The Reign of the Brown Magician

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “Sounds genuine to me,” Begley answered.

  “I don’t know.” He hesitated, then motioned to Morcambe. “Sid,” he said, “you finish up, and then head back to the landing site—they’re supposed to drop a ladder every four hours, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re off schedule. When they drop it, you climb back and tell them what we just heard.”

  “What about you?” Morcambe asked.

  “I’m going on to Shadow’s fortress,” Best said. “I intend to see for myself, get a look at this Brown Magician if I can.”

  Begley shifted uneasily.

  “If you and Poole want to back out, we’ll talk about it,” Best said. “Chances are I’ll send you back with reports before I get that far anyway.”

  “Yes, sir,” Begley said, trying unsuccessfully not to look relieved.

  * * * *

  Shock, Pel told himself. The shock of her death and resurrection had damaged her memory, but it would come back with time, he was sure.

  “Yes,” he said. “Your name is Nancy Brown. You’re my wife.”

  She sat up, legs still straight out in front of her, and stared at him.

  “All right,” she said.

  “Don’t you remember?” he asked.

  She frowned slightly. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I know things, I remember things, but it’s all sort of vague.”

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked hopefully.

  She squinted at him. “No,” she said. “Except…you created me, didn’t you? You’re the magician who created me?”

  Why would she think of magicians? That didn’t sound right. Pel was suddenly afraid that something had gone very wrong. “I’m your husband, Pellinore Brown,” he said, “and I didn’t create you—I’ve brought you back from the dead.”

  “Was I dead?”

  Pel nodded; his throat suddenly felt thick and clogged with emotion, and he couldn’t speak.

  “I don’t remember that,” she said. She cocked her head and looked at him, smiling sweetly, the movement and expression heart-wrenchingly familiar—though it was something Pel hadn’t seen since a few days before Grummetty had walked out of the basement wall. His doubts vanished; that gesture was Nancy’s.

  “You were dead,” he said. “You were killed by raiders on Emerald Princess, and I came here and killed Shadow so I could get you back, you and Rachel.”

  “I don’t remember that,” she said again—not smiling, this time.

  “It’s probably shock,” Pel said. “Traumatic amnesia, or something, like on TV. It’ll come back to you eventually, I think.”

  It struck him how bizarre this scene was—Nancy sitting calmly there on the table, stark naked, while the eerie, shifting patterns of the matrix flickered about her, filling the stone-walled, stone-floored chamber with vivid color.

  She wasn’t a screaming fury like the revenants in Pet Sematary, she wasn’t possessed by demons—not visibly, anyway—but she wasn’t frightened or upset, either, nor as confused as Pel thought she ought to be. She was just accepting it all—she hadn’t asked about the matrix effects, or why he was wearing his present makeshift attire of loose black blouse and homespun trousers, or why she was nude, or most importantly, where she was.

  She hadn’t asked anything except in response to his own words.

  It had to be the shock, and the amnesia.

  “What should I do now?” she asked, and he was unreasonably relieved to hear her ask it.

  “Whatever you want,” he said. “I’m so…it’s just…I’m so glad to have you back!”

  She turned and dangled her feet off the side of the table. “You missed me?” she asked.

  “Of course!”

  “How long was I dead?”

  “I don’t know, exactly—I’ve lost track of time. Weeks. Months.” He watched as she slid off the table to stand on her own two feet.

  “Ooh, the floor’s cold!” she said. She looked down and danced from one foot to the other.

  That was more than Pel could stand. He stepped around the table and swept her up in his arms.

  At the feel of her warm, bare flesh, the weight of her in his arms after so long alone, his body responded instantly. He bent his neck and kissed her.

  When their mouths parted he remembered himself enough to say, “There’s a bedroom down the hall.”

  He hoped she would say no, or take the initiative wordlessly, or otherwise encourage him to take her here and now, on the rough wood of the table; he feared she would refuse, would draw back, either because she didn’t remember him or because, after all, she had just awoken from the dead, she might need time to recover.

  For a moment, he wasn’t even certain she knew what he meant.

