A Sudden Wild Magic

by Diana Wynne Jones

  Tod gave the zip up as hopeless. The garment was too big anyway. He gathered it around him and followed Brother Tony through the door and down some dingy stairs. “I’d introduce you to the landlady, but she’s out at the moment,” Brother Tony said over his shoulder, “but you can take it she’ll accept you as the new lodger without question. Arth’s quite good at that kind of thing.” Outside the front door of the house, he ceremoniously handed Tod a small, flat key. “There you are. It’s all yours now.”

  While Tod worked the key into the tight pocket of the cotton trousers, Brother Tony led him briskly down a street lined on both sides with striped brick houses, small, stingy, and ugly. The fact that the rain was now passing into weak, watery sunlight only seemed to make the dwellings look more dismal.

  “This is the shabby area,” Brother Tony told him blithely. “You’ll find it’s all you can afford. Costs are high here.”

  They rounded a corner into a larger road. Here the buildings were larger and flat-faced and full of windows and constructed either of raw red brick or raw gray concrete. The place was full of people and traffic, but Tod found he could only concentrate on the buildings. Seldom had he seen anything more ungracious. He thought of the small Residence he had inherited in Haurbath, and of the town beyond it, all of it quiet, old, and beautiful, and was stabbed through and through with the homesickness he had somehow managed to avoid on Arth.

  “Is otherworld all like this?” he said miserably.

  “Most of the towns. It’s a crowded world,” Brother Tony said. “Some of the coutryside is almost worth looking at, but of course, they build on more of it every year. No idea of space.”

  “Oh,” said Tod. Almost he could have believed he was simply in a bad dream, except that the rain had left the sidewalk full of puddles, and his canvas shoes were now soaked until his toes squelched. They reminded him at every step that this was no dream. And if he was tempted to imagine still that it was a dream, there was Brother Tony’s trim and cheerful figure beside him, dressed like the smartest of the passersby, to make sure he knew it was true. Tod himself looked like the shabbiest of the males who passed. As for the females, Tod found he was too depressed even to be astonished at the short skirts the young ones wore. Bad. Female legs usually interested him rather a lot.

  “Hope you don’t mind my asking,” Brother Tony said confidentially, “but what exactly were you sent over for?”

  “Eh?” said Tod. “Oh, I kissed a woman.”

  “Really?” said Brother Tony. “They’re punishing just for that now, are they? Where was she from? Leathe?”

  “No, she was from here, I think,” Tod said. Looking at the style of the females they passed had made him quite certain of this.

  “Here? Otherworld? Come off it! She couldn’t have been! They don’t know about Arth here, let alone how to cross over!”

  Tod had transferred his attention from the pedestrians to the traffic and was watching cars rushing through sprays of water from the wet road. The cars, he thought, were probably the only things worth looking at in this place. Although none of them were as handsome as his own wonderful old beloved Delmo-Mendacci, some of them were almost comely. He wondered if the controls for driving them were anything like the same. But Brother Tony’s incredulous outcry recalled him to what he had just said. He had spoken without thinking, and yet, now he considered, he knew it was true. He had all along picked up from Zillah pictures of a world he knew was this one. Hm, he thought. And a great deal fell together in his head—most of what the women might have been doing in Arth, in fact, although he found he was still a little puzzled about what Zillah herself was doing there.

  “I was joking,” he said, and hastily laughed. “She was Leathe, of course.” One of the things that fell together in his head was that Zillah’s safety depended on his not letting Arth know where she came from. This was going to be a little difficult if the ritual had indeed given the High Head a thread through into his mind.

  To his relief, Brother Tony laughed too. “Leathe from whence all our troubles come!” he said. “Are you quite sure you don’t want a haircut?”

  They were level with a large window behind which several young men were having things done to their heads by other young men. The aim seemed to be to get their hair to stand upright. “Yes, I am sure, thanks,” Tod said firmly.

  “Then we’d better get to the bank before it shuts,” Brother Tony said. He led Tod to an establishment a few doors on, where he showed him how to obtain money and pay it in. Tod looked at the small wad of blue papers he received. Money? Astonishing to think Arth was able to do this. It didn’t do to underestimate the power of Arth. “And this is how you use a cash-point,” Brother Tony instructed. Tod watched and nodded. His head felt far too full of new things.

