In the Empire of Shadow

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Suddenly, the pieces fell into place for Pel, as he stared first at Susan’s purse, then at Taillefer and Valadrakul.

  Wizards.

  Or rather, he corrected himself, “Wizards,” the movie by Ralph Bakshi.

  While he had been thinking of all this as something out of a story ever since Grummetty first stepped from the basement wall, ever since he first heard Raven speak, up until now he hadn’t settled on just one story. He had thought of Tolkien and “Twilight Zone” and a dozen others, but none of those had shown him a way out, back to real life.

  “Wizards” was another matter.

  Of course, this wasn’t just a story, this was real life, but still…

  And there was something else. Taillefer was the only one here who knew the portal spell, but there was someone else who knew it even better, someone who just might not be quite the villain it was painted.

  Of course, convincing anyone else to try that would be difficult. The gun was easier.

  “Listen,” he said, turning back to Taillefer, “if Shadow were dead, you could send us home, right?”

  “Aye, surely,” Taillefer said, mystified. “Were Shadow dead ’twould be as a new dawn, and all would be different indeed; I’d have no fear of its creatures, if any even survived. More, methinks the death of Shadow would wreak great change upon the flow of magic through all the world, and all who study the arcane arts would find new strengths to draw on, were Shadow’s web sundered. A portal would be but the least of spells, surely, and gladly would I perform it.”

  “Friend Pel,” Raven said, “an Shadow were dead… welladay, ’twould be glorious beyond measure; ’tis the end I’ve sought all my life. But how to achieve this miracle? Shadow’s life has spanned centuries; it draws unnatural vitality from its nets of power, that it ages not. How then, think you to end this? A blade is as naught; no spell can touch Shadow; no mere mortal can hope to outlive it.”

  “All right, Shadow can’t be killed by anything from this land, but what about a weapon from another world?” He pointed at Susan.

  Raven followed Pel’s pointing finger, and Pel knew from his expression that he had understood Pel’s plan immediately.

  So did most of the others.

  “Would it work?” Susan asked. “I mean, it’s just a bullet, this isn’t any sort of big magic.”

  “It might,” Pel said.

  “And how would you administer this ‘bullet,’ Messire Pel?” Taillefer asked. “Need you enter Shadow’s fortress? I’d not risk a farthing ’gainst all the gold in Goringham for your chances, then.”

  “We’d need to get pretty close, yeah,” Pel admitted.

  “’Tis not to be done, then,” Taillefer said, with clear finality.

  “No?” Pel demanded, challengingly. “How do you know? You ever tried it?”

  “I yet live, do I not?” Taillefer retorted. “No, I’ve not made the trial.”

  “Then how do you know?” Pel repeated. “I say it’s worth a try—at least, for some of us.” He hesitated, then plunged on. “In fact,” he said, “I think it might be time for some of us to go see Shadow even without the gun. After all, if you won’t send us home, maybe it will!”

  Raven stared at Pel, mouth open in dumbfoundment; Taillefer stared for a moment, then burst out laughing.

  “Oh, foolish man,” he said, when he could speak again, “think you that Shadow will do your bidding, an you walk up to the fortress and ask ever so politely? ‘Oh, please, destroyer of kingdoms, ravager of nations, master of all the world, send me home, though I’ve nothing to pay, and no reason to give that you’ll not better to strike me dead this instant.’ Is that what you’d say, brown one?”

  “Something like…no,” Pel said. He put his hands to his hips and glared at the wizard. “No, not like that. Listen, you may be a sworn enemy of Shadow, but we aren’t.” He waved an arm to take in both Earthpeople and Imperials. “All we know about it is what we’ve heard from you, and from your friends. How do we know Shadow’s any worse than you are? And who says we have nothing to offer it?”

  “You speak treason,” Raven said quietly, his hand falling to where his sword-hilt should have been.

  “You’re calling me a traitor?”

  “Aye…” Raven began.

