Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Reign of the Brown Magician

“The lesser is to ask, on my own behalf as much as my government’s, if it would be possible for you to transport me back to the Empire magically, to save me the journey back to the forests of Sunderland.”

“Sure,” Pel agreed. “I can’t guarantee where in the Empire you’ll come out, though; I never learned all the place names.”

“Thank you, sir.” Curran bowed.

“What’s the other?”

“Please remember, sir, that I have been out of touch for almost a fortnight, so this may no longer be relevant, but part of my original charge was to request the return of the hostages you took in the course of the prolonged misunderstanding between yourself and certain former ministers of His Imperial Majesty’s government. It was His Imperial Majesty’s understanding, perhaps faulty, that they were to be returned when the bodies of your wife and daughter had been delivered. That was done some time ago.”

“The hostages,” Pel said. His last trace of good humor vanished. Curran was no longer funny at all.

Pel had completely forgotten about the hostages. They were undoubtedly still somewhere in the dungeons beneath the fortress-Shadow had burrowed out miles of dreary passages, lined with cells and chambers, and Pel had ordered the prisoners taken there and looked after…

And then he’d forgotten all about them.

“Yes, sir,” Curran said. “I was told that there were over a hundred, including His Excellency Shelton Grigsby, Governor-General of Beckett.”

“No,” Pel said, “you can’t have them. I’m keeping them.”

“But, sir…”

“You tell His Imperial Flatulence that I’m keeping them until he gives back all my spies, and gets all his spies out of Faerie, and proves it. He expected me to prove it when my people turned themselves in, let’s see how he does it!”

“Sir, His Imperial Majesty had no part in that unfortunate…”

“It’s his fucking empire, isn’t it?” Pel demanded.

Curran struggled for words.

“Then it’s his goddamn responsibility.” He shifted in his throne. “I’ve had enough of this. Just shut up for a few minutes, Curran, and I’ll open a portal for you-but I’ll send the hostages back when I’m good and ready, and not a moment before.”

Curran hesitated, opened his mouth, closed it-then bowed, and stepped back.

Pel reached out into the matrix and began preparing a portal into the Empire.

As he did, he tried not to think about those neglected and forgotten hostages.

He wondered where they all were, and whether they were still alive.

* * * *

“I hate to pull it,” Johnston said, looking over the latest budget statement. “We don’t have anyone who can watch Faerie for us the way Miletti watches the Empire. And Brown might turn up at any time.”

“Well, sir, what if he does?” the lieutenant asked. “Won’t that mean it’s all over?”

“Except for the lawsuits,” Johnston agreed. “His sisters are trying to have him declared legally dead, and they’re fighting his mortgage company, which wants to foreclose, and he’s got some problems with unfinished business from his consulting firm.”

“None of that’s really any of our concern, though, is it, sir?”

“The mortgage might be, but no, not really,” Johnston admitted, putting down the clipboard. “All right, we pull out, and his sisters can have the house.”

* * * *

Pel sat in his throne and stared for a long, long moment at the empty air where Curran had stepped through the portal to the Empire-to somewhere in the Empire, Pel didn’t know where. He hadn’t worried about which portal he had opened.

All those hostages…He still had all those people down in the dungeons, and he’d completely forgotten about them.

But what did it really matter? What did anything matter, if his wife and daughter didn’t love him any shy;more?

He looked up at the hole in the throne room ceiling, raised a hand-then lowered it again.

What did any of it matter?

“He didn’t say what he wanted from us?” the Emperor asked, baffled.

The telepath replied, “Mr. Curran says it was his impression that Mr. Brown didn’t really want anything. It was his impression that Mr. Brown was depressed about something, and simply didn’t want to deal with us.”

“We don’t understand,” the Emperor said. “Ask Mr. Curran if he thinks further approaches might be more productive.”

The telepath did not reply for several seconds, as the question and answer were relayed. Then he said, “It’s Mr. Curran’s belief that further approaches by representatives of the Empire might be productive, but might equally well be disastrous-Mr. Brown is, Mr. Curran judges, in a state of extreme whimsicality, liable to do anything at all, for no reason whatsoever.”

“And he might launch another raid at any time?”

“So he said, your Majesty.”

“And he’s not returning the hostages?”

“He is not, your Majesty.”

“That’s intolerable. Really.”

“Yes, your Majesty.”

His Imperial Majesty George VIII marched back and forth along the antique carpet, thinking hard. “We don’t understand this man,” he muttered. “And we can’t send one of you to read his mind, because you can’t. And those spies of his that we spoke to knew nothing about him. He’s an enigma, an alien…”

He stopped pacing and looked up.

“What about his family?” he asked.

“His wife and daughter…” the telepath began.

“No, no, we know about them,” the Emperor said, dismissing Nancy and Rachel with a wave of his hand. “Does he have no brothers or sisters, no close friends we might interview?”

“I don’t know, your Majesty. There were the other Earthpeople who traveled with him…”

“Yes, there were!” the Emperor said, raising a finger triumphantly. “Yes, exactly! There were those women, what were the names…”

“Amy Jewell, your Majesty, and Susan Nguyen, and there was the madman, Ted Deranian.”

“Yes, well, a madman won’t do us any good, but what about the others?”

“Susan Nguyen appears to be living in the fortress in Faerie, your Majesty, and Amy Jewell has returned to her home on Earth.”

“Has she?”

“Yes, your Majesty.”

“And is she, by any chance, the one whose home lies almost directly below our arrival point on Earth?”

“Yes, your Majesty, she is.”

“Oh, that’s excellent, then! Fetch her immediately!”

The telepath blinked. “Your Majesty?”

“Oh, read our bloody mind, will you? It’s so much quicker.”

“Yes, your Majesty,” the telepath agreed.

* * * *

“They want the Jewell woman to talk to Brown,” Miletti said, between gulps of bourbon.

“What for?” the lieutenant asked, startled.

“How the bloody hell should I know?” Miletti shouted at him. He threw the glass of bourbon on the rocks at the lieutenant’s head, but missed. He glared angrily, then realized his drink was gone and snatched up the half-empty bottle, cuddling it close.

“How should I know?” he repeated. “How do I know any of this?”

He swigged bourbon.

The lieutenant watched him warily for a moment, then went to call the major.

* * * *

Amy marveled at her kitchen.

When the Air Force men had pulled out they had cleaned up, and had done, she had to admit, a better job on the kitchen than Amy had ever done herself. The place was spotless.

The rest of the house wasn’t quite so good-there was a cigarette burn on her couch, and some sort of brown stain on the carpet in the upstairs hall, though mostly it was all right.

The kitchen was wonderful, though; it shone, from the chrome faucets to the brass-plated doorknobs. They had even scrubbed the windows.