The Reign of the Brown Magician Read online

  Still, swords seemed more appropriate to Shadow’s world. Shadow itself relied on its super-scientific “magic,” but its slaves didn’t seem to, and in fact much of the “magic” didn’t seem to operate in normal space.

  Or maybe these had been members of Raven’s resistance movement. Bascombe didn’t think much of Raven of Stormcrack Keep—the man was obsessive and abysmally ignorant, determined to fight Shadow’s science with…

  With swords.

  This was all getting very complicated—Shadow, Earth, and Raven were all possibilities.

  If the telepaths hadn’t made it all up.

  “Lieutenant,” Bascombe said, “I want one of these corpses brought here to Base One, as fast as possible. Make sure the sword comes with it, and someone who saw everything as it was first found—not a telepath.”

  “Yes, sir.” The messenger turned to go.

  “And,” Bascombe added loudly, “send the telepath Carrie Hall up here.”

  * * * *

  Major Reginald Johnston sat at his desk, staring at the fancy silver pen he’d gotten as an award two years before, rolling it between his fingers as he tried to think it all through logically.

  Sherlock Holmes always said that when you had eliminated the impossible, whatever remained, however unlikely, had to be the truth—but how did you know what was really impossible?

  Which was impossible, and which merely incredibly unlikely?

  The three of them were all reasonably consistent in their stories. Details varied, of course, but not to the point of finding any actual contradictions. Deranian insisted that the whole thing was a dream or hallucination, and would only talk about it with a psychologist, and only on those terms; Jewell didn’t claim to understand any of it, only to be reporting what she thought she had experienced; but Thorpe, if that was really her name, was the tough one, as she claimed to actually be from one of these other universes.

  And that should have been easy to disprove, but it wasn’t.

  So either it was all true, and the United States had blown a chance to make peaceful contact with aliens not just from another planet, but from another universe entirely, or else the whole thing was the most elaborate and inexplicable hoax Johnston had ever heard of.

  It didn’t make sense as a hoax—but a Galactic Empire in another universe? Wizards and castles in a third?

  If it was a hoax, how did the hoaxers get that spaceship there? Why hadn’t anything leaked in the months since it crashed? Who was Proserpine Thorpe? Where did she and the others come from? Where did they go?

  What did Sherlock Holmes say to do after you had eliminated the impossible, and found there was nothing left?

  For months, ever since that impossible spaceship had fallen out of nowhere and the case had been dumped in his lap, Johnston had been looking for an explanation. He had thought that when he found some of the missing people he would have that explanation.

  He supposed he did have an explanation now—but he didn’t like it, and he didn’t want to believe it.

  All the same, he had to cover the bases. If it is true, he asked himself, tapping his fancy silver pen on the worn spot on the blotter, if it is true, what do I do about it?

  A Galactic Empire. An all-powerful wizard.

  Hell, it was simple enough, really; the first thing any commander does is collect information, scout out the territory. Even when the territory was in another universe, that rule still held.

  And you pass the information up the chain of command, keep headquarters informed—but how in hell could he tell anyone about this one? If he didn’t really believe it, how could he convince anyone higher up?

  And that brought him to the first rule, not of military strategy, but of political strategy: CYA.

  He would file the appropriate reports, full of qualifiers and ambiguity, and other than that he wouldn’t say a damn thing to anyone until he could provide proof. He would investigate the hell out of everything, have the Brown house searched right down to the foundations, have Jewell and Deranian and Thorpe watched every minute, send someone to check out whether there was any research being done on…on what? Other dimensions?

  The Golden Fleece Award people on that senator’s staff might know—research like that would be right up their alley.

  He put down the pen and reached for the intercom.

  * * * *

  Pel looked over the motley crew he had gathered before his throne. Colored light flickered across black clothing, black leather, glossy black fur—Shadow’s color scheme had been pretty limited. Maybe she saw enough colors from the matrix, Pel thought.

  He counted nine fetches—kitchen help, mostly, but since Pel could draw all the energy he needed from the matrix, he didn’t need to eat, so why should he maintain a kitchen?

  There were four hairless, black-skinned homunculi, human in appearance except for their color; three of them, two male and one female, were naked. Pel had no idea what purpose they had served, why Shadow had created them, but he had found them and been able to make them obey him.

  There were about a dozen other creatures, but most of them Pel had no name for; Shadow had apparently been fond of experimenting, and had often been generous with claws, teeth, scales, and tentacles. Two could reasonably be called hounds, and one resembled a panther, but the others weren’t so easily classified.

  Hundreds of other creatures lived in the fortress—if they were really alive—and there were literally thousands more in the surrounding marsh and the forests beyond, but Pel hadn’t yet managed to gain control of all those.

  He didn’t see much use for the sluglike marsh-monsters, in any case. The dragon might have been nice, but he had killed that—which reminded him, he should incinerate the remains before they began to stink.

  Most of the rest of Shadow’s creatures he just hadn’t gotten to yet.

  So he had about two dozen obedient servants, of various shapes, none of them particularly appealing.

