In the Empire of Shadow

Chapter Eleven

“We’ve no need to rush headlong ’cross the vale,” Raven said, as the party splashed through the small stream at the foot of the slope. “A meal would do us all good.”

“Where are we going to get a meal?” Pel asked, looking about. “I don’t see any shops or restaurants or anything.”

Stoddard stared at the Earthman; Raven let out a bark of laughter.

“Hardly, friend Pel,” Raven said. “These slopes are the Starlinshire Downs, deep in the heart of Shadow’s domain, and to the best of what I know, there’s neither village nor keep nearby. Yet are there people, and the customs of hospitality surely have not been forgot entirely, even here.”

Amy shuddered. “This is Shadow’s territory, then?”

“Aye,” Stoddard said sourly. “All the world is Shadow’s.”

“And this part fell to Shadow centuries past,” Raven added, “yet surely some semblance of decency must remain.”

Pel looked about, startled. “This land’s been under Shadow for hundreds of years?” he asked.

“Aye,” Raven said, looking at the Earthman with sudden interest. “What of it? Think you of aught that might aid us, then?”

“No,” Pel said, “it’s nothing important.” He blinked, rubbed his nose, and gazed about.

The surrounding landscape was not at all what he would have expected after centuries of rule by an evil wizard. In the movies and stories, when evil fell over the land everything died, everything was dead and black and gray. Clouds were supposed to blot out the sun, if the sun still rose at all. The countryside was supposed to reflect the gloom and despair of its people.

This place didn’t. The sun still shone-a bit pale and watery, but bright enough The grass was green, the trees bore leaves, the crops were growing in the fields and most of the huts they had seen from the slope, while primitive, had looked reasonably clean and well-kept; Pel remembered noticing that the thatch on one was obviously fresh and new.

Of course, he had only seen the outsides of the houses, and only from a distance.

Still, Pel didn’t think that Mordor had looked like this. There was no stink of evil in the air here-neither brimstone nor blood nor burning oil-but the smell of raw earth and things growing. No suspicious smoke rose anywhere, nor did ominous fires glow in the distance. The air was a little chilly just now, but there was no soul-deadening cold or exhausting heat, and he was comfortable enough without his shirt; in fact, the occasional breezes felt pleasantly stimulating on his bare back. Shadow obviously wasn’t up there with Sauron or Lord Foul or Skynet as a despoiler of countrysides.

On the other hand, Shadow did just fine at creating and sending monsters, he remembered.

At least, if it was really Shadow that sent those creatures. What if they were just ordinary beasts that had happened along, and Raven and his crew blamed Shadow unfairly?

Well, no, Pel admitted to himself, they were scarcely ordinary beasts. They were clearly unnatural in their appearance, and they had attacked without reason and fought to the death where ordinary animals would have turned and fled. They probably were Shadow’s doing-whatever Shadow was.

Raven and his people always spoke of Shadow as if it were an individual, but was it really? Was it a person, a force, an organization?

Pel didn’t know, and was not at all happy that he didn’t.

As he had been thinking this, the party had continued on, up the west bank of the stream and further along the little road. Now, suddenly, they halted.

“Here,” Raven said, pointing with his bandaged hand. “Here’s the house that will give us to eat, an any human hearts remain in these lands.”

* * * *

Amy winced as Stoddard pounded on the door of the cottage-if “cottage” wasn’t too generous a term for the place. “Hovel” perhaps went too far the other way, but it certainly wasn’t anywhere Amy would have wanted to live.

Even so, it seemed rude to hammer like that when they had come seeking the occupant’s charity.

The door opened, and a frightened face peered out at them-a woman’s face, thirtyish, Amy thought, and not attractive, with unkempt hair and coarse skin.

“Open, in the name of the Goddess,” Raven said. “We are famished, and claim hospitality by the ancient laws.”

The woman glanced up at Stoddard’s raised fist, resting on her door, and seemed much more impressed by that, and by Stoddard in general, than by Raven’s words. She opened the door, staying behind it.

Stoddard and Raven and Valadrakul marched boldly in; the others hesitated at first, but then Wilkins shrugged and followed, with Sawyer and Marks and Singer close behind.

Ted went next, then Pel, and the three woman brought up the rear, Amy last of all.

She found the cottage’s main room jammed; it had never been meant to hold so many. The Imperials and Earthpeople were standing near the center, milling about in a crowd that practically filled the available floor space, while the Faerie folk had found their way to an alcove that, Amy realized, must be the kitchen.

At the other end of the little house was an earthen hearth before a crude stone chimney and mantle. A rough trestle table and benches stood beside the hearth; Sawyer and Singer were crowded against the near end of the table, leaning up against it.

