Lawrence Watt-Evans - In the Empire of Shadow

Prossie hesitated.

She wasn’t from the same universe as Susan and Amy. Besides, she was a telepath, a mutant, unfit for the company of normal humans. But right now Carrie wasn’t communicating, and this world of Faerie was so silent and strange with her telepathy cut off.

“Thanks,” she said.

* * * *

“No breakfast,” Pel remarked, as he splashed his face at the stream and wished the water was cleaner and warmer.

“Not unless you can spot us another ’possum or something,” Wilkins replied.

“I was hoping to see a fish or two, maybe, now that there’s better light,” Pel said.

Wilkins considered the stream, then shook his head. “Doesn’t look too likely,” he said.

“No,” Pel agreed. He shivered, and wished he still had a shirt.

“The sooner we get moving, the better,” Wilkins said, seeing Pel’s actions. “Let’s fill these helmets and get up there.” He was holding his own helmet as he spoke, and gestured toward the other with it.

Pel picked it up. “Whose is this?” he asked.

“Bill Marks’,” Wilkins answered. “Al keeps hold of his, and Sawyer’s is missing.”

“Right.” Pel scooped water from the stream, and together the two men headed back up the slope.

* * * *

The entire party was regrouped and moving by the time the sun was a hand’s breadth above the horizon.

“I’m hungry,” Ted said. “I wish I could wake up and get myself a snack.”

No one bothered to hush him this time; Sawyer remarked, “I’m hungry, too.”

“I don’t think I could keep anything down if we had it,” Amy said. Susan eyed her uneasily, but said nothing.

They walked on; Amy could hear someone’s stomach growling, while her own seemed to be tying itself in painful knots. She felt tired and ill.

Of course, she hadn’t felt good since Emerald Princess was captured by pirates. They’d starved their captives on the journey to Zeta Leo III, and then after the one meal there everyone had been hurried through the showers and put on the stage for auction, all nervous, even terrified. She’d been tired and scared, and Walter had bought her and taken her back to his farm, and then he’d raped her, and beaten her, and for all the weeks she lived with Walter and Beth she had been abused, over and over.

And then she’d been rescued, and flown to Base One aboard Emperor Edward VII, and she’d mostly recovered there, the bruises were healing, she was sleeping better, but she still felt tired all the time, still felt sour and irritable-and then, before she could get over it, they’d sent her off to Faerie.

She hoped it was just strain and fatigue.

But as she walked through the forests of Faerie she remembered poor little Alella, and Grummetty, the little people from Hrumph who didn’t like to be called gnomes, the little people who had died because their bodies didn’t work right in Imperial space.

What if her body didn’t work right in Faerie? What if she had been uncomfortable in the Empire as much because the nature of space itself was wrong, as anything else?

Susan had said, that morning, that they were all human beings, regardless of which universe they came from-but what if she was wrong, and they weren’t the same at all?

That was a terrifying idea. She hadn’t watched Grummetty and Alella fade away, she hadn’t had the nerve to face it, and had left all the nursing to Nancy Brown and little Rachel-she felt guilty about that now, especially since Nancy and Rachel were dead, and she also selfishly regretted that she didn’t know more about how it had worked. How could she tell if the same thing was happening to her?

None of the other Earthpeople seemed to be troubled by any such effect, though.

At least, not yet.

* * * *

“I wonder what Lieutenant Dibbs and his men have to eat,” Susan said, stepping neatly over a tree root that, a moment before, Ted had stubbed his toe on.

“There are supplies in the ship,” Prossie said. “Maybe we should have taken our share before we left.”

“We couldn’t get at them,” Singer pointed out. “That monster’s wing covered the door.”

“By now Dibbs probably has that thing propped up like a front porch,” Wilkins said. “They’ll be fine.”

“They’ve no water within a hundred yards or more,” Stoddard pointed out.

“There’s some water in the ship, too,” Sawyer said. “At least, I think there is.”

“They’ll be fine,” Wilkins repeated.

“Then why the hell are we here, instead of there?” Marks demanded.

Wilkins glared at him. “Oh, shut up,” he said.

They struck the road around mid-morning, and emerged from the forest shortly after noon.

Not that it was much of a road, by the standards of either the Earthpeople or the Imperials. Pel had noticed the four soldiers exchanging derisory glances when Raven called the narrow path a highway. He had sympathized, but had kept his mouth shut; Raven knew this world, and the Imperials didn’t.

“Do you know where we are?” Pel asked Raven, as they all paused, blinking in the bright pale sunlight, atop the gentle slope that led down to cultivated fields and half a dozen crude huts. Rolling farmland stretched out before them almost as far as they could see, broken by streams and occasional small groves and ending in a grassy ridge topped by a massive structure Pel could not make out clearly.

The air had warmed again, and a trickle of sweat was running down his back and into the waistband of his pants.

“Not as exactly as I would choose, friend Pel,” Raven replied, scanning the landscape. “This must surely be the Starlinshire Downs, and behind us the Low Forest, but this road we follow is not the Palanquin Road – ’tis not of the size to be that. Thus we must be well to the north, but I’d know no more than that until we find landmarks or ask the dwellers here.”

“My lord?” Valadrakul said quietly.

“But ah, look you, friend Pel,” Raven said, turning suddenly, his hand on the wizard’s shoulder. “Look you all, we’ve no need to limit ourselves to means natural, for we’ve a practitioner of the arcane arts with us! Speak, then, Valadrakul-where are we now, and where may we find he that we seek, your compatriot Taillefer?”

“I know not, my lord, but a spell can tell me, an you allow me a moment.”

“’Tis safe, my friend, e’en in this realm of Shadow?”

Valadrakul spread empty hands. “Who can say, when we know not the extent of Shadow’s power? At this moment, we might yet be pursued by creatures keen to avenge those we slew beside the sky-ship, and perchance even the merest trace of an incantation will draw disaster upon us. But ’tis only the very simplest of magicks, and I’ve practiced its like many times before, without mischance.”

“Thus, wilt know our whereabouts?”

“Aye, and more,” Valadrakul answered. “Though I know not where we be, yet I sense that this place is a goodly one for magicks, and that hence can I send word to Taillefer through the currents of the air and ether. It might chance that such a message Shadow will feel likewise, but ’tis only a small risk; ne’er has Shadow troubled itself with the signals that we lesser magicians send each other betimes.”

Raven hesitated, then nodded-Pel noticed that he didn’t bother to look around at any of the others, let alone to consult them.

“Go, then,” Raven told the wizard. “Work thy wonders-methinks ’twill give the ladies a needed rest. And if thou canst discover us whence our next meal may come, as well, surely shalt thou have the gratitude of us all!”

It seemed to Pel that Raven and Valadrakul were getting carried away, their phrasing becoming more flowery than ever for no good reason, even while their peculiar Australo-Brooklyn accent grew stronger. Pel didn’t like that. Any time Raven began to talk too much, it meant trouble.