The High Head knew she had her own observatories, but it was unlike her to be so frank about it. Why, I believe she really is in earnest! he thought. “This happens,” he said. “I confess to hitches in my time too.”
“I hoped,” she said, “that you might be able to advise me of some method that did not have so many problems.”
“Willingly, my lady,” he said. “Suppose you tell me something about your new method and how the hitch develops, and I will see what Arth can provide that might help you.”
But of course, she would not tell him. She talked for the next half hour without saying one thing to the purpose, and he realized that this was just another attempt to get him off his guard.
Really, he thought, stretching in his chair, he had let her bother him badly, if he found himself reliving the ladies’ visit like this! Arth discipline enjoined you to banish this kind of obsessive stuff with a short meditation followed by a short specific weave. But he was simply not in the mood. The most he could do was to utter his devout thanks to the workings of the Cosmic Wheel, which had placed him in Arth rather than left him on the estate of Lady Istoly, where he had been born. If you were born a man in Leathe, you joined the Company of Arth and hoped passionately that you would eventually be received into the Brotherhood. Otherwise your life was miserable. And he had been lucky, one of the fortunate tenth who passed all the tests, and luckier still to rise to High Head of the citadel.
Which reminds me, he thought. I have responsibilities. Better get on with the work those harridans interrupted.
He swung around and gestured at his wall. It responded by becoming a rank of mirrors, most of them apparently reflecting blue-clothed mages peacefully at work, though about a third had this reflection covered by a pulsing sigil. The High Head smiled as he collected these pulsing ones into the main reflector before his desk and gestured at them to elucidate themselves. This was a very useful adaptation of an idea from otherworld. Research Horn was still working to discover what otherworlders actually used it for.
The sigils spread to rows of print, most of them routine reports. Defense Horn was still having problems with those otherworld rockets. Housekeeping Horn was inundated, because a year’s supply of goods had come over on the last of the tide. They requested help from either the cadets or the servicemen to unload capsules and stow provender. It would have to be the cadets who did that, because the newest recruits had been over for two days now and presumably knew their way around—enough to haul goods anyway. The servicemen had only come over in the carrier that brought the Ladies of Leathe, and thanks to those ladies, he had not even seen them yet. They should be about through with the rest of their induction by now. But here was Healing Horn—for which read Edward—wanting to see him about those same servicemen. Not yet, Edward, for Observer Horn was reporting some considerable etheric troubling centered on that spot in otherworld which they had learned to connect with the most useful mageworkings. And Maintenance had another leak in the atmosphere.
Maintenance Horn came first. That was a cardinal rule. The High Head indicated that they had his attention.
“It’s due to the tides, sir,” said the Duty Mage, briskly materializing in the mirror. “Tides always cause trouble, and this one’s bigger than usual, and there seem to be eddies. We’ve thrown up some patching wards, and they’ll hold till tonight, but I’m afraid it’s going to take a full-scale mage work to get it properly sealed.”
“Get Augury and Calculus to give you their best times for the ritual then,” the High head ordered. “I’ll have fifty mages stand by.”
Back to routine, he thought comfortably as the image of the Duty Mage dissolved. He called up Ritual Horn and gave them his instructions. Then he summoned to his reflector the otherworld site Observer Horn was so excited about. There was very little going on now. Hellband! It was high time something happened there. The Ladies of Leathe were not the only ones who were getting impatient. But the corner of his eye was catching the winged sigil flashing repeatedly in its mirror—Edward’s sigil—which meant that his friend wanted him urgently. He let Edward know he was free.
“Coming now,” said the mirror.
There was a delay while Edward traversed the corridors and ramps. As a healer, Edward claimed not to be very adept at projecting to a mirror. Oh, he could do it right enough, he always said when challenged, but walking was good exercise, and besides, having walked to where a person was made him feel as if he was truly meeting him. The other ways, he said, smacked of illusion.
