Lawrence Watt-Evans - In the Empire of Shadow

Pel nodded. “I’m not surprised,” he said.

“So do you think Wilkins was right, that he did the right thing by turning back?”

“Or aside,” Pel said. “We don’t know where he went, remember.”

“But do you think he was right?” Prossie insisted.

Pel shrugged again. “Who knows?”

“He thought we were all walking into a trap, you know,” Prossie said.

“So he said,” Pel replied.

Prossie nodded. “He talked to me about it a little; he figured that Shadow might want you, because the warp came out in your house, and Raven because he’s the lord of Stormcrack, and Valadrakul because he’s a wizard, and so on, but that it wouldn’t have any use for a bunch of ordinary Imperial soldiers.”

Pel thought that over. “He might’ve been right,” he admitted.

“So what about the others?” Prossie asked. “I mean, I’m a telepath, so maybe I’m one of the special ones, too, but what about Marks and Sawyer and Singer?”

“What about them?” Pel asked, trying to figure out what Prossie was leading up to.

“What if they turned back, instead of going on with the rest of us?”

Pel shrugged; he started to say, “It’s a free country,” then remembered where he was. “They can do what they please,” he said. “I’m not their jailer.”

“But do you think it would be safe?”

Pel gave her a startled look.

“I mean,” Prossie explained, “Wilkins thought that if we turned back, then we’d find Shadow’s monsters waiting for us, that it was only leaving us alone as long as we stayed headed in the right direction. So if someone it wanted turned back, he would be running right into the monsters. So do you think Marks and Sawyer and Singer would be safe?”

“Why are you asking me?” Pel demanded. “You’re the telepath! And Raven’s the expert on Shadow. I’m just…I’m just me.”

“Raven lies,” Prossie said. “You know that; he’d tell me whatever he thought would be best for him. I think I can get an honest answer from you.”

Pel looked at her, puzzled. Her eyes were green, he saw-he had never noticed that before. Her hair was a dull brown, her face ordinary.

“You want an honest answer?” he said. “Fine; I honestly don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on; I’m just trying to muddle along. I want to go home. I want my wife and daughter back. Beyond that, I don’t care what happens, to me or anyone else. If those guys want to go back to the ship, or go hide somewhere, it’s fine with me.”

For only an instant, her eyes met his; then she dropped her gaze to the ground, and he was sure he had offended or frightened or embarrassed her somehow. He started to frame an apology, then stopped; he had nothing to apologize for.

Maybe she was just shy. Or maybe she was trying to flirt with him.

He wasn’t interested in flirting; he was a married man-or at least, he still thought of himself as one. It was too soon after Nancy’s loss to look elsewhere-or maybe he was just too tired, or too scared.

And even if he hadn’t been, Prossie Thorpe wasn’t exactly what he was looking for in a woman. He looked down at his own muddy boots.

She turned away without saying anything more.

* * * *

Raven was satisfied with their progress-or at any rate, with the speed of it; the direction was not that he would have chosen. Marching to Shadow’s fortress still seemed to him the height of folly.

And now they were but a day away, he thought, as he peered out into the blackness of the surrounding night, and that day, if the tales spoke truth, to be spent all upon the causeway across Shadowmarsh, with nowhere to turn or hide. They had seen the marsh spread before them as the sun sank, and that was why Raven had called the night’s halt where he did.

Might he not best serve his land and his people and his cause by slipping away, and leaving these foreigners to their own devices? If they were to perish at Shadow’s hands, ’twould be a sad loss, but there had been many such losses over the years.

And this was the final moment, the time when he must decide. He had debated the matter with Pellinore Brown over their meager supper, and the Brown remained unyielding-he was bound for Shadow’s keep.

Some might accuse a man in Raven’s place of cowardice, did he now flee-but what of that? Was he not outcast now? He would know it was not fear, but prudence and hope for the future that guided his steps.

Still, to be marked as coward, even wrongly…

He had got that far in his thinking when a cry sounded; instantly, Raven was on his feet, once again cursing the fate that had left him without his sword.

“Help!” a man’s voice called, as from a distance. “Oh, my God…”

Raven snatched up a brand from the dying fire and waved it, that the air might brighten the sparks; it flared briefly, but the flame did not linger, and he saw naught but startled faces and muddy boots.

“It’s Marks,” said the man Singer; he, too, raised an impromptu torch in his good hand, and headed for the sound.

The voice cried out again, wordlessly, as Singer and Raven ran up the highway to the east, away from Shadowmarsh. Raven saw that the others, to their shame, stayed behind-even Valadrakul, who, though a wizard, Raven had thought to be a man of honor and some small courage.

The cries stopped well before Raven and Singer reached their source.

When they did reach Marks’ body, it was far too late to lend any aid beyond a decent burial; his dead eyes gleamed orange in the feeble torchlight, staring up at the black clouds above, but his face was black with dirt and blood. His throat and chest had been torn open, and Raven knew at a glance that even the finest healer could not have saved him.

“Damn,” Singer muttered. “What did it?” He raised his torch, brighter than Raven’s own, and waved it about. “Where is it?”

“Shadow,” Raven told him, lowering his own brand.

“Are you sure?” a female voice asked.

Startled, Raven whirled, and found the woman called Susan standing a few paces down the road, her black bag open on her shoulder, her hand within-ready, Raven supposed, to bring out in an instant that magical weapon of hers.

He smiled slightly. At least one of the foreigners had courage-and the skill to use it, to have followed so silently!

“What else?” he asked her. “’Tis surely another warning-more bones by the roadside for any who would follow us.”

“Why just him? Why not all of us?”

Raven turned back for another look at Marks.

“See you,” he said, “he sought to flee; we are surely a good quarter-mile from our camp. This man had turned back upon the path.”

“And Shadow doesn’t want us to do that,” Singer said.

“As you say,” Raven agreed. “Shadow would not have us turn back.”

“You don’t think it’s a coincidence?” Susan asked. “After all, as far as we know, Wilkins got away safely.”

“Insofar as we know,” Raven agreed, “but how far is that? And more, the rules may well have changed since Wilkins turned aside; we were not then so near to Shadow’s hold.”

Susan nodded, the motion just barely visible in the darkness. “So we go on,” she said flatly.

“Indeed,” Raven agreed. “In the morning, we go on.”

In the morning, they would march into the jaws of death, where only the Goddess herself could save them.

And perhaps the Goddess would save them; perhaps she had wearied of Shadow’s importunities, and would somehow use Raven and his companions as her tools for defeating it.

Or perhaps they would all die, and their souls return to the Goddess’ womb. That was death, and Raven did not seek death-but how was he to avoid it, now?