  But there was more. Brother Tony marched him into a side street lined with more of the windowed buildings and showed him a glass door leading into a concrete place called Star House. “This is where you’ll be working.”

  “Working?” said Tod.

  “Yes, you have to earn the money to live, you know. It’s not difficult. It’s only a firm of accountants. Get there just before nine on Monday—today being Friday, of course—and go up to the fourth floor to Garter and Sixsmith and just walk in. You’ll find they’ll accept you as my replacement as soon as you give your name. Have you got all that?”

  “Fourth floor at nine on Monday, Gutter and Sick-smith,” Tod repeated like one hypnotized. He had never, ever in his life, worked for wages. Perhaps the gods had decided it would be good for his soul. He knew numbers of people, back in the Pentarchy, who did work. His cousin Michael did. But Tod had never, ever had the slightest curiosity to know how it felt.

  “Right. Then we’ll go and get the car,” Brother Tony said.

  “Car?” Tod felt a certain brightening. There was a car went with this? His eye fell on a vehicle standing by Star House, large and sleek and gray, clearly a thing of power and beauty, and otherworld at once seemed a slightly better place.

  “Yes, I’ll be leaving it with you,” Brother Tony joyed Tod’s heart by saying. “It belongs to Arth and I can’t take it to Hong Kong anyway. This way.”

  They went briskly around a few more corners, and Tod’s step was nearly as jaunty as Brother Tony’s, until they came into the other end of the road from which they had started. It was lined with cars, parked closely on either side. Halfway down the line, Brother Tony stopped and felt for keys. Though none of the cars near was as beautiful as the gray one, there was a red one and a white one which were trim and passable. Tod’s spirits were quite high until he saw the car which Brother Tony was actually unlocking. Up to then, his eye had passed over it because he had not thought it was a car.

  It was small. It had a domed top, like the head of an amiable but stupid dog, and a curious posture, down at the front and up at the back, as if the stupid dog were engaged in sniffing the gutter; and to make it more remarkable, it was not one colour but several random ones. The domed top was orange. One flimsy-looking door was green. The down-bending bonnet was sky-blue. The rest was a rusty sort of cream. It was like a jester—or someone’s idea of a joke.

  “This,” Tod said, “is a car?”

  “Yes,” Brother Tony answered, flinging wide the green door of the motley monster. He threw his leather bag in upon a smart pile of luggage on the rear seat. “It’s a Deux Chevaux. That means two horses, by the way. Get in.”

  But it’s not even one horse! Tod thought, dubiously opening the other door, which was pink and appeared to be made of tin. It bent about as he moved it. He climbed in upon a seat made of the cloth they wiped dishes with in the kitchen of his Residence in Haurbath and gingerly sat. “Watch carefully,” Brother Tony was saying. “You’ll have to drive it back here. So watch the way too.”

  “Where are we going?” Tod asked.

  “To meet Paulie. The ritual will transfer her affections to you as soon as she sees you, don’t worry,” Brother Tony said cheer
fully. “I just have to bring you together.”

  Arth seemed to have thought of everything. Tod sat in wordless misery watching his companion insert a key into the shaky fascia of the little monster. In response, the monster growled and produced a tinny chugging which caused it to shake all over. Loose metal flapped. Tod shut his eyes. Then forced them open again because he was supposed to watch.

  A few seconds were enough to show him that the controls were identical to those of his own superlative Delmo-Mendacci. He wondered if one was not borrowed from the other, and if so, which world had borrowed from which. He was inclined to think otherworld must have stolen the idea of cars from the Pentarchy. This thing Brother Tony was driving was so clearly a debased copy of a dim notion of a car. It went with the same disgraceful chugging with which it had begun, in what was probably a westerly direction, slowly and with obvious effort, toward the outskirts of the town. Tod hoped they were going right beyond the town, but those hopes were dashed when they had chugged into a wider, quieter neighborhood and Brother Tony announced they were nearly there. Fawn-colored houses, these were, or delicately reddish, standing individually at the back of little pieces of grass and driveway, each one a slightly different shape from its neighbors to show that it was the residence of persons who could afford to choose.

