In the Empire of Shadow

Chapter Seven

Pel approached the dead monstrosity carefully. The thing was obviously dead or dying; Valadrakul’s fireball, or whatever it was, appeared to have burned out the entire interior of its skull, and surely even one of Shadow’s magical creations couldn’t survive that.

But on the other hand, with a thing that size, even a final spastic twitch of a wing could probably break a person’s neck.

He saw no twitching, though. He couldn’t hear if the thing was making any sounds; Amy was screaming as she ran toward him, drowning out almost everything else.

Her screaming was not particularly piercing, just loud; Pel judged that she was not so much frightened or hurt as working off accumulated tension. He ignored the screams and looked the situation over.

The body had fallen directly atop I.S.S. Christopher and then slid partway down the far side, but the outstretched wings seemed to cover the entire area; the bony claws had gouged huge raw yellow chunks from the surrounding trees on the way down. Pel kicked aside a curl of bark the size of his head from one such wound; he stepped over a fallen branch and stopped a few feet from the black membrane of the wing.

It looked like thick rubber or polished leather. At first Pel thought he could see the shapes of tree-branches showing through from beneath, but then he realized that those were veins within the wing itself.

He started to reach out, then stopped. He didn’t really want to touch the thing.

Ted and Valadrakul were underneath it, though. They might even still be alive. Forcing himself, Pel reached out, grabbed for the edge of the wing, and tried to lift.

It was still warm, and it felt horribly like human skin with a thin coating of fine fuzz. It was thicker than he had realized; when he slid his fingers underneath he couldn’t get his hand all the way around the edge to close his thumbs over the top. Prying upward with just his hands did nothing at all; the wing did not budge, and his fingers slid out from beneath.

That black fuzz was as smooth and soft as cat fur; it didn’t give him any easy purchase.

“Someone give me a hand!” he called.

He tried again, thrusting his arms under the wing as far as his elbows and heaving upward. His muscles strained; his breath stopped. The veins in his face distended, and he felt as if something would burst at any moment.

The monster’s wing did not move.

“You think they’re still alive under there?”

Startled, Pel recognized Susan’s voice. He also realized that Amy had finally stopped shrieking. He relaxed and turned to Susan, who had come up behind him.

“They might be, anyway,” he said. “But they may not have much air left, if they are.”

“You think it’s airtight?”

Pel waved at the huge black covering. “What do you think?” he asked.

“I think you need better leverage; there are plenty of branches you could use.” She, in turn, waved at the scattered debris left by the creature’s descent, and the ship’s fall before that.

“More men,” another, deeper voice said. Pel realized that Stoddard was standing at Susan’s shoulder. “Sticks are well enow, but this needs more men than one.”

“You’re right,” Pel said.

“We’re two, then,” Stoddard said.

“Three,” Susan corrected him.

Stoddard looked down at her from his six feet or so of height; she smiled crookedly up at him from an inch or two over five feet, her still-bandaged arms folded across her chest, and corrected herself, “Two and a half.”

Pel called, “Lieutenant Dibbs!”

* * * *

Dibbs had wanted to find all his men before attempting any rescue efforts; four of them had not returned yet. Only when Prossie Thorpe had reported a decision from Base One would the lieutenant agree that uncovering Valadrakul and Deranian was more urgent.

And only Prossie knew that she had lied-there had been no decision to report. The people back at Base One had completely lost touch with the situation; they were still talking about whether Colonel Carson might not be completely dead, and what medical assistance might be appropriate. Bascombe and Hart were concerned with an attack on Shadow’s stronghold, with setting up a proper chain of command that they could duck out of to avoid accountability if they had to. Even Carrie had not really followed the sequence of events after the arrival of the first group of hellbeasts; she was far more concerned with assurance that her cousin was safe, that there weren’t any more monsters lurking somewhere nearby, about to leap out and eat everybody. No one at Base One understood about the black wing, about how big it was. No one there appreciated that Valadrakul was the only wizard left, and that magic was their only hope, both in any fight against Shadow, and as a way home.

