“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?
Perhaps, Raven thought later, as he settled to sleep, they should have brought Marks’ body back with them, should have buried the poor man’s remains and returned his flesh to the Goddess as well as his soul—but no one had suggested it, no one had argued, and the rain had begun anew.
Scores of men had lain unburied in the war against Shadow; one more would matter not.
And Raven knew that on the morrow, he might well be yet another.
Chapter Eighteen
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Amy asked, pointing.
Raven nodded wearily. “Indeed, ’twould seem to be. Understand you, I’ve not been here until now, I’ve never seen Shadow’s keep ere this, but in truth, that we see before us fits every tale I’ve heard.”
Amy had somehow assumed that Raven must have seen Shadow’s fortress, but of course, there was no reason he should have. She stared, trying to make out more details.
The rain that had fallen off and on for the past two days seemed to have finally stopped for good, but the air was still thick and damp and hazy. She saw a heavy gray structure built around a central tower that rose in uneven steps, with odd jogs and turrets here and there; it resembled a storybook castle rather more than Stormcrack Keep or Castle Regisvert had, but broader and uglier; no one would ever call this thing “soaring” or “graceful.”
She couldn’t make out windows or doors with any certainty, nor those things like teeth that ran along the tops of castle walls; that made it very hard to get a clear idea of the size of the fortress.
“How much farther is it, then?” she asked, glancing down at her aching feet.
“Probably farther than it looks,” Pel said.
Amy, remembering a few long walks through American cities toward buildings that were visible but distant, nodded as she looked around.
This was no city, though; the gray mass of Shadow’s fortress rose from a broad marshy plain that looked almost equally gray. The highway was literally a high way here, a band of yellowish earth built up about two feet above the surrounding reeds and grasses; it was bare, lifeless dirt, no grass or weeds along the verge.
The marshes to either side looked dead, Amy thought; she supposed that was an illusion, that the reeds just weren’t as green as the ones she was used to. The dull light that seeped through the thick overcast didn’t help at all; it seemed to leach the color out of everything. The place reeked of brine and decay, smothering in the warm, dense air.
To the north she could see wooded hills, and perhaps the clouds were thinner there, because the forests were green enough. Looking back, the higher, drier plain behind them wasn’t as drab, either—the trees and the farmers’ fields were green, and even the thatched roofs of the scattered houses, and of the last village they had passed through, were brighter than what lay ahead.
The marsh really was that sick, flat color, she decided, and she remembered how, back on the Downs, Pel had argued that the countryside didn’t look like it was ruled by evil magic.
She didn’t remember even the mud flats of New Jersey being as ugly as this, though—though they did smell worse. “Is this more what you had in mind?” she asked Pel.
“What?” Pel started, and looked puzzled.
“I mean this place—is this the sort of place you’d expect an evil wizard to live?”
Pel glanced at the distant shape of Shadow’s fortress, at the miles of dun marshland.
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess it is.”
It certainly seemed to fit the part to Amy. Maybe most of the rest of the bizarre things that had happened since Captain Cahn’s spaceship fell in her back yard hadn’t fit the stereotypes, but Shadow’s fortress looked just fine as an evil wizard’s castle, even if it wasn’t built in the shape of a skull or anything as silly as that.
“What’s that on the road?” Singer asked, pointing with his good hand.
Amy dropped her gaze from the fortress to the highway, and saw what Singer meant—something dark lay on the road ahead, not moving.
“Someone dropped a pack, maybe,” she suggested.
“Raven?” Susan asked.
The nobleman turned up his palms. “I know no more than do you,” he said.
They trudged onward, but all of them were now moving more cautiously, watching the dark mass on the highway. Amy couldn’t decide if it was black or a very dark gray; the poor light didn’t make it easy to distinguish.
And its color didn’t really matter, anyway.
The thing was about three feet long, she judged, and almost featureless; it looked a little like a huge empty boot, or an irregularly-shaped stovepipe. She had no idea what it was, or what it was doing there—until, when they were perhaps ten feet away, it moved.
It lifted one end and swung it to point at the approaching travelers; the end split open, revealing long rows of sharp white teeth. Amy could still see no eyes, no nostrils, no other features, but the mouth and the teeth were unmistakable. The thing was alive, and hostile.
“A Shadow thing,” Pel said.
“Kill it,” Sawyer said, drawing his blaster.
Raven’s hand dropped to his empty belt; Singer hesitated, hands clutching; Susan shifted her purse but did not reach in.
Valadrakul raised a hand, then paused.
“No magic,” Raven warned him. “Not when Shadow’s keep looms before us.”
Sawyer clicked the trigger of his blaster a couple of times, then turned to stare helplessly at the others.
“Save wizardry, we are unarmed, my lord,” Valadrakul pointed out.
That wasn’t literally true, Amy thought, remembering the pistol in Susan’s purse, but she didn’t correct him; it was close enough to the truth.
Instead, she asked, “Do you think that’s the one that got poor Marks last night?”
“No,” Singer said flatly. He didn’t explain, and after a moment’s hesitation, Amy decided that she didn’t want him to.
