“You don’t think any of us would be interested in ruling a world?” Pel asked. Ted giggled; the other Earthpeople ignored him, but Pel was uncomfortably aware how stupid his question sounded.
Still, he felt he had to ask it; he had to know just what the terms were, and why Shadow thought she could make her plans work.
“Not this world,” Shadow said. “Look you, whosoever I choose shall have of me whatever he will, save that it endanger me not. Wouldst go home, to thy native land? Thou shalt be there instanter, upon my return. Wouldst have power there? Shalt have slaves sent thither to do thy bidding, whole armies, an thou wishest it. Riches untold for the asking, whole worlds at thy feet-for I have riches and power without limit, and shall not stint my faithful servants.”
“It sounds good,” Pel said slowly. He couldn’t resist any longer; he had to ask straight out, “But how do we know we can trust you?”
Shadow glared at him, and flickers of light and darkness obscured her features; bands of color chased one another across the walls, and the air seemed to hum silently.
“Thou durst ask?” Shadow demanded.
“I…” Pel’s voice caught in his throat.
“Thinkest thou on thy choice, fool!” Shadow shouted. “To trust, and perhaps win wealth and glory, or to refuse, and surely die!”
Pel hesitated.
“And knowest thou,” Shadow added warningly, “if thou considerest betrayal on thine own part, that though I shall have not my matrix and the power gained thereby, yet shalt thou have my hand ’gainst thee as long as thou livest, and all my knowledge turned ’pon thy destruction. Thou shalt have the matrix, aye, but shalt have the knowledge to wield it? Shalt have the experience to defy me, and mine own foes in this land, and surely the Galactic Empire as well?”
“So we couldn’t use the matrix anyway, you’re saying,” Pel said, relieved-Shadow’s immediate moment of fury seemed to have passed, and besides, he could now see some of her reasoning, which was reassuring.
He much preferred to have the catches out in the open, where he could see them.
“Oh, in this and that, in those appliances requiring neither skill nor finesse, thou might bludgeon a way to thy end,” Shadow told him, “but think not that the mere grasp on power without comprehension shall gain thee what I struggled centuries to learn, to compile and constrain to my will.”
“But if we go along, you’ll send us all safely home, and make us rich?” Amy asked; Pel heard both eagerness and doubt in her voice.
“Nay, ’tis thus not assured,” Shadow said. “I’ll but grant the whims of the one that serves; the fate of the others shall be for the one to determine.”
“Well, I’m sure that’ll mean we all get sent home,” Amy said, glancing worriedly at Ted.
“If you’re telling the truth and don’t change your mind,” Pel heard himself say.
He didn’t know just why he had said it; he didn’t really want to antagonize Shadow. This was his chance to have Shadow’s power at his disposal.
If it was true.
“Look you, then,” Shadow said, waving an arm.
The air to one side of the throne rippled oddly, like the air above a hot stove. A dull pressure made Pel’s ears ache. He was unsure what he was supposed to look at; the rippling didn’t seem to be doing anything. He started to say something, then stopped; Shadow was still working at whatever it was, her hands moving in odd, brisk little clutching gestures. Her control of the glare of the matrix was slipping as she was distracted, so that shafts of colored light flitted about, and blobs of shadow rolled suddenly across Pel’s field of vision, vanishing before he could focus on them.
For what seemed like an hour, Pel and the others waited for whatever it was Shadow was doing to be complete; a tension grew, and Pel was unsure whether it was entirely emotional, or whether some force was literally charging the air around him.
Shadow’s face was lost behind a silvery-pink glitter, and blue sparkles were spattering across the ceiling, when the ripple vanished from the air and she spoke again.
“See you here, then,” Shadow said, “a portal to a worldlet in the Empire. Step through, Telepath, and in that place shalt thou be able to hear my thoughts, and to know the truth of what I say, and to so testify to these others.”
* * * *
Prossie stared at the spot where the air had wavered as a rabbit might stare at a wolf, her eyes locked on it even though there was nothing there to see.
Here she was being offered what she had never really expected, a chance to return to the Empire.
Could she take it?
After all, she had broken the law; she had betrayed her trust; she had given up her family. If she stepped through, her own family would denounce her and see her condemned to death; she knew that from her last contact with Carrie, from Carrie’s indifference to Prossie’s danger. If Prossie stepped through and remained in the Empire, she would be hunted down and slain.
But if she refused, Shadow might well kill her here and now.
Reluctantly, she took a step.
“Takest thou a goodly deep breath, Telepath,” Shadow said.
Prossie looked up at her, startled.
Shadow smiled cruelly. “Thinkest me a fool?” she said. “Beyond is no world of men, but a bare, bitter rock, with scant air and none that might be breathed by such as thou; thou shalt have but a moment there to look into my soul, and then must thou return or perish.”
Prossie blinked. She remembered anew what she was dealing with. This was no ordinary wizard; this was Shadow, the cruel overlord of Faerie, the being that had threatened the Empire, had sent monsters and saboteurs to destroy anyone who opposed her. Shadow would think nothing of sending a woman out into the void without a suit, without even a breath-mask-but Prossie could not take it so lightly. She had known a telepath, a great-uncle, who had been present when a ship’s hull was breached, and Prossie trembled at the thought, at the stolen memories of men dying in vacuum, of lungs straining for air that wasn’t there, of the fierce pressure behind bulging eyes, of sweat and saliva boiling off into the emptiness.
And she remembered something else.
“Wait a minute,” she said unsteadily. “No one can read your mind; we tried. My family, I mean-the other telepaths. Reggie died trying.”
“Ah, then that was no false tale concocted by the Empire’s storytellers?” Shadow asked, and Prossie thought she could see a nasty little smile behind the deep orange glow that hid Shadow’s face at that moment.
“No, it’s not a tale,” Prossie said, gasping, on the verge of panic. “It was true! I read it!”
“Fear not, little thought-thief,” Shadow said. “I’d not destroy thee thus. When thou’rt beyond yon gate shall I put aside what I can of the matrix, so that thou might see into my soul without harm.”
“You can do that?” Prossie asked, grasping desperately at the hope.
But she still didn’t want to read Shadow’s mind, and she still doubted she could-to locate a single mind from another universe, in the time she could hold her breath, while exposed to a hostile environment?
And she was just getting comfortable with herself; she didn’t want to be plunged into a mind like Shadow’s, a mind centuries old and full of foulness and treachery, a mind that was not troubled by the gutted corpses over the fortress entry, not troubled by the fiery destruction, just moments before, of three enemies. Prossie did not want any part of that.
But she didn’t want to die, to be the fourth one of the party burned to ash, either.
“An I cannot clear the way enow,” Shadow said, “do not force thyself unto madness, nor death, but return straightway; we’ll find other means.”