The Reign of the Brown Magician

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “What…” he said, mouth dry. “What charge?”

  “Treason,” the guardsman said.

  And Bascombe knew that whatever happened, whether he lived or died, was acquitted or convicted, that with a treason charge on his record, even if it was dismissed as a mistake, he was never, ever going to be Secretary of Science.

  * * * *

  Pel brought the cylinders through the front gate, up the great staircase to the throne room, where some of the inhabitants of the fortress were awaiting his return.

  He didn’t pay much attention.

  He knew, in a vague, detached sort of way, that he had been awake and active for far too long. He had spent most of the day that was ending in the air, riding the winds hither and yon; he had spent the night before carving wooden message-boards and sending them through portals into the Empire. And that had followed the day in which he located and destroyed the Empire’s second attempted invasion.

  And he hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours or more.

  He hadn’t eaten anything but a bite or two of corned beef in weeks.

  He was letting the matrix support him—and it was doing so, so that he still wasn’t physically tired, but he knew he ought to sleep, he knew that he wasn’t thinking clearly any­more. It wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t safe.

  But he had the bodies, at last. He had the bodies. He had his family back.

  He looked up and saw Susan Nguyen standing in the doorway, and he smiled. There she was, the proof that he could restore the dead.

  But of course, he would have to repair the bodies first, Nancy’s especially.

  And there was the false Nancy now, standing at Susan’s side, and she could serve him as a model.

  “Come here,” he called, “both of you!”

  * * * *

  “Did you, or did you not, order an officer of the Imperial Intelligence Service to arrest one Pellinore Brown, also known as Pelbrun the Brown Magician?” the presiding officer of the court—Bascombe wasn’t sure just what the correct title was, or for that matter what the exact nature of this hearing was—demanded.

  No one worried about telling the accused such unnecessary details in an affair like this.

  “I don’t know,” Bascombe said. “Did I? Why does it matter?”

  The judge, if that was what he was, sat back in his chair. “Pellinore Brown,” he said, “is a reigning head of state. To order his arrest is an act of war. To commit an act of war against a friendly nation in the Empire’s name is an act of treason. Now, do you deny issuing that order?”

  Bascombe glanced at the silent young woman sitting in the corner of the room. “What difference does it make? You’ve got a telepath there; you know whether I did it better than I know myself.”

  “We would prefer to have your own words on the record.”

  “I don’t remember whether I issued such an order,” Bascombe said, truthfully. “I may have. I wasn’t aware that the Empire had recognized Pellinore Brown as a head of state, or that his nation was a friendly one. I didn’t know there was such a thing as a friendly nation.”

  The judge glanced at the woman, who nodded.

  Bascombe watched the judge’s face, and thought he saw something there, something that might have been a trace of disappointment.

  And John Bascombe suppressed a sigh of relief; he was fairly sure that that disappointment meant that at least so far, his answers had not condemned him to death.

  * * * *

  At last, when he had been unable to organize the matrix currents properly to repair Nancy’s intestines despite three attempts, Pel gave up and found a bed.

  He awoke with no idea how long he had slept, and no interest in finding out; he returned immediately to the throne room, to resume work on the bodies.

  It took hours; the damage to Nancy’s body was extensive, severe, and often subtle. Tissues had been burned, frozen, dehydrated, attacked in dozens of ways, and everything had to be perfect.

  He took a break every so often; he didn’t want to risk screwing anything up through fatigue.

  At last, though, he had them both ready, the bodies repaired but lifeless.

  They weren’t going to stay lifeless, though; at long last, he was about to raise them both from the dead.

  And Nancy would be first.

  * * * *

  “They’re in chaos,” Miletti said. “The Emperor’s royally pissed off by the whole affair. He’s convinced the whole thing should have been turned over to the spies right from the start, that the military and the scientists had no business keeping it to themselves and that his Prime Minister or General Secretary or whatever he’s called should have known better.”

