“It seems to me you’d do well to close down this Leathe as well,” Gladys observed.
“Unfortunately I can’t,” said the king. “The ex-High Head here will tell you how Leathe was legally established as the demesne of female mages soon after Arth was established.”
“I could go on for hours about it,” the High Head said bitterly. “It may have started as a safeguard, believe it or not, to separate male and female mageworkers. Now, to cut a long story short, Leathe is established by every magical and legal method possible. It would take a major revolution to unseat those women.”
“You never know,” said the king. “My hope is that it’s begun.” He sat forward. “I’m glad you came to me. Our Powers know what they’re about. As it happens, I am in a position to complete the picture. A regrettable part of our situation with Leathe is that I, too, have agents who spy for me. And reports came out of Leathe this morning that a centaur, a gualdian, a small child, and a young woman have suddenly arrived on the estate of Lady Marceny.”
The High Head and Gladys both cried out together.
“One at a time,” the king said mildly. “Brother Lawrence?”
“It’s impossible!” said the High Head. “I was going to say they couldn’t get out of Arth—but if there’s wild magic in question, I suppose I—But, Your Majesty, you know what they do to gualdians in Leathe. I’m one of the products of it—I know.”
“Yes, indeed,” the king said. “I have Philo very much in mind. My agent has instructions to assist him in every way. And you, madam?” He turned to Gladys.
She had her hands to her face. Jimbo was chittering and nudging her beaded knee. “Poor Zillah,” she said. “Majesty, she’s in love with Mark Lister, and she has power. The moment she sees the other half of Mark, she’ll know. And she’s going to try to put him together again. Majesty, Mark knows all the secrets of the Ring, and he’s a computer expert. That’s too many ideas.”
“It is,” agreed the king. “She’ll have to be stopped.”
“She will be,” said Gladys, and the grimness of her Goddess Aspect came over her. “I must get there at once and stop her.”
* * *
4
« ^ »
Zillah wished Marcus would settle down. He had had two-thirds of an Arth day, followed by most of a Leathe day, which ought to have been enough to tire any toddler, and he was still fretfully on the go. The possibilities of all the toys in the bag had long ago been exhausted. The room they were in was little help. It was not exactly a cell, but it was made of stone and only sparsely furnished. Since the light came from a barred grille outside and above the window, Zillah concluded it was a basement room, though she had not noticed going down any stairs when they had been brought here. The door was solid, and locked. Marcus was pounding on it at the moment. She wished he would stop, fall asleep for a while, or at least give her time to think.
She needed to think of the things Lady Marceny had said. Somewhere among the woman’s saccharine words there had surely been something that might help her turn this hopeless situation around. But she could not think of anything, not with Marcus banging away at the door. She also felt she should worry about Philo and Josh, and think of Tod—a sort of moral duty to blame herself for causing disaster to people wherever she went—but she could not concentrate on that either. In fact, the only feeling she had room for, among the distractions Marcus made, struck her as entirely crazy: it was joy. A placid joy. Herrel was here. He would come. She only had to wait.
She told herself, without success, that this could be nonsense. The light from the grid was evening light now. No one had been near them, even with food, since they had been put in this room. Hope should be fading—except it was not hope: it was faith. All the same, since some of Marcus’s restlessness must be due to hunger, it was time to think of something else to take his mind off it.
Zillah got up off the flimsy cot-bed. “Here, Marcus. Stop banging, love. Let’s build a house in the middle of this room.”
Marcus turned and beamed. “Ow,” he agreed.
They assembled what little furniture there was and disassembled it. Marcus was good at taking things apart. He happily reduced the flimsy bed to a pile of rods and laths. For a while, he was diverted by being allowed to do something he had so often been prevented from doing, but he grew fretful again when Zillah tried to encourage him to build the pieces into a hut. Zillah persevered. They had quite a creditable Eeyore-hut made when the door opened and Herrel sauntered in.
Marcus greeted him with loud friendship. “Ow, ow, ow, ow!” he shouted, pointing at the edifice and beating with a spare bed rod.
