The window cleared with a flick to bright blue light, and a face twice lifesize looked out of it. It was swaying slightly. For an instant, Gladys had the notion she was seeing the Great Centaur again. But this was a man, trying very hard to look serious and businesslike. He said, with great care, “I am Acting High Head until the coming elections, Your Majesty. How can I help you?”
“Edward!” said the ex-High Head. He looked betrayed.
“Yes, you can tell me what’s going on there,” said the king.
“Well, nothing much at the moment,” Edward replied.
“You’ll have to forgive me, Your Majesty. We’re all very drunk. We’ve been celebrating for a long time—the repeal of Oath and Constitution, you know.” The High Head put his face in his hands.
“Do you intend to draw up new ones?” the king asked.
“In a bit,” said Edward. “I mean, yes, of course, Your Majesty. Someone said they were working on it, I think.” He seemed to realize that this was a little inadequate. He frowned importantly. “We shall ask for two hundred women from the Pentarchy the next time the tides are right. Then we’ll abolish the service-year—and celibacy, of course—and—What? Oh yes. A lot of the mages and most of the cadets want to go home.”
“That seems to be on the right lines,” said the king, “but a little sketchy, High Brother. Add two things to it now. Perhaps if you have a Brother handy to write this down, it would assist you to remember tomorrow, or whenever your party is over.”
Edward turned and made fierce gestures to someone out of sight. A hand appeared, passing him a block of paper and a pen. After a slight tussle, in which Edward attempted to retain the wineglass he had in each hand as well as the paper and pen, and the hand—possibly a female hand—firmly removed both glasses, he turned and nodded owlishly at the king. “Ready.”
“Splendid,” said the king. “Write, One: No further research is to be done on otherworld without written royal permission. Two: The function of Arth is, in future, to supply the Pentarchy with the same sort of inventions that we have hitherto gained from otherworld, and these are to be discovered purely by the Brotherhood’s own unaided efforts.” While Edward laboriously wrote, the king said over his shoulder to Gladys, “I’m ashamed of the way we’ve been sponging on your world—and they can do it themselves, you know. Some of the best brains in the Pentarchy are over there. Is there anything else I should tell him?”
“Ask about our women,” Gladys said.
“Oh yes. Have you got all that down?” the king asked Edward. He nodded, looking as sober as only someone extremely drunk can. “Then the last thing I have to say is about the five otherworld women in Arth. What arrangements have you made to send them home?”
There was an instant outcry. Shouts of “No!” and “Don’t you take our women!” and “They’re staying!” filled the paneled office deafeningly. Edward’s face was jostled out of the screen, replaced by several angry ones, two of them female, and then jostled back. Gladys sighed with relief. Flan and Judy seemed fine.
This time, Edward was icy cold sober. “I’m very sorry, Your Majesty. We have no intention of sending any of the women anywhere. They have asked to stay. We made them all citizens of Arth this morning.” His image vanished with a crash and a slight tinkle, as if someone had broken a large sheet of glass. Evening sun dazzled through the window again.
The king turned away from it. “Well, there you are. I shall go there and try to sort things out in due course, but the next tides are not for nearly two years, I’m afraid, and by that time it will be very hard to remove anyone who wants to stay.”
Gladys shrugged. “That’s five more full sets of ideas.”
“I know,” said the king.
The dejection of all three was interrupted by a footman entering with a trolley. Gladys eyed the carefully sliced black pudding that was the Pentarchy’s notion of sausage and politely said nothing. The king, however, was unable to resist murmuring to her, “How can the man eat passet?”
“My Len had a weak stomach,” Gladys murmured back, “and I daresay he’s just the same. Analogues, you know. Len used to live mostly on potatoes.”
The ex-High Head heard her and looked at her with hatred.
Shortly the king looked at his gold fob watch. “We leave for the Royal Grove in five minutes. Both of you must visit a bathroom before then.”
“I, Your Majesty?” said the High Head. “There is surely no need for me to go to Leathe?”