  “And how’s this affect us?” Johnston asked.

  Miletti shrugged.

  “They don’t care about us,” Miletti said.

  Then he added as an afterthought, “At least, not yet they don’t.”

  * * * *

  Nancy’s eyes opened, and she stared upward for a fraction of a second; then she closed them, tight, and flung an arm across them protectively.

  “The matrix,” Susan suggested. “She’s never seen it before.”

  Pel had forgotten that; he quickly fought down the glow, reduced it to a dim flickering, no brighter than a few candles. He was relieved that he had allowed Susan to stay when he sent all the others away; he had become so accustomed to the matrix, and to his own immunity to its brilliance, that he might not have identified the problem for a minute or two, and he didn’t want to waste even a second.

  He remembered how the simulacrum had reacted when she first awoke; if this one did the same thing then he would know he had failed, and it would all be over.

  “Nancy?” he said.

  The eyes opened again, the arm lifted, and she looked up at his worried face. She looked at the beard, at the unkempt long hair, and then at his eyes.

  She blinked, and stared into his eyes for a long moment.

  “Pel?” she said at last, and the Brown Magician smiled the most wonderful smile of his life.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It was perfect. It was, Pel thought, really almost perfect. It wasn’t at all like that first night with the simulacrum of Nancy. It wasn’t like any night ever before, not even their honeymoon.

  At first Nancy had asked about Rachel—Pel hadn’t told her where Rachel was, or that she was dead; he had merely told her that their daughter was safe, that he would explain everything later.

  She had still wondered, in a half-hearted way, but she hadn’t argued too strenuously.

  And she had asked where they were, and Pel had told her they were in Faerie, but it was all right, Shadow was dead and they were safe, he would explain it all later.

  And she had asked about the glow, the strange colors flickering around him, and he had told her that it was magic, but it was under control, he would explain later.

  And she had asked about his beard and hair, and he told her he’d been too busy to shave lately, but he’d clean himself up when he had a moment.

  And she had asked how she got there, and he said she had been unconscious for a long time, but she was all right now.

  And then she had run out of questions and he had taken her in his arms, and it had been damn near perfect.

  At first.

  But then he woke up beside her, and looked at her sleeping there, and he thought it over.

  She shouldn’t have been aware of any long separation. She had died just a dozen yards away from him, aboard that ship; they had been together until just hours before. Yet she had acted as if they were reunited after months apart.

  They were, but how would she know?

  Was it just his own altered appearance that had let her know? That shouldn’t have been enough, he thought—it wouldn’t have had the emotional impact she seemed to have felt. Had she been somehow aware while she was dead? Had he snatched her back from Heaven, perhaps?

  Pel had never really believed in Heaven, and he still didn’t—bu
t he had never believed in a lot of things he had seen for himself of late.

  And she hadn’t argued with him about anything, not really. She hadn’t insisted on knowing where Rachel was, or who was looking after her.

  Well, there must have been something of a shock, going from being raped aboard a spaceship to waking up in a magician’s castle.

  And she hadn’t mentioned being raped, but all the survivors of Emerald Princess had said she was raped before the pirates killed her.

  There hadn’t been any physical evidence that Pel could see, but after all, the body had been in such terrible condition that he wouldn’t have noticed anything whether it had been there or not, and why would the others have lied?

  So she had been raped—and how could she go so willingly from that to her husband’s bed? It didn’t seem right, somehow.

  That first fetch he had restored had screamed at the memory of what had happened to him; Nancy hadn’t. Why not?

  Pel frowned, and told himself that he was worrying about nothing, trying to ruin his own happiness with all these niggling little worries. Maybe years spent as Shadow’s fetch were far more horrible than what Nancy had lived through. Maybe she didn’t remember being raped; he hadn’t asked her about it, so he didn’t really know. Maybe she had blocked out those last few minutes. Or maybe that was why she had been eager enough to not ask more about Rachel, maybe she had wanted something clean and good to wipe away the memory.