  But she smiled and said, “All right.”

  * * * *

  “Ms. Jewell,” Johnston said, “I had the impression there was something you wanted to tell me.”

  Amy Jewell shifted uneasily. “Well,” she said, “it’s just…you said there wasn’t any way we could get at the Empire.”

  “I guess I did, yes,” Johnston agreed.

  Jewell gestured helplessly.

  “I take it you think there is a way, then?” Johnston asked. “I assure you, Ms. Jewell, we don’t have any secret project that will open a path for us…”

  “No, not that,” she said, dismayed.

  “What, then?”

  “Well, you can send things through Pel, of course,” Jewell explained. “He can open a portal to the Empire any­time you want, and one to Earth, and you can send through whatever you want.”

  Johnston leaned back in his chair and stared at her.

  “That’s obvious,” he said slowly, “now that you’ve pointed it out. I’d thought of going through Faerie, of course, but it hadn’t occurred to me that Mr. Brown would help us.

  “But you know, he might. In fact, why shouldn’t he?”

  “I don’t know,” Amy replied.

  She still looked uneasy, though—and she knew Brown better than Johnston did. “I think,” he said, “that that’s something we’ll keep in mind, Ms. Jewell.”

  But he didn’t think they’d be in any hurry to ask favors of Pel Brown.

  * * * *

  The matrix flickered and dimmed as Pel lay back on the cool bedding. He felt a pool of sweat drying beneath him.

  The recreated Nancy lay beside him, saying nothing, smiling blandly.

  She had cooperated, had agreed to whatever he suggested—and had suggested nothing herself. She hadn’t mentioned the weird pyrotechnics of the matrix, even though she had never seen any of it while she lived. She hadn’t said anything unless he spoke first. She hadn’t resisted when he had proposed things Nancy had always found disgusting; she’d cooperated. She hadn’t commented on his endless, matrix-supplied energy.

  This wasn’t Nancy.

  Admitting that to himself caused a hard, sharp, physical pain in his belly, but he had to admit it. This wasn’t Nancy.

  He sat up again and looked down at the woman beside him in the bed, looked at her as only a matrix wizard could, using the magical network’s power to see into her in a way that was more than physical.

  This wasn’t Nancy. It wasn’t really human at all; the soul, if that was what it was, lacked the complexity of a living woman’s.

  This was an artificial being of his own creation.

  He knew that she would do anything he told her to, without argument. She had no visible will or personality of her own. This wasn’t Nancy. This wasn’t a real woman at all. This was a homunculus, a thing, not a real person.

  He hadn’t raised the dead; instead, he had found the way Shadow had created those duplicates Raven and others had mentioned, her spies, her doppelgangers.

  He supposed some men might even think that was enough—but he wanted Nancy.

  He wept silently, and she smiled up at him uncomprehendingly.

  * * * *

  “They’ve been collected, all of them, and brought to their capital cit
y,” Carrie Hall said. “All but Gwenyth, anyway.”

  “Why?” Secretary Markham demanded.

  “To try to talk to us, I think,” she answered uncertainly.

  Markham’s eyes narrowed. Telepaths weren’t supposed to be uncertain. He had an idea, a pretty good one, that a telepath only showed uncertainty when lying—they were never uncertain about what they had read, nor afraid to admit when they didn’t know something, but they could be uncertain, briefly, about how their lies were being received.

  “It’s a very difficult contact,” Carrie said, as if answering his thoughts. She was probably doing exactly that—snooping inadvertently, maybe without even realizing she was doing it. Markham knew a lot about telepaths, had worked with them for twenty years, and while everyone knew that snooping without orders was a crime, he knew that sometimes they couldn’t help it.

  “And the four of them haven’t been told why they were gathered,” Carrie added. “They’re guessing, and I’m working from their guesses.”

  Markham nodded. He turned to Carrie’s brother.

