Lawrence Watt-Evans - In the Empire of Shadow

It was as if, to Carrie, she was no longer a telepath at all.

She knew that some of her distress must be leaking through, that Carrie knew what she felt, and she waited for Carrie to give her some sort of reassurance.

Carrie replied with the mental equivalent of a shrug.

* * * *

Now, Pel thought, they were getting to the traditional villain’s pitch. They’d gone through the whole self-justification speech; now Shadow could get to the point.

He wondered again how much of her story was true.

“So what does that have to do with us?” he asked. “Why didn’t you just go invade the Galactic Empire, if that’s what you wanted?”

“Because I can’t, fool!” Shadow shouted. “Think you I’d be here now, could I?”

“Oh,” Amy said, “I get it. Magic doesn’t work there.”

“Ah,” Shadow said, pointing at Amy, “one among you has some wit!”

“So you can’t conquer the Empire directly,” Pel said.

“But you sent your creatures,” Prossie pointed out. “You could send more, couldn’t you?”

“Aye, my creatures,” Shadow agreed. “I can send whatever spies and servants I please, and hearken to their reports when they return-and what of it? They tell me of marvels; I would see those marvels for myself! Conquest, when I know not what there is to conquer? I can create homunculi, I can raise the dead to fight for me, and i’truth I think I could lay waste all the Empire and claim it for my own, in time-but what sort of ruler would I be, unable to set foot upon my own land? How could I call those lands my own, if I could not see to them?”

Pel blinked.

“Can you really make whole armies of those things?” Prossie asked.

“Certes, I can,” Shadow replied. “Do you doubt it?”

“Oh, well, it’s been seven years, and all the Empire ever found were scouts and some dead monsters…”

“And ’tis all I’ve sent, thus far, those and my spies, but ’twas no true test of my powers, woman-I have not yet begun. I sought to learn what could live in that unnatural realm of yours; i’truth, the forms that abide well there are sore few!”

“But wait a minute,” Pel said. “If you can send whole armies there, why can’t you go? Even if your magic doesn’t work there, you could go visit, then come back, couldn’t you?”

“Ah, now we reach the kernel. No, fool, I cannot. For think you, if I leave this world, and take my matrix not with me, what befalls? And if I open the gate and step forth, but remain not here to hold the gate open, how shall I then return?”

Full understanding of Shadow’s dilemma abruptly dawned on Pel.

“Oh,” he said.

“Now you see,” Shadow said. “And see you this also, I even thought that perhaps I might yield up the matrix, and go forth to dwell forever among the Empire’s worlds, with an army to serve me and keep me strong-until I bethought of the passage of time. For what is it that preserves me from senility and death, but the matrix I hold? The Empire’s not worth my very life!”

“You mean, like, you’d instantly age a thousand years, or however old you are, without your magic?” Amy asked. Pel immediately thought of movies again-“Lost Horizon” and others, where immortal villains had done just that, fading to dust when their magic was lost.

Shadow snorted in derision. “Nay,” she said, “this age of mine is no seeming, but truth. I’d be there as I am here. Howsoever, I’d not remain so, but would age as others do, would grow old and in the fullness of time, as the traditional phrase of those with little understanding would have it, I would die. Die! I, face death? I’d not have it, when by staying here I have eternity.”

“An eternity of boredom,” Pel pointed out.

“Exactly,” Shadow agreed. “Wouldst choose death o’er ennui? I’d never.”

“I still don’t see what you want from us, then.” Amy said. “We can’t play native guides if you can’t go there.”

“I think I see,” Pel said, with sudden comprehension. He couldn’t really believe he had this right, but he couldn’t come up with anything else Shadow could want.

And if he was wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Startled, Amy turned to him. “What?”

“She wants someone to hold the door for her until she gets back,” Pel said.

Shadow nodded. “Precisely,” she said. “To hold the door, and to hold the matrix ready, that I may resume it upon my return; if there’s none holding it, ’twill crumble, and the wild magicks will be freed again.”

Pel couldn’t believe it would be this simple. There had to be something wrong with this. Shadow must have safeguards in mind, or some sort of trickery.

“But I…” Amy stammered. “You mean you want one of us to…”

“I would make one of you a matrix wizard in my place, and in my service,” Shadow said, with a nod.

Shadow did not give anyone time to protest-not that Pel had any intention of protesting. He supposed some of the others might have said something, if Shadow hadn’t gone on speaking.

“See you, none from this world can serve; the ability to hold a matrix is lost here. Those who e’er could do so, so they did, and so in their time they all, save me, died,” Shadow explained.

“You can’t make a whatchacallit, a homunculus, to do it?” Pel asked-not that he really thought Shadow wouldn’t have tried that long ago; he was just trying to clear away all doubts, to satisfy his own curiosity and tie up loose ends. It was plain that they were nearing the end of the story, when one of them would be offered Shadow’s power.

He wondered who it would be, and whether he or she would accept, and what the consequences would be. Which would be better, to accept or refuse?

This was real life, he reminded himself; he couldn’t rely on the most dramatically-satisfying conclusion.

“Nay,” Shadow said. “No homunculus nor other creation, nor either a dead man, for while I can instill therein a semblance of life, indistinguishable by any normal means from any mortal born, yet some certain spark is lacking. Perhaps ’tis true that the Goddess lives, and blesses each infant with her gift, and ’tis this gift that lacks; I know not, neither do I care. I know only that ’tis lacking.”

Pel trembled slightly; she had said it again, that she could restore the dead to life-and indistinguishably.

“So if none of the locals can do it,” Amy asked, “how do you know we can?”

“Thinkest I’d not have tried thee?” Shadow answered. “Each of you has been tested and found fit. The Stormcrack lord was not, of course, and the wizardling could have held only the fraction, not the whole. None from the Empire save this one have the gift-yet all the four from Earth do. Perhaps ’tis something in the nature of the worlds whence you come, or perhaps ’tis mere chance, but whatever the reason, so ’tis.”

“Maybe it’s connected to telepathy, somehow,” Pel suggested. “I mean, if Prossie has it but none of the others did.”

“You’re really sure that no one from your own world can do it?” Amy asked.

“Sure enow,” Shadow replied. “Further, an I found one who had somehow escaped destruction, or one born a throwback to times past, how could I trust such a one? For in this land, whoever holds the matrix of Shadow is supreme, and whether it be me or another matters not a whit. You, though-thou and thou and thou-this place is not yours, and what wouldst have here?”

“You don’t think any of us would be interested in ruling a world?” Pel asked. Ted giggled; the other Earthpeople ignored him, but Pel was uncomfortably aware how stupid his question sounded.