  This was Nancy. She had known his name when she first woke up. She had asked about Rachel, even if she hadn’t insisted. She had responded just about the way Nancy always had, nothing had been wrong or strange—until now, until he sat here thinking too much.

  Had she been a little slow to react to things, a little detached?

  Well, she had been dead.

  He got up and had the matrix drape a robe about him, leaving Nancy undisturbed.

  There wasn’t anything wrong with her.

  There wasn’t, he told himself as he walked down the stone corridor, finding his way in his own light, anything wrong with her.

  But somewhere in the back of his head he remembered something Shadow had said before she died.

  The exact words were hard to recall, given her archaic phrasing, but he thought he had it. “I can instill therein a semblance of life, indistinguishable by any normal means from any mortal born,” she had said, “yet some certain spark is lacking.”

  She had been referring to the ability of a resurrected person to use magic, to hold a matrix, Pel reminded himself. Nancy could never be a magician—but who cared?

  That was all Shadow had meant, Pel told himself.

  It was still Nancy. She was alive again.

  And in an hour or so, Rachel would be, too.

  * * * *

  His Imperial Majesty George VIII drummed his fingers on a six-hundred-year-old table and considered his disgraced General Secretary, delivered directly from the spaceport to the palace and rushed hastily through security.

  “Bucky, whatever were you thinking of?” he asked.

  “I don’t know what you mean, your Majesty,” Sheffield replied uneasily.

  “We mean why did you persist in antagonizing this Brown person? You know better than that.”

  “I’m not sure I do, your Majesty,” Sheffield said. “I did what seemed best to me.”

  “We’re disappointed, then. Why in the world didn’t you just give him his dead wife back? What possible harm could that have done?”

  “I am not quite sure, your Majesty, and I preferred to err on the side of caution. Secretary Markham seemed to believe that the so-called ‘magic’ at Mr. Brown’s disposal might be able to make some use of the woman’s remains.”

  “And what possible use could be worse for us than getting Brown furiously angry?” the Emperor asked. “And not only that, Bucky, but you lied to the man—you promised delivery, then balked. He did everything you asked—do you realize he ordered his entire network of spies to swear loyalty to us? To us, personally? That was more than anyone asked, and entirely his own idea, and he didn’t even bother to mention it. The man was being as friendly as he could be, and how did we respond?”

  “Um,” Sheffield said. “But your Majesty, he…the Empire cannot afford to appear weak.”

  “Oh, nonsense. The Empire isn’t weak, so it doesn’t really matter how we appear. Except that it’s much easier to stab someone from behind, and an enemy will never turn his back, while a friend won’t give it a second thought, so we should have done all we could to appear friendly. We should have turned over the bodies immediately.”

  Sheffield swallowed. “So Secretary Markham came to believe,” he said.

  After all, just because his own career was ruined, that didn’t mean that he had to drag innocents down with him.

  “And what did Albright, your other partner in crime, think?”

  “I’m not sure he voiced an opinion, your Majesty. Marshal Albright quite properly thinks in terms of means, rather than ends, as a military man should.”

  “A good soldier knows when to offer suggestions, Bucky, even if he doesn’t try to force them on anyone,” the Emperor said gently. “It may be time for Marshal Albright to retire honorably.”

  That wasn’t so bad, really, Sheffield thought.

  “General Hart will be court-martialled,” the Emperor said. “John Bascombe’s already up on a charge of treason, and he’s guilty, but I don’t think we’ll hang him, as he’s not so much dangerous as he is stupid. The telepaths identify those two as responsible for a great deal of the bumbling prior to Mr. Brown’s ascension, and some of the mishaps afterward.” He smiled. “The rest, we’re afraid, was largely your own doing—well-intentioned, but wrong.”

  “The telepaths, your Majesty?”

