It was a parade ground. With immense relief, her eye caught a disciplined group of blue uniforms over in the right-hand corner. They were just breaking ranks after some kind of exercise and streaming toward another of those veiled archways. Some were detaching themselves in twos and threes and making for other exits. The sight helped a little. She now saw everything at a steep slant. No, it was worse. She was absolutely going to fall. But Marcus had changed direction and was now running toward three of those detached figures, arms stretched out, for some reason in an ecstasy of delight. Zillah swerved after him. Her knees bent and she had to restrain an urge to trail her knuckles along the gravel.
“Ort! Ort!” Marcus was shouting.
It was the centaur again, now wearing a smart blue jacket on his human torso. The degree of illusion in this place became apparent when Marcus pounded up to the centaur and his companions in remarkably few strides. Or maybe the centaur moved swiftly to meet him.
“Ort! Ort!” Marcus cried, relief and joy all over him. Zillah realized that it was in hopes of meeting the centaur again that Marcus had gone to that medical place. Perhaps he had even been afraid that the centaur was dead too.
The centaur reached down and swung Marcus up level with his face. “How did you know I came from the Orthe?” he asked, through Marcus’s squeals of pleasure. He was quite as delighted as Marcus. His pale, mottled face was shining.
Zillah, as she sloped up, decided it would not be tactful to point out that Marcus had been saying something else.
“You’ve got it wrong, Josh,” Tod said, with his arm affectionately over the centaur’s flank. “The little fellow was actually calling you a horse.” Josh laughed. Tod nodded cheerfuly at Zillah. “Nice to see you again. What’s wrong? This place giving you the slopes?”
Zillah came upright again in the greatest relief. “Yes, but I’m all right now.” Tod had made it all right, by being so normal.
“It does that to me too,” said the third one of the group, leaning on Josh’s other side. “All the open places give me the slopes. That’s because space really is bent here, you know. The more of it you can see, the more it shows.”
Zillah looked at him with interest. He was not as odd as the centaur, but she could not help feeling he might in fact be even odder. He looked human, skinny and fair, but there was a sort of inner shining to him, and his eyes were tremendous—as were his hands and feet. Like an undernourished version of Michelangelo’s David, she thought.
“Let me introduce,” said Tod. “The fellow keeping Josh upright on the other side is Philo. He’s a Peleisian gualdian, if that means anything to you. The centaur is Horgoc Anphalemos Galpetto-Cephaldy, or Josh to his friends.”
“Pleased to meet you, lady.” Josh deftly swung Marcus around to sit astride at his back, where Marcus nestled against the blue jacket looking blissful, while Josh held out a large, pale hand to Zillah. It was warm when Zillah took it, horse-warm. The young-man-seeming part of him was all over larger than human. It would have to be, she thought, to match the horse part. The patch that had covered his eye the day before was gone, showing healing cuts above and below, although the cuts were hard to see for the big liver-colored horse-mottle that crossed his face and spread into his hair.
“I’m glad you’re better,” she said.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Thanks to Tod.”
Philo came forward and held out a hand almost as big as the centaur’s, but not as warm when Zillah grasped it. He seemed shy. But when Zillah smiled, he smiled too, and his smile was big and sly and confiding. “We should add that Tod’s full name is Roderick Halstatten Everenzi Pla—”
“No, don’t!” Tod said, wincing. “Tod will do.”
“He’s heir to a Pentarchy,” Josh explained. “It bothers him.”
Since it evidently did bother Tod, Zillah said to him, “How come you’re the only person in this place who understands what Marcus says?”
“I have six elder sisters,” Tod said wryly. “My parents kept grimly on until they got the required boy-child. Apart from being brought up in a houseful of hysteria and general henpecking, this means I have nephews. And nieces. Dozens of them. Some of my earliest memories are of having to understand baby talk so that I could tell the little bleeders that I was their uncle and they couldn’t have my toys.”
They began to walk as Tod talked, to another of the archways, all in a group in the most natural way. It was clear all three young men assumed Zillah was one of their number. And she was too, in some strange way, she thought, looking up at Josh’s laughing face and over at the prattling Tod. Something eased within her. She had friends. This was something she had seldom found possible before. She had never been able to fall easily into a relationship, the way other people could—yet here she was, chatting away as if she had known all three of them for years. She felt as if she had known them for years. Each of them felt familiar: Josh’s awkward strength, Philo’s slyness and sweetness, Tod’s insouciance. She smiled at Philo, and in the most natural manner, he came around Josh to lean against her.
* * *
6
« ^ »
Roz halted in a large unveiled archway and struck an attitude, feet apart, hands on hips. She felt good. Every line of her said Woman! And it worked. Without her needing to project her presence at all, the heads of the blue-clothed mages bending over their work in the room beyond were turning toward her, one and one, then hurriedly and guiltily turning away. She could almost see the flickers of lust playing across them. Good. This was doing what she had come to do.
After a moment one of the higher brothers hastened across to her, self-consciously adjusting his short-horned headdress.
“Am I somewhere I shouldn’t be?” Roz asked as he opened his mouth to speak.