Herrel grimaced. “Ow indeed. Were you thinking of keeping a pig?”
“OW,” Marcus repeated, conceiving he might have been misunderstood.
“Yes, I know it’s a house, fellow.” Herrel scooped Marcus off the floor, bed rod and all, and went on a remarkable walk with him, straight up the wall beside the window, upside down across the ceiling, and down the opposite wall. Marcus thought it was marvelous and flailed his rod enthusiastically. Showing off, Zillah thought. Showing me party tricks. Maybe showing me that’s what he’s like. These dispassionate thoughts did nothing to counteract her sheer joy. Herrel had come. Her faith was justified.
“More!” Marcus commanded, as Herrel descended to the floor.
“If that’s what you want,” Herrel agreed, and went on a second gravity-defying circuit, this time around the length of the room, up the door and down the far wall, forcing Zillah to back toward the window. She watched his gawky jester’s figure as it walked upside down, head almost brushing the top of the Eeyore-hut. A Joker, the Fool, the Hanged Man. Herrel was telling her all these things. Possibly he was also enclosing the room in some form of protection. She noticed he said nothing of importance until he arrived back, upright in the place where the bed had stood. “The centaur’s still in the grove,” he said. “They can’t budge him. And the little gualdian’s disappeared.”
“Phil—I mean Amphetron?” Zillah said.
“Bilo!” boomed Marcus from Herrel’s arms.
Herrel tapped him on the mouth. “Shut up, you. Neither you or your mother are good at secrets, are you? Fatal to come to Leathe if you can’t keep a secret. Yes, the gualdian. My mother sent sweet Aliky up to him a while back. I suppose the idea was to start with a bit of tempting kindness, but if the girl couldn’t fetch the centaur out of the grove, I can’t see her seducing a gualdian myself. Anyway, she never got a chance. She shot back down, screeching that the room was empty. Now there’s a major search going on. Have you any ideas on this? My mother sent me to ask you. I’m supposed to be interrogating you cruelly.”
Herrel said all this in a light, laughing manner and seemed to be addressing most of it to Marcus. Zillah tried to meet his eyes, but it proved almost impossible. He looked mostly at the top of Marcus’s head.
“He told me—Ph—Amphetron—that he had no kind of gifts at all,” she said. “His family think he’s a runt.” It seemed hard on Philo to devalue him like this, but it was the only help she could give him. If Marceny thought he was worthless and the search relaxed, Philo might just get away. She wished she could think of a way to help Josh. “They wouldn’t really want him for stud, would they?”
“He’s gualdian, runt or not,” Herrel said lightly. “We always want gualdians for stud, and they always try to run. They seem to think it’s a dishonor. Funny state of mind. Those that get away afterward seem to consider themselves outcasts and never go near other gualdians, so I’m told. And the ones that don’t get away always kill themselves.”
“No!” said Zillah.
“Oh yes,” said Herrel. “I was there when my father cut his throat.” Here he did look at Zillah. His face creased into a carefree smile, but behind it she sensed another face—a face not Mark’s but truly Herrel’s, and quite unlike the bearded jester smiling at her—and this face was screaming. It only had access to Herrel’s eyes. Those eyes implored
her. “I was only about this fellow’s age,” Herrel added, giving Marcus a little shake. “Zillah, why did you come?”
She wanted to take him in her arms along with Marcus and tell him that it was all right, the agony was over now. But he was facing her across the silly hut, too far away to reach. “I told you,” she said, and managed to enfold him anyhow, in some way not physical, but powerful and sure, in an enwrapping essence of herself from across the hut. “I had to come. I was on Arth and I saw you in a sort of mirror, talking to High Horns.”
“Arth?” he said. “Why Arth? You were safe where you were! You’d left me—Mark—him. I was even glad in a way. I tried to be grateful.”
“Grateful!” she said. “It was so horrible, I left Earth!”
