“So Rupert hasn’t mentioned it to you?” Will asked, unhitching a gate to a hillside paddock. “I’m surprised. Or perhaps not. Earth is far enough Naywards that you have to be fairly cautious who you tell. The ones who don’t believe you try to lock you up, and the ones who do try to exploit you financially. But I should have thought he could have told you two. My brother’s a bit of a stickler sometimes.”
The paddock contained a family of donkeys and several horses. We held the rest of the conversation walking in among big grey and brown bodies, pulling stiff ears, smacking necks or stroking large pulpy noses, and pausing from time to time to comfort Petra, who was convinced she was far more interesting than a mere horse. At least, I did all this. Nick found the horses too big and the donkeys highly unpredictable and contented himself with petting Petra.
“Right, Magids,” said Will. “I am a Magid, Rupert is a Magid and so is our brother Simon. It’s actually fairly unusual, having in three in the same family like this, but we all had the correct abilities and Stan, our sponsor, said he wasn’t going to let it worry him when three vacancies came up, one after the other. There are always a fixed number of Magids, you see.”
“How many?” Nick wanted to know.
“Good question,” Will said, digging in the pockets of his old green coat for sugar. “Old beliefs put the number at thirty-six or thirty-eight, but that was before it was confirmed that the number of worlds really is infinite. We think there may be as many Magids as there are worlds. But I only know forty or so. But then Rupert probably knows a slightly different forty. Simon will know another very different forty. That’s because he’s in a world a good long way off from here.”
“So there’s one of you on every different world, is there?” I asked, wondering whether to point out that the fawn-coloured donkey was lame.
“No, she’s not lame, she’s just faking it for sugar, aren’t you, Milesia?” Will said. He and the fawn donkey went forehead to forehead, possibly thrashing the matter out telepathically. It seems certain to me that one Magid ability at least is a measure of telepathy. But Will was talking to us at the same time. “No,” he said. “We live where we like, as long as we can conveniently get to the places where we’re needed. Some worlds have ten Magids. Earth does, because it’s comfortable. Thule only has me. Then there’s the Koryfonic Empire. That has none – everyone hates the place, all eleven worlds of it.”
“But what do you do exactly?” Nick said.
“Not easy to put into words,” Will said, posting a second lump of sugar into Milesia. “No, that’s your lot, girl. Basically we’re people who can control the currents that run through the worlds. Time currents, space currents. We can push history the way it needs to go, or people, or things, if necessary, and you can see that means we have to have pretty strict rules to—”
“Are you talking about politics?” Nick said, suspicious and sceptical. “Or some kind of magic?”
“Both,” Will said, after thinking about it. “But I don’t think any of us are politicians. It’s too hard to stay honest. And we have to be honest. No, we mostly work with magic. There are so many different kinds of magic, though, that half the time I’m not sure what I’m using to work with. It’s quite unusual for one of us to stand up and summon a thunderstorm, you know. We’d only do that if there was nothing else we could do. Mostly we do quiet things. You’d probably find it quite disappointing if you saw me at it.”
“We saw one of you go from world to world,” Nick said. “That was fairly striking.”
“And it was meant to be secret,” I said. “Why? And who controls you, or do you just do things?”
“Earth is what we call Naywards,” Will explained, “which means sceptical – like Nick here – and averse to being pushed about, and very antipathetic to anything that can be called magic. Magids do tend to be secretive on Earth, though a lot of us come from Earth, because you have to be damn strong to work magic there. If we weren’t secret there, we’d disable half the things we try to do. As to what we do, well, we have a fairly wide brief to keep things running on the right lines, and we work largely on our own initiative, but we are directed. Each group of worlds has a Senior Magid to keep the rest of us in order, and they hand down what are called Intentions. From Up There.” He pointed to the pale blue Spring sky above us, and then began to trudge back to the paddock gate, avoiding Nick’s disbelieving stare – and maybe mine too.
I kept up with Will and so did the horses, hoping for sugar again. “Look,” I said, squeezing between the bay and the grey, “do you seriously mean that? Is what they do Up There a good thing? My dad has cancer. From out of the blue. From up there. If they do exist, they either don’t care, or they’re pretty vile.”
Will stopped by the gate, waiting for Nick to nerve himself up to come through the horses after us. “Cancer’s on our level,” he said, “the human or animal level. Part of the conditions of existence, like you tearing your nice jacket or stepping on a mouse. Even they can’t do much about that sort of thing, though you can ask, and they will try. They mostly deal in larger units. And their aims are right and good in the long term. Promise.”
“How do you know?” I demanded.
“They explain it to you when you get sponsored as a Magid,” Will said, “and again from time to time. It’s part of the wisdom you take on when you take the job. You swear to work for the good of the worlds, and you get told things in return.”
“What things?” Nick asked. He had come sidling up along the hedge.
Will laughed at that. “What we call the deep secrets,” he said.
“So you can’t tell us?” I said. I felt scornful and disappointed.
“Not,” said Will, “in so many words. But some of them are things you more or less know anyway. If I were to tell you some, you might laugh – I know I did – because a lot of the secrets are half there in well-known or childish things, like nursery rhymes or fairy stories. I kid you not! One of our jobs is to put those things around and make sure they’re well enough known for people to put them together in the right way when the time comes. Or again,” he said, swinging the gate open, “some of the secrets are only in parts. These are the dangerous secrets. I’ve got the memorised parts of at least seventy of them. If another Magid has need of my piece of a secret, he or she can come and ask me, and if the need is real enough, then I put my part together with his or hers. It acts as a check. We only do that in an emergency.”
“Is that why your brother’s here? To ask you a piece of a secret?” I asked.
Will laughed again. “More likely he needs a favour. I’ll find out after the girls have had their go at him. Let’s go in. I want my tea.”
I suppose Rupert did get to speak to Will at some time during that crowded and noisy meal. I wouldn’t know. I was busy helping Carina put at least one egg in front of each child and then holding six conversations at once while I shared out bread and tomatoes. My fingernails caused much comment. Lion-headed Venetia wanted to know why they were so long. Smooth-haired
Vanessa demanded to be told why they grew so yellow. Fair-head Vanda speculated that I must hurt myself when I scratched, and her carrot-haired twin Viola wondered why her own nails always broke before they were anything like as long as mine. (Yes, they were all V. Venables. Nice idea now, but there’ll be problems when they’re teenagers and getting letters from boys.) Little-lionhead Valentina was the one who kept shrilling to be told what use my nails were.
“Endlessly useful,” I told her. “I’ll show you.” And I caused much amazement by nipping the top off her egg by digging my nails through its shell. Then of course I had to do the same for five more eggs. In addition, I acquired a kitten on each knee every time I sat down. My good jeans are all pecked and pulled on the thighs now.
We all sat round a crowded table in a room with a low ceiling and sunset light coming in through a window lined with geraniums in pots. I enjoyed it, but poor Nick was not happy. “Free-range livestock,” he said to me feelingly. “Free-range cats, free-range kids! I wish I was in a cage.” Well, I know how I felt in my aunt’s house, so I shouldn’t blame him.
And just so that I wouldn’t think Carina and Will were living in any sort of a super-human idyll, they contrived to have a short loud spat halfway through tea. I don’t know how it started, but Carina suddenly screamed, “Oh don’t be so damned superior, Will! Stop looking so smug! Rupert’s quite right!”
To which Will roared, “Bloody hell, Carey! He’s my brother!”