at an angle to the two of them.

As the striders went, a vision came to Maureen, not of this place, and not of anything she knew. Things were striding in the vision, too, but these things were metal towers, giant sized, that were marching over grass against a stormy sky. As they strode, the metal things trailed a wild, unharnessed malevolence that seemed akin to the striders, but with that they also trailed arcing, crackling blue violence. Killing violence.

She threw her arms around Joe again, not holding him now, but hugging him for what comfort she could get. “What the hell were those?”

He was scarcely articulate and clung to her as hard as she clung to him. “A sending — bad one — really strong — ye gods! Wild magic — the size of it! — right down through half the Wheel — How have we made someone that angry?”

5

“Your lover,” said Mark, “has just stolen our car.” Paulie, now hurriedly dressed in stretch-nylon trousers and an Arran sweater, paused in filling the thermos. “He is not my lover. I never saw him before today.”

Mark discerned that she was telling the truth. “Then why did you have him in the house?”

“He’s Tony’s brother — I told you.” Before Mark could make any comment about Tony, Paulie swung to counterattack, with the thermos clutched to her sweater as if it were her injured name. “You watched him steal the car, and you didn’t try to stop him! I suppose it didn’t occur to you that you’re the most powerful magician in this country. You could have stopped him in his tracks if you’d thought to use your power.”

“I did think,” said Mark, “and I did try. Whoever he is, he turns out to have more power than I have. By some way. He brushed me off like a fly — along with all the wards on the car.”

“But he’s only small!” Paulie said naively. “Though I suppose he is chunky.”

“Size doesn’t enter into it,” Mark said contemptuously. “Some children have more power than you do.”

“Then I suppose you’d better call the police,” she said.

“I already have,” Mark replied. “They may just catch him — but what’s really worrying me is that I mentioned Gladys in front of him, and I can feel him heading her way. Do you know anything at all about him — what his intentions are, or whether he’s into the black stuff in any way?”

Paulie put the thermos to her mouth in dismay. “No. I told you. I only just met him.”

“Then we’d better follow him,” said Mark. “Quickly. Get that food and come along.”

“How? Do we hire a car? Or walk?”

“As he’s had the extreme generosity to leave us a Deux Chevaux in exchange for the BMW, we might as well use the thing,” said Mark.

“Oh, not that car!” Paulie said as she turned away to the fridge, thus inadvertently admitting to more knowledge of Tony than she had ever admitted before.

Mark pretended not to hear, in order not to have to remind her that she always said of Tony, “I hardly know the man — I don’t even know what car he drives!” He hurried about finding biscuits and apples and adding them to the basket of food on the counter. And he felt cold, and lonely and empty.

Five minutes later, locking the house and making sure the wards of protection were back in place, he wondered why he was bothering. The house was a heartless shiny box. He did not care if someone broke in. He did not care if he never saw it again. But he supposed Paulie would mind, and so he made it safe, meticulously.

Paulie meanwhile inserted herself into the dishrag seat behind the wheel of the motley car, bemoaning her fate. “This is an awful car, Mark, even awful for a Deux Chevaux!” She turned the key and wailed as the thing began to chug and clatter. “Christ! Pieces are falling off, Mark! Next door’s looking at us — I’m ashamed! Where to, if it will move?”