A Sudden Wild Magic

Gladys plodded forward through the wood muttering to herself, or to Jimbo — it was not clear to either of them which. At first the trees were wet and spilled gouts of water on her finery, but soon they became dry and tightly packed and thorny. The light was the louring storm light she had left behind in her own garden. It was light enough for her to see the thorns and, with mutter or gesture, set them aside, but it was not enough to see the way altogether clearly. Here Jimbo, as she had suspected, proved invaluable. With a scrabble here at her leg, or a pull at her dress that set all its beads clacking there, he directed her always to the easiest path, where the undergrowth was thinnest and the thorns fewest. The marvel was to Gladys that there was a path at all. Among the fierce thorns and formidable defenses it was always there, as if someone or something kept it there for a purpose.

Before long she thought she could detect hints of brighter day ahead. “Jimbo’s worth his weight in gold,” she muttered. “But don’t pull so — I’ve got to save my feathers.”

Here, quite suddenly, Jimbo ceased pulling or even moving.

“And with good reason, I’ll be bound,” Gladys muttered, and kept still too.

Somebody else, a little over to the left, was fighting through the woods as well. She could hear the crackle of feet stamping brushwood, the slashing of branches, and the dragging rasp of thorns across cloth. The sounds had considerable violence, and that was increased by a certain amount of swearing. Gladys listened. The voice was unquestionably male. She was not sure she wished to have anything to do with its owner. He sounded angry and exasperated as well as violent. The mere fact of his being here bespoke powers rather uncomfortably equivalent to her own. On the other hand—

“Missed the path, hasn’t he?” she muttered to Jimbo. Jimbo, in his own peculiar way, agreed that this was so. Gladys sighed. At her long-ago initiation she had been made to understand that power was hers only so long as she never passed by anyone in need. This was need. Her fellow traveler, though he might not yet know it, was in deep trouble.

“Over here!” she shouted. “Work your way over to your right!”

The threshing and crunching ceased. “Who are you?” the voice bellowed back. A young male voice. It reassured Gladys a little. These young fellows might surpass her in sheer strength, but she could make up for that, every time, in experience.

“Doesn’t matter!” she bawled. “Just come on over — the path’s here!”

He was desperate enough — or trusting enough — to obey her at once. His trampling and threshing changed direction. She kept him going right with a shout or so whenever she felt him veering, and it was not long before he burst out of the thorn brake beside her. He proved to be quite small. The light was not good enough for her to see more than that he was only an inch or so taller than she was, though she could tell he was chunky. But he was not as trusting as he seemed.

“If you’re some kind of interworld Lorelei mark-stepper,” he told her airily, if breathlessly, “you can just dispel. But I can accept it if you’re—” And, quite casually, he spoke a word, called her a name that made Gladys positively jump for its potency and accuracy.

She approved of that. She chuckled. “Well spoken, young man. And I am, in my way. We can take it we’re no harm to one another. I’m Gladys. Who are you, and what are you doing in this neck of the woods?”

“Trying to get home, of course,” the young man answered. His manner was still airy, but a strong quiver of indignation now underlay it. “People have been pushing me about lately, all over the place, and I got sick of it. And what are you doing here?”

Gladys replied without hesitation, “I’m on my way to look for the sister of a friend of mine.” Her sense was that it was important for her to be open with this young man — although she noticed he was not quite so open with her: he had cautiously avoided giving her his name. “A young woman called Zillah and her—”

“Zillah!” he exclaimed eagerly. “Zillah Green?”

It had been important, she thought. “Yes, Zillah and her Marcus. Her Marcus and I took a fancy to one another when his auntie brought him over to tea. He calls me Ardy Baddish. So you’re a friend of Zillah’s, are you?”

He laughed a little. “Probably — I think I still am, even though I got shoved into otherworld just for kissing her.”

“Thereby hangs a tale, I guess,” Gladys said, moving forward along the way Jimbo was indicating. “Suppose you tell Auntie Gladys.”

He had, as she could see, a lot to get off his chest, and he proved, too, to have a naturally chatty disposition. He talked, merrily and freely, as he pushed through the wood beside her. As he talked, he fended aside, almost absentmindedly, thorns, boughs, and creepers, and went forging through the resistance that although it did not come from trees or undergrowth, was part of the very nature of this place — all almost as if he did not notice it at all.