  “Traitor to what?” Pel demanded, cutting the aristocrat off short. “I’m a citizen of the United States of America, I’m not one of your underlings, Lord Raven! And even if I were—where’s Stoddard this morning? For that matter, where’s Donald a’ Benton, or Elani, or Grummetty, or any of the others? Isn’t Shadow the government around here? Seems to me that you’re the fugitive from the law, and anyone who follows you and doesn’t have the sense to give up like Stoddard did is just buying an early death. Where’s my wife, Lord Raven? Where’s my daughter? They’re dead, from following you…”

  “They’re slain by Shadow, Pel Brown,” Raven countered. “Would you join your wife’s murderer, then?”

  “Who says it was Shadow?” Pel shouted. “You do, and your buddies in the Galactic Empire! I don’t know who killed her—hell, I don’t even know she’s really dead, I just have your word on it, yours and the Empire’s—I never got to see them! I didn’t see the bodies!” He had stepped forward, as had Raven; the two of them stood with their noses an inch or two apart, shouting in each other’s faces.

  “Pel,” Susan said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

  Pel fell silent, but stayed face to face with Raven, glaring down at the shorter man, for a long moment. At last, though, he backed away.

  “I don’t care what you say, Raven,” Pel announced. “Or any of the rest of you, for that matter. Prossie says the Empire’s abandoned us, and Taillefer won’t send me home; well, the only other person—or thing—that can send me home is Shadow, so I’m going to go see Shadow, and if I can’t make a deal with it, I’ll do my damnedest to kill it, and if I do that, my price is Taillefer’s portal spell. So I’m going looking for Shadow. Now, who’s coming with me?”

  He looked around at the faces, at expressions of confusion, dismay, and even fear.

  “You’re mad,” Taillefer announced loudly.

  “I’ll come,” Susan said quietly. “At least for now. You may want the pistol, after all.”

  “Makes no difference to me,” Ted said with a shrug. “I’ll come.”

  “Whaddaya think?” Wilkins asked, turning toward Marks and Sawyer.

  “I’ll go along for now,” Singer said.

  “I’m in,” Marks said.

  Sawyer hesitated. “Whatever you guys decide,” he said.

  “Then we go,” Wilkins concluded.

  * * * *

  Amy listened to Pel and Raven argue, listened to the soldiers make their decision. When Susan said she would go with Pel, Amy felt as if something had fallen out from beneath her insides somewhere—how could Susan say that without even a glance at Amy, to see what she thought? Susan was betraying her.

  No, she wasn’t, Amy corrected herself; Susan was looking after herself. She wasn’t really a friend, after all—they’d been acting like friends for weeks, but that was because they were the only two American women around; they didn’t have anyone else to talk to. Susan wasn’t really her friend, Susan was her attorney; she had to remember that.

  And Susan was right, anyway; they had to go to Shadow. If Taillefer was right, if Amy was really carrying Walter’s child—she thought she must be, she realized now that she hadn’t had her period since early in her captivity on Zeta Leo III, and a baby would have to be Walter’s, she hadn’t been with another man in almost a year—then she had to get home, back to a civilized world, where she could abort it, or put it up for adoption, or do something. She didn’t want her dead rapist’s child. And she didn’t want to go through pregnancy and labor and childbirth in this stupid primitive world, this place out of some horrible old fairy tale where for all she knew leeches were the latest thing in medical care.

  And she wasn’t a young woman, she had no busines
s having a first child at her age—she was used to being childless, she liked it, she didn’t want a child.

  And if she did, she wouldn’t want it to be by that sadistic bastard Walter.

  She had to go to Shadow with Pel, even if it meant risking death, because just staying in this world meant risking death. She could catch a plague, she could die of something in the water, she could bleed to death.

  She had to get home, by any means possible.

  “I’ll come,” she said.

  * * * *

  Prossie had begun to drift away into her own thoughts again, but when she heard all the different voices speaking up, saying whether they would accompany Pel Brown, she listened, she thought back to what she had heard without paying attention.

  Going to confront Shadow—that was insane! She had seen and heard memories, back at Base One, from Raven and Valadrakul and Elani and Stoddard; even allowing for added coloration, she knew from those memories that Shadow was cruel and ruthless, willing to commit atrocities to further its ends or remove those who opposed it.

  But they were all going along—Susan and Amy and Bill Marks and all of them. If she didn’t agree, she would be left behind, with Raven and the wizards, the only foreigner among them.

  That would be awful.