  “All right,” he said, “I want all of you to go out of this place, and go out to the villages, and bring back people. Alive. Don’t hurt them. I want to talk to them. Understand?”

  Roughly a score of heads nodded.

  Pel hesitated.

  “No children,” he added. He didn’t want to terrorize any kids. “Adults only. For that matter, make it men only.” This was a primitive and sexist world he was in; he didn’t want to worry about the sexual politics of the situation. He looked at some of the non-humanoid creatures, and asked, “Can you tell men from women?”

  The bobbing movements, hissings, and grunts looked and sounded like agreement.

  “Good. Okay, then go.” He sat back on the throne as his audience turned away.

  He didn’t know how to send them after anyone in particular, but he figured that out of any random group of men they might bring in there would be someone he could make use of, as a messenger at the very least, maybe as a deputy or more.

  And he had to send several of the things because he didn’t know whether he could trust any one of them to do the job, or how people would react. If he only sent one, as a trial, it might get killed by some panicky peasant, or it might fall in a bog somewhere—he wasn’t sure how bright most of these creatures were.

  Besides, he wouldn’t mind having enough of a sample of the population to be at least slightly representative. You didn’t test a new product on just one potential buyer; he wanted to have a few people brought in.

  They might even find poor Tom Sawyer, if he was still alive out there somewhere.

  Pel blinked.

  “Wait,” he called.

  The pack of monsters paused in the doorway of the throne room; two of the homunculi turned back to face him, but the fetches and most of the rest simply stopped where they were.

  Spaceman Sawyer was still out there somewhere, either alive or dead, and Pel had completely forgotten about him until just now.

  How could he have been so thoughtless?

  He had been busy, he had had
other problems to worry about, but it was still unforgivable. He had left an Imperial soldier wandering around in Faerie, trapped out there, when he, Pel, could have sent him home to the Galactic Empire in a matter of minutes.

  And not just Sawyer, who had turned back at the fortress gate; there was Ron Wilkins, as well, who had deserted the party days before, somewhere in the villages this side of Starlinshire. And there might be other survivors of the Imperial landing party, as well—most had stayed at the ship with Lieutenant Dibbs, and while most of that group had later turned up dead, Pel knew at least a couple were still unaccounted-for.

  He could send any of them who were still alive back to their home universe.

  And if they hadn’t disguised themselves, they’d be easy to spot. They had all been wearing those silly Buck Rogers uniforms the Galactic Empire used.

  “Purple,” he told his waiting servants. “You find any men wearing purple, you bring them to me. Whatever men you can find, bring them here, but especially if they’re wearing purple!”

  * * * *

  They had even given her her car back; Amy knew she shouldn’t complain. They’d provided some sandwiches—soggy and stale, but genuine Earth food, without any of the strange off tastes of the Empire or Faerie. They’d just been doing their jobs, and that Major Johnston had really been very reasonable, given how incredible the whole thing sounded.

  But still, she was furious.

  They were going to be watching her house every minute, they admitted it. They were tapping her phone. She wasn’t to leave the state overnight.

  She ought to have a lawyer; this couldn’t be constitutional, watching her like this. But Susan was dead.

  Should she call Bob Hough?

  She looked right as she came to an intersection, and had to lean forward to see past Prossie; that reminded her of the telepath’s presence.

  Poor Prossie would need help settling in, and having Bob Hough around wouldn’t help any with that. Amy needed to see the doctor, and Bob Hough wouldn’t help with that, either—in fact, from some remarks he had made during the divorce hearings, Amy didn’t think Bob would approve of her getting an abortion, even if he believed her about the father being a rapist and murderer, which he probably wouldn’t.

  The damn government people would see her going to the doctor, would probably find out all about it—she hadn’t mentioned her pregnancy to Major Johnston, since it wasn’t anyone’s business but her own.

  She didn’t want the government to know about it. What if they decided that the baby was some sort of valuable specimen, living proof that Earthpeople and Imperials could interbreed? Maryland might have legal guarantees of a woman’s right to an abortion, but she was pretty sure the feds could find a way around that if they wanted to.

  She frowned as she drove on through the intersection. She was making it sound like some trashy late-night movie, thinking about “aliens” breeding with human women—with her. This wasn’t science fiction, and she wasn’t some silly heroine in a tight skirt and heels who was no use for anything but screaming, and Walter wasn’t an alien, he was just a bastard—a dead bastard. She didn’t want his kid, and she wasn’t going to carry it.

  If anyone tried to interfere with that, then she’d call a lawyer.

  * * * *

  It was raining again, and Pel was back on the battlement, looking out over the marsh. Wind whistled around the stone of the tower and sprayed water across the wall, and water pattered unevenly from the broken gargoyle.

  He didn’t let the sound bother him this time, at least not consciously; after all, he was doing everything he could to bring Rachel back. His messengers had gone out into the world of Faerie, and until they returned, what else should he be doing? The dragon was reduced to ash, Lieutenant Dibbs and the other dead Imperials were buried, and Susan’s corpse was as well-preserved as he could manage.

  All he could do was wait.

  He could feel the matrix surging and flowing around him, all that power at his disposal—but he didn’t know what to do with it.

