“And Susan?”
“Susan, too. Shadow stopped her heart.”
“The others?”
Pel shook his head. “Nobody else who’s still alive.”
“So if we died…well, what about you? Are you dead, too? Is this some sort of afterlife?”
“No, I didn’t die,” he said. “There were a couple of times I wanted to die, or was certain I was about to, but I never did.”
“So what happened? How can you be a wizard? Did you make a deal with the devil, or something? Or with Shadow?”
“I’ll explain,” Pel said. He took a deep breath, and began.
He told her how Emerald Princess had been captured by pirates under the direction of one of Shadow’s agents, how the passengers and crew had been sold as slaves on Zeta Leo III, how he had worked in the mines until the Imperial task force came and liberated them all-and found Rachel dead.
He explained how the Empire had sent the survivors back into Shadow’s world on a suicide mission to get rid of them, how some of them had made their way cross-country to Shadow’s fortress, gradually realizing that that was what Shadow had wanted them to do, because she wanted someone to serve as a placeholder, keeping her magic for her, while she explored the Galactic Empire.
He told Nancy how Shadow had casually killed anyone who displeased her, reducing Raven and Singer and Valadrakul to ash, and had settled on Pel as, as he bitterly put it, “her human bookmark.”
And he described how Prossie had taken a blaster from one of the dead soldiers and had followed Shadow into the Empire and shot her dead.
He didn’t mention that it had been his idea.
“Shadow was just an old woman?” Nancy asked.
“As human as I am,” Pel replied.
He went on to explain that he had sent Amy, Ted, and Prossie to Earth, because Prossie had broken some law and couldn’t go back to the Empire. He had stayed in Faerie to see if he could restore Nancy and Rachel to life, and after various difficulties, he had managed it.
He didn’t mention his abortive attempts to introduce democracy and social justice to Shadow’s world; he only told her he had wanted to resurrect her-and, of course, Rachel.
Susan, he explained, had been for practice.
“And here we are,” he said.
“What about Raven?” she asked. “Are you going to bring him back next?”
“I wasn’t planning to,” Pel said. “I don’t think there’s enough left.”
“What about any of the others?”
Pel shook his head. “I’m not God,” he said.
“But you brought me back, and Rachel, and Susan…”
“Susan was right there, and I needed to try, to see if I could do it,” Pel said. “And you and Rachel-I love you. I had to bring you back.”
“Oh,” she said.
Just that, flatly, and Pel felt slightly sick at the sound of it. “What do you want me to do?” he asked. “Bring back everyone who dies? I’d never have time for anything else, and I’d never keep up, anyway. It’s not my responsibility.”
“I guess not,” she said. “So, what happens now?”
“Whatever you want,” Pel said. “We can go home to Earth, if you like, and just forget any of this ever happened-but if we do, we can’t ever come back here. When I leave Faerie, the matrix will come apart, and I’d never be able to restore it, and there won’t be anyone here to open portals for us.”
“Is that what you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” Pel said. “Maybe not right away. I mean, there’s a lot we could do here first-we could see the world. It’s a big world, as big as our own, and I don’t know much about it.”
She nodded.
“Listen, do you want to get some clothes?” Pel asked. “I can open a portal back to Earth, and you could go get stuff for Rachel and yourself while I wait here.”
Nancy glanced down at herself. “That might be a good idea,” she said.
“Oh,” Pel said, remembering, “but you’d want to wear something-there’s this Air Force intelligence officer camped out in our basement.”
“Would he let me go upstairs?” Nancy asked.
“He ought to,” Pel said.
Nancy considered, then said, “I guess I won’t bother, yet.”
“All right.”
The conversation was becoming uncomfortable, and Pel wasn’t sure why. It didn’t feel right.
But why not? They were just talking, calmly discussing the situation…
And that was it. How could they be so calm? He had just brought Nancy back from the dead, turned a mutilated, months-old corpse back into his living, breathing wife-shouldn’t they both be laughing and crying and screaming?
And Nancy’s last memories…
“You said you remember dying? Being shot?”
Nancy nodded.
“Do you remember what happened…just before that?” Pel asked nervously.
“You mean being raped?”
Pel nodded silently.
“I remember,” she said quietly.
“Do you…do you want to talk about it?”
She shook her head. “It’s over.”
“They’re dead,” Pel said suddenly, the words rushing from his mouth unwanted. “The Empire tracked them down and hanged them, hanged everyone involved, all the pirates, they’ve been dead for months.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Nancy said.
And that, Pel knew, just wasn’t right.
He didn’t say anything then. He still tried to tell himself he was imagining it.
But half an hour later the real Nancy encountered her simulacrum in the passage.
She didn’t scream, or even start; she simply turned to Pel and asked, “Who’s this?”
“I tried several ways to bring you back before I got it right,” Pel said.
“Oh. Is that really what I look like?” She eyed the duplicate with mild interest.
The duplicate looked back, complacent and smiling.
Pel looked back and forth between the two of them.
The real Nancy hadn’t screamed, hadn’t shouted at him, hadn’t shuddered. She didn’t even ask if he had bedded the simulacrum, either directly or merely hinting.
Something was very, very wrong.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Why don’t you run and play?” Pel asked.
“Don’t want to,” Rachel said.
“Do you want to go home? Back to Earth?”
“Don’t care.”
“Don’t you miss Harvey, and all your friends?”
Rachel shrugged.
He turned to Susan. “Damn it, what’s wrong with her?”
“She was dead,” Susan said.
“She was dead too long, that’s what it is,” Pel said, turning back to stare at Rachel.
She was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the throne room, watching the changing colors of the matrix, and seemed quite content to do so indefinitely.
“They were both dead too long,” Pel said angrily. “It’s all because the goddamned Empire had to play their stupid games, and wouldn’t just hand them over! I mean, what the hell is wrong with them? You aren’t any different!”
“You didn’t know me back on Earth,” Susan said, but Pel didn’t notice; he was working himself into a rage. Rachel watched quietly as the matrix became saturated with angry reds and began to seethe in tight little claw-shaped curls.
“The Empire had to play their fucking little power games,” Pel said through gritted teeth. He turned to Susan. “I want fetches,” he said. “With blasters.”
* * * *
“Fifteen dead,” the telepath said. “That’s not counting the attackers.”
The Emperor drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Three of them, we believe?”
“Yes, your Majesty,” the telepath replied.
The Emperor shot a quick glance at Sheffield, who said nothing; the telepath said, “Yes, your Majesty, he is thinking that he told you so, that he warned you this would happen. He is also remembering that we haven’t gotten back the hostages the Brown Magician claimed to have-roughly a hundred and fifty in all, he believes there were-but at least we’ve presumably recovered three blasters, and the others must be running low on charge, which will make it impossible for these raids to continue indefinitely.”