Equally typically, when Edward actually arrived, he slid apologetically among the door-veils, ducking his head under the lintel. He always did duck, despite the High Head having several times stood him in the doorway and proved to him it was plenty high enough. And he advanced equally apologetically to put two steaming mugs on the worktop.
“I thought you could do with some coffee,” he said, “after Leathe first thing in the morning.”
“Rather than brandy?” said the High Head.
“Not straight after breakfast,” Edward said, “though I did consider beer—Oh, blast you, Lawrence! Why do I never see your jokes?”
“You usually do in the end,” said the High Head. “So what did you want to see me about? To make sure I hadn’t become a Leathe puppet overnight?”
Edward laughed. The High Head was gratified to see that the possibility had never occurred to him. “Great gods, no! No, it’s about this year’s servicemen—I imagine you haven’t had a chance to see them yet. I’m afraid you’re in for a shock when you do.”
“You mean the numbers are down? I saw that from the list. What happened? My guess is that the Ladies of Leathe quietly slung two-thirds of them off so that the Inner Convent—whom the Goddess bless!—could have plenty of space in the transfer carriage.”
Edward shook his head. “No, it’s not that. I talked to some of them, and they all say that this is all of them there ever were. I’m afraid it’s worse than that, Lawrence. It looks as if every single district that owes us service, in every single Fiveir, has sent the absolute legal minimum, and on top of that, almost every lad is wrong in some way. I’d say the Corriarden district turned out their youth prisons for us. There’s a lad from one of the north Trenjen places who can barely write his name—though he seems to have the rudiments of magecraft, so he’s within the letter of the law, just. And as for the rest, I’ve seldom seen a set of sorrier physical specimens. About the only normal one is the son of the Pentarch of Frinjen, and he’s only come because he had to—he’d be too old for next year’s batch—and he’s sulking like an infant over it. The rest are frankly demon fodder.”
“What?” said the High Head. “Even from the Orthe? What have they sent?”
“A spavined centaur,” said Edward, “and a gualdian with two left feet.”
The two of them looked at each other. The Other Peoples of the Orthe were under the king’s direct rule. Normally they took pride in sending the best of their youngsters for the year’s service on Arth, and it was not unusual for them to send several members of all five Peoples. If they, too, had dispatched only the very least they were obliged to send, then things were bad indeed.
“I’m not saying the king’s been got at by Leathe,” Edward said anxiously. “Though he could have been.”
“I doubt it.” The High Head got irritably to his feet and strode from wall to window to wall. “The king may be as scared of Leathe as the rest of us, but he can hold his own or he wouldn’t be king. I suppose we can be grateful to His Majesty for not coming here and giving us a piece of his mind like the Ladies of Leathe. Instead, he’s simply made it plain that the entire Pentarchy has lost confidence in Arth. Edward, it’s not my fault. I’ve worked like a demon to pull us out of the mess Magus Peter left us with. I’ve got everything running smoothly again—now this! What am I supposed to do?”
“Try to get some results on the latest experiment before the flooding at home gets much worse,” Edward said. “And drink that cof
fee since I troubled to bring it.” As the High Head stared at the mug as if it were an object from otherworld, he added, “I’ve got the assorted jailbirds, morons, and cripples lined up in the exercise hall. Want to come and give them your induction talk?”
“Give me five minutes,” said the High Head. He picked up the mug and drank absentmindedly. “I know I’ve been telling you all along that I’ve got a bad feeling about this flooding project, and I suppose this may be why. But I have a horrible sense that there’s worse to come. Do you?”
Edward shrugged. “Foreknowledge is not a thing I get much. Except about death, of course. I do feel a certain amount of death coming, I’m sorry to say. But,” he added, sidling his apologetic length toward the doorway, “that’s not unusual for a community the size of Arth. I’ll have a Duty Mage put those servicemen through some exercises while they wait. It’s always possible half of them will die of that.”