  “I’ve located a few possible contacts,” Brian said, anticipating Markham’s question—as Markham had expected him to. “I’ve found two of our own people. One is Samuel Best, the head of the intelligence squad Under-Secretary Bascombe sent, and the other is a trooper named Ronald Wilkins, who accompanied Lord Raven for a time and then deserted. He suspects himself to be the only survivor of Colonel Carson’s command.”

  “And what do they know about Shadow?”

  “It’s hard to read very much, sir—there are currents of energy that interfere. However, both our men have heard that Shadow is dead; Best has sent one of his men back for pick-up, to tell us as much. Apparently Shadow has been replaced by someone or something called the Brown Magician.”

  “Brown?” Markham glanced at Carrie, and at Bascombe. “Pel Brown, perhaps?”

  * * * *

  Pel debated whether or not he should destroy the false Nancy, and could reach no decision. He sat in Shadow’s throne, considering, arguing with himself.

  She was a mockery, a thing—but she was alive and she seemed so human, in her complacent and obedient way. She wasn’t Nancy—but was she a person, all the same?

  He had created her, but did that give him the right to destroy her?

  Or the obligation to destroy her?

  At least he hadn’t recreated Rachel, he told himself. Destroying a grown woman would be bad enough, but a false child…

  But maybe he should recreate Rachel. Wasn’t a simulacrum better than nothing? He had been so happy to have Nancy back at first, until he had realized it wasn’t her. He had so missed the warm companionship of a woman…

  But he didn’t want an imitation, damn it! He wanted Nancy. And Rachel. Not just this Nancy puppet in his bed.

  He looked up and saw Susan standing in the doorway, watching him.

  At least she was real, and not just a simulacrum, a magical imitation—she remembered her childhood in southeast Asia, remembered how she had died here in Shadow’s fortress. A simulacrum wouldn’t have known any of that.

  That was because he had simply repaired her dead body, forced life back into the corpse; he hadn’t had to make a new body for her. He couldn’t do that for Nancy or Rachel; he didn’t have their bodies.

  Red light surged up behind him and lit Susan’s face a ghastly color. Pel blinked at her, and forgot all about the imitation of his wife.

  He didn’t have Nancy’s body, or Rachel’s.

  But maybe he could get them.

  Chapter Eleven

  “The General Secretary has conferred with the Emperor,” the telepath said.

  “And?” Albright demanded.

  “The matter is being left to your discretion; His Imperial Majesty rests his full faith in your decision.”

  Albright swallowed, glanced at Markham, then nodded.

  “All right, then,” he said. “That gives us a free hand.”

  “Or enough rope,” Markham replied.

  “Or that,” Albright agreed.

  “I think, in that case, that our course is pretty clear.”

  Albright nodded. “’The wise warrior does not fight two foes at once,’” he quoted. “Nicholson may be out of style, but it’s still damn good advice.”

  “And, ‘Know which enemies to fight, and which to appease,’” Markham replied.

  “Right. And, ‘Know who the true enemy is.’”

  “Excuse me, sir,” said Stuart, Albright’s personal telepath. “Both of you find this exchange of aphorisms annoying.”

  Albright glanced up, startled, at the man behind his chair. “Right,” he said. “We can both quote Nicholson and Majors, and appreciate their common sense—take that as given. And that probably means that we agree on what we want to do—get back Lieutenant Austin and his men, talk nicely to the Earthpeople, and then shut down the warp and forget Earth. They’re not a threat.”

  “With one exception,” Markham said. “If we could develop the space-warp in response to Shadow’s inroads, perhaps they can develop something of their own, as well; the telepaths tell me that despite their apparently primitive science in many areas, they have their own areas of expertise in which they’re very adept indeed. I’m given to understand that their mechanical communications devices are far better than ours, almost good enough to make up for their lack of telepaths.”

  Albright frowned. “But they don’t have any such thing as a warp substitute now, do they?”

  “No, but they might someday. Don’t worry, Marshal, I’m not arguing with you—I agree, we should close off all direct contact with Earth until we’ve dealt with Shadow, or the Brown Magician, or whoever is running the opposition at present. I merely suggest that we delegate two telepaths, working in shifts, to maintain a watch on Earth.”

