They dodged around tree trunks and did their best to avoid thorns. "Is there truly a trail, Geoffrey?" Magnus called.
"Not truly, no. There is a game track that I follow."
"It should lead us to a larger." Cordelia looked back with apprehension; jarring music echoed in the distance behind them, with faint but enthusiastic shouting. "Find it quickly, I prithee! They gain!"
"We must fly, then," Magnus said, tight-lipped, "and 'tis dangerous enough in a daytime forest, let alone one benighted."
"Not so," Geoffrey called as he broke through some underbrush. "Here is a pathway!"
"Then we can run," Cordelia panted. She followed Geoffrey through the gap and began to sprint down the pathway. Magnus and Gregory followed, the younger boy gliding an inch off the ground, keeping pace with Cordelia.
Behind them, a huge crash announced their pursuers' breaking in upon the path. A whoop filled the air behind them, then the thunder of pounding feet.
"They follow," Magnus panted. "Run!"
And they did—but the mob stayed hard on their heels, whooping with glee.
"Where does… this path… lead?" Magnus puffed.
"I have… no notion… brother!" Geoffrey replied.
"So long as 'tis… away from them," Cordelia called.
Gregory piped up, "Is not that… tree ahead… the one near which… we came onto… the path?"
As they shot by it, they saw the broken screen of brush where the mob had tumbled through onto the trail.
"It is!" Geoffrey cried. "We are on a circle!"
"Then our pursuers are, also," Cordelia called back.
But Magnus frowned. "I hear them—but not… behind us."
"Aye," Gregory called. "By the sound, they are beneath!" And he stopped, peering down at the path.
"Nay, brother!" Magnus caught him up and started him running again. "An they still follow, we must not let them gain!"
But it was the Gallowglasses who gained; the sound of the mob began to fall behind them again.
"How is this?" Gregory wheezed. "I could swear we have passed them!"
Cordelia looked up, frowning. "Their voices come from the side, now."
They all looked—and the spectacle made them jar to a halt. The mob was in sight, but across from them, on the other side of a curve—and the young peasants were running upside down, seeming to hang from the path.
"What manner of magic is this?" Geoffrey demanded.
"Whatsoe'er it may be, they still follow, and we must flee!" Magnus stated. "Yet they will run us to ground if we keep to our feet. Up, sibs, and fly!"
He and Geoffrey grasped wrists in a fireman's carry, swooped Cordelia off her feet, and rose up a foot above the path, sailing away down its length. Gregory wafted alongside them, demanding, "How can they run inverted?"
"I know not," Geoffrey grated, "but we must run faster if we wish to lose them. See! They are still across from us!"
Gregory stared. "How can that be? We have flown a quarter-mile, at least!"
" 'Ware!" Geoffrey called. "We come to where we came in again!"
"Aye!" Magnus swerved toward the break in the underbrush. "And whence we came in, we can leave!"
But as they shot toward the break, it seemed to start moving itself, staying just a few feet ahead of them.
"Why, how is this?" Geoffrey demanded. "Doth the circle turn?"
They were all silent as insight hit a hammer blow.
"Many circles turn, brother," Cordelia said. "They are wheels."
"And so is this, upon which we run! Nay, then, we must go faster than the wheel, to catch its entrance! Fly, my sibs! At thy fastest speed!"
And fly they did, flat out, exerting every ounce of psi energy they possessed—but the gap stayed just ahead.
"Wherefore… did it not flee… before?" Cordelia panted.
"Belike because we did not seek to catch it! Save thy breath, sister, and fly!"
It was Geoffrey who realized their danger. "Slacken, sibs! Or we will overtake our pursuers!"
Sure enough, the mob's torches were just barely visible in front of them—right side up again.
"What unholy manner of loop is this?" Geoffrey moaned.
"Who asks?" called a clear alto, and two figures stepped through from the brush screen. The Gallowglasses cried out, and did their best to stop—but couldn't arrest their motion fast enough; they sailed into the strangers…
Who caught Cordelia and Gregory in one-armed hugs, and reached out to catch the older boys by the arm. Magnus jolted back, trying to break free, saw the stranger's face, and froze. "Papa!"
"Mama!" Cordelia cried, throwing her arms around her mother. "Oh, praise Heaven thou art come!"
Geoffrey squeezed his father in a quick bear hug before he remembered how old he was and drifted back, saying, "Alas! Now thou, too, art caught here with us!"
"Caught?" Gwen asked in alarm. "Have we come into a trap, then?"
"Aye! For this path is a circle, and we must run faster and faster to escape it!"
"But speed is not enough!" Cordelia explained. "The entrance stays ever ahead of us!"
"And there are those who chase us." Magnus looked back over his shoulder nervously. "By your leave, my parents, let us fly."
"Well, an thou wilt." Gwen levelled her broomstick; Cordelia hopped aboard. They drifted up above the path, and the boys rose to parallel them.
"If I fly, I can't really do much thinking." Rod started trotting alongside.
"You must ride, then, Rod." The great black horse shouldered through the brush and onto the trail.
"Fess! Praise the saints!" Cordelia called. "I feared they might ha' given thee a seizure!"
"No, Cordelia, though I thank you for thinking of me." Fess nodded to Rod, who mounted. "The gaunt young people ran past me; I had but to follow, since they pursued you."
"Why didn't you join them sooner?" Rod asked.
"I had to wait for them to come around again, Rod."
"Around? So it is a circle, then."
"But a most strange one, Papa," Cordelia burbled. "Anon our pursuers are across from us—but upside down!"
"Aye," Gregory agreed, "but after some time, they are before us again—yet right side up!"
Gwen frowned. "Husband, what manner of spell is this?"
"Probably a projective illusion," Rod said thoughtfully.
"Oh, I ken the manner of its casting!" his wife said impatiently. "Yet what hath been cast?"
"From the sound of it, I'd guess a Mobius loop."
"A Mobius loop?" Gregory questioned. "What is that, Papa?"
"A loop with a half-twist in it—it only has one side. Stay on it, and you eventually come back to where you started— but on the other side of its single surface."
" 'Tis nonsense," Geoffrey said flatly.
"Nay, 'tis wondrous!" Gregory's eyes were huge. "Wherefore have I not heard of it aforetime?" He gave Fess an accusing look.
"Because you are not yet ready for topology, Gregory," the horse answered. "I must insist on your learning calculus first."
"Teach it quickly, then!"
"Not now." Magnus looked back over his shoulder with apprehension. "We have either lagged, or gone too fast— they approach from behind again."
"Faster," Geoffrey urged, and they all picked up the pace.
"How shall we break out of this circle, husband?" Gwen asked.
"We must run faster!" Geoffrey declared. "Soon or late, we will catch the break in the brush through which we came!"
"Not so, brother," Magnus reminded him, "for the faster we go, the faster it doth go."
"Synchronizing its rotation rate to yours, huh?" Rod pursed his lips. "So you have to run faster and faster to get out of the trap—but there's a catch."
"Yes," Fess corroborated. "The faster you run, the faster the loop's rotation—and the faster its rotation, the greater its attraction."
"The more speed, the more you're stuck in the rut." Rod nodded. "That makes a weird sort of sense."