The Reign of the Brown Magician. Lawrence Watt-Evans

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      He could go out searching on his own, he supposed—but he wasn’t sure just how to best use his magic to travel. Conjuring winds that would blow him around, the way Taillefer did, seemed dangerous and haphazard.

      And he wouldn’t know where to go. It was a very big planet. The matrix seemed to stretch to infinity.

      He would have to get organized about this. As Shadow’s heir and master of the matrix that controlled all the world’s magic, he was, in theory, ruler of all Faerie; he didn’t need to run his own errands, or send out all his servants. He could order other people to do it all.

      And besides, he had told Amy that he intended to be a benevolent ruler here, teach these people how to lead more civilized lives; how could he carry out that promise if he stayed holed up here in his castle, with no contact with the outside world?

      It was time to start playing his role properly. He would get this place organized—and that would let him fetch wizards who could teach him how to raise the dead.

      And if he did some good for the natives in the process, all the better; they could certainly use some help. The towns and villages he had seen on his way to Shadowmarsh hadn’t exactly been paradise.

      He remembered the gibbets in every village, the disembowelled corpses of the people who had offended Shadow—at the very least he could do away with that sort of thing.

      He realized that he could start right on his own doorstep—quite literally on his doorstep, where the corpses of half a dozen Imperial soldiers still lay. He hadn’t even done anything about them.

      Not that he could do very much, but at least he could have them decently buried.

      And after that he could send messengers out to the surrounding villages.

      He sat up straight, closed his eyes, and sent out a summons to the fetches still in the fortress, and to the handful of homunculi and other creatures over which he had established his control.

      Chapter Three

      “I don’t care if you believe me or not,” Amy said wearily. “It’s over, it’s done, and I just want to go home and forget about it.”

      “What about the spaceship in your back yard?” Major Johnston asked.

      Amy sighed.

      She had to admit that Johnston had done his best to make it easy on her; he hadn’t nagged, hadn’t argued, hadn’t pushed when she said she didn’t know something—but on the other hand, he had this annoying habit of finding questions she didn’t want to think about.

      “I don’t know,” she said. “What about it?”

      “Are you going to just leave it there?”

      “Do I have a choice?”

      “Assuming you have a choice.”

      “I haven’t decided. Do you want it?”

      Johnston hesitated, then admitted, “We haven’t decided, either. We might; please let us know before you do anything drastic with it.”

      “Sure,” Amy said. “May I go now?”

      “Um…” The major hesitated. “Not quite yet, I’m afraid.”

      * * * *

      “We’ve got the report from Beckett, sir,” the lieutenant said.

      Bascombe leaned back. “Let’s have it, then,” he said.

      “The formal statement is still being written up, sir, but the gist of it is that several unidentified corpses were found in a field outside Blessingbury that could easily have been the place Thorpe appeared. All but one of the corpses were adult males, in some sort of black livery, carrying swords; the one female wore a gray robe and carried no weapon. All had been killed by blaster fire, but no blasters were found; a more careful search is ongoing.”

      Bascombe blinked and straightened up.

      “Swords?” he said.

      “Yes, sir. That’s what the telepath said, anyway.”

      “The bodies—were they human?”

      The lieutenant hesitated. “Well, yes, sir, so far as I know,” he said. “The report calls them dark-haired Nordic males, which would certainly seem to imply human. I don’t think any autopsies have been done yet, though.”

      “Dark-haired Nordic?”

      “Yes, sir, Nordic is the standard term for any pure-blooded white, you know, it’s not just the true…”

      “Shut up.”

      Bascombe knew Imperial racial classifications as well as anyone; what he didn’t know was why any Imperial citizen, except a few holders of ceremonial titles back on Terra, would be carrying a sword.

      Shadow’s creatures might well use swords, but most of them didn’t seem to be genuine human beings. Even the humanoids often had black skin—not the brown of a Negro, but actual black.

      On the other hand, the people of Earth were authentic human beings, so far as Bascombe knew. Of the four who had stayed at Base One for several weeks, three had been white, one Azeatic; Bascombe had never seen a Negro Earthman, but that didn’t mean much, since that foursome was hardly a fair sample.

      Did Earthpeople still use swords? Earlier reports had indicated that they carried projectile weapons, not blades—gunpowder-and-bullet firearms. Perhaps this group had been even more primitive, though, or had been uncertain their guns would work in Imperial space. Swords always worked. And they never needed reloading.

      Still, swords seemed more appropriate to Shadow’s world. Shadow itself relied on its super-scientific “magic,” but its slaves didn’t seem to, and in fact much of the “magic” didn’t seem to operate in normal space.

      Or maybe these had been members of Raven’s resistance movement. Bascombe didn’t think much of Raven of Stormcrack Keep—the man was obsessive and abysmally ignorant, determined to fight Shadow’s science with…

      With swords.

      This was all getting very complicated—Shadow, Earth, and Raven were all possibilities.

      If the telepaths hadn’t made it all up.

      “Lieutenant,” Bascombe said, “I want one of these corpses brought here to Base One, as fast as possible. Make sure the sword comes with it, and someone who saw everything as it was first found—not a telepath.”

      “Yes, sir.” The messenger turned to go.

      “And,” Bascombe added loudly, “send the telepath Carrie Hall up here.”

      * * * *

      Major Reginald Johnston sat at his desk, staring at the fancy silver pen he’d gotten as an award two years before, rolling it between his fingers as he tried to think it all through logically.

      Sherlock СКАЧАТЬ