  With the verve of long habit, Brother Tony swung the wheel of the motley little monster to chug down the sloping driveway of the most fawn-colored house of the lot. The little piece of grass in front of its clean new prim facade was adorned with sparse mauve-flowering bushes. “Here we are,” he said, and before Tod could move, he was hauling his smart luggage out of the rear seat. Having done this, he presented the keys of the subcar to Tod. “She’s all yours.” Leaving his luggage in the driveway, he went with jaunty steps to the front door—which was labeled with a tastefully crooked 42—and pushed a button there. Tod could hear the result inside. Ping-pong it went, dulcetly. Tod stood on the doorstep, resigned, as little tripping footsteps approached the door inside.

  The woman who opened the door was plump and about Tod’s own height. Her hair was most carefully done in a sheeny, close-fitting way, with burnished fair highlights evidently applied afterward. Her face was exquisitely made-up, and the same care had been applied to the rest of her. The triangle of skin revealed above her bosom by her long floral robe was soft and white; the hand that held the door was equally soft and white, adorned with oval shiny pink nails and gold rings with diamonds in them; her small feet in high-heeled floral mules were as soft and white as the rest of her visible skin.

  “Tony?” she said. Immaculate black eyelashes lay wide around her eyes as she stared at Tod.

  Brother Tony leaned over Tod’s shoulder. “Paulie, let me introduce my good friend Roderick,” he said, and clapped Tod on the shoulder he was leaning over. “I just know the two of you will get on like a house on fire. Now I must fly—taxi’s here.” He retreated briskly and picked up his luggage. Tod looked around to see him climbing into a square, high black vehicle which had drawn up beyond the drive.

  “Where’s he going?” Paulie said—not unreasonably, Tod thought.

  “Hong Kong, I think,” Tod said.

  “Oh.” The lash-rimmed eyes turned back to Tod. Paulie’s carefully pink mouth smiled. Behind that, she had an air of being slightly bewildered. “Well, won’t you come in, Roddy?”

  Arth knew its stuff. Tod reluctantly advanced into a small, shiny hallway as Brother Tony’s taxi pulled away, where he stood smelling the several perfumes emanating from Paulie. She had certainly been waiting, all prepared to meet Tony, he thought while she was shutting the front door, but she was accepting a scruffy-looking substitute without a blink. Fear and hatred of Arth grew in him. She led him forward into a sitting room as carefully decorated as she was herself, with not a shiny cushion nor a little brass ornament that was not evidently placed exactly so. She induced him into a soft, clean chair and sat beguilingly on a tuffet at his knees. Tod’s misery increased.

  “Do you want a drink, Roddy?”

  “No, thanks.” It was not that he did not like plump women, Tod told himself. His taste ran to all sorts. But this Paulie’s plumpness had a solid, sorbo-rubber look to it, and looked hard to dent. As one who had had his arms around Zillah only—yes, it really was only a couple of hours ago!—Tod felt decidedly off plumpness. But there was more to it than that. Paulie was so carefully got up, perfumed and coiffured and jeweled. He found he kept remembering the time, a year or so ago, when he had accompanied his father on a state visit to Leathe. The Ladies who had met them there were all equally carefully dressed and perfumed and lacquered. And they had talked to him in the same soft, high, charming voices that Paulie was using at this moment.

  “Tell me all about yourself, Roddy.”

  One of the Ladies of Leathe—Lady Marceny it was—had said almost exactly that, in the same sweet, condescending tone, and Tod had been very scared indeed. Afterward August Gordano had opined that he was quite right to be scared. “Always trust your instinct, boy, where those kind of women are concerned. If they notice you, they want something. They eat men for breakfast—and never forget it!” While Tod did not give this Paulie credit for being quite as dangerous as Leathe, the memory of Leathe came to him so strongly with her that it made him thoroughly uneasy. And it was fairly clear to him that she, too, ate men for breakfast. He understood now why Brother Tony was so cheerful about going elsewhere.