Pel was standing a few feet from the table, staring at it-or under it, Amy realized. As she watched, he closed his eyes tight, and stood, swaying slightly, with them shut. Puzzled, Amy glanced under the table.

Hiding beneath it was a child-Amy couldn’t be sure whether it was a boy or a girl-who stared out at the strangers with frightened eyes. The poor thing wore a dull brown sacklike garment and nothing else, had mousy brown hair hacked off unevenly at shoulder length.

The child didn’t really look anything like Rachel Brown, but Amy knew that that was who Pel was thinking of. Uncomfortable, Amy looked up, away from the child, away from any memories of Pel’s dead daughter.

Above the table was a loft. The central portion of the cottage was open from dirt floor to thatched roof, but the kitchen alcove and the hearth area both had plank ceilings. Another child sat in the loft, this one, dressed in faded blue, almost certainly a girl; she clutched a baby in her arms. For a moment Amy thought the baby might just be a doll, but then it waved an arm.

No one who lived in a place like this would have a doll that could wave its arms, Amy was sure. She swallowed.

The space above the kitchen alcove was smaller and lower, and appeared to be used for storage; at any rate, there were no children to be seen there.

The woman closed the heavy door, the bang and the sudden dimness startling Amy.

“Ah, goodwife,” Raven called. “We claim but a single meal. What would you give us?”

“We have nothing to give you,” the woman said, her voice high and unsteady, her tone flat.

“Oh, come,” Raven replied. “I see much here before me-fruits and grain and vegetables, and surely that keg holds ale.”

“’Tis not for you,” the woman insisted. “We’ve children to feed, and our taxes are not yet paid.” Amy noticed that she didn’t seem to have quite the same accent to her speech that Raven and Valadrakul and the others did.

“And what of the Goddess’ decree that all Her children owe hospitality to one another, whenever they might be wanderers upon the land?” Raven demanded.

“We pay no heed to the old faiths,” the woman replied. “We heed only Shadow’s orders.”

“And what does Shadow say, then, in how one is to treat travelers?”

“Know you not, then?” The woman stood, hands on her hips, eyeing the intruders.

“I’d hear it from you,” Raven answered.

“Shadow commands that we feed and shelter those who come on Shadow’s business, and to deny all others,” the woman told them, “but not when that would risk our own lives, for they are not our own to sacrifice, but are Shadow’s, and valued more highly than whatever else might be stolen from us. Better to lose a year’s crops, and Shadow’s tax thereupon, than a lifetime’s, and there are many of you, while I am alone here, save for my children.”

Amy glanced up at the loft again, at the children there. Pel, standing near, still had his eyes tightly closed.

She wondered if Shadow could use its magic to spy on this somehow, here in its own territory. Would Shadow, whatever it was, feel the instinctive desire to protect those children that she felt? Did their mother have any way of informing Shadow of the presence of intruders?

“And you admitted us, then, in fear of your life?” Raven asked the peasant woman.

The woman gestured in the direction of Stoddard and Valadrakul. “That,” she agreed, “and in hopes that you might prove yourselves to be servants of Shadow.”

“You do disgrace to your ancestors and your spirit, in this sad acquiescence to that evil power and the renunciation of the true faith and its customs,” Raven said.

“And you prove yourselves fools, to oppose the Shadow that shades the world!”

Amy, already uneasy, had listened to this exchange with mounting discomfort. Now, as the woman and the three intruding natives of Faerie glared at one another through the little crowd, she called, “Raven, let’s get out of here, if we’re not welcome.” She didn’t mention anything about the possibility of drawing Shadow’s attention, but she thought that Raven would see it.

If Prossie was right about why Raven had left Lieutenant Dibbs back at the ship, then Raven certainly ought to have that in mind.

“Nay,” Raven said angrily. “By the bleeding Goddess, I say you nay! We’ve a right under the ancient law, and we’ll take a meal here before we go!”

“She’s got a right to her own home,” Amy protested. “It’d be stealing!”

“I don’t care about that,” Sawyer said, before Raven could say anything more, “but I might worry about her men getting back. She’s got a husband, at least, or there wouldn’t be that baby up there.”

Amy bit back a comment about the naivete implied by that comment; there wasn’t necessarily a husband anywhere-but there certainly might be one.

“We can handle a husband,” Wilkins said, “if it’s only one.”

“Aye,” Stoddard agreed, “an it’s but one; what, then, if that one brings friends?”

“Then we’ll take what we can carry,” Raven said. “I’ll not leave here without our due.”