He shook his horned head and looked flustered. “Not at all. This is Observer Horn. Where did you wish to be?”
She knew this was not what he had been going to say. He had meant to turn her out. Good. “Mind if I look round then?”
“Not at all, not at all. Let me show you around.” He led the way toward the rows of busy mages. Roz followed, stalking high, knowing he was conscious of every movement she made behind him. She felt like the cat that had the cream.
* * *
7
« ^ »
Sandra and Helen, bearing the large platter toward where they thought the kitchens were, were intercepted by two mutually chaperoning young mages. Politely, deferentially, they told Sandra her presence was required in Calculus Horn.
Sandra popped her eyes at Helen. “Okay. Sure you can manage this plate-thing on your own?”
“Of course,” Helen said quietly. “I’m far stronger than I look. Which way are the kitchens?”
The way was pointed out. Helen arrived there to find the place in that afternoon lull that occurs in all kitchens. She set the platter of half-eaten food carefully on the nearest table and surveyed the long, vaulted chain of rooms. Ovens she located, pans, work surfaces. The business of cooking varied very little from world to world, evidently. This place reminded her of a monastery kitchen she had once visited.
Having acquainted herself with the various arrangements, she walked quietly to the far end, where dishes were being washed by two weary-looking young mages. “Do you two do the cooking here?” she asked them.
“We’re only cadets, ma’am,” they told her, “on scullion duty. Brother Milo’s in charge. Do you want him?”
“Not yet,” Helen said, thoughtfully. “What’s being planned for supper? Do you know?”
Passet casseroled with lamb, she was told, with baked passet on the side. When she inquired how it should be made and for how many, they looked somewhat blank. They were only cadets. The mysteries of cooking had been withheld from them. But they were ready enough to talk. There were, after all, two of them and they felt they were chaperoned. And Helen’s looks had a cool angularity that amounted almost to gawkiness, and almost but not quite to unattractiveness. People alwa
ys assumed she was a virgin. She carefully accentuated this quality for the benefit of the cadets. They felt she was safe, even if she was a woman. Besides, she was kind enough to help with the dishes. While she did so, they explained, more and more eagerly, that cadets with less than average ability were sent to work in the kitchens and that this made them feel slighted, the more so in that almost none of the mageworks—such as those were—that were used in the kitchens had yet been shown to them.
“It’s not so much magework,” Helen said carefully, “as artistry that one uses in cooking. Would you like me to show you what I mean?”
Would they! But what on?
“We could always make a start on that casserole.”
They liked that idea. Brother Milo would doubtless commend their zeal.
Shortly they were scurrying about fetching ingredients from great cupboards primed with stasis spells. Helen learnt that the magecraft which prevented food from decaying was simple and easy to operate. It had to be, she was told, because so many people handled the food. In one cool corner of her mind she toyed with the idea of simply breaking those spells and then putting blocks on against anyone renewing them. A suicidal act—like this whole foray was, she suspected. Soon everyone in the citadel would be down with dysentery or starving. She dismissed the notion. It was not creative, it was too easily detected and, besides, she liked to cook.
Meanwhile the two boys had heaped the long tables with daunting quantities of provisions, very short on the meat, despite the quantity, and as usual high on the passet. Helen surveyed it, stretching and flexing her thin fingers. When she had talked of artistry, she had been quite sincere. What she had in mind was very artistic indeed, not exactly a weaving, more an insidious campaign to bend the inhabitants of the citadel to the ways of Earth. It would not be as swift as virus-magic, but it ought, in the long run, to be just as effective. And it suited her better, as one whose gift for witchcraft had always been bound up with practical things. In the meantime, the food itself should divert attention from what she was doing—surely someone in this citadel would appreciate better food!
“The first art lies in the choice of herbs,” she told the cadets. “What herbs are there?”
There were gratifying ranks of them, under stasis in glass jars. Clearly the cooking in Arth had not always been so plain. Not all the herbs had names Helen was used to, but touch and smell told her which was which of the ones she knew, and which of the unknown ones might prove useful as well. And, thank goodness, there were masses of garlic.
As she worked, the older kitchen staff began to filter back from their rest period. With quiet, cool requests for this or that, she soon had them busy too. When Brother Milo came back on duty, he was outraged to find his entire staff hard at work and supper well under way, all at the command of this long, calm, gawky young woman—who smiled coolly at him.
“I’m showing them the way we cook in my world,” Helen said. Her composure was wholly unruffled by her instant recognition that Brother Milo was going to prove her chief difficulty. “It seems to have ended up as cooking supper. I hope you don’t mind.”
Brother Milo did mind, but he could hardly throw good food away and start again at this hour.
* * *
8
« ^ »
What I want to know,” said Sandra, “is why you’re all being so polite to me!”
High Brother Gamon bowed yet again. “We think of you as Azandi, ma’am,” he explained. “Azandi is the other continent of our home world. The people there look like you. They inspire respect.”
“Whatever for?” said Sandra.
“They are,” Brother Gamon told her ruefully, “somewhat dangerous adepts, even the least of them.”