* * *
2
« ^ »
Bad feeling or not, the High Head got swiftly to work to push his project onward. Using the correct imagery, he bent his mind to the necessary spoke of the Great Wheel. There, he deftly and expertly hooked up the threads of thought belonging to his otherworld agents and led the whole bundle to the specially crafted spindles on his worktop. The spindles spared him trouble by translating to matter again and giving him the result in his main reflector.
There were a good many agents out there. They were necessary, not only for information, but to balance the continuous stream of ideas that had lately been flowing from otherworld to Arth and the Pentarchy. The High Head, being in a hurry, took most of them into his mirror in clusters, each twist of thread representing a center of intelligent activity in that world. Most reported, as they had been doing all this past month, that the effects of Arth’s project had been noticed. Otherworld seemed aware that its climate might be getting hotter and its seas rising. But not much yet was being done about it. Otherworld ran about wringing its hands and talked of planting appropriate vegetation or banning certain technology it believed harmful.
“For the Goddess’s sake!” the High Head exclaimed. “What in hellband’s use is that?” And he sent messages along the threads. Get them moving. Tell them the effect is going to double in their next decade.
Then he teased out the threads from the Islands. The magecraft of this site was usually among the strongest. Arth had run various tests recently and proved it currently to be in excellent working order. This was why Observer Horn regularly focused there. The High Head had great hopes of results here soon. First he focused again on the spot where observers had reported activity, but fine-tune it as he might, he found he could receive precisely nothing. Interesting. Every place in otherworld normally put out a certain amount of meaningless activity. The spokes of the Wheel were full of it, and junior mages had to learn to tune it out. But this area was not even putting out that. Most interesting. They must be using wards at least of the strength Arth had used against Leathe. Sadly, every single one of his Island agents was outside this area of silence, but this did not unduly perturb the High Head. This was the Islands pattern. When big mageworkings were afoot, they always closed down. Something was really happening at last!
In strong excitement, he flicked his two most important agents aside from the cluster. The first was serving as lover to a female known to be at or near the center of any magework performed. His image materialized in the reflector much as the High Head had seen him last on Arth—though this probably had little to do with the way the agent looked now, and was almost certainly simply the man’s image of himself. Strange transmogrifications befell those who made the transition and became one with otherworld. This agent was—in his own mind at least—somewhat unshaven, bored, and a little drunk.
“Gods of the Wheel!” this agent said. “All I needed was you! What do you want?”
The High Head indicated he needed anything that might cast light on the area of silence slightly to westward of his agent. Was magework afoot?
“Do you indeed?” said his agent. “Then you’re as wise as I am. It’s obvious something’s up. Bloody Maureen’s pretending to have something wrong with her shoulder so that she can keep going off to that hag’s place in Herefordshire, but that’s all I know. You’d think someone who talks as much as that girl does would give something away, but not she! She’s also collecting money. Cash is pouring in from all over the country—I’d no idea witches were good for so much. But she says it’s for her new Green World Campaign—products made in conditions that don’t hurt the ecology—you know the sort of thing. They’re supposed to be buying a derelict factory somewhere up in the Midlands. Then they make green soap. The gods know if that’s true or not. I’ve not been allowed near the factory—or the money, worse luck!”
He was, the High Head indicated, to investigate the factory.
“All right, all right! I know I should, and I’ve been trying. The bitch keeps putting me off. If I get you stuff on the factory, can I get shot of Maureen and come home? I really hate this world!”
The High Head of Arth forbore to indicate, even by so much as a flicker in the most distant spoke of the Wheel, that this agent was not coming home, ever. When a man underwent the ritual to make him one with otherworld, a change happened that seemed to be irreversible—but one could not let an agent know this, naturally. Instead, the High Head reminded his agent that he was serving as observer in the field as the result of misdemeanors as yet unexpiated and—because agents must be humored—inquired what exactly was so hateful in his position.