Amy watched unhappily as the men of Faerie and the Galactic Empire picked through the contents of the kitchen alcove, but she did not protest further. It was stealing, no matter what ancient rights and privileges Raven might claim, stealing from a woman and her children-but Amy was hungry, very hungry, and the woman wasn’t arguing any more, and there were seven men doing the stealing, compared with two men, four women, and a few children who were not-and Amy was fairly sure that if it came down to open conflict, Susan and Prossie and perhaps even Pel would side with the thieves, while Ted would be useless to either faction.

Pel might be useless, as well, lost in his grief; he was still standing with eyes closed.

She stood and watched, and wished she could think of something to say to comfort the woman they were robbing, but nothing came.

She was sure that the woman would report their presence to Shadow, if she could-but then, she probably would have reported the presence of strangers even if they hadn’t robbed her.

And ten minutes later, when the entire party was moving again, across the valley toward the ruin where they were to meet Taillefer, Amy ate the raisins and dried apples and sticks of hard-baked bread that were her share of the booty without complaint.

She did not so much as glance back at the cottage, where the woman still stood in the open doorway, watching the thieves depart.

* * * *

They had finished their meal as they had started it, while walking. The intermediate stage, when they had settled briefly by the roadside to sort out their loot and prepare anything that required preparation, had lasted no more than fifteen minutes, at most, Pel was sure.

Of course, he had no way to check; digital watches didn’t work in either Faerie or Imperial space, and his was long gone, anyway. He relied on his own time sense, which he knew was not particularly good.

Still, he was sure that they were moving again less than half an hour after the robbery-despite Raven’s claims, Pel could not help thinking of the way they had acquired their meal as a strong-arm robbery.

He almost wished he had joined in, though, and taken a shirt. He hadn’t seen any, but there had probably been some, somewhere.

He hadn’t seen any, because he hadn’t wanted to look.

He tried very hard not to think of the girl under the table, not to associate her and her mother with Rachel and Nancy.

Maybe they would realize, when they thought about it, that Pel and the others hadn’t taken very much; maybe they wouldn’t hold the robbery against him. Maybe they would accept that it had been a necessity.

Robbery or not, it was done, and the party was well along the dirt track that Raven insisted on calling a highway, passing farms and fields on their way to the ridgetop ruin. This time the Earthman had not hung back; instead he walked in the front, with the three natives of Faerie.

“We don’t have any hereditary nobility with special privileges back home,” Pel remarked to Raven as they walked. “Not any more, anyway.”

The nobleman glanced at the Earthman, but did not break stride or comment.

“I’m not complaining, I was as hungry as anyone,” Pel continued, “but back home, taking that woman’s food would have been outright theft.”

“’Twas hospitality, not theft,” Raven snapped. “The custom is required by the Goddess who brought forth all life, and has naught to do with the patents of nobility.”

“Well, but it was because you’re a member of the nobility that you thought you were entitled, wasn’t it?”

“Nay, of course not; these lands are not mine, nor am I brought here to guest, nor are you my retinue, that I’d have the right to feed you.” Raven paused, then remarked, “’Tis clear that your homeland’s customs are not as our own, friend Pel-hospitality to travelers is a religious duty put upon us by the Goddess, and any who walk Her green earth are entitled, merely by virtue of being Her children, to the boon of a single meal from any who dwell upon the land and share in Her bounty. ’Tis this right and duty that I sought to claim, not some privilege due my gentle birth.”

“Oh,” Pel said, comprehension dawning. “It’s a sort of tithe, you mean?”

“Aye, a tithe indeed,” Raven agreed, nodding. “I’d not thought you had the word. A tithe and a duty, yet one that that woman sought to deny us, so debased has this realm become under Shadow’s rule! Yon wife placed her duties to Shadow above all common duties to the Goddess-a greater disgrace to Shadow I cannot imagine.”

Pel suspected this was hyperbole; he could think of a great many things worse than abandoning the customs of traditional religion. He decided against saying so, however.

He squinted at the sun as it descended steadily toward the ridgetop before them. The sky was reddening about it, the wisps of cloud were edged in golden fire-it promised to be a spectacular sunset.

There was nothing abnormal or threatening about it at all, nothing reflecting Shadow’s alleged presence.

The lands to either side were green with the lush growth of spring, save where fresh-tilled fields showed rich and black, clean-edged and tidy squares set in the landscape, as if to break the monotony of green. Pel could see men and women and even children working in the fields, here and there; although none were near enough for a good hard look at their faces, they all seemed to be going about their business cheerfully enough. He saw no whips, no tears; backs were bent with labor, but not, so far as he could see, with undue hardship. The people didn’t appear to be suffering any more than peasants anywhere might suffer, be it medieval Europe or some Third World country in Africa or South America.

