Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Reign of the Brown Magician

“So you’re running everything, the way Shadow did?”

“Not the way Shadow did,” Pel replied. “No hangings-I’ve outlawed the death penalty for anything short of murder. And no eviscerations even for that. And I don’t keep a close watch on everything the way she tried to do; I never learned how she did all that stuff.”

“So what do you do?”

“I…well, I stopped the Empire from invading.”

“They said you raided them first, and your men killed innocent people.”

“Well, they’d lied to me! They cheated me!” The matrix flared up redly for a moment, and Amy decided not to argue with that.

Instead, she said, “So you attacked them?”

“Just some little raids.”

“And they counter-attacked, but you stopped them?”

He nodded. “That was easy. I just let some of the magic turn to flame, and burned them up, drove them back into the space-warps.”

“Same as Shadow would have done.”

Pel nodded again, not looking at her.

He had closed himself off again, Amy thought; that moment of emotional release, when he had wept in her arms, was past.

The matrix was flickering in and out of visibility around him, like spreading multicolored flames; a swirl of fine black ash rose up for a second in a gust of magical wind.

Amy wondered where that ash had come from. What had Pel burned here?

Had he burned people?

He had admitted burning those Imperial soldiers. He had committed murder, had taken human lives-and he didn’t seem to think it was important.

She took a step back, suddenly frightened.

“Pel, I think I’d like to go home now,” she said.

He turned to face her.

“I’ve said what the Empire wanted me to say,” she said, “and I’ve given you my opinion about what you should do about Nancy and Rachel, and that’s all I came to do. So could you send me home?”

For a moment he didn’t answer.

“All right,” he said finally. “Give me a minute.”

* * * *

Just before she stepped into the portal, Amy turned to face him for a final word.

“Be careful, Pel,” she said. “The way you killed those soldiers, and everything, the way you’ve let yourself go-be careful you don’t turn out like Shadow.”

And then she was gone, back to Earth, to the basement of his own house, in Germantown, Maryland.

Angrily, he dropped the portal, let it collapse into nothingness as the matrix resumed its proper shape.

He wasn’t like Shadow. He was a caring, considerate person. He wouldn’t hurt anyone.

He’d killed those soldiers, but they weren’t real, they were just Imperials…

And why weren’t they real?

And he’d killed Shadow herself, of course, or at least set her up, and he’d destroyed all those fetches, but they weren’t really alive, were they?

He’d killed a lot of Shadow’s monsters, by sending them into the Empire to die, but they weren’t people.

He had an excuse for everything-but he had an awful lot to excuse, didn’t he?

Why hadn’t he just gone back to Earth in the first place? Everyone would have been better off.

He tried to tell himself that no, the people of Faerie wouldn’t have been better off, they wouldn’t have had him there to protect them-but how much protection had he actually provided? Would the Empire have attacked the elves, or those farms, if Pel hadn’t goaded them into it?

And most of the time he had just shut himself up here in this fortress, brooding over his own concerns, driving himself to distraction with his problems and ignoring everyone else.

He didn’t know a thing about Faerie, really. Had he ever talked to the people here? Did he know what they wanted?

He shook his head.

He really didn’t. He’d made a half-hearted attempt, back at the beginning, to be the good ruler, but instead of listening to what his people wanted he had told them what he wanted, an end to executions and an attempt at democracy.

That was hardly anything to be proud of.

He wasn’t doing anyone any good here-least of all himself, trapping himself here, surrounded by his own failures and by a world that he couldn’t help seeing as somehow unreal, no matter how solid the stone walls might be.

The door at the side of the throne room opened, and Susan Nguyen-or at least, the thing that used her body and shared her memories-looked in.

“Go get Nancy and Rachel,” Pel barked. “Both Nancys.”

If he was going to do something irrevocable, if he was going to leave her, he had to let her know.

If she asked him to stay, or asked him to take her with him, he would do it, he knew that.

But if she didn’t, if she said she didn’t care, what would he do?

Amy was right, he had to be free of Nancy, Nancy was dead and holding onto her wouldn’t help. And the longer he stayed here in this fortress, in this world, the more like Shadow he became.

Maybe it was something in the matrix; maybe it was something in human nature. He didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. Having that power always there, straining to be free, waiting to be used, was changing him for the worse.

He had to leave Faerie. He didn’t know how to release the matrix completely any other way.

And he couldn’t pass it on; there was no one in Faerie who had the talent. Shadow had said so; that was why she had chosen him in the first place. The talent for matrix wizardry had been bred out of the inhabitants of Faerie, and among the Imperials she had only found it in the telepaths; only among Earthpeople was it reasonably common. And the only Earthpeople still here in Faerie were revenants or simulacra, who could never hold magic.

So he would release it, and the matrix would come apart, and wild magic would be loose in the world-and would that really be so bad?

Shadow had said it would, but Shadow could have been wrong, could have lied.

Pel couldn’t see how it could be so bad. It would be wild and free, and Shadow would have seen that as bad, but was it really?

And no new matrix wizards would arise, to gather the power together again-the talent had been bred out. The magic would stay free.

Pel almost wished he could be here to see it.

But he couldn’t; he had to go.

Back home to Earth, to Maryland…

To Maryland?

Well, to Earth, certainly; he had no desire to live in the Galactic Empire, under the absolute rule of His Imperial Majesty George VIII.

But Maryland?

Back there where his business was ruined, and there were probably a hundred lawsuits and legal complications to deal with because of his sudden disappearance?

Back to that house full of memories of Nancy and Rachel?

Why?

“You wanted us?” Nancy’s voice called from the door.

“No,” Pel said. “I mean, yes. Come here, all of you.” He sat up in his throne and watched as the three women and the girl approached.

“If I were to leave,” he asked, watching the passive faces, “permanently, would you prefer to come with me, or stay here?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Susan said.

“Whichever you like,” the simulacrum said.

“I don’t really care,” the Nancy revenant said.

“I don’t care a whole lot either,” Rachel said.

And that, Pel thought, settled it.

“You’re all free,” he said, already feeling for the shape of the matrix and the links to Earth. “All of you, do whatever you want from now on. And everyone else in the fortress is free. My last command to you four-or request-is to make sure that the Imperials in the dungeons are all free to go, and that Best and Wilkins can find them.”

The four just stared at him.

“They’re on the stairs,” Pel said, with a wave of his hand. “Best and Wilkins, I mean. Go tell them the hostages are free.”