For a moment he lay there, face down, gathering his wits.
It was strange to be in darkness; he hadn’t seen true darkness in months, not since he first accepted the matrix from Shadow.
The possibility that he might be dead occurred to him, but the sand beneath him was cool and solid, and he heard a soft whispering that didn’t sound like anything he would expect in the afterlife.
It sounded like the sea.
He rolled over, the gold coins clinking as he shifted them, and looked up at stars, millions of stars, twinkling white above him.
He wasn’t blind; he’d arrived at night.
He sat up, and saw pale bands moving; he blinked, and saw that it was surf, phosphorescent surf rolling in to the beach on which he had arrived.
“And just wot didjer think you were doin’ there?” a voice demanded from behind him. “This beach is closed to the public!”
The accent was Australian.
Pel smiled.
He’d always wanted to visit Australia.
“Sorry,” he called, getting to his feet. “Which way out?”
* * * *
Best looked up at the warning rumble, shielding his eyes with his hand to keep the rain out.
The matrix was a shimmering mass that completely surrounded the top twenty feet or more of the central tower; now, as he and the others looked up at it, it expanded, like impossibly fast-rising dough, seething rapidly outward…
And then it exploded, not with a bang, but with a scream, and colors and patterns scattered wildly across the overcast sky; for a moment a cloudbank flickered red, another was crisscrossed with green tracery like the veins of a leaf, purple fire dripped sizzling down the tower, carrying molten stone with it. Creatures flapped and scrambled in the clouds.
Then it was gone, and the broken stump of the tower ended in a jagged line of blackened stone.
But the raindrops were faintly glowing and slightly iridescent, and somehow Best knew that magic was raining onto Shadowmarsh and all of Faerie.
He shuddered. He didn’t like magic.
“Come on,” he said. “Two hundred miles to Sunderland and Base One-let’s go!”
* * * *
“Brown’s really gone?” the Emperor asked.
The telepath answered, “Yes, your Majesty.”
“Who’s in charge, then?”
“The local governments appear to be reasserting themselves,” the telepath replied. “The surviving remnants of the old nobility, Shadow’s councils of elders, and the like. There’s no central government; apparently, there never really was much of one. Either that, or it disintegrated upon Shadow’s death.”
The Emperor nodded, considering.
“We think,” he said, staring at the rug, “that we will find it entertaining and profitable to pick up territories piecemeal in Faerie. An attempt to conquer it all at once would be impractical, and to risk a new Brown Magician arising would be foolish. Better to involve ourselves in it little by little, and stop any potential threat before it looms too large.”
“Your Majesty’s plan is, of course, wise,” the telepath said.
George VIII looked up, pleased. “You really think so?” he said. “All of you?”
* * * *
“Brown’s gone,” Miletti repeated. “Faerie’s doing a planetary imitation of Yugoslavia.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“I’m not fucking sure of anything,” Miletti said, “but it’s my honest report.”
The lieutenant nodded. He turned off the tape recorder and put it away.
“In that case, Mr. Miletti,” he said, “I have good news. Our budget’s been cut, and if there’s no longer any plausible threat from either the Empire or Faerie, we don’t need to monitor the telepaths any shy;more. That means we don’t need you; the major says you’re free to do as you please, and we’ll be removing our equipment and ending the regular visits. We’ll be mailing your check out on Monday.”
Miletti stared at him for a long moment, then looked down at the bourbon bottle in his own right hand.
He dropped it to the carpet.
“About time,” he said. “Thank you!”
* * * *
“He’s gone somewhere,” Johnston’s voice said, “but we don’t know where; he never appeared at his house.”
Amy looked out her back window at the spaceship in her yard.
“I don’t blame him,” she said. “Thank you, Major.”
She hung up the phone, and realized that she was smiling. And why shouldn’t she? The Empire’s payment had plummeted out of the sky half an hour ago, enough gold to get her decorating business off the ground again. Prossie was in the other room, studying American history for her GED, and no longer had to worry about the Empire. Everything wasn’t what it had been before Ruthless appeared, but it was good enough; all the complicated and nasty adventures in other worlds were over, and it was time to get on with her life.
She was happy with the situation.
She hoped Pel Brown was as happy, wherever he was.
She thought he might be.
* * * *
And in a small town on the Australian coast, a barefoot, strangely-dressed man with an American accent wandered down the village high street with a bag of gold coins in his pack-Faerie gold, to be sure, but he was reasonably certain that it wasn’t going to disappear or turn to offal.
Of course, he wouldn’t be able to sell any until the town’s only jeweler opened his shop in the morning, so he had decided to walk the night away.
The air was warm, and rich with the smell of the sea; the stars of the southern hemisphere were bright and strange overhead. It was a beautiful night for a stroll, and the world was rich with possibilities.
He walked on, whistling.