  And maybe she could convince the others to turn back. Maybe they would come to their senses.

  “I’ll go,” she said.

  If she hadn’t been trained since childhood not to venture her own opinions, she would have added, But I don’t like it.

  * * * *

  Raven watched with annoyance as voice after voice spoke up, hand after hand raised, agreeing to accompany Pel Brown on his mad errand.

  He didn’t really have any great need for this oddly-assorted group, but he was reluctant to let them go heedlessly and needlessly to their deaths without some further attempt to save them, perhaps to win some benefit from all this disastrous series of events.

  And of course, the lot of them might come to their senses when they learned just what they had taken upon themselves. When they saw Shadow’s fortress, and realized that none could penetrate it to confront Shadow itself, the survivors might well be valuable additions to the forces of resistance.

  They might also, in their madness, learn something useful of Shadow’s defenses—surely not enough to allow them to enter Shadow’s keep, but something that could be turned to use someday, by those wiser and mightier than themselves.

  “All of you are fools,” he said, “and I feel I must accompany you as far as I dare, that I might do what I can to save you from your folly.

  * * * *

  Taillefer watched with mounting astonishment as one after another in the party announced his or her intention of bearding Shadow in its lair, of marching in wide-eyed innocence to certain destruction.

  When even Raven and a reluctant Valadrakul agreed to go along, at least for some part of the way, Taillefer flung his hands up.

  “May the Goddess preserve me!” he shouted. “You have, every one of you, lost your senses! I’d call on the Goddess to save you all, if I thought it possible even for Her! And as ’tis not, I’ll take my leave of you all, lest this madness be catching! Go, then, and die, and I’ll pray for your souls!” He spread his arms and spoke the Word of Power he had prepared, and the wind rose, filling his cloak.

  He felt the air pressing him upward, felt the currents of power beneath this place, power that led to Shadow, he knew, but power that he could turn to his own ends, at least for now. He drew upon it to conjure the wind that roared about him.

  He grew lighter and lighter, until at last the air, and the magical power behind it, lifted him off his feet.

  A moment later the others watched as the wizard literally blew away, up into the sky, bound for his distant home.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “You’re sure there’s no magic ring, or mystic gem, or something?” Pel asked Raven as they walked down the western slope, away from the thorn-covered ruins of Castle Regisvert, and down into a broad green valley. Grey clouds hung on the horizon before them, but where they walked the sun shone warmly. A bird sang somewhere in the distance, and the rich scents of late spring filled the air. “Maybe Shadow keeps its heart in a bowl somewhere, or something like that?” he suggested.

  Raven shook his head. “I’ve heard naught, in all my days, of any such device. Shadow draws its power from the magic that flows through earth and sky, and weaves that into its web; it needs no rings nor jewelry, any more than does our own Valadrakul.”

  “Does Valadrakul weave these same currents, then?” Pel inquired, looking back at the wizard.

  “Indeed, he draws ’pon them,” Raven agreed, “though not as Shadow does; Valadrakul and the other free wizards, as they tell me, make their magic but from the crumbs that fall from Shadow’s table, as it were. They weave no webs outside their own bodies, hold no elaborate traceries at the ready, own no patterns save those in their own minds, but instead pluck away what they can when chance allows, and shape the magicks within themselves.” He hesitated, then added, “Ah, in truth, I’ve most probably made nonsense of it, for ’tis none of mine that we speak of here, friend Pel. If you’d have it right, you’d best speak with Valadrakul, and not myself.”

  Pel nodded, and dropped back a pace to where the wizard walked.

  Valadrakul turned and stared silently at the Earthman as they marched a dozen steps farther down the highway.

  Pel realized that this was the first time he had deliberately and directly addressed Valadrakul in normal conversation, and he wasn’t sure just how to begin. At last, though, he said, “You’re a wizard, right?”

  Wilkins, a few feet away, snickered.

  “Have you not seen for yourself, Pellinore Brown?” Valadrakul replied.

  “I suppose, yeah,” Pel admitted. Wilkins snorted, but Pel ignored him. “So tell me about wizards.”

  Valadrakul blinked, then smiled crookedly. “You’d have me open to you all the secrets of my kind, the mysteries we hold dear, the teachings I struggled for a dozen years to absorb, here as we walk? Think you, perhaps, that what you ask might not be so simple as that?”