For a moment, the nine of them stood in silent confusion; then Ted—Ted Deranian, of all people—marched forward.
“This is stupid,” he said. “It looks like I’m not going to wake up until I get through this whole stupid thing, right up to the showdown, so let’s get on with it. I’m not going to let some stupid refugee from ‘Aliens’ stretch it out.” He walked up to the monster and kicked at it.
“Go on, get out of here,” he said. “You’re in the way.”
The creature twitched away from Ted’s foot, then seemed to hesitate, open jaws wavering.
Then it closed its mouth and slithered away, off the highway and down into the marsh.
“Come on,” Ted said. “Let’s get this over with!” He stamped onward, toward the fortress.
The others, by unspoken common consent, hung back.
“We’re unarmed,” Pel said. “We’re walking into Shadow’s fortress unarmed and out in the open.”
“’Twas your own proposal,” Raven pointed out.
“I know,” Pel said, “and you told me at the time it wa
s a stupid idea, and you were right.” He hesitated, as if trying to gather the will to turn back.
That was too much for Amy. She wanted to get this all over with. If she was going to die, then she would die, and maybe it would serve her right for sending Beth to the gallows, but she wasn’t going to turn back the way Bill Marks had, she wanted to at least face whatever they were up against. “What else are we going to do?” she demanded angrily. “Even if it lets us? Do you want to go back and live in some village where they hang children, Pel? Where no one talks to us? Or go back to Raven’s friends, who don’t have the nerve to work a spell to send us home?” Unconsciously, she rested one hand on her faintly-bulging abdomen.
“I wonder if maybe Taillefer could teach the portal spell to someone?” Pel asked. “Someone who could use it, and step through with us?”
Amy stared at him, angrier than ever. “Now you think of that?” she shouted.
“Don’t forget about Ted,” Susan said quietly, pointing. Pel’s lawyer was a hundred feet away, marching on toward the fortress.
“Valadrakul,” Pel said, “could Taillefer teach someone to work the spell, without using it himself? Without Shadow noticing?”
The wizard considered the question, but before he could reply, Singer said, “I don’t think it matters.”
The others turned to him.
“Why not?” Pel demanded.
“Remember Bill Marks,” Singer said. He pointed, back along the highway, and the others turned to look.
On the road behind them were half a dozen of the stovepipe-shaped monsters, sprawled across the highway; as they watched, another slithered up from the marsh.
“I don’t think those are going to let us kick them aside,” Singer said.
“Wilkins was right all along,” Prossie said. “It’s a trap; Shadow wants us to come to it, and if we don’t we’ll all wind up like Marks.”
For a moment, they all stared at the creatures; then Pel shrugged and said, “Well, if we don’t have a choice, we might as well get going.”
He turned and marched ahead, following Ted.
Amy stared at the monsters.
“Come on,” Prossie said, touching her arm.
Reluctantly, Amy turned.
“We might as well get it over with,” she agreed.
* * * *
Just as Pel had expected, the fortress was larger and farther away than it had looked; they had first spotted it in the morning, but dusk was falling by the time they finally approached the gates. He was soaked with sweat; so were most of the others. The day was not actually all that hot, but the humidity and the high gravity made it an exhausting march.
Raven had judged their entire journey to be around two hundred miles, once everyone had agreed on what a mile was, and Pel now appreciated just how much that was. Two hundred miles was about the distance from Washington to Philadelphia, about four hours by car, nothing much—but it was a damnably long way to walk, through forests and over ridges and across the plain and then through this soggy, unpleasant marshland.
And Pel would much rather have arrived at Philadelphia than at Shadow’s fortress; he amused himself for part of this final leg of the journey by trying to remember the exact phrasing of the appropriate W.C. Fields quote, and although he had no way to check it, he finally settled on, “Frankly, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.”
They weren’t in Philadelphia, though, they were approaching the fortress.
In a way, that didn’t seem quite right; they hadn’t had enough adventures along the way. They hadn’t really had any adventures since leaving Castle Regisvert; petty theft wasn’t much of an adventure. Wilkins’ disappearance hadn’t been very dramatic; Marks’ death hardly qualified. The whole two-hundred-mile walk had been pretty dull.
In the stories, the journeys were never so boring—or was that just because the authors left out the dull parts?
No, any epic quest was supposed to have real challenges along the way—goblins and monsters, not just rain and irate villagers. And the adventurers were supposed to defeat the menaces through wit and strength and other traditional virtues, not by just trudging onward, day after day.
They hadn’t even seen the monster that had killed Marks. And while Valadrakul had defeated the giant bat-thing with a spell, that was a long time ago, and far away, and hardly seemed to count.
But this wasn’t a story, this was real life, and Pel supposed that if anyone ever wrote it all down, the long dull walk would be relegated to a line or two of scene-shifting.
In any cases, challenges met and menaces defeated or not, they had reached Shadow’s fortress.
