Lawrence Watt-Evans - In the Empire of Shadow

Ted shrugged; Amy nodded; Susan frowned, then shook her head, once, a sharp little negative jerk.

“I’d take it,” Pel insisted.

“And what of the rest, who would be left behind to face Shadow’s anger?” Taillefer asked. “Not to put too fine a point on it, what of myself?”

“You could come with us,” Pel suggested, not very hopefully.

“Oh, aye,” Taillefer replied sarcastically. “Plunge myself into an unknown corner of a realm where all my spells and powers are for naught, where I know not a thing of the ways and customs; a realm that, alone of the three known, has no way to reach the others, so that never could I return?”

“But why would you want to return?” Pel asked desperately. “This world’s ruled by Shadow, isn’t it? Our world isn’t; it’s not bad at all, really.” He had intended to argue further, but he stopped abruptly when he saw the expressions not just on Taillefer’s face, but on Raven’s and Valadrakul’s, as well.

“Man,” Taillefer said, “this world may seem unpleasant to you, yet is it my world, my homeland, and I’ll not abandon it to Shadow, not leave it in its hour of need.”

“Nor will I,” Raven said.

Pel looked at Valadrakul, whose expression convinced Pel that he didn’t need to hear what the other wizard had to say. The Earthman sighed.

“You won’t do it?” he asked.

Taillefer shook his head. “That I won’t,” he said.

* * * *

Amy heard it all, heard first Raven, then Pel argue with Taillefer. Her stomach had calmed, and she was in no danger of vomiting again; she was ravenously hungry, and felt weak and sick, but she was not going to throw up for awhile. She sat against the ruined wall of the castle, surrounded by shadows and gloom, and listened to the men debate the rest of her life.

And she was losing the argument. If someone didn’t do something, it sounded as if she would be trapped in this horrible fairy-world forever.

Raven, much as he wanted his guns and soldiers, appeared to have abandoned the argument to Pel. Pel was trying, but he argued like a man, all rationalizations and confrontations, and he was obviously losing. Taillefer felt his life was at stake; he wasn’t going to be swayed by that sort of logic.

“But why would you want to return?” she heard Pel ask. “This world’s ruled by Shadow, isn’t it? Our world isn’t; it’s not bad at all, really.”

Amy didn’t need to hear; she knew the answers. If anything, Pel had just convinced Raven to switch sides, rather than Taillefer. “Susan?” she said quietly.

“Yes?”

“You have your bag?”

Susan took a moment to consider that.

“I don’t think it’ll work,” she said, “but I’ll try it if you want.”

“Please,” Amy said.

Susan sighed, then pulled her bag up where she could reach into it more easily.

Then she had her little revolver in her hand, the .38 Police Special; she glanced at Amy, who nodded.

“I don’t think it’ll work,” Susan said again, as she rose, pistol ready.

The men had not noticed anything, as yet; Pel was asking the plump wizard, “You won’t do it?”

“That I won’t,” Taillefer replied.

Susan cleared her throat, then raised the pistol, gripped tightly in both hands, and pointed it at Taillefer.

“Wizard,” she called, her finger tight on the trigger.

* * * *

Raven turned at the sound of the Earthwoman’s voice, expecting nothing more from her than a plea for mercy; it took a second before his eyes adjusted to the dimness, but at the sight of the weapon in her hands his jaw dropped.

Quickly, he caught himself, composed himself.

“Aye, mistress?” Taillefer asked, as he, too, turned. “What would you, and what is this you point at me?”

“This thing I’m pointing at you is a weapon from Earth,” Susan explained. “It’s commonly called a handgun. If I pull the trigger, it’ll blow a hole right through you-ask Raven and Valadrakul, they’ve seen me use it to kill Shadow’s creatures. It’s what Raven wants from Earth-we’ve promised him a supply of guns to use against Shadow.”

“Ah,” Taillefer said, eyeing the revolver with interest.

“Now, we’re going to ask you again whether you’ll open the portal to Earth,” Susan said, “with the understanding that if you refuse, I’ll blow your head off. Will you open the portal?”

Taillefer hesitated, then turned to Valadrakul. “Does this device what she says?”

“Aye,” Valadrakul said, blinking at Susan. For a moment, Raven thought the wizard intended to say more, but in the end he left the single word to stand alone.

Thoughtfully, Taillefer turned back to face the Earthwoman. “See you, mistress, the position you put me in,” he said. “An you make good your threat, I perish. An I accede to your demands, then too do I perish, but at Shadow’s hands rather than yours. Either way, I am dead. If ’tis Shadow that slays me, then mayhap others die with me. Now, consider likewise what you’d accomplish; an I refuse, and you slay me, you do not gain what you seek, for there’s none but I who can do it. An I yield, you may yet see Earth, but I die, and there shall be none who can restore the portal for the delivery of the weapons you say this worthy who calls himself Raven seeks; thus, Shadow triumphant, my people forever enslaved. I’d not have that weighing upon my soul in the afterlife.”

“I don’t need an argument,” Susan said harshly. “I need a decision.”

“And I say that you shall have one, in a moment-if you see it not yet. Think you, if you slay me, you shall be forevermore trapped in our world; if you refrain, the chance shall remain, so long as I live, that some way shall be found that I may safely send you home.”

“You’re refusing, then.”

“Aye, mistress; I refuse you.”

Slowly, Susan lowered the pistol. Then she shrugged, and said to Amy, “I told you it wouldn’t work.” She turned away.

And Raven let out his breath.

He had not realized, until that moment, that he had bated it.

Nor had he realized, until the danger was past, that he had thought Susan would shoot. Yet it was with surprise and wonder that he saw her put the weapon away, and saw Taillefer standing unharmed.

Had it been he himself who held the weapon, and who held Susan’s position, Raven knew that Taillefer would now be dead.

Which would, as Taillefer had said, be a disaster.

This bore some thought.

* * * *

“Maybe you should have wounded him,” Pel suggested quietly, leaning on one elbow. The stone pavement of Castle Regisvert was cold beneath him. “If you’d put a bullet in his leg, say, maybe he’d have believed you, not called your bluff.”

Susan, lying nearby, raised her head and shook it no; Pel could just barely see the movement in the darkness. “Too risky,” she said. “What if he bled to death, or the wound got infected? No, it was all bluff, and we lost.”

“So what do we do now?”

“We go to sleep, Mr. Brown. It’s late, it’s been a long day. You heard Raven and Wilkins and Taillefer. We’ll talk it all out tomorrow, by daylight.”

“But how do we get back to Earth?” Pel heard his own voice rising in pitch; he realized that he must sound almost hysterical.

That was reasonable; he was almost hysterical. He had to get home. He had to get out of this fairy-tale world, this pulp fantasy story he had found himself in, back to the sane and normal world of lawn mowers and income taxes and marketing consultation, back to the world of Nancy and Rachel. He couldn’t stay in Faerie; he simply couldn’t take it.

And his only way back was Taillefer, and Taillefer was refusing to cooperate.