Gladys did not hear the king’s reply, for a polite young woman arrived just then and led her away to a washroom with decidedly peculiar plumbing. Gladys wrestled with it, thinking that His Majesty was being rather hard on poor old Lawrence. The man’s only fault was to be the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time. This mess, after all, went back long before he was born.
She came back to find the High Head dismally resigned. He sat silent in the car that drove them to the Royal Grove. Even Gladys did not guess that the thought of setting foot in Leathe again made the passet churn in his stomach. All he said was, to the king, when they were joined in the dim light under the great trees by seven soberly dressed men who all had the look of mages, “Your Majesty, I hope one of us is familiar with Lady Marceny’s grove. It is usually important to—”
“No, Magus, but we have other reliable facts,” one of the soberly dressed men told him, and he spoke with as much respect as if the one he addressed were still, in fact, High Head of Arth. “We arrive exactly at sunset in that time zone. The grove is of orange trees, and there is a centaur in it.”
His facts were a little out. There were upward of a hundred centaurs in it, all milling about, shouting in deep bass voices. Gladys hurriedly picked Jimbo up, wondering if they had come to the wrong grove. The king’s party was jostled every which way. But hardly had they realized this when one of the centaurs shouted, “Oh, all right then! Let’s all go!” And the whole crowd of huge bodies went thundering away out of the grove.
“Follow them,” said the king. “Quickly.”
* * *
7
« ^ »
The journey was exasperating for Tod. He insisted on driving his car, which meant he had to keep to the roads, while the centaurs spread out across country. He and Paul had both been offered a ride on a centaur, but Tod bore in mind that they might have to make a swift and scattered retreat and that Josh would be exhausted. He folded the roof of the car back, which just gave room to cram someone Josh’s size into the rear seat, and drove with the warm wind in his hair and Paul sitting solidly beside him.
No one had a reliable map of the Listanian estate—no doubt Marceny took care there were none. The centaurs tended to get lost at first, until it dawned on their unorganized minds that Tod was able to home on Josh. His birthright led him to be conscious of Philo, Zillah and Marcus too, though Tod did not tell them that. Once he had explained he knew where to go, the centaurs spread out in the lands on either side of the road, and Tod tended to leave them behind on the straights. Where the road bent, the centaurs cut the corners, and he nearly ran one down. In addition, he had not the slightest idea what kind of conversation to make with Paul. They exchanged stilted monosyllables until—Tod supposed it should not have surprised him—Michael suddenly bobbed up in the back, saying, “Hellspoke, Tod! Paul’s a perfectly reasonable human being!”
Paul gave a great shout of laughter, and Tod jumped half out of his skin.
“Oh, Great Centaur, you fool gubbins!” Tod said disgustedly. “And you timed that perfectly, didn’t you? There’s no way I can turn back now, or even kick you out!”
Taking everything together, he thought it quite surprising he only drove down one road that dead-ended.
Sunset came and grew and flared on the meticulous drainage ditches. The land here was as flat as Michael’s barony, though ten times tidier, and well before they reached the place, Tod could see both the grove and Marceny’s mansion as a small clump and a black blot against the sky. The
nearer he came, the more certain he was that he was faced with a choice. Josh was still in the grove, all right, but there was worse trouble at the mansion.
In the end the choice was made for him. The road did not go to the grove, but swept around to the left to lead to the mansion. “Michael,” Tod said, hurriedly drawing up, “go and make sure they get Josh out of that grove and back to Riverwell. Stay near a road, and I’ll try to pick you up on my way back. I’ll take Paul to the mansion, if that’s all right with you, Paul?”
“Fine,” said Paul. “Take care, Michael.”
Michael leaped out and ran, splashing through a dyke in a storm of spray, to accost the nearest centaur. Tod swung the car around and roared off toward the mansion, which seemed to be dark, except for a curious flickering among the trees at the back.
Paul said, “There’s something over there with more power than I think I can handle.”
“Now, why do I get that feeling too?” Tod said. He stopped with a shriek at the unlighted front of the house and ran up the steps and in through its open door, brushing aside heavy wardings and strong blocks to right and left like so many cobwebs.
