At least she didn’t have morning sickness this time.
She was about to remark on the colors when flame erupted ahead of her, like a bomb-burst; she flung an arm up to shield her face as heat and light blasted at her. The ground shook, and a deafening roar rolled through the forest; the compression of the air washed over her like a great ocean wave, forcing her back. Her hair whipped out behind her, dragging her head back painfully.
“Oh, hell,” Best said, barely audible over the ringing in her ears.
Amy lowered her arm, expecting to see a blazing forest fire ahead.
Instead she saw a flickering, shifting mass of color, cloud, light, and shadow, like a Hollywood special-effects light show run amok. She felt a tightening in her chest.
“Shadow,” she said.
But Shadow was dead, she remembered.
“Pel,” she said.
And a voice spoke from the matrix.
“Amy?” it said, in a sound of thunder. “Amy Jewell?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Amy didn’t care very much for flying even with a plane, and after the initial thrill wore off this magical wind-riding of Pel’s was far worse. The wind was a constant, unpleasant pressure; she couldn’t speak over it. There was a constant sensation of falling, which she found slightly nauseating.
And it was cold, too.
And frightening.
And it went on and on; they had been airborne for hours. The sun had long since passed its zenith and was moving down the sky ahead of them.
Amy had also looked down at some of the villages they passed over, and been depressed to see that they looked dirtier and less pleasant than she had remembered.
At least all those dead bodies hanging on gallows were gone; she didn’t see a gallows or gibbet anywhere. That was certainly an improvement.
She glanced sideways, first at Wilkins, to her right, then at Best, to her left. Pel had decided to bring them along, but none of the others, and hadn’t bothered listening to any argument, he had just snatched the three of them up.
She wondered how Pel knew Best.
They were above the marsh now, and there was the fortress ahead of them, drawing quickly nearer; they were flying lower, and slowing down…
A moment later they landed, hard, on the causeway outside the gate. Pel stayed on his feet, but the others tumbled to the ground.
Best landed rolling, and got quickly to his feet, dusty but unhurt. Wilkins hadn’t done quite so well; he’d scraped one palm trying to catch himself, and seemed to have hurt his shoulder.
And Amy herself stretched full-length in the dirt, painfully bruising herself several places, scraping skin from her chin and hands and forearms.
She got slowly to her hands and knees, wincing as she put weight on her palms, and cursing herself for not remembering how roughly Taillefer had landed at Castle Regisvert.
The gate was standing open, and Pel was standing in the opening, his glow suppressed enough that he was visible as a vaguely human outline. “Come on in,” he said.
Amy got stiffly to her feet, and followed Pel and Best. Wilkins brought up the rear.
The matrix lit the entry hall, and Amy looked about in mild surprise.
The hall was empty. The monsters were gone from the ledges on either side. Odd bits of debris were scattered about, mostly what appeared to be ash, and the entire place had a dusty, unkempt air, exaggerated, perhaps, by the weird, unsteady, colorful light.
The little party made their way the length of the hall, past a blackened, scorched-looking area and a few smudges that Amy hoped weren’t bloodstains, onto the great staircase.
The great tube of light was gone completely. Pel noticed Amy looking at the hole where it had emerged, and said, “That was one of the magical currents turned visible-I don’t know why Shadow bothered. I don’t.”
He marched on ahead, seemingly unwearied by the long flight, up the stairs and across the landing into the throne room. The matrix glow lingered sufficiently for the others, rather more worn, to make their way up the steps at their own pace.
Amy’s legs ached by the time she stepped into the throne room, arm raised to fend off the glare.
“Pel?” she called, as she advanced cautiously into the light. “Could you turn it down?”
“Sure.”
And the glow was gone-or rather, reduced to insignificance, to just enough to light the throne room pleasantly. Amy could see Pel’s face.
His hair was fairly long and hung in greying tangles around his head; his beard was shaggy and uneven as well. Both appeared to have been cut at least once since she had last seen him-but it hadn’t been very recently. He had obviously not concerned himself with his appearance lately.
Well, the telepaths had said he appeared to be depressed, and that would fit. She moved cautiously nearer.
Best and Wilkins stepped to the doorway, but waited there as Amy walked warily into the room to talk to Pel.
They’d done their job; they’d gotten her to Pel safely. The rest was up to her. This was what the Empire was paying her a small fortune in gold for; this was what she had agreed to when she had coaxed from the Imperials a promise to commute Prossie’s treason sentence from death to exile.
Amy looked around the room, trying to collect her thoughts.
She didn’t remember that hole in the ceiling. She didn’t remember the litter along the sides of the room, or the thin layer of ash that she scuffed through as she approached Pel’s throne. She didn’t remember the damp, faintly musty odor.
It reminded her of a pre-teenager’s bedroom-the sort of kid who never cleaned up, and screamed if his parents dared move a single candy wrapper.
“So, how’s it going?” she asked.
Pel shrugged. “Hard to say; how’ve you been doing? I guess the Empire sent you to talk to me about something?”
“I’m fine, thanks-the Air Force people have been very nice about everything. And yes, they tell me that the Emperor himself suggested I come talk to you.”
“Really? Wow.” Pel sprawled comfortably in his throne; Amy looked around for somewhere she might sit, but found nothing.
After all, this was a ruler’s throne room, she realized; she wasn’t supposed to sit in the presence of royalty, or wizardry, or whatever Pel was.
“So here you are,” Pel said, “and it’s good to see a familiar face, and I hope we can talk awhile before I send you home again, but what was it the Emperor wanted you to say?”
Amy hesitated; she hardly knew where to begin. This wasn’t going the way she had pictured it.
“Come on, let’s get the business out of the way,” Pel urged.
“He thinks you’re upset about something,” Amy said. “Or his advisors do, or the telepaths, or someone; I never talked to the Emperor, of course, just a bunch of officers and bureaucrats, but they seemed nicer than the ones we dealt with before.”
“Maybe you’re just more used to them now.”
“Maybe,” Amy agreed. “Or maybe I’m not so scared. They weren’t trying to send me off to fight Shadow, after all, they just wanted me to talk to you.”
“I’m as powerful as Shadow was,” Pel remarked. “Or pretty nearly, anyway. I can’t do a lot of the stuff she did, but I can do plenty.”
“So I’ve heard.” She hesitated, then asked, “Are you upset about something?”
Pel looked away, at a door in a side wall that had stood slightly ajar; now it slammed shut, though no one had touched it.
He looked back at Amy.
“Yeah, I guess I am,” he said.
Amy glanced back at Best and Wilkins, who stepped back discreetly.
“What is it?” she asked.
Pel swallowed, and looked entirely human for a moment.
“It’s Nancy,” he said.
“Nancy’s dead?” Amy asked.
She wasn’t sure just what had happened to Nancy. She knew that the Empire had delivered her corpse to Pel, she knew that Shadow had claimed to be able to raise the dead, and Pel claimed to have all Shadow’s power, but had Pel really brought Nancy back to life?