Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Reign of the Brown Magician

The others fell in behind her, and the party of seven marched into the woods.

* * * *

Seven of them, and then the warp had closed again; Pel was baffled. What could a group of seven be doing? It was too many for spies, too few for an invasion.

Well, he would know soon; he could sense them in the forest below. He let the wind slacken, and descended slowly toward them.

The trees were in the way; he couldn’t see anything. Annoyed, he blasted a clearing ahead of the Imperial party, and dropped down into it.

* * * *

The light ahead seemed odd, Amy thought; there was a sort of sparkliness to it, something strange about the colors that filtered through the trees.

She didn’t think it was just the unfamiliar sunlight of Faerie.

She had forgotten how uncomfortable Faerie was, with its pale light and heavy gravity and thick, moist air. Going to talk to Pel had seemed exciting and noble back on Earth, or at Base One, but now it was beginning to seem stupid. She had made this two-hundred-mile walk once, and it had been hellish; so why had she volunteered to do it again?

At least she didn’t have morning sickness this time.

She was about to remark on the colors when flame erupted ahead of her, like a bomb-burst; she flung an arm up to shield her face as heat and light blasted at her. The ground shook, and a deafening roar rolled through the forest; the compression of the air washed over her like a great ocean wave, forcing her back. Her hair whipped out behind her, dragging her head back painfully.

“Oh, hell,” Best said, barely audible over the ringing in her ears.

Amy lowered her arm, expecting to see a blazing forest fire ahead.

Instead she saw a flickering, shifting mass of color, cloud, light, and shadow, like a Hollywood special-effects light show run amok. She felt a tightening in her chest.

“Shadow,” she said.

But Shadow was dead, she remembered.

“Pel,” she said.

And a voice spoke from the matrix.

“Amy?” it said, in a sound of thunder. “Amy Jewell?”

Amy didn’t care very much for flying even with a plane, and after the initial thrill wore off this magical wind-riding of Pel’s was far worse. The wind was a constant, unpleasant pressure; she couldn’t speak over it. There was a constant sensation of falling, which she found slightly nauseating.

And it was cold, too.

And frightening.

And it went on and on; they had been airborne for hours. The sun had long since passed its zenith and was moving down the sky ahead of them.

Amy had also looked down at some of the villages they passed over, and been depressed to see that they looked dirtier and less pleasant than she had remembered.

At least all those dead bodies hanging on gallows were gone; she didn’t see a gallows or gibbet anywhere. That was certainly an improvement.

She glanced sideways, first at Wilkins, to her right, then at Best, to her left. Pel had decided to bring them along, but none of the others, and hadn’t bothered listening to any argument, he had just snatched the three of them up.

She wondered how Pel knew Best.

They were above the marsh now, and there was the fortress ahead of them, drawing quickly nearer; they were flying lower, and slowing down…

A moment later they landed, hard, on the causeway outside the gate. Pel stayed on his feet, but the others tumbled to the ground.

Best landed rolling, and got quickly to his feet, dusty but unhurt. Wilkins hadn’t done quite so well; he’d scraped one palm trying to catch himself, and seemed to have hurt his shoulder.

And Amy herself stretched full-length in the dirt, painfully bruising herself several places, scraping skin from her chin and hands and forearms.

She got slowly to her hands and knees, wincing as she put weight on her palms, and cursing herself for not remembering how roughly Taillefer had landed at Castle Regisvert.

The gate was standing open, and Pel was standing in the opening, his glow suppressed enough that he was visible as a vaguely human outline. “Come on in,” he said.

Amy got stiffly to her feet, and followed Pel and Best. Wilkins brought up the rear.

The matrix lit the entry hall, and Amy looked about in mild surprise.

The hall was empty. The monsters were gone from the ledges on either side. Odd bits of debris were scattered about, mostly what appeared to be ash, and the entire place had a dusty, unkempt air, exaggerated, perhaps, by the weird, unsteady, colorful light.

The little party made their way the length of the hall, past a blackened, scorched-looking area and a few smudges that Amy hoped weren’t bloodstains, onto the great staircase.

The great tube of light was gone completely. Pel noticed Amy looking at the hole where it had emerged, and said, “That was one of the magical currents turned visible-I don’t know why Shadow bothered. I don’t.”

He marched on ahead, seemingly unwearied by the long flight, up the stairs and across the landing into the throne room. The matrix glow lingered sufficiently for the others, rather more worn, to make their way up the steps at their own pace.

Amy’s legs ached by the time she stepped into the throne room, arm raised to fend off the glare.

“Pel?” she called, as she advanced cautiously into the light. “Could you turn it down?”

“Sure.”

And the glow was gone-or rather, reduced to insignificance, to just enough to light the throne room pleasantly. Amy could see Pel’s face.

His hair was fairly long and hung in greying tangles around his head; his beard was shaggy and uneven as well. Both appeared to have been cut at least once since she had last seen him-but it hadn’t been very recently. He had obviously not concerned himself with his appearance lately.

Well, the telepaths had said he appeared to be depressed, and that would fit. She moved cautiously nearer.

Best and Wilkins stepped to the doorway, but waited there as Amy walked warily into the room to talk to Pel.

They’d done their job; they’d gotten her to Pel safely. The rest was up to her. This was what the Empire was paying her a small fortune in gold for; this was what she had agreed to when she had coaxed from the Imperials a promise to commute Prossie’s treason sentence from death to exile.

Amy looked around the room, trying to collect her thoughts.

She didn’t remember that hole in the ceiling. She didn’t remember the litter along the sides of the room, or the thin layer of ash that she scuffed through as she approached Pel’s throne. She didn’t remember the damp, faintly musty odor.

It reminded her of a pre-teenager’s bedroom-the sort of kid who never cleaned up, and screamed if his parents dared move a single candy wrapper.

“So, how’s it going?” she asked.

Pel shrugged. “Hard to say; how’ve you been doing? I guess the Empire sent you to talk to me about something?”

“I’m fine, thanks-the Air Force people have been very nice about everything. And yes, they tell me that the Emperor himself suggested I come talk to you.”

“Really? Wow.” Pel sprawled comfortably in his throne; Amy looked around for somewhere she might sit, but found nothing.

After all, this was a ruler’s throne room, she realized; she wasn’t supposed to sit in the presence of royalty, or wizardry, or whatever Pel was.

“So here you are,” Pel said, “and it’s good to see a familiar face, and I hope we can talk awhile before I send you home again, but what was it the Emperor wanted you to say?”

Amy hesitated; she hardly knew where to begin. This wasn’t going the way she had pictured it.

“Come on, let’s get the business out of the way,” Pel urged.

“He thinks you’re upset about something,” Amy said. “Or his advisors do, or the telepaths, or someone; I never talked to the Emperor, of course, just a bunch of officers and bureaucrats, but they seemed nicer than the ones we dealt with before.”