The marsh came right up to the towering stone walls, but the highway led directly into an open gate. The entire thing was built on a gigantic scale; the outer wall was at least as long as a city block, and Pel judged it to rise ten stories or so—a hundred feet high. The towers were not visible from directly below the walls, but he had seen from the highway that they were clearly at least three or four times as high. Pel hadn’t thought simple masonry, with no steel frame, could support so high a tower—but then, it probably didn’t; Shadow’s magic probably held the thing together.
Just like all those Hollywood movies, he supposed; if by some miracle they did play out the traditional heroic adventure and managed to kill Shadow, that whole immense tower would probably fall in and crush them all.
That never happened in the stories—the heroes always got out in time, though the villains might get crushed. Pel didn’t care to trust to that sort of thing in real life.
They had no choice, though; a glance back showed him that the highway behind them was sprinkled with those crawling giant-slug-with-teeth monsters. And although Singer had said those weren’t what had killed Marks, something had killed him—Raven and Singer and Susan all agreed on that. They couldn’t turn back; they had to go on in and finish up the story, even if it meant dying.
And maybe dying wouldn’t be that bad. If there was an afterlife, maybe he’d see Nancy and Rachel again; if Ted’s theory was right, he’d be back on Earth. Maybe Marks was back in the Galactic Empire even now, back with his family, if he had any.
Pel was suddenly bothered that he had no idea whether Marks had had any family. Wilkins would have known, but Wilkins was gone, too—maybe dead, maybe not.
Marks was definitely dead. Elani was dead. Carson was dead. Nancy and Rachel were dead. If Pel died, he would at any rate be in good company.
And whatever death might mean, at least if Pel died he would be out of Shadow’s power and out of Raven’s world, this whole ghastly thing would be over for him.
And he might or might not die. If they were in a story, and one of them was the hero—Raven seemed like the traditional candidate—then that one could expect to win through alive somehow, but the rest of them could die; sidekicks and spear-carriers were always expendable.
And it was always possible that they were just one of the earlier expeditions doomed to fail, so that some later hero might avenge them. Or perhaps the men would be slain and the women imprisoned, for later rescue.
Or maybe it wasn’t a story at all, maybe real life didn’t work that way. It certainly hadn’t worked out well for somebody, he saw; there were more dead bodies, like those in the towns and villages, hanging by their necks from the parapet above the open gate.
Pel had thought he’d gotten used to gibbets and scaffolds and bones and corpses, so at first he didn’t really pay much attention when he realized that there were people hanging there; he just tried not to look. The fading light made that easier; so did his sore feet, as they kept his attention elsewhere.
After all, this was Shadow’s headquarters; why would it be any different from the rest of Shadow’s realm?
Then he heard Sawyer say, “Oh, shit.”
He turned, and saw the Imperial soldier staring up at the dangling corpses. Without meaning to, without thinking about it, Pel looked up at them, too.
He swallowed hard.
&nbs
p; He had thought he’d gotten used to gibbets and scaffolds and bones and corpses, but this was different.
This time he knew them.
There were six men hanging there, each with his belly sliced open and grayish loops of his intestines torn out and draped across his legs and feet—Shadow apparently wasn’t interested in originality in its executions. Six men, and Pel recognized them all. Second from the left was Lieutenant Dibbs; Pel couldn’t put definite names to the others, but all wore the remains of the purple uniform of the Galactic Empire, and all their faces, twisted and discolored as they were, were familiar. Of the six, useless blasters still hung on the belts of three. One even wore his helmet.
As Pel watched, they swayed gently in the wind; one swollen hand brushed lightly against the damp gray stone of the castle wall.
If Dibbs had thought this was a story, he’d probably thought he was the hero, and now he was nothing but a warning to anyone who came after him.
Pel realized that he had stopped walking, that the entire party, even Ted, had stopped, that all nine of them were looking up at the dangling corpses.
“Now what?” he asked. He swallowed; his throat was suddenly dry.
“Now we go on,” Raven said angrily. “We’ve yet no choice.”
“That’s the lieutenant,” Sawyer said.
“That changes nothing,” Raven answered.
“Where are the others, though?” Singer asked, craning his neck to see the faces. “Where’s Dawber? Or Moore? Or Smallwood, or Twidman?”
“Wilkins isn’t there, either,” Prossie pointed out.
“They’re probably hanging around the other side,” Sawyer said.
“Why would they be on the other side?” Amy asked bitterly. “We were coming in this way, and Shadow knew it—it hung them up there to tease us.”
“Maybe there wasn’t enough left of the others to hang up there,” Susan said quietly.
“Oh, thanks, lady,” Sawyer growled. “You really know how to cheer a fellow up!”
“Or maybe Shadow’s just playing with us, trying to make us wonder about the others,” Amy said.
“Or maybe they really got away,” Pel suggested. “Maybe Shadow’s not as omnipotent as it would like.” He didn’t say anything about it out loud, but he found himself wondering if perhaps Wilkins or one of the others might be the actual hero of the tale. Maybe Spaceman First Class Ronnie Wilkins would appear at the last moment, guns blazing, to save Pel and the others from Shadow’s clutches—if he had guns that could blaze here. Blasters couldn’t.
In the Empire of Shadow Page 22