  “Oh, yes, Bucky—there’s nothing in the world more useful in untangling a mess like this than the network of telepaths. We wish we had a million of them, not just a few hundred.”

  Sheffield shifted uneasily. He wanted to say something about the untrustworthiness of the mutants for anything beyond interrogation and long-distance communication, but he couldn’t think how to phrase it properly.

  “You don’t like them, do you?” the Emperor asked. “The greater fool you, then. Don’t you know they’re just people? They want to be liked and appreciated, and most people hate their guts—they must be miserable. All you have to do is like them a little, and they’ll love you in return. And we do like them.” He grinned. “They could tell if we were faking, after all.” The smile faded.

  “And right now,” he said, “we can’t think of anyone better to run things until they’re straightened out than the telepaths.”

  He paused, then added, “Under our own direction, of course.”

  * * * *

  Rachel sat up and blinked.

  This time Pel had suppressed the visible portion of the matrix in advance; he sat there looking as ordinary as he could contrive to look. He’d combed out his hair and trimmed both his hair and his beard somewhat, but he hadn’t managed to shave.

  He hadn’t shaved for several days before he and Rachel were separated, so that shouldn’t be too strange, and otherwise he thought he looked pretty much as Rachel would remember him.

  Except for the robe, anyway; he hadn’t bothered to find any Earth-style clothing. And they were in a bare, candle-lit stone chamber that wasn’t terribly friendly looking.

  “Where am I, Daddy?” Rachel said.

  “You’re in a place called Faerie, honey,” Pel replied.

  “You’re dressed funny,” she said. Then she looked down and squealed, “And I’m not dressed at all!”

  “You’ve been sick, Rachel, very sick,” Pel said. He hesitated, then asked, “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  Rachel looked up at him, thought for moment, then said solemnly, “The bad man squeezing my neck.” She added, “It hurt a lot.”

  Pel swallowed. “The bad man is gone,” he said. “The soldiers
in the purple uniforms came and took him away, and he’s gone forever. But he’d hurt you so bad it took magic to fix it, so I came here and learned to do magic, and here you are, all better.”

  “Do I have to stay here?”

  “No,” Pel said, smiling as he tried to keep his eyes from tearing, “no, you can go home if you want.”

  “What about you and Mommy? Will you go home? Is Mommy all right?”

  “We’re both fine, honey,” Pel said.

  “She isn’t dead?”

  “No, she isn’t dead,” Pel said. He managed to keep himself from adding, “Not any­more.” Rachel wouldn’t have understood.

  “Can I see her?”

  “Sure,” Pel said. “Come on.”

  * * * *

  “So he’s got the bodies back,” Johnston remarked as he led Amy and Prossie down the front walk of Miletti’s suburban home. “Think he can really resurrect them?”

  “Shadow said she could raise the dead,” Amy replied.

  “But Pel isn’t Shadow,” Prossie pointed out. “He’s got the power, but does he know how to use it?”

  “You sound like someone in a bad movie, saying that,” Johnston said. He hastily added, “No offense meant.”

  “Pel obviously thinks he can do it,” Amy said.

  “Or at least hopes he can,” Prossie corrected her. “And for all we know, Shadow was lying in the first place.”

  Johnston opened the car door for the women.

  “I don’t think she was lying,” Amy said, as Prossie climbed in. “But I think she said something about the resurrected people not being quite the same.”

  “Like in Pet Sematary?” Johnston asked. “They come back evil, or something?”

  Amy shook her head, then seated herself. “I don’t think it was anything like that; just they’re a bit less lively, or something.”

  Johnston shrugged. “Well, it still sounds like a happy ending to me, then,” he said.

  He slammed the car door and circled around to the driver’s side.

  * * * *

  Pel watched as Nancy and Rachel embraced. He had wiped away his tears, but was still grinning so broadly that his jaws hurt.

  They didn’t cry, he noticed. Neither of them did. They smiled, but that was all.