Yet this land was under Shadow’s rule, had been under Shadow’s rule for centuries, and the Faerie folk spoke of Shadow as this hideous monster, this unspeakable evil. When Pel had first heard Raven’s story he had immediately associated Shadow with Tolkien’s Dark Lord, Sauron; with Donaldson’s Lord Foul; with Bakshi’s Blackwolf; with all the evil powers of fantasy films and novels.

By those standards, this land should have been a blasted wilderness, all ash and stone; the people should be crippled by floggings and torture; the skies should be black with unnatural clouds.

None of that fit.

Not for the first time, but far less idly than ever before, Pel wondered whether Shadow might be less a villain than it was a victim of bad press.

* * * *

Despite the meal, despite the prospect of rescue and a return to Earth that lay ahead, Amy found herself wearing out quickly. She struggled to continue, to keep up with the others, but she felt weak and sick.

At least, she thought, she was able to keep down the stolen food. She pushed on, placing one foot ahead of the others, but the mound of brush and vine-wrapped stone atop the ridge seemed to be taking forever to draw any nearer.

The sun was reddening in the west and the sky darkening, they were finally at the foot of the ridge itself, and Amy was on the verge of collapse when Pel dropped back from the main group, coming even with Amy and Prossie, who had fallen behind.

“Hi,” the Earthman said. “You two doing okay, back here?”

Prossie glanced at Amy, who was in no hurry to answer. She shrugged and said, “I’m fine, I guess; I’ve been thinking, and keeping Amy here company.”

“I’m okay,” Amy said. “At least, I think I am. Tired, but otherwise I’m okay.”

“Not throwing up any more?” Pel asked.

Amy grimaced at this grotesque lack of tact. “Not throwing up,” she said. “Not feeling real good, maybe, but not throwing up.”

“I’ve been thinking about this Shadow thing,” Pel said. “I think maybe I had a wrong idea about it.”

Amy had been staring at her own feet, willing them to keep moving; now she looked up at Pel. “What sort of wrong idea?” she asked.

“Well, I’d been thinking of it as really being this all-encompassing evil that Raven claims it is-a big supernatural force, like in a horror movie or something. Like Sauron in The Lord of the Rings.”

“Yeah, so? Maybe it is. Raven seems to think so.” She jerked her head in Valadrakul’s direction. “And we know there’s real magic here.”

“But if it were,” Pel said, “then would everything here look so normal, here in Shadow’s own territory?” He gestured at the evening sky, the darkening fields, the looming ruin atop the ridge.

“Normal,” Amy said, glaring at him. “The sun’s the wrong color and everyone talks funny and we all weigh about half a ton and I’m getting sick for no reason, and we’re going to meet a wizard, and you’re saying everything’s too normal for you?”

“No, I mean…I mean if this is Shadow’s country, shouldn’t the skies be dark?”

“They are getting dark,” Prossie pointed out.

“No, I mean all the time,” Pel persisted. “Shouldn’t it be a wasteland, all smoke and ash?”

Amy stared at him, then shook her head. “You’re being silly, Pel,” she said. “This isn’t some stupid movie, like that one, ‘Wizards’…did you ever see that? It was an animated film…”

“I saw it,” Pel said. “That’s the sort of thing I was thinking of. I mean, we’ve fallen into a story like that, haven’t we? Wizards and Galactic Empires and all the rest of it, it’s all a story-so why isn’t the bad guy acting the part?”

“How do you know he isn’t?” Amy said. “How do you know who the bad guy is? This isn’t a story, Pel; this is real life.”

“Then you don’t think Shadow’s really evil?”

“I didn’t say that,” Amy protested. “I don’t know anything about Shadow. It could be just as bad as Raven says.”

“But then why doesn’t the countryside show it?” Pel asked, waving an arm at the farms behind them.

Amy sighed. “Pel,” she said, “suppose someone popped you through a magical portal into some nice, quiet rural area in Germany in 1943-would the skies be dark? Would the landscape be all twisted and evil?”

Pel frowned. “I guess not,” he said. “Not necessarily, anyway, if it was someplace that wasn’t getting bombed, and away from the camps. But Hitler wasn’t a wizard, there wasn’t anything supernatural about him.”

“So maybe Shadow isn’t supernatural evil incarnate,” Amy said. “So it’s not Sauron. It could still be Hitler.”

“Or it could be nothing much. Maybe it’s Raven who’s Hitler-or Napoleon returning from Elba.”

“And it could be that we don’t have any idea what’s going on, and we shouldn’t worry about it, we should just all go home,” Amy replied, exasperated.

Pel looked uncomfortable and didn’t answer. Instead he turned away, and the party continued silently up the ridge in the gathering twilight.