“I have to work in this music shop. I hate their music!” was the reply. “Let me tell you—”
The High Head cut into the stream of complaints he knew was about to follow by promising that, once the agent had firm information on the Maureen-female’s purposes, the waves of the correct spokes would adjust themselves so that all would be well. He was careful not to promise that the agent could then come home, although he was well aware that he left the agent with that impression. Such prevarications were a regrettable necessity. He cut the agent off, still grumbling, and turned to the second one, the one set to monitor the most important male mageworker.
He had far less hope of anything concrete from this one. The inescapable fact that the Brotherhood of Arth was an all-male company made it impossible to place this agent as a lover. This male mageworker was decidedly heterosexual. So the agent had been attached to the mageworker’s female partner instead, which was easy to do, because on Arth the agent had been blond, smooth, and handsome. As the image formed on the reflector was as handsome as ever, the assumption was that, whatever this agent had become, it still counted as good-looking in other world terms.
“I’m awfully afraid I can’t give you very much to go on yet, sir, more’s the pity,” this second agent said. He was always very polite. He was one of those who hoped to ingratiate himself in order to get forgiven and recalled to Arth. Poor misguided Brother. “The woman I watch complains her husband is always away and too tired to talk when he comes home. She thinks he’s got a new lover.”
The High Head requested his agent to play on the female’s fears to make her find out where the male really went.
“Oh, I did, sir,” the agent said eagerly. “It doesn’t take much doing, actually—she wants to know as much as we do. Last time he went, she took rather a risk, to my mind, and tried tracing him by witchcraft. But all it told her was that he seemed to go to that old woman’s house in Herefordshire, and she didn’t believe that for a moment. It looks as if he’s being too clever for us, sir.”
This house in Herefordshire, mentioned by both agents, unquestionably was the site where Observer Horn had pinpointed the recent activity, and, the High Head mused, the elderly female equally unquestionably was the center of it all. He had many times attempted to tag her, but she gave him no hold, no excuse to plant an agent, nothing. She was wily. She slipped away from contact. She was powerful. There had been one occasion, when h
e was a good deal younger and less experienced, when he had made a rash attempt to broach her consciousness. She had risen up in anger, through every band and spoke of the Wheel, majestic and horrible, and threatened to kill him if he tried that again. Since then he had treated her with great caution. So if they chose her house for their activity, what they were doing was very important.
He was recalled from these thoughts by the agent saying piteously, “Sir? Sir, I would welcome it very much if I could be removed from this assignment. I’m not at all happy in it.”
The High Head asked considerately wherein his unhappiness lay.
“It’s not just that I have the feeling Mark Lister suspects me, sir. I think I can handle him. But I really hate that woman. His wife, sir. I really do!”
What was wrong with her? the High Head inquired.
“She’s hard and mean—and stupid with it, sir. I think she’s probably the most selfish creature I’ve ever known. I’ll take any assignment you care to give me, sir, if only I needn’t put up with her anymore. She makes me ill, sir!”
The High Head suggested that this seemed to describe all females. But since the agent was truly distressed, to the extent that his smooth face in the reflector was distorting in surges, the High Head made haste to assure him that he would be replaced as soon as another agent could be activated.
“Oh, thank you, sir!” said the agent. “You don’t know how much this means to me!”
Know your men and keep them happy, the High Head thought, in considerable distaste at himself, as he cut the connection. That agent would now obtain him real information, quickly and in quantity. But since it did not do to play too many games with an agent’s feelings, the man would have to be replaced—just as he was likely to be most use. Pity. The High Head sighed as he detached all the threads of thought from the spindles and left the agents to themselves again. He stayed in the Wheel himself, however, for he still had his contact to make with the third important female. She was almost as hard to tag as the old one. He had discovered she had a life-partner, but, to his chagrin, the two seemed perfectly faithful to each another. All attempts to plant a lover had been wasted. He had no success in tagging her mind, either. It was not so much that she resisted his efforts as that she seemed totally unaware of them. He just slid off the surface of her mind.