“Yes, but you set me—him—free by leaving, you know. I don’t know how it was—maybe it was the effort I had to put in before that to make sure my mother didn’t know about you—but the moment you were gone, he was practically a free agent. And I thought he might at least repair a bit of the mess over there in your world, and turned him loose with instructions to let otherworld know the way it was being exploited. She’s just found out what he’s done. She’s hard at work trying to punish him at the moment. That’s why I’m here. Zillah, why did you leave me—him?”
His face still smiled at her, but she ignored it and spoke to the face behind. “He—Mark—was so shallow somehow—it was alarming. Then one night I had a kind of vision of him—you—down a deep well with a woman feeding off you. I thought it was Paulie, but it wasn’t, of course. And I was pregnant and there seemed nothing else I could do. I knew it was hopeless. It—it was very horrible for me too. You—he—didn’t even try to find me.”
“We knew better than that,” he said jokingly. “You were safer away from him. But if I’d known about—What’s this fellow’s name?”
“Marcus.”
“Barker,” Marcus agreed sleepily.
“Marcus, I’d have warned you never to go near us—him.” The smile left Herrel’s face at last. “Zillah, you realize that if she finds out who Marcus is, you and I are both dead, don’t you? Now she knows what I—Mark’s done, she’s got very little time for me anyway. A small child of her own flesh and blood is much more malleable.”
“Then she shan’t find out.” Zillah put forth more enfoldings, around Marcus and around Herrel too. “Herrel—”
His head was on one side and he gazed at her. “Goddess!” he said. “The weirdest thing about it is that I’ve barely touched you in my own flesh.”
The stone room was dense with misery.
“Fetch Mark back,” said Zillah. “You need him. Don’t leave him there for her to punish.”
“I told you—I don’t know how. I was out cold all through the ritual.”
She was exasperated. “But you must know! You—it’s instinctive! He’s you!” Herrel was smiling again, hiding his screaming face. Zillah said furiously, “And I bet she used your own strength to cut you in two! She feeds on you all the time. How did you ever let her get that kind of hold on you?”
“I didn’t.” Herrel was entirely back to his light, joking manner. “I was Marcus’s age. There was a ritual—very pretty and impressive—in which I was circumcised and she ate the foreskin.”
“Oh, good God!” Zillah’s anger became blazing disgust. “Why is witchcraft so damn squalid! I think that’s why I’ve never—Look, Herrel, this has to be nonsense. A third of a person’s body cells change every seven years. After more than twenty-one years, she can’t have the remotest hold on you!”
Herrel laughed and jogged Marcus. He seemed hardly to have heard.
“All right,” said Zillah. “If the hold is still there, then you’ve got the same hold over her. Mustn’t that be true?”
“Perhaps Marcus can sort that one out.” Herrel turned merrily away from her. “That do for you, Mother? Full confession from both guilty parties.”
“Yes, thank you, dear. Very nice.” Lady Marceny, dressed now in crimson velvet, approached him along what seemed to be a wide stone terrace. Her train softly dragged over the flagstones behind her. “I heard your part very clearly, Herrel, and I’m quite vexed. But I see you’ve got the child. I may forgive you for that. Bring him along here, dear. The ritual’s all set up.”
Why am I not surprised? Zillah wondered. I’m not even angry. Just numb.
There were women around her, all finely dressed. Their gowns glowed in the orange-ruby light of the sunset filling the sky beyond the trees at the end of the lawn. Was the room where they had been an illusion then? Shame penetrated Zillah’s numbness. She and Marcus must have spent half the day roving about an oblong space on the open terrace. How stupid! But there was no point in thinking about that now. The lawn, about a foot below the terrace, was lit by nine tripods, each holding a blazing fire. There was a low table at their center. On it, knives caught the color of both the sunset and the flames.
* * *
5
« ^ »
How far is it to Lady Marceny’s estate?” Tod asked his cousin as they hurried back along the causeway. “No distance, as the crow flies,” Michael said. “It’s just across the border, but the estuary’s in the way. Since this flooding, you have to go miles round by the road.”