* * *
8
« ^ »
There was more power than Zillah knew how to handle. She felt heavy with it, dead. As Marceny set off down the steps to the lawn, with her train of red velvet softly brush-brushing the stone, and Herrel followed carrying Marcus, the women around Zillah moved too. She was forced—by nothing she could see—to walk in their midst. The power was so great that she had to wade rather than walk.
And I might as well be dead anyway with Herrel on two sides at once, she thought, glancing at the girls around her. Pretty, pretty little faces. Don’t any of them care? They seemed to be able to walk perfectly well, although the one on her right in the peacock silk was mincing rather. Zillah glanced contemptuously at the little witch. Glanced again. And her heart knocked, heavily, against the stifling load of power. The girl was dark, with dark eyelashes demurely spread on the cheeks of her pretty little face. Her small hands delicately held up her silken dress as she approached the steps. But she was Philo. No one could have been less like Philo, particularly with those tiny hands and—yes—dainty little feet tripping down the dim stone steps, but Zillah knew it was. There was an essence of him that she could sense, scared, small, very angry, and most definitely Philo inside the disguise. She hoped he would look at her—wink—show in some way he was there and still her friend, but he gave no sign. Perhaps his anger was at Zillah for getting him into this, or maybe he needed all his attention on maintaining the illusion. Zillah feared it was the former.
As they went out onto the lawn among the carefully spaced stands of fire, there was singing. Zillah thought at first that it came from the numbers of dimly seen people gathered at the edges of the turf—presumably people from the estate or workers from the house—but she was soon sure that it did not. It was heavy singing, in one rich but untrained voice. Its tune dragged from one powerful, slumberous phrase to another, bringing sleep with it, numbness, submission, and probably death. Yes, a deathsong, Zillah thought. It came from the source of the heavy power that made it so hard to move. The lawn was a tank, full of it like a heavy liquid.
Marceny took up her position beside the stone table, right in the center, and Zillah instantly knew that the song and the power came from Marceny, even though she had not uttered a sound. Knowing that killed a slight hope. Herrel had said Marceny was currently busy punishing Mark; but any hope that this might drain her strength or concentration went at the sight of Marceny’s closed lips and still face. Zillah could even feel, as a sort of dim strand, the power being diverted toward Mark, and it made no difference to speak of to the strength singing here.
With silent gestures, Marceny sent people to their places. One gesture, and a group of girls was sent to the far end of the table; another, and Zillah was halted among other women at the near end. Zillah was forced to stand and watch Philo go with the first group, separated from her by the length of the table with its gleaming knives. The light from the sky had almost gone by now. Marceny’s red velvet gown glowed bloodily in the flames as she beckoned Herrel, carrying Marcus, up beside her.
A practical color, Zillah thought bitterly. Very practical. But then black witches are, I’ve heard. We all know the Goddess has her dark side. That singing—
—is not the Goddess
It was as if someone spoke. Even more clearly than she had known the nature of Arth, she knew this. Whatever the power Marceny was using, whatever it was that sang, it was something other than any aspect of the Lady. It was very foul. It fed on Herrel, through Marceny, and on other things too. It was very strong. Well, at least I know what we’re up against, Zillah thought. That sounded better than it was. The truth was, she did not know what this thing was. The hopelessness she had thought she felt without Mark was nothing to what she felt now. She was down at the raw end of a chasm where hope simply was not.
The singing stopped. An abiding silence settled.
“Give me the child now,” Marceny said to Herrel. Her voice seemed a small, shrill thing in contrast to the singing.
As Herrel’s arms moved, Zillah said, “Do that, Herrel, and you’re dead meat!”
“He is anyway, dear. Both of you are,” Lady Marceny pointed out. She put out her hands and took Marcus under the armpits. Marcus himself, frightened by the strangeness and remembering he disliked Marceny, clung to Herrel with arms and legs. Herrel simply stood there. Two young women went to help Marceny. Zillah had a glimpse of Philo, staring helplessly.
