Robbery or not, it was done, and the party was well along the dirt track that Raven insisted on calling a highway, passing farms and fields on their way to the ridgetop ruin. This time the Earthman had not hung back; instead he walked in the front, with the three natives of Faerie.
“We don’t have any hereditary nobility with special privileges back home,” Pel remarked to Raven as they walked. “Not any more, anyway.”
The nobleman glanced at the Earthman, but did not break stride or comment.
“I’m not complaining, I was as hungry as anyone,” Pel continued, “but back home, taking that woman’s food would have been outright theft.”
“’Twas hospitality, not theft,” Raven snapped. “The custom is required by the Goddess who brought forth all life, and has naught to do with the patents of nobility.”
“Well, but it was because you’re a member of the nobility that you thought you were entitled, wasn’t it?”
“Nay, of course not; these lands are not mine, nor am I brought here to guest, nor are you my retinue, that I’d have the right to feed you.” Raven paused, then remarked, “’Tis clear that your homeland’s customs are not as our own, friend Pel-hospitality to travelers is a religious duty put upon us by the Goddess, and any who walk Her green earth are entitled, merely by virtue of being Her children, to the boon of a single meal from any who dwell upon the land and share in Her bounty. ’Tis this right and duty that I sought to claim, not some privilege due my gentle birth.”
“Oh,” Pel said, comprehension dawning. “It’s a sort of tithe, you mean?”
“Aye, a tithe indeed,” Raven agreed, nodding. “I’d not thought you had the word. A tithe and a duty, yet one that that woman sought to deny us, so debased has this realm become under Shadow’s rule! Yon wife placed her duties to Shadow above all common duties to the Goddess-a greater disgrace to Shadow I cannot imagine.”
Pel suspected this was hyperbole; he could think of a great many things worse than abandoning the customs of traditional religion. He decided against saying so, however.
He squinted at the sun as it descended steadily toward the ridgetop before them. The sky was reddening about it, the wisps of cloud were edged in golden fire-it promised to be a spectacular sunset.
There was nothing abnormal or threatening about it at all, nothing reflecting Shadow’s alleged presence.
The lands to either side were green with the lush growth of spring, save where fresh-tilled fields showed rich and black, clean-edged and tidy squares set in the landscape, as if to break the monotony of green. Pel could see men and women and even children working in the fields, here and there; although none were near enough for a good hard look at their faces, they all seemed to be going about their business cheerfully enough. He saw no whips, no tears; backs were bent with labor, but not, so far as he could see, with undue hardship. The people didn’t appear to be suffering any more than peasants anywhere might suffer, be it medieval Europe or some Third World country in Africa or South America.
Yet this land was under Shadow’s rule, had been under Shadow’s rule for centuries, and the Faerie folk spoke of Shadow as this hideous monster, this unspeakable evil. When Pel had first heard Raven’s story he had immediately associated Shadow with Tolkien’s Dark Lord, Sauron; with Donaldson’s Lord Foul; with Bakshi’s Blackwolf; with all the evil powers of fantasy films and novels.
By those standards, this land should have been a blasted wilderness, all ash and stone; the people should be crippled by floggings and torture; the skies should be black with unnatural clouds.
None of that fit.
Not for the first time, but far less idly than ever before, Pel wondered whether Shadow might be less a villain than it was a victim of bad press.
* * * *
Despite the meal, despite the prospect of rescue and a return to Earth that lay ahead, Amy found herself wearing out quickly. She struggled to continue, to keep up with the others, but she felt weak and sick.
At least, she thought, she was able to keep down the stolen food. She pushed on, placing one foot ahead of the others, but the mound of brush and vine-wrapped stone atop the ridge seemed to be taking forever to draw any nearer.
The sun was reddening in the west and the sky darkening, they were finally at the foot of the ridge itself, and Amy was on the verge of collapse when Pel dropped back from the main group, coming even with Amy and Prossie, who had fallen behind.
“Hi,” the Earthman said. “You two doing okay, back here?”
Prossie glanced at Amy, who was in no hurry to answer. She shrugged and said, “I’m fine, I guess; I’ve been thinking, and keeping Amy here company.”
“I’m okay,” Amy said. “At least, I think I am. Tired, but otherwise I’m okay.”
“Not throwing up any more?” Pel asked.
Amy grimaced at this grotesque lack of tact. “Not throwing up,” she said. “Not feeling real good, maybe, but not throwing up.”
“I’ve been thinking about this Shadow thing,” Pel said. “I think maybe I had a wrong idea about it.”
Amy had been staring at her own feet, willing them to keep moving; now she looked up at Pel. “What sort of wrong idea?” she asked.
“Well, I’d been thinking of it as really being this all-encompassing evil that Raven claims it is-a big supernatural force, like in a horror movie or something. Like Sauron in The Lord of the Rings.”
“Yeah, so? Maybe it is. Raven seems to think so.” She jerked her head in Valadrakul’s direction. “And we know there’s real magic here.”
“But if it were,” Pel said, “then would everything here look so normal, here in Shadow’s own territory?” He gestured at the evening sky, the darkening fields, the looming ruin atop the ridge.
“Normal,” Amy said, glaring at him. “The sun’s the wrong color and everyone talks funny and we all weigh about half a ton and I’m getting sick for no reason, and we’re going to meet a wizard, and you’re saying everything’s too normal for you?”
“No, I mean…I mean if this is Shadow’s country, shouldn’t the skies be dark?”
“They are getting dark,” Prossie pointed out.
“No, I mean all the time,” Pel persisted. “Shouldn’t it be a wasteland, all smoke and ash?”
Amy stared at him, then shook her head. “You’re being silly, Pel,” she said. “This isn’t some stupid movie, like that one, ‘Wizards’…did you ever see that? It was an animated film…”
“I saw it,” Pel said. “That’s the sort of thing I was thinking of. I mean, we’ve fallen into a story like that, haven’t we? Wizards and Galactic Empires and all the rest of it, it’s all a story-so why isn’t the bad guy acting the part?”
“How do you know he isn’t?” Amy said. “How do you know who the bad guy is? This isn’t a story, Pel; this is real life.”
“Then you don’t think Shadow’s really evil?”
“I didn’t say that,” Amy protested. “I don’t know anything about Shadow. It could be just as bad as Raven says.”
“But then why doesn’t the countryside show it?” Pel asked, waving an arm at the farms behind them.
Amy sighed. “Pel,” she said, “suppose someone popped you through a magical portal into some nice, quiet rural area in Germany in 1943-would the skies be dark? Would the landscape be all twisted and evil?”
Pel frowned. “I guess not,” he said. “Not necessarily, anyway, if it was someplace that wasn’t getting bombed, and away from the camps. But Hitler wasn’t a wizard, there wasn’t anything supernatural about him.”
“So maybe Shadow isn’t supernatural evil incarnate,” Amy said. “So it’s not Sauron. It could still be Hitler.”
“Or it could be nothing much. Maybe it’s Raven who’s Hitler-or Napoleon returning from Elba.”
“And it could be that we don’t have any idea what’s going on, and we shouldn’t worry about it, we should just all go home,” Amy replied, exasperated.