“I’d worry not of souls, little man,” Shadow told the smoking, drifting remains and the shocked survivors. “I deal not in souls; the flesh of this world is enough to concern me.”
Pel stared for a moment; he heard Singer make a strangled noise somewhere nearby. He knew he should be shocked, horrified, something, but he wasn’t. It occurred to him that Raven had been the last of their native companions; everyone who still stood before Shadow came from either Earth or the Galactic Empire.
He doubted that would make any difference if they ran afoul of one of Shadow’s whims.
* * * *
One by one, Al Singer thought, it’s picking us off one by one and there isn’t anything we can do about it.
This was not what he’d joined the military for. This wasn’t anything he’d ever imagined.
And he couldn’t even fight back. Oh, he still had his blaster, but it wouldn’t work here except for whacking someone over the head, or maybe cracking nuts.
He glanced at Prossie Thorpe, the expedition’s Special-but she didn’t work here, either, or at least that was what she said. She couldn’t call for help, couldn’t read the enemy’s plans. She could maybe still talk to Base One, but they couldn’t send help in time, if at all-and what’s more, they wouldn’t send it.
Colonel Carson, Lieutenant Dibbs-the officers hadn’t been much use on this expedition. And Thorpe said that General Hart had written them all off.
What kind of military solidarity was that? The Empire was supposed to stand behind its men, protect its troops just as the troops protected the Empire.
It looked like that was just another lie, like Father Christmas or virgin brides.
He was beginning to wish that he’d never joined up, had never seen little Laura Bailey mooning over the fancy uniforms at the port and had never decided that the best way to get into her pants was to sign away a couple of years of his life.
It wasn’t fair, the six of them up against this…this force, this thing.
And they didn’t even know what it was.
“Hey,” he called, “if you’re concerned with flesh, why don’t you show yourself, anyway? Do you need all these colors and lights? Are you afraid to let us see you? Are you that ugly? Is that why you killed the wizard, because he could see through this stuff?”
“Wouldst see me unveiled?” Shadow asked, and Singer thought it sounded surprised.
He remembered some of the stories he’d heard as a kid, whispered around a campfire or read aloud by the hearth, about unspeakable monsters-but he didn’t care. He was tired of not knowing what was going on. He wanted to see the thing.
“Well, yeah, why not?” he demanded. “You think we’ll go mad at the sight, like in the old stories?”
“I’d hope not,” Shadow said. “As you will, then.”
Abruptly, the colors faded away, the buzzing in Singer’s ears was gone, and the blazing lights faded to a soft golden glow from somewhere overhead. His head hurt; whether he had developed a headache in the glare and simply not noticed, or whether the shift had triggered it, he wasn’t sure.
He blinked, his eyes trying to adjust to this sudden change, and then took a good look at what the chamber really looked like.
The walls were white marble, ornamented with gilded carvings, behind twin colonnades-but some of the gilt was flaking away. The floor was covered in faded carpets, most of them dark red patterned with darker blue. Before them, in the center of the room, was a low stone dais, and on the dais was a dark wooden throne, the straight back and arms carved with strange flowers and impossible beasts.
Slouched in the throne was a woman.
She was fat, but not obese; aging, but not yet old; unattractive, but not really ugly. Her hair was long and dark brown and somewhat disheveled, spilling over her shoulders in tangled curls; her face was soft, with an unhealthy pallor. She looked to Singer as if she should be sitting behind the counter in some inexpensive shop somewhere, shortchanging customers and chasing children away from the candy.
Someone giggled. Singer heard Pel mutter, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” but he had no idea what the Earthman was talking about.
“You’re Shadow?” Singer asked.
“Indeed, I am,” the woman said, and it was the same voice, though not quite as loud.
This was Shadow.
This frumpy, middle-aged woman was the all-powerful Shadow.
“Oh, come on,” Singer said.
“Judge not by appearances, child,” the woman chided him. “The matrix yet stands, and I am yet at its heart, though thou seest it not; I’ve but rendered it invisible, not impotent.”
“But you’re just an old woman!” Singer blurted.
And in his last instant, as he saw the old woman frown, he knew that she really was Shadow, that he had seen Raven and Valadrakul killed for displeasing her, and that now he had displeased her. Just because the lights were gone, that didn’t mean her power was.
His last thought was to wish that he had never seen Laura Bailey at all, because then he wouldn’t be about to die so stupidly, in this horrible alien place. He didn’t have the time to think anything more profound.
He didn’t even have time to think that at least it was quick.
* * * *
Pel watched Singer die, as Raven and Valadrakul had died; the flames seemed more impressive now that the light show was gone.
When only smoldering ash remained, he turned back to Shadow. “Was that necessary?” he asked.
Shadow shrugged. “Necessary or no, ’twas my wish,” she said.
“And that’s all that matters, isn’t it?”
“Aye.” Shadow made no attempt to keep the self-satisfaction out of her voice.
“Can we get this over with, so I can wake up?” Ted asked.
Shadow glanced at Ted, at the filthy remnant of bandage on his head, then asked Pel, “Is he deranged?”
Pel hesitated, trying to think which answer would be least likely to reduce Ted, too, to charred fragments.
They were all dead anyway, and maybe he would wake up back on Earth, and he couldn’t second-guess Shadow, anyway; he didn’t know enough about her. There wasn’t any reason to lie. “I’m afraid so,” he said.
“Amusingly so?”
“Sometimes.”
“Then he lives; I’ve need of amusement betimes.”
“Is that why you brought us here, then?” Pel demanded. “For your amusement?”
“In part,” Shadow answered.
“And the three you killed weren’t amusing enough?”
Shadow waved a hand dismissively. “What amusement in a hedge wizard who thinks he might wield my power? Many of them have I seen, i’ these many years, and all in the end I’ve slain. And a displaced lordling, in his towering rage? Scores have I seen and slain. The soldier, in truth, was new, but scarce new enough; in these past few days I’ve seen his like a dozen times over. You saw his companions at the gate, an you troubled to raise your eyes.”
“We saw,” Pel agreed. “So you’ll kill us all, one by one, when we bore you or annoy you?”
“Perhaps,” Shadow said, “but perhaps not. I did guide you here, as thou sayest, and ’twas purposeful. Serve me well, and thou shalt live, each of you.”
Pel puzzled for a moment over the pronouns in that sentence until he realized that Shadow was using “thou” as singular and “you” as plural; he supposed it made sense. Raven and Valadrakul hadn’t used “thou” at all, that he could recall; it was confusing.
Then he forced himself to stop thinking about such trivia. She had just said they might yet live.
It was a story after all, an adventure story. It was real life, but it was following the stories. He recognized it now. This was the part where the villain explained herself, where she revealed her whole evil plan and offered them a chance of some kind, and the hero was supposed to refuse it.