“Herrel, for God’s sake, stand up to her!” Zillah screamed. She threw every protective strength she had around Marcus.
“Come along to your granny, dear,” Lady Marceny told Marcus. “Let’s have no more nonsense.”
Marcus was removed from Herrel and dumped screaming on the table. He was truly terrified now. Zillah’s protections were broken. It was as if half her being was wrenched from her. She had at that moment some notion how Herrel must have felt when Mark was taken from him. The two girls were undressing Marcus. Marceny, with a firelit knife raised in both hands, was reciting an invocation to the Goddess. The Goddess! That’s rich! Zillah thought. She could not move. The heavy power pinned her at one end of the table. But Herrel was a free agent. Zillah knew he was, even before he turned and looked at her with his eyes screaming and his mouth smiling. Asking me to help! Zillah more or less screamed to herself. You’re asking me to stop Marcus being made like you! You could stop it, Herrel, in an instant, if you wanted to. You’re so strong that that being infesting your mother feeds and feeds and you still carry on!
Herrel, of course, could not want to. He could not want anything that had been taken from him to make Mark.
Zillah was in the act of kicking Herrel aside mentally as useless, when she saw that this wronged him. Herrel had done one small thing. He had done it for Marcus. On the table, Marcus was screaming and threshing and surrounded by a small, triangular space of his own. It seemed to be the ghost of the Eeyore-hut. Marcus was mentally crouching in it, disseminating the one protection small children have—fear. Fear beat in waves over the two women trying to undress him and slowed their movements. Even the knife in Marceny’s hands showed a slight tremor. And his screams were horrible.
What’s this supposed to do? Zillah thought angrily. Yet she knew. Herrel had made the circuit of that illusory room, and made it just real enough for Marcus to use. It was all he thought himself able to do. The slight breathing space this gave, Zillah was supposed to use to confront Marceny.
And I can’t! she thought. Doesn’t he know I couldn’t even face my own mother? I just had to leave. I couldn’t even look Marceny in the eyes, and he expects me to—
Ah then, she thought. I must fetch Mark here. There was no time to consider it impossible. They had Marcus undressed now. “Philo, help me!” she called out above the drone of Marceny’s invocation, and threw her mind toward Earth and Ma
rk.
Tod came out on the terrace to see Marcus naked and Marceny in the act of blessing the knife. His birthright, at the sight, ramped within him like an enraged beast. Maybe it was anger, maybe it was the strange negative presence of the man Paul behind him, but he felt it, for the first time for years, spring out of his control. It seemed to be going wild. He was terrified. And he could be no use like this. Then he heard the voice of his old tutor, saying, “Even now it will sometimes take over, and you’ll find it knows what it’s doing.” Well, I just hope he was right, Tod thought, and let it go.
He found himself calling out in a great voice, far deeper than his own. “Stop this! This dirties the name of the Goddess. I forbid it!”
At the other end of the lawn, a flying pale shape crashed through the trees and burst among the watching people. Tod, to his astonishment, saw Josh, whom he had confidently thought to be safely on his way to Frinjen, gallop among the pans of fire and slow gradually as the heavy ponding of power caught him. Josh came to a halt between two fires, facing Tod, pawing the turf angrily. “Leave that child alone, woman!” he panted. “I tell you—”
A timeless stillness was suddenly present.
Oh, thank Heaven! Zillah thought. Space. The space Herrel had tried to give her through Marcus. Marceny and the women around her were still moving, but in the slowest of slow motion, and if Marceny was still chanting, her voice was too slowed and lengthened to hear. Zillah knew what had happened. Tod and Josh had accidentally—if such a thing could ever be accidental—taken up the positions of a ritual of their own. They stood to east and west. Philo was to the south, and Zillah herself to the north. There was someone strange with Tod, who had the effect of dimming the other women with Marceny, so that the heavy power was forced to draw in around the table to protect itself. What Zillah had here now was the space peculiar to magic—which might last a second or many hours—and in which she could work.