  Albright nodded. “Of course,” he said.

  “As for this Brown Magician—I think we want Imperial Intelligence to keep a very close watch there indeed, and for you to keep your men alert to any threat he might pose, but we don’t need to assume he’s necessarily hostile. After all, we don’t know whether he was Shadow’s heir, or whether he overthrew it.”

  “In short, we may have had the interdimensional crisis resolved for us, without our having to fight.”

  “Exactly.” Markham leaned back, smiling.

  The Emperor and the General Secretary had left this one to him and Albright, which meant their careers, and quite possibly their lives, were on the line—but he felt sure he was right in his actions. Earth was harmless unless they developed interdimensional travel, and this Brown Magician was a total unknown. No one could blame him for not attacking an unknown force immediately.

  Furthermore, cutting off Earth except for a telepathic watch and transferring Shadow’s realm to the combined attentions of the military and Imperial Intelligence would leave that nuisance of a political appointee, John Bascombe, with nothing to do. It might keep him out of trouble.

  And if not, Bascombe might make a convenient scapegoat, should one be needed.

  Albright might still be nervous, but Markham was not.

  Markham was quite pleased.

  * * * *

  “Hello, Angie,” Prossie said, kneeling by the little girl’s chair.

  It was odd to see Angie’s face as it really was, and not Angie’s rather different self-image.

  “Hello,” Angie said politely.

  Prossie smiled. “Do you know who I am?” she asked.

  Angie shook her head.

  “I’m Proserpine Thorpe.”

  Angie stared at her, and frowned. “You’re not Basurpathork,” she said. “That’s Mr. Nobody’s real name!”

  “That’s right,” Prossie said, nodding. “I was Mr. Nobody. Sometimes. Sometimes it was one of my cousins.”

  “But Mr. Nobody was just inside my head,” Angie objected.

  “No, that’s just how we talked to you.”

  “You aren’t talking in my head no
w.”

  “No, I’m not,” Prossie agreed. “I can’t do it any­more, I forgot how. But my cousins still can. And we want you to tell us any time they say anything to you, even if they ask you not to tell. All right?”

  Angie frowned.

  Angie’s mother leaned over. “Do what she says, Angie.”

  “But that’s not nice,” Angie protested. “That’s telling secrets.”

  “I know,” Prossie said. “It isn’t nice. It’s like spying, almost. But you see, that’s what my cousins are doing—they’re spying on you, and your mommy, and lots of other people.”

  “But Mr. Nobody’s nice!”

  Prossie nodded. “But there are bad people who are making my cousins do bad things. They can’t help it.” She waited for a moment, watching Angie’s face.

  “So,” Prossie said, “will you tell us if they talk to you?”

  Angie scuffed her toe on the blue hotel-room carpet. “I guess,” she said.

  * * * *

  Amy lay back in the bed and tried to be calm.

  At least, with all the fuss about the Galactic Empire, Major Johnston hadn’t interfered with her appointment. Walter’s baby was gone, and Amy was rid of the man who had raped her. She wasn’t about to forget what he’d done to her, he and Beth, but she didn’t need any physical reminders. The bruises were healed, the baby was gone, and she could get on with her life.

  She tried to tell herself that.

  The abortion had been a nasty, intrusive, humiliating experience. The doctor and the nurses had been nice enough, but the procedure itself…well, it couldn’t be helped, and it was over. The baby was gone.

  She tried not to feel any twinge of regret. She didn’t want children, she especially didn’t want Walter’s child, but still, the baby…

  She shouldn’t think of it as a baby, she told herself. The fetus. The tissue. Not the baby.

  And it was too late to do anything about it now, anyway.

  She could get on with her life.

  Of course, she wasn’t sure just what sort of a life that was going to be, with her business ruined and her house under martial law and Major Johnston enlisting her as an advisor pretty much whether she wanted it or not. It wasn’t as if she’d be going home from here; she’d be going to a fancy hotel in Crystal City, convenient to the Pentagon, at Air Force expense. She and Prossie had adjoining rooms.