“I’d no idea it was so near!” Tod said. “I’ve never thought of you living next door to a menace like that.”
“Surely you knew?” Michael said, making great booted strides. “This barony was set up to guard the border. That’s what most of the centaurs do here. Until Paul came, we had to employ a mage as well.”
“Paul? Amanda’s new man? Is he a mage then?”
“Not exactly. He’s from Hallow Isle—off the Leathe coast. The people there all get born with some sort of natural antidote to Leathe. It’s genetic.” Michael, Tod thought, sounded a bit curt about Paul.
He was glad to see his cousin was not a complete saint.
“Is that why your mother married him?”
“No,” Michael almost snapped. “Love. I thought we could leave Paul here while we—”
“No,” Tod said. “I take him. You stay.”
“Now, look—!” said Michael.
“You look,” said Tod. “The woman’s grabbed one gualdian already. You’re gualdian on one side, and on the other you’ve got Gordano birthright—”
“I’ve yet to notice either,” Michael said.
“Marceny will. Gods in hellband, she’ll want you even more than she’ll want me! My old dad will never forgive me if I let us both go.”
That seemed to shut Michael up. As they came to the centaurs milling at the end of the causeway, Tod looked up at the great yellowing bowl of the sky. Given luck, they could reach Josh by nightfall. The foremost centaur had a pale wedge of a face, like a slice of white cheese, and was clearly in some kind of authority. Tod snabbled him. “You in charge here? Good. The centaur in the grove isn’t a ghost. He’s Horgoc Anphalemos Galpetto a Cephelad—know the family? Great. And he’s stranded in Lady Marceny’s grove, in bad trouble. Can you choose me all your fastest folk? We’ll need to go in and out quick, and I don’t want anyone left on the way. Tell them to form up round my car in five minutes.”
“Quite the little Pentarch, aren’t we?” Michael murmured.
* * *
6
« ^ »
The king appeared entirely unhurried. He gave orders—or rather, issued mild requests to centaurs, humans, and some of the odder folk, some in uniforms and others in sober suiting—all of which, Gladys noticed, were obeyed as if they were commands with the death penalty attached. From this she conjectured that the power he could raise was formidable. It seemed hard on such a small, mild man. And she noticed he was seldom at a loss. In fact, the only time she saw him disconcerted was when he courteously asked his guests what they wished to eat before leaving for Leathe. The High Head asked for passet, Gladys for sausages.
The gnomish-looking lackey stared. The king blinked. It was cl
ear both requests were extraordinary. “And the ether monkey?” the king asked, recovering. “Will he eat?”
“No,” the High Head and Gladys said in chorus. The High Head shot her a venomous look and explained, “Your Majesty, they are not from our band of the Wheel. They are said to live on base energies. No doubt these are plentifully available from this one’s mistress.”
“Well, well,” said the king. “Magus, I realize your position is deeply unpleasant for you, and your future uncertain, but I must insist on courtesy. Would it reassure you if I try to discover what is going on in Arth?”
The High Head’s face showed a terrible eagerness. Poor man, Gladys thought. “If—if that is possible, Your Majesty.”
The king got up and ambled to his desk, where he stood looking out of the window and apparently tapping his desktop aimlessly. “As you know,” he observed, “I seldom do this in person, but I think it is time that I did. Ah. There are not much in the way of tides just now, but something—I should say Someone—has favored me with an excellent wave band. Here we are.”
The window in front of him rippled, dimmed, and became shot with flecks of light. Like a bad television warming up, Gladys thought. As in a television, sound came first. Laughter. Peals of it. One of the laughers broke off to say, “Arth here. Who is it now?”
“If it’s Leathe again, tell them what to do with it,” someone else said.
“This is the king,” stated His Majesty, “wishing to speak to whoever is in charge.”
“Oh—Goddess!” said the first speaker. This was followed by a muttered discussion, giggles, and the sound of a chair falling over.
“Yes, all right—she’s bringing him,” said someone else. “Find some coffee. Quick.”