If you let go of the magnets, they will scoot away from each other. The energy in the magnetic field is doing work on the magnets. An analogous situation exists for electric charges. As with magnetic poles, electric charges are accompanied by electric fields that penetrate space. A negatively charged electron is pulled by the electric field of a positive charge and repelled by the field of a negative charge.
Electric fields become even more interesting when they penetrate materials, such as metal wires.
But that's not all. Perhaps the most amazing property of electric and magnetic fields is the way they interact with each other. If you take a magnet and plunge it through a loop of wire, an electric field is created. In fact, this is the principle used by electric generators in power stations. Likewise, moving charges create a magnetic field.