Sandra began and then bit back—just barely—an angry description of the status of black women on Earth. This was a mission, for God’s sake! It might still be possible to do what they had come to do, and she had not been chosen for stupidity. “Explain. I think it might be a bit like that where I come from.”
“Azandi specialize in types of mageworkings that we have never succeeded in mastering,” the man in the horned headdress explained. “They can handle the hidden side of the Wheel. This naturally makes them, in addition to other things, experts in divination. Since we in Calculus, in our laborious way, work at divination too, this is bound to make us treat someone of your appearance most respectfully.”
“Oh,” said Sandra. “Ah.”
“Though I hasten to add that we pride ourselves on treating all ladies with respect,” Brother Gamon added.
What a windbag! Sandra thought. “Okay. So what do you want to do with me?”
“We’re about to try various techniques to discover the whereabouts of your homeworld and how soon you may safely be conveyed back there. There is no need to feel the least alarm, ma’am. A full birth horoscope is, of course, impossible at first, but we are drawing up one for the exact moment of your arrival in Arth. And we shall scry in various ways, based on information Observer Horn imparts—we shall need your age in years, months, and days for all this, a hair of your head, your hand on one or two implements of calculation, and we should like you to cut the cards for our readings of—”
At last the man had got to something Sandra knew about. “Cards? You mean tarot?”
“What is that?” he asked. “Atala is our usual system, but we also use—”
“Show,” Sandra said imperiously. “Cards.”
He led her to a velvet-covered table. Sandra swaggered after him, acting what she hoped was an arrogant Azandi as hard as she knew how. I have power. I work the hidden side of the Wheel. I am arrogant. Bloody hell, I feel like Roz! She looked haughtily down her nose as Brother Gamon spread a pack of cards on the velvet with an expert sweep of his palm. Hm. Quite like tarot really. The old, really weird decks. Sandra picked up what seemed to be the Magician. “What do you call this?”
“The Archmage. That is a most potent and revealing card, which—”
“Piffle. Weak and ordinary—but then he’s only one of the unnumbered trumps: all those count low.” Sandra sensed gasps from all over the great room. “Honest. Does he count high with you then? He counts low with me, where I come from. It seems to me you ought to read me the way it goes in my country, or you’ll get it all wrong. Want me to show you my way?”
There was a long murmur of assent. Mages left what they were doing and drew in around the velvet table. Sandra kept as sober as a judge, but inside she was doing her grin-and-hug-yourself-Sandra. She loved fooling people. Here we go then. Back-to-front tarot. This should mess them up some. After that I’ll have a go at upside-down horoscopes. I’ll never get a better chance at sabotage, not if I look all over this mad blue building for a month!
* * *
9
« ^ »
Flan had wandered into a tine of Ritual Horn. But I’m still not sure how we got from there to here! she thought as she swung and bent and sidestepped in front of a grave, dark young mage, who most faithfully echoed what Flan did. Except he’s so good-looking. Perhaps that had something to do with it.
“From the waist, now! That’s better!” she told the young mage. Dip arm, dip arm and up. As far as Flan could recall, she had happened on this dance room, with its smooth blue floor and full-length mirrors on two walls, to find a Brother Instructor attempting to put a team of mages through some kind of movement routine. Swing around and swing. What the purpose of the routine was, Flan still had no idea, but she had hung around at the door fascinated at first, then disapproving, then exasperated. Most of them were so bad at movement. The Instructor didn’t seem to have much of a clue either.
“You in the second row—red hair—you’re still missing the beat! One and two and, one and two and! That’s better!” Somehow, with her total exasperation, the professional had arisen in Flan and taken over completely. She remembered herself suddenly in the middle of the room, clapping for attention. Music came jangling to a startled halt, faces had turned,
gaping. “That was awful, people, just awful!” Flan had found herself telling them, in the full, carrying voice of a dance teacher. “You can all do much better than that. I’ll show you. Let me just get these shoes off my feet…” And then she had shown them how and worked them and worked with them. Faces by now shone with sweat. The Brother Instructor’s face was twisted and gasping. Honest! He should be fitter than that. He didn’t know what work was! Tomorrow she was going to take them all back to basics, but now it was probably time for a little simple yoga.
“All right, people. You can rest. You have the makings of a good dancer,” she told her handsome mage. His grave face lit with a besotted smile. She knew that if she’d asked him to lick her toes, he would have lain down on the floor and done so.
But Brother Instructor was bustling up to Flan, limping a little and very angry. “My good woman, it is not our purpose here to dance. This is a Ritual of the Goddess.”
“Then you should dance,” Flan told him. “She likes it. Anyway, dancing is the basis of all good movement, whatever you think She wants. All right, people, if you’ve got your breath, we’ll have a little yoga now.”
* * *
10
« ^ »
As two dozen mages tried to force their unaccustomed legs into lotus position, the High Head received an urgent summons from Edward.
“Couldn’t it wait until I met you at supper?” he asked as he arrived in Healing Horn. One of the women, the blond hysterical one, was lying on the outermost bunk, pale and comatose. Though the High Head was sure she was unconscious, her presence made him uncomfortable. He was not used to the outline of breasts on a sleeper under a blanket.