  “Yeah, well,” Pel said, annoyed, “I didn’t mean that. I mean, tell me why, if you’re a wizard and Shadow’s a wizard, why Shadow’s so much more powerful than you are.”

  “And who told you, I pray, that Shadow is a wizard?”

  “Didn’t you…” Pel hesitated. “Or maybe it was Raven—I don’t know, but somebody told me.”

  Valadrakul didn’t reply, and angrily, Pel demanded, “All right, if Shadow isn’t a wizard, what is it?”

  “’Tis Shadow,” Valadrakul said with a shrug. “It needs no other name, for there’s no other like it, nor has ever been. What in truth it is, no one knows.”

  “Didn’t one of you tell me that it started out as an ordinary wizard?”

  “Perhaps,” Valadrakul admitted.

  “Then did it start out as an ordinary wizard?”

  “So ’tis said. And perhaps ’tis true. ’Tis no wizard now, though—not as we use the word.”

  “So what happened, then?” Pel asked. “How come Shadow’s so incredibly powerful, and the rest of you wizards aren’t?”

  “Good question,” Wilkins said. “Took you long enough to get it straight, though.”

  Pel glared at him for an instant, then turned back to Valadrakul.

  The wizard looked thoughtfully at the ground for a moment, and the entire party moved onward a few yards before he spoke again.

  “Raven spoke to you of the flow of magic through the world,” Valadrakul said at last.

  Pel nodded.

  “’Tis not exactly a flow, you understand—nor is it precisely in this world. The exact nature…well, you’ve not the understanding.” The wizard glanced up at Pel.

  “All right,” Pel said. “Explain it however you can, don’t worry about getting all the details right.”

  Valadrakul nodded. “As you
wish.” He gazed about at the surrounding greenery. “If you think of the sources of nature’s magic as springs, from which flow not water but the invisible energies that we wizards wield, you will have but a poor understanding, for the flow is not as water, nor as light, nor as any other thing in the commonplace world. It permeates all the world, yet varies throughout, from the faintest of traces in one spot to a bursting torrent in another. And when a wizard draws upon it, it is not consumed—the well cannot be emptied. There are flows, but they are not streams—more oft, they’re loops, spinning endlessly. And there are points, and lines, and patterns.”

  “All right,” Pel said. “I think I have the idea.”

  Valadrakul nodded. “Well,” he said, “a wizard such as myself, such as all modern wizards, can draw upon whatever energy might be found in the place where that wizard stands, and no more. I can sense these energies, but only dimly; they are not as light to me, but as, perhaps, faint sounds—I can perhaps tell you, that way there is a great power source, but I cannot tell you how far, nor its exact nature, nor can I in any way draw it nearer. At most, if I find a locus I remember, I can perhaps use its peculiar nature to my advantage—as when I used what might be described as a line of magical energy to send a message to Taillefer.”

  “Okay,” Pel acknowledged. “I think I get it.”

  “Of old, though,” Valadrakul continued, “there were wizards who had a greater understanding of these forces, who could perhaps see them, and map them, and distinguish the patterns in them. This higher art, these pattern wizards, these are now thought to be lost—though I’d not swear that none might still lurk in the odd corners, hiding from Shadow. ’Twas pattern wizards who provided much of the art that we lesser wizards use; they were more powerful than we, and for that reason Shadow has made every effort to obliterate them, lest they be a threat to its dominion.”

  “So Shadow was a pattern wizard?” Pel asked.

  Valadrakul shook his head. “Nay,” he said, “listen further. ’Tis said that long ago, there was yet a third tier among those who wield magic—those who could not only perceive the patterns, but could alter them, could alter the flow of energy, could divert one stream into another, could weave the threads of magic as if they were merest wool, could form matrices of magic that they carried about with them—not the mere patterns of spells trapped within their minds, as we yet do in our small ways, but great intricate webs of the raw stuff of magic itself, that might be formed into whatever spells they needed. They had no need to make do with what powers were at hand, but could draw to themselves whatsoever powers they needed, through these matrices they held. Matrix wizards, these magic-weavers were called.”