Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Reign of the Brown Magician

“And surely, with patience, you’ll have them,” Athelstan said. He gestured at the woman who stood stolidly to the side. “Have you not brought this one back from the dead? Can any doubt that you have the power to wreak whatever you will?”

Pel turned and looked at Susan. She gazed calmly back, and he relaxed slightly. He had brought her back without any problem.

But he hadn’t had to create a body for her.

“Doesn’t look much like Nancy, does it?” he asked her.

Susan looked at the lifeless homunculus. “It’s a good try,” she said slowly, “but it isn’t quite right, no.”

Pel turned to Athelstan again. “If we had some of Nancy’s hair, would that help?”

“Oh, most assuredly! By the Law of Contagion we derive the Law of Parts, and see thereby that the part can be made equal to the whole-from a single hair, in time, we can surely recreate all the pattern of your wife’s flesh.”

“Do you know how to do it?”

Athelstan hesitated, then glanced at Boudicca.

“I do,” the female wizard said.

“Good,” Pel said. He looked at Susan, then away.

If he sent Susan back to Earth, why would she return? It was, perhaps, cruel to keep her here, but so far she hadn’t asked him to send her home, and it was so good to see her alive again, to have the company of a fellow Earthman.

Maybe she wasn’t sure the magic that had revived her would hold back on Earth-and for that matter, Pel wasn’t entirely certain, either, but Shadow’s fetches had lived in the Galactic Empire, and Prossie had said simulacra had lived there; why not a revenant on Earth, then? Susan had left Earth alive, and would return alive, and what difference did it make what had happened in between?

But he wanted her here.

He would open a portal to Earth, and send someone to bring him back Nancy’s hairbrush, and Rachel’s, and the bedroom and bathroom wastebaskets, and anything else that might have hairs or fingernail clippings in it.

But he wouldn’t send Susan.

“You,” he said, pointing at a fetch. “I have an errand for you.”

* * * *

The lieutenant looked up, startled, at the sound of a footstep. He closed his book.

A man was walking across the basement, a pale man dressed in strange black clothes, paying no attention to the lieutenant or anything else. The man was marching directly toward the stairs.

“Hey,” the lieutenant said, dropping Destroyer novel #82 and getting to his feet. “Hey! Hold it, you!”

The man in black paid him no attention whatsoever. He began marching up the stairs, his tread heavy on the wooden steps.

The lieutenant hesitated; should he call in, or stop this guy?

If he took the time to call, the man might get away.

He drew his sidearm. “Stop right there!” he shouted.

The man kept on up the stairs.

The lieutenant cursed; he couldn’t shoot in cold blood, not just for ignoring him. The man might be deaf. He shoved the pistol back in its holster and ran after the stranger.

He caught him at the top of the stairs, threw an arm around his neck and pulled him back.

The stranger didn’t exactly struggle, but he did try to keep walking for a moment. When he realized it wasn’t working he stopped.

He let the lieutenant carry him back down to the basement, and did not resist as his arm was twisted up behind his back and held with one hand while the lieutenant used the other to work the radio.

The lieutenant had no idea why the silent stranger was being so cooperative, and he hurried to get his message through while the cooperation lasted.

He didn’t know that the fetch had been ordered to bring certain items, and no one had told him to hurry.

* * * *

“Aldridge and Blaisdell are easy,” Johnston told the FBI man, pointing at the list. “Blaisdell’s in Tennessee-you people gave us a report on him, which is why we decided to turn the job over to you. That, and we hope you can be less conspicuous about picking them up.”

“We’ll try,” the FBI man said dryly.

Johnston ignored the sarcasm. “Aldridge is in Oakland; he’s in the papers. Miletti is supposed to be local, but we don’t know which jurisdiction, Virginia or Maryland or the District, and we haven’t located him yet. Thompson is trickier-we think she might be in Texas, but that might just be something she was pretending. Thorpe can maybe give you more on the little girl…”

The intercom buzzed.

“Damn.” Johnston pushed a button. “What is it?” he demanded. He was tempted to add, “This better be good,” but he didn’t. His people all knew that.

“Sir, there’s been an incident at the Brown house…” his secretary began.

“Damn,” Johnston repeated, releasing the button. He got to his feet and grabbed for his jacket.

“If you can keep up,” he told the FBI man on his way to the door, “you can come along.”

“What the hell is taking so long?” Pel wondered aloud.

No one answered. Taillefer and Mahadharma had both slipped away some time ago, and were probably halfway to their respective homes-Pel thought he could probably locate the wizards’ auras, or whatever it was the matrix let him see, but he didn’t see any reason to bother. Athelstan was off getting himself something to eat-he’d skipped a meal or two while he tutored Pel in the manufacture of homunculi, and was making up for lost time. Boudicca had stepped out to the privy.

The only people in the room, besides Pel himself, were the revivified Susan Nguyen and a fetch. Fetches generally didn’t answer questions, didn’t talk at all unless directly ordered to do so, and Susan was keeping her own counsel.

Pel wondered whether the fetch had a name. Obviously it had had one when it was a living man, but did it remember that? Had Shadow given it a new name, perhaps?

It probably didn’t need a name, though; fetches didn’t seem to have any real sense of identity. They were interchangeable zombies, as far as Pel could see.

Pel supposed he should have asked the dead man he’d revived about it-after all, he’d been a fetch for some time before Pel’s experimentation had restored him fully to life. He’d been so distraught, though-Pel had thought it kinder to just let him go home.

Of course, Pel thought, he could just restore this fetch and ask him. In fact, he probably should restore all the fetches-and he would, when he had a chance, but for now they were useful and he was busy.

“What’s it like, being dead?” he asked Susan.

She stared at him, apparently untroubled by the shifting glare of the matrix. “I don’t remember,” she said.

“Really?”

“Really. I had shot Shadow, and she turned to face me, and then there was a sudden pain, and then I was lying on the floor and you were standing over me, with Shadow’s lights all around you.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

Pel considered Susan for a moment. She was something to think about, to distract him from wondering why that stupid fetch needed half an hour to collect a couple of hairbrushes and wastebaskets. He thought back to that insane, terrible confrontation, here in this very room, just a few days ago, really, when Shadow had killed Raven and Valadrakul and Singer one by one.

“Why’d you try to shoot her?” he asked.

Susan blinked.

“I mean,” Pel said, “you were always so good at surviving, at putting up with whatever it took to get through. You didn’t fight the pirates who captured Emerald Princess, or the slavers on Zeta Leo III-you just outlasted them. So why’d you try to shoot Shadow?”

“I don’t…” Susan stopped, obviously struggling to organize her thoughts. She tried again.