A Sudden Wild Magic

To Zillah, it felt as if they all spilled out feet-first as though Arth were a giant helter-skelter. So strong was this impression that, when the light ceased to dazzle her, she looked upward, expecting to see Arth hanging above like an enormous blue tornado, or at least the twisted tail of it joining them to wherever they were now.Blue was certainly what she saw, but it was the clouded blue of sky appearing through dark, shiny leaves. Among the leaves were small white flowers and round golden fruit. They were in a grove of fruit trees, and the light was, in fact, only bright after the darkness in the base of the citadel.

“What did you do?” Josh asked. He was collapsed on the grass with all four legs folded. Deep dents in the soft turf showed where he had landed and staggered before folding. Even so, he was keeping a firm arm around Marcus, who was struggling to get himself and his bag of toys off Josh’s back.

“Daddle,” Marcus announced.

“I didn’t do anything,” Zillah said.

“Yes you did,” said Philo, who was clinging to the nearest fruiting tree. He looked as if he might fold like Josh without it. “I never felt power like it!”

“Daddle!” insisted Marcus.

There was a small lake, or large pool, of an extraordinary fresh blue- green in the center of the grove. A play of mounded water and white bubbles near the middle showed where the pool was being fed constantly by a spring. Zillah could not blame Marcus for wanting to paddle. It was hot in this grove. But the whole of it had a look that was somehow— special.

“Better not, Marcus,” said Philo. “This all belongs to the Goddess.”

Over the days of their acquaintance, Marcus had decided Philo was the wise man of the party. He did not protest. He nodded gravely at Philo. “Dow?”

Zillah helped Marcus slide down off Josh. “Have either of you any idea where we are?”

“It feels like the Pentarchy,” Philo said decidedly. “But how far south or north we are depends — this hot, it could be summer in central Trenjen or winter in south Leathe. These orange trees don’t give much away. If only we knew what season—”

“Spring,” said Josh. He pointed to where, between two orange trees, some small blue-gray irises were flowering.

Philo stared at these in some perplexity. “Do those only come up in spring? It was spring when I left for Arth. It ought to be summer if—”

“Or we’ve been away a whole year,” Josh suggested. “I think we’d better go and ask someone — in a roundabout way, of course, or they’ll realize we’ve broken the law.”

With Zillah and Philo each hauling on an arm, Josh struggled to his legs and they went cautiously out of the grove. At the far end of the pool, the water ran out in a stream over a carefully built small wooden lock, and a path led beside the stream, out of the grove and into sunlight strong enough to dazzle them all again. They halted nervously, shading their eyes.

There was a woman a few yards downstream. She was coming toward them on the path, halting from time to time to test the carefully turfed banks of the stream with a long tool. She was an idyllic sight. Long coal black hair blew in the breeze around her shoulders, and her faded blue- gray gown was blown to outline her figure. She was a beautiful woman, disturbingly familiar and strange at the same time. She looked around, seeing them, and Zillah could have sworn for a moment that it was Amanda staring at them.

Marcus had no doubt. With a loud shout of “Badder!” he set off down the path toward her as fast as his legs could take him. “Badder! Badder! Badder!”

Zillah set off after him, and Philo with her. Analogue of Amanda or not, the woman was a total stranger and might not care for a small boy hurling himself upon her. A dirty small boy. The pyjama suit Marcus had been wearing all their time in Arth was gray at the knees and rear and splotched down the front. The real Amanda would have found it bad enough, let alone this unknown image of her.

The woman, however, darted to meet Marcus even faster than Zillah ran after him. She reached him fractionally first and swept him gladly up in one arm. The bag of toys thumped to the ground and came open, spilling everything over the path. Zillah and Philo stopped, for fear of treading on Marcus’s treasures.

“Doy! Doy!” Marcus draped himself desperately over the woman’s arm.

“I’m so sorry,” Zillah said as she stooped to gather the toys up.

“Leave those,” said the woman. It was an absolute command. Her voice was high and chilly, and nothing like Amanda’s.