The Reign of the Brown Magician. Lawrence Watt-Evans

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СКАЧАТЬ to teach him magic, he thought, as he watched the fetch march down the passage toward the throne room. Pel’s lips tightened, and the aura flickered into harsh reds and smoky browns.

      He wanted a wizard.

      And while Shadow had been the last matrix wizard, the only wizard who regularly raised the dead, while Shadow was dead because Pel had sent Prossie Thorpe to kill her, Shadow had not been the only wizard in the world Pel and his companions had called Faerie.

      Even though Shadow had roasted Valadrakul to death, and Shadow’s creatures had butchered Elani, Pel thought he knew at least one other wizard who still lived: Taillefer, that fat coward who had refused to open a portal to either Earth or the Empire. After Elani had died, Valadrakul had not known how to open portals to other worlds, so he had summoned Taillefer—and Taillefer had refused to help, for fear of drawing Shadow’s attention.

      Well, Pel had learned how to open his own portals. And now he could send fetches out to… Pel smiled grimly. He could send fetches out to fetch Taillefer.

      Taillefer might not know how to raise the dead, but he surely could teach Pel something.

      Pel strode toward the throne room, still smiling.

      * * * *

      Amy hung up the phone. “Donna says she’ll be here in about twenty minutes,” she said. She smiled with relief.

      Prossie didn’t smile back. “Then what?” she asked.

      “Then she’ll drive us out to my place,” Amy replied. It was such a pleasure to be able to say that, to be able to take cars and telephones for granted, to know what was going on again! “I guess she can drop Ted off on the way, and then we can settle in. I don’t know if there’ll be much that’s fit to eat after all this time, but we can get into some decent clean clothes.” She frowned slightly, thinking and planning. “I don’t have my keys, but if I have to, I guess I can break a window to get in. Or maybe I should call a locksmith. I’ll have to find one who’ll take a check, I don’t have any cash. The checkbook’s gone, too, but I have extra checks at home.”

      Prossie nodded, though it wasn’t a very enthusiastic gesture. Amy didn’t really notice. She was on familiar ground after months of living nightmare; she didn’t want to think about Prossie’s problems yet. There would be time for that later.

      “There’s canned soup, that’ll still be good,” Amy said, talking more to herself now than to Prossie. “And I should have something that’ll fit you—you’re only an inch or so shorter than I am, right?” She sighed. “I wonder if they stopped delivering my mail? I guess if Pel’s phone still works, mine will, too, but there must be about three months’ bills waiting. And all my clients will have given up on me—I’ll have to just about start the business over again.”

      She paused and glanced at her companion, but Prossie didn’t respond.

      Amy continued, “I suppose that spaceship is still in the back yard—did you have anything on board? It might still be there, if nobody’s gotten in and stolen it. And I’ll need to call the doctor and make an appointment as soon as I can.” She shuddered slightly. She didn’t like to think about getting an abortion, but it had to be done—she couldn’t afford a baby, and anyway, her life was quite disrupted enough without bearing the child of a dead rapist from another universe.

      And it wouldn’t hurt to have a general check-up, after all she had been through.

      “Do you think they might have posted guards around the ship?” Prossie asked suddenly.

      Amy blinked at her, startled. “Who?” she asked.

      “Your government. The ones who arrested us.”

      Amy put a hand to her mouth, then admitted, “I hadn’t thought of that.” Then she lowered the hand and managed an uncertain smile. “But even if they…no, they can’t have guards there; it’s private property, and poor Susan had a court order or something. And we haven’t done anything wrong.”

      As she finished her attempt at reassurance Amy realized she could hear sirens; she turned to look out the window. For a moment she stared in disbelief; then she headed for the living room for a better view.

      “How did they know?” Prossie asked as she followed Amy. “Do you think they might have telepaths, somehow?”

      “No,” Amy said. “They don’t have any telepaths. They might have the place staked out, though. I didn’t think we were that obvious.” She paused, then added, “They must have tapped the phone.”

      Prossie didn’t ask what that meant.

      A moment later Amy and Prossie were joined by Ted, and the three of them stood at the front window watching as men in suits and uniforms emerged from the two county police cruisers that had pulled up in front of the Browns’ home, and from an official-looking car in the driveway, a sedan that had a government seal of some sort on the driver’s door.

      Amy realized, annoyed, that she hadn’t had a chance to go through Nancy’s closet; she was still in her Imperial rags. She doubted these people would let her change.

      And her hair was a mess—her last bleach and perm had all grown out long ago, and she hadn’t even had a chance to brush it in days.

      Ted moaned softly.

      * * * *

      “We have a report, sir,” the lieutenant said, saluting briskly.

      Bascombe put down his pen and glowered at the young man.

      “A report from whom?” he demanded. “From where? About what?”

      “From Registered Master Telepath Bernard Dixon, sir!” the lieutenant said, snapping sharply back to attention.

      “Ah,” Bascombe said. “And exactly which of our mind-reading freaks is this Dixon?”

      “Telepath Dixon is currently serving aboard I.S.S. Meteor, sir, investigating the reported reappearance of the renegade, Proserpine Thorpe.”

      “Which reported reappearance?”

      “Uh…the first one, sir. I think.” The lieutenant quivered uncertainly. Bascombe sighed.

      “Tell me about it,” he said.

      “Yes, sir. According to Dixon, he has established, working in cooperation with five other telepaths, the approximate location of Thorpe’s reappearance—he reports that there is only one system it could have been in, an unnamed system with no habitable planets—the navigator aboard Meteor has the catalog number, but it was not included in the report. Dixon is unable to narrow it down any farther; no physical traces have been found, and telepathy, he says, is not sufficiently precise over interstellar distances to be more exact.”

      “Did he say how he found the system at all?” Bascombe asked.

      “Ah…that was not included in the report I received, sir,” the lieutenant admitted.

      “Dismissed,” Bascombe said.

      “Sir?” The lieutenant blinked.

      “I СКАЧАТЬ