“Josh!” he exclaimed. “Josh, what’s wrong? Are you dead?”
To his great relief, the transparent eyes focused on him. The face broke into a worried smile, and the misty torso sagged. Josh’s voice came to him, faint and far away. “Tod! Thank the Goddess! Can you hear me?”
“Clearly but small,” Tod said. “Where are you?”
“Just a moment,” said Josh. The apparition stood still, closed its eyes, and frowned. As it did so, it became milk-thick, then thick as whitewash, almost solid. Josh’s eyes opened again. “That’s better,” his voice said, and he sounded much nearer and stronger. “I’ve been sending myself to all the groves I could reach,” he said apologetically. “And trying to face in all directions while I did it. I’m nearly worn-out. No one seems to hear me. Tod, I’m in trouble. I’m in a grove in Leathe, on the estate of a woman called Marceny—”
“Marceny!” Tod exclaimed. “Josh, she’s the very worst! What in hellspoke are you doing there?”
“Zillah got us out of Arth — the Goddess alone knows how she did it,” Josh told him. “She used some kind of wild magic, and it was so strong that they all knew and were waiting for us. They’re besieging me in the grove now. They keep trying new ways to get me out, and they’re damned strong—”
“And Zillah?” Tod interrupted. “With you?”
“No,” said Josh, at which Tod’s stomach behaved as if he were crossing a hump bridge. “No, they got her, and the baby, and Philo — and you know what they do with gualdians—”
“I’ve heard — ye gods!” Tod was afraid he might be sick. But that would do Josh no good. “Hang on,” he said. “Don’t waste any more strength with sendings. Just stick in that grove like a leech, Josh, and we’ll find some way to get you out. There’s half a thousand centaurs here who can’t wait to help. We’ll do something. Just hang on.”
“I will,” said Josh. “I’d be all right if I wasn’t having to send. I was praying that they’d recall you. I’m so glad they did.”
“Recall me?” said Tod. “They didn’t. I came back by myself. I’m thoroughly illegal, and my father’s going to have to bail me out, but it won’t stop me getting to you.”
“You’re not illegal,” Josh said eagerly. “At least, I’m fairly sure you’re not. I’ve been thinking through Arth Service Laws to stop the people outside getting to my mind — and I started wishing I could tell you. Banishment’s not legal for servicemen. They shouldn’t ever have sent you!”
X Arth, Earth, Pentarchy
1
The High Head was gloomily aware that he had made almost every soul on Arth extremely unhappy. But, he told himself, he had to do something about the wild disorder in the vibrations, and the only way, with the culprits seemingly still at large in the bowels of the citadel, was to order a massive clampdown. This was now in force. Servicemen and cadets groaned under double parades and compulsory rituals. The lower-order Brothers were required to attend mass meditations and cleansing rituals four times a day, while their seniors, when they were not on duty for these, were under orders to meditate alone in their cells. The buttery was closed, so that even the dubious consolation of passet beer was denied.
As a further precaution, the High Head went in person to inspect each Horn. This, he was not unaware, caused considerable panic. He had uncovered a stupefying number of hastily concealed irregularities. In Observer Horn, for instance, he was forced to order them to reperform all viewings made in the last six weeks.
“Regardless of the fact that we can’t!” a junior Brother told Helen in Kitchen. For some reason, everyone came and told Helen things. Her cool, accepting manner had come to be regarded as wisdom. No one knew Judy very well, and Roz was wisely keeping out of sight. So was Sandra, after the High Head inspected Calculus.
There the High Head found such chaos that he concluded High Brother Gamon was insane and demoted him to the ranks. To do him justice, the High Head did not at that stage connect any of the disorder with the women — apart from Zillah, that is. He went on to censure Maintenance for allowing Rax and seven other servicemen to sit in a storeroom breathing glue and oxygen. “And we didn’t even know they were there!” a Duty Mage told Helen. Rax and his friends had been stealing a number of foodstuffs to sell too, which caused Housekeeping to be hauled over the coals as well. Ritual Horn was then found to be skimping, cutting corners and gabbling formulae. “But if we didn’t do that, we’d never get through all the stuff he’s piling onto us!” Alexander complained to Helen. Flan was mysteriously not to be found, so her handsome young mage came to Helen like everyone else.
And while Alexander uttered these complaints, the High Head was proceeding through Records, to demote two senior mages; and to Defense, where he arraigned almost everyone for overzealousness and rigidity. Even Healing Horn did not escape, for Edward had unaccountably failed to make proper records of his healing of Judy.
Finally, having dealt out penances to nine-tenths of the population of Arth, the High Head advanced on Kitchen. Unfortunately, he arrived to find Helen surrounded by an indignant crowd from all over the citadel. He sent every man of them about his business, with further penances, and then laid a geas on Helen, banning her from entering Kitchen again. After that, he did what he had really come to do and ordered a diet of passet henceforth for every meal. No fried food, he decreed, no spices, no sauces, no roast. Meat stewed in water only, with passet, was to be eaten from now on, and bread must be kept for two days before it was eaten.
Someone told Helen that Brother Milo wept. All the other High Brothers were equally upset, for the ordering of discipline in their own Horns was traditionally theirs. This had been the custom for four hundred years, regardless of the fact that the law was on the side of the High Head. Brother Nathan declared that the High Head had been unpardonably high-handed. Brother Gamon added that the man was a soulless traditionalist without a spark of human feeling. “And without a stomach either,” snarled Brother Dewi.
“He has been, at the very least, unpardonably impolite,” stated the Horn Head of Alchemy, who was so relieved to have escaped reprimand that he could afford to be angry on behalf of the others. “We have been slighted. We are annoyed.”
It would not have cheered them to know that, when the High Head returned to his office and tried to get on with the normal business of the day, he was no happier than they were. For one thing, he had acted like a tyrant, and he hated it. For another, the vibrations continued in unabated wild fluctuations. He promised himself revenge on Zillah, not to speak of the gualdian and the centaur, when the search parties finally ran them to earth. They had been lurking down there for three days now. True, there was unfortunately plenty of food in the depths — but surely it was only a matter of time before someone tracked them down! When they did, he would find it a pleasure to make them pay for all this necessary tyranny. The whole of Arth would revile them. And meanwhile, with all this going on, all the experiments with otherworld were in almost complete abeyance. He would have Lady Marceny on his tail any minute now. He groaned at the thought.