“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Mark said.
“Oh, I doubt it,” Tod replied merrily. “I’m a total stranger in these parts. I—”
“Roddy is Tony’s brother,” Paulie interrupted. “You remember Tony, Mark? I’ve just been telling Roddy how Koppa and I found you wandering around London and took you in.”
That, Tod thought, was unneccessary. It was the remark of a complete bitch. His birthright felt Mark wince at it, though Mark gave no outward sign. The man was probably bleeding inwardly from a thousand such snide, wounding things. A great desire came upon Tod to be away from all this, out of the cloying poison of Leathe, not have anything more to do with these people.
“If you don’t mind,” he said firmly, “I’ll be getting along now. Nice to have met you — Paulie — Mark.”
Neither of them suggested that he stay. Neither even made a polite noise. They were locked in combat with no time to spare for Tod.
“Well. Good-bye,” Tod said. He left them standing there and got out of the house with long strides. His birthright told him that, in order to do so, in order just to make it through the front door, he went bursting through wards and barriers of truly formidable magework. The space in front of the house door was blocked now by a car that was presumably Mark’s. More barriers. Tod burst those too, dodged around the car, and fled to the pavement at the head of the short drive, where he stood breathing deeply and trying to recover what Arth and otherworld between them had left of his poise.
The footpath, and the road with it, was slightly raised above the ground where the houses stood. It was as if Tod were for a moment standing with his legs astride on top of otherworld — his birthright tended to give him this effect when it was roused. Now it served to show him that he had had enough of the place. He hated everything he had seen here, and Paulie most of all. There was no way he was going to do the High Head’s bidding and become Paulie’s lover. He would be sick. He was sick. He had to swallow. The homesickness that had overcome him in the center of town rose up in him and clamored.
“Damn it all to hellspoke!” Tod said. “I’m going home.”
To make this quite clear to himself, he fished the key to Brother Tony’s lodgings from its tight pocket and deliberately dropped it down a grating at his feet. Some kind of drain, he supposed. As the key clattered away, he felt nothing but relief.
“That settles it then,” he said.
Nobody had told him the thing was impossible. Nobody had even told him he was forced to serve out the rest of his service-year here — though the High Head had evidently intended that. But the High Head had clearly forgotten the little matter of Tod’s birthright. Tod had forgotten it himself. Brainwashed by Arth, he thought. Arth preferred not to know about magework outside its own control, and Tod had tried to be a good citizen of Arth. He was a little astonished at himself now. He had tried to be good. They would not let him. So he had better go home and put himself under August Gordano’s powerful protection. August would fight tooth and nail for his heir if necessary.
When he thought about it, Tod was slightly ashamed of running and hiding behind his daddy’s coattails. He always was when he did it, but it never stopped him doing it. And to justify him on this occasion, there was the peculiar business of Zillah and his realization that she came from this place. If that ritual really had given the High Head a line through to Tod’s mind, then the sooner he got where this information was not available to Arth, the better. But let’s see.
Tod let his birthright gather and then reached out and examined this thread. Reaching into the Wheel was curiously difficult to do. Either he was out of practice or otherworld was not a place where magework came easy. But the thread existed, all right.
Tod recoiled as the High Head himself took up the thread and came through to Tod’s mind. Damn. So delicately set up, I jogged the swine’s mind. Your report please, agent. Tod had the sense of another day at least having passed in Arth — time did indeed run strangely between universes — and the High Head well rested but slightly irritable from a rich breakfast, and exceedingly worried behind that in a way he was careful to keep hidden from Tod. Whatever this worry was, it served to distance Tod’s affairs. The High Head was now able to regard him as just another agent in the field.
My report? There was no reason in any world to tell the sod the truth. Tod instantly set about misleading him. Contact has been made, sir, satisfactorily to both parties, and I’ve also become very friendly with the husband. By the way, sir, the man has powers rather in excess of yours. Tod had no idea if this was the case, but he saw no harm in usettling Arth a bit.
I suspected as much, the High Head’s thought came, heavy and irritable. So what’s he up to?
Something very crucial, Tod thought back glibly. There’s a being called Gladys I haven’t met yet, who’s even more powerful, and we’re all just off to do important magework with her. I’ll let you know what when I’ve seen it, sir.
Good work, agent. The old female is of great interest to us. Was there any mention of another called Amanda?
I don’t think so, Tod lied, while his mind made rapid connections. Mark had been talking about her — Zillah’s sister.
When you do come across her, I’d like a report on her too. My usual source on her is temporarily out of action.
Of course, Magus, Tod thought unctuously, while vowing that no one who was an analogue of his favorite aunt was ever going to be given over to Arth.
To his relief, the High Head dropped the thread then. Tod felt him turn to pick up another, belonging to some other poor Brother in the field. He felt unclean. Hateful to have that fellow in your head. But quick. Now, while the swine was complacently turning elsewhere. Tod reached into the Wheel again and carefully, delicately, nipped that thread apart. The effort left him quite unusually drained, but it was worth it. Let the High Head try looking for him now. The next thing was to consider the best way to get home before the High Head started looking.
Tod raised his birthright in a new direction and was more than a little daunted to find how well defended the Pentarchy was — it was as if a great thorny wood filled with booby traps grew between here and there. But the luck of the Fiveirs was with him. His mind’s eye caught what looked like a possible way through, accessible from here. The real problem was the strange difficulty there seemed to be in mageworking. Tod felt exhausted just looking. He began to see that otherworld was in fact much less benevolent to magecraft than his own world. Perhaps that was the main difference between them. In order to get through that wood, he was going to need to be in, or near, a place of power. He ignored the weariness and searched for such a place.
There was none near. The nearest he could feel was miles away, north and west of here. That was all right. He had transport, courtesy of Arth. He jingled the car keys in his pocket and looked down the driveway with disfavor. There stood Brother Tony’s motley little monster, nose-down beside Mark’s sleek gray job. Mark’s was a real car. It might not have been in the same league as the beloved Delmo-Mendacci, but it was a good, classy vehicle all the same. The contrast was pitiful.
Tod walked slowly down the drive, tossing the keys of the subcar in his hand. He was between the two cars when he realized that the engine of Mark’s car was running. So quiet! Marvelous. Of course, Mark had said he’d left it running. And considering the barriers of magework around it, there was probably no fear of someone making off with it. But Mark must, all the same, be incredibly heavily engaged in that family row of theirs, not to have come out to remove the keys, just in case. Tod himself would have done that first thing. Mark would get around to it any second now. In which case—