  “All about myself,” he said. “Well, actually I’m an exile from a pocket universe called Arth where all the residents are mages. Most of them are in the business of spying on you people, as a matter of fact, but not being able to get a really close view, they sent me to be a spy in your midst. My real home—”

  He stopped because Paulie was swaying about with laughter, her arms plumply clasped around her knees. “Oh, Roddy! Tony told you to say that, didn’t he? He spun me just the same yarn when I first met him! Tell me what you really do before you make me die laughing!”

  And not even original! Tod thought sadly. Paulie’s laughter, he noticed with foreboding, had served to unwrap the floral gown from around her. At the top, a good deal of plump black bra was showing, and below, much of a smooth white leg. Depression seized him, because these sights were not without their effect. His recent brush with Zillah had most strongly reminded him that he was missing women badly.

  “The truth is that I work at Sick and Guttersnipe, just like Brother Tony,” he said.

  “Oh, is he your brother? You don’t look a bit alike!” Paulie leaned forward, and more plump things showed.

  “Now you tell me all about yourself,” Tod said hastily.

  “Nothing to tell really,” Paulie said lightly. He could tell her lightness hid deep discontent. “I’m just a housewife married to a computer expert. Mark’s in computers now, though when I first met him, he didn’t seem to be anything. A friend of mine—American—found him wandering around London, and he didn’t seem to know who he was, even, beyond his name. Koppa thought it was drugs, though I still think it was something more interesting than that. Anyway, she took him in—I was sharing a flat with her then, so we both looked after Mark until Koppa moved out. I tell you, I looked after that man like a mother and taught him magi—well, taught him all sorts of things, everything I knew really, and I was even fool enough to pay to get him retrained in computers. You know, Roddy, I’ve done everything for that man, given up luxuries and the best years of my life, and he’s given me nothing in return. Nothing!”

  “He married you, didn’t he?” Tod said.

  “Only when I asked him!” She leaned toward him.

  Tod leaned defensively back. “And this looks to be a nice house.”

  “It’s a nice prison!” Paulie declared. She smiled, still leaning forward, with her chin almost on Tod’s knees. “But you won’t want to listen to my troubles, will you?” Her hands came out and clasped Tod on either side of his head, a grip hard to break. “A nice boy like you, Roddy
, doesn’t want words. You want action.” She stood up, arched over him, and the floral gown fell apart.

  Here we go! Tod thought resignedly.

  But it seemed they did not. His hands had barely grasped the proffered plumpness when it was whisked away from between them. Paulie was suddenly standing a decent three yards off, not a hair disarranged, and was swiftly retying her gown. Tod was gaping at her, as much injured as relieved, wondering what kind of teasing this was supposed to be, when he was aware of footsteps in the hallway. His head shot around—he was sure he looked the picture of guilt—and he saw a pale and serious man entering the room. “Maureen’s still not called me back,” the man said as he came. “I’ve called her answer phone six times now. I suppose she’s still asleep.”

  “Hallo, Mark love!” Paulie cried out. “You’re back early, aren’t you?”

  Mark, in a measured way, laid his broad hat on a table and removed the spruce raincoat he was wearing over his dark suit. Not till then did he look at his wife. Giving her time to get her sash tied, Tod thought, uneasily recognizing the signs. Tod himself got to his feet, but was ignored.

  “Yes, I am a little early,” Mark said, “but there’s no need to be so surprised. I did warn you. I hoped you’d be dressed. Do you spend all day in your dressing gown?”

  “It’s a housecoat,” Paulie said petulantly. “I’ve told you before. And what do you mean, you warned me? Was that phone call about Amanda fussing supposed to warn me? I thought you meant she was coming to supper.”

  “I made myself quite clear,” Mark said, mildly, but with an air of speaking through clenched teeth. “I wish you’d listen. Amanda’s sister has gone missing, and Amanda was in such a panic when she realized that she asked Gladys to find her. Now she knows she shouldn’t have asked, because Gladys is old and tired out, so she’s asked us to go with her and help Gladys. If we all—”