  Waiting was always hard, especially waiting alone. If he had someone to talk to, he thought, it might not be so bad.

  For a moment he considered opening a portal to Earth and sending a messenger to find Amy Jewell and bring her here. She knew his situation, she had been through it all with him; he could talk to her.

  So had Ted Deranian, of course, but he had cracked under the strain. And Prossie Thorpe, but she wasn’t from Earth, they didn’t have a common background. It would have to be Amy or no one, he thought.

  It was foolish, though; Amy was probably getting on with her own life, trying to get her decorating business back on track, catching up on everything she had missed while they were all trapped in the Empire and in Faerie. She wouldn’t appreciate being dragged away.

  Besides, it would take time to find another fetch or homunculus and break it to obedience, time for it to find its way to Amy once it was on Earth, time to bring her back—by then his messengers would probably be returning.

  There were still plenty of non-human creatures around the fortress—hellbeasts, Raven had called most of them—but those wouldn’t do; they couldn’t live in non-magical universes. The ones Shadow had sent into the Galactic Empire had all died within hours, according to everything Pel had seen and heard. Earth’s space was different from Imperial space, but Pel didn’t think it was any­more magical.

  Fetches and homunculi were sufficiently human to function in the Empire, and presumably on Earth, but he had used up every cooperative surviving fetch and homunculus he could readily find, sending them all out as messengers.

  About a hundred fetches had died—or rather, been destroyed; fetches were already dead—in the fight with Shadow. That had left the place somewhat understaffed.

  He sensed through the matrix that there were still creatures he had not seen deep in the subterranean depths of the fortress, and some of them were probably homunculi—but it just wasn’t worth the trouble of going down there and finding them and enchanting them into obedience, and then sending them to Earth, where they wouldn’t know how to drive or use the phone and they’d probably just get run over trying to cross a street.

  Besides, what good would it really do to talk to Amy? What did she know about Nancy or Rachel, about losing loved ones? It wasn’t as if the two of them had been friends before all this started; they hadn’t even known each other.

  And really, Pel and Amy hadn’t hit it off all that well while they were traveling together, either. Pel remembered Amy weeping with exhaustion, Amy vomiting by the side of the road, Amy shouting hysterically…

  He didn’t need company that badly.

  He would wait.

  * * * *

  Under-Secretary Bascombe looked down at the black-garbed corpse, then over at the sword next to it, and finally up at the soldier accompanying it.

  “You were there when they found them?” Bascombe asked.

  “Yessir.”

  “It looked just like this?”

  “Ah, well…not exactly.” The soldier hesitated; Bascombe favored him with an inquisitive glare.

  “Well, what I mean is, it was fresher; we didn’t have anywhere good to put it on ice on the ship here, sir.”

  “Oh, of course.” He looked down again. “But it was dressed like this? Had the blaster wound in the chest? And the sword?”

  “Yessir.”

  Bascombe nodded. He turned to the doctor beside him. “How long’s he been dead?”

  “Well, Mr. Secretary, that’s hard to say…” The doctor fumbled with the buttons of his white lab coat.

  “Try,” Bascombe said tartly.

  The doctor sighed. “Well, sir,” he said, “there are conflicting signs. Some of the evidence of overall decay indicates a death within the past three days, while tissue desiccation would seem to indicate a much earlier demise. Seems to me that despite what the sergeant here says, someone’s made partially-successful attempts to preserve this fellow’s
remains. Either that, or he was not at all well for some time before his death.”

  That figured, Bascombe thought; the entire thing was confusing, so why should even so simple a detail as time of death be any different?

  The corpse did prove a few things, though.

  First off, it was real—something mysterious had happened where the telepaths reported it, it wasn’t all a fabrication. Everything the telepaths had reported that could be readily checked on had been checked on, and it was all true.

  If there was some sort of conspiracy or rebellion under way among the telepaths, it was undetectably subtle—and since there was no obvious way the telepaths could have obtained these mysterious corpses, the plotters must also have hitherto unseen, unknown resources.

  Second, the corpse was dressed in the manner of some of the people who took part in previous incursions made by Shadow, and armed with a sword; there was nothing to connect it in any way with Earth. No one had ever found any evidence that Earth had inter-dimensional capabilities; the Empire’s own crash program had taken five years to produce the space-warp generator once they knew it was theoretically possible to travel between universes, and Earth, which had no anti-gravity, no blasters, and little semblance of the Empire’s applied science, had supposedly known of the Empire’s existence for no more than a few months.

  If Earth was involved, then the Earthpeople had hitherto unseen, unknown resources, and were being undetectably subtle.

  In other words, if either the telepaths or the Earthpeople were behind this, the Empire was outmatched—but all the evidence pointed to Shadow.

  Shadow was definitely up to something.

  The question was, up to what?

  Chapter Four

  One man had died of fright.

  Pel hadn’t expected anything like that; for a few moments guilt closed his throat, and he blinked away tears.

  He should have expected it—the poor sucker had been abducted without warning, captured by a pair of zombies and dragged off to the fortress of a world-conquering evil power, a power well known for hanging and disembowelling its enemies.