Valadrakul had to be saved, or they were all trapped here, all as good as dead. And no one was listening, no one at Base One, none of the Imperials in Faerie. Pel had tried to explain, but Dibbs had almost ignored him-Brown was a civilian, a passenger, with no authority. Raven argued that the two should be freed, but he said nothing about a need for magic; he spoke only of how Valadrakul was a faithful servant and owed loyalty. Amy and Susan babbled of a common humanity that meant nothing to an Imperial soldier.

And Prossie could not speak on her own account; she was a telepath, and a woman-a mutant bitch. She had been called that all her life; she knew that that was how Dibbs saw her. No one would listen to her as herself.

But they would listen to her as a relay.

So Prossie had lied. She knew that Valadrakul and Ted needed help immediately, that saving Valadrakul was vital, and she had said they should be saved.

And by doing so, she had committed a capital crime. The technical term in the Imperial Articles of Service was “usurpation of representational authority by specially-empowered communications personnel,” and it was an offense invented as a direct result of the widespread fear and mistrust of telepaths. No non-telepath had any way to verify what a telepath reported, but telepathic communication was too valuable to leave unused; the Empire had responded to this dilemma by setting up draconian rules for all telepaths. From birth, they were trained to tell the truth, to obey non-telepaths, never to venture their own opinions-they were communication equipment, not people; spies, not soldiers.

And one reason that the Empire had only four hundred and sixteen telepaths, out of thirteen billion citizens, was that in the years since telepathy first appeared, forty-three telepaths had died for violating those rules.

If the Empire ever learned what Prossie had done, she would be the forty-fourth.

And since one of the other rules required that any telepath who learned of a violation and failed to report it was subject to the same penalty as the person who committed the original violation, she had dared not let Carrie know what she was doing.

Pel Brown had started it, asking for a decision from Base One, and Dibbs had objected; he didn’t need to have headquarters overseeing his every move.

“What do they say?” Pel Brown had demanded, as Dibbs continued to protest.

Carrie was not listening in; she was still asking if there might be more monsters, and ignoring Prossie’s own questions.

“Carrie, calm down,” Prossie had sent, trying to hide what she intended to do, “I’m fine. We’re busy here right now; I’m going to break contact for now. Find me again in about twenty minutes, all right?”

“Prossie, are you sure?” Carrie’s concern was touching-and also annoying.

“Yes, I’m sure. Now get out of my head!”

No telepath ever refused that order; it was a family rule. Carrie broke conscious contact.

“We might as well settle this,” Dibbs had said. “Thorpe, report!”

“Yes, sir,” Prossie had said, snapping to attention, long habit overcoming her weaknesses.

And then she had lied. “General Hart says that the survival of extrauniversal personnel is absolutely essential and must take first priority, sir! Please use all efforts to uncover Raven’s man Valadrakul and the solicitor Deranian.”

“Damn,” Dibbs said. “I think they’re making a mistake, but an order’s an order. All right, Singer, Wilkins, the wizard was right by the ship, he could be under the curve of the hull-see if you can crawl in there and find him. Maybe take a couple of those branches to shore things up. Hollingsworth, Moore, you others, we’ve got half a dozen lumps under the wing-some of them are wood or rocks, but that one by the rib must be the Colonel, and those two close together are probably the dead woman and the one we’re after. See if you can pry up the edge and get a look at them.”

Prossie watched with an odd mix of emotions. She admired the way Dibbs and the soldiers set out efficiently to get the job done, once they accepted an order-she’d seen it before, of course, hundreds of times, but it still amazed her that non-telepaths could work together so well without direct communication.

And tired as she was, she felt a peculiar sensation of pride and pleasure because the men were obeying her orders-they didn’t know it, they would never have obeyed if they had known, they would kill her for it if they ever found out, but they were obeying her orders.

This, she realized, was the feeling of power, real power; she had never felt it before.

And tied to it was a feeling of terror. She had broken the law, the law that was all that kept non-telepaths from murdering every telepath in the galaxy. She was a criminal, an outlaw.

If Carrie ever found out…

Would Carrie tell, or would Carrie risk her own death sentence?

Prossie didn’t want to find out. She had fifteen minutes before Carrie would call to her again; in that fifteen minutes she had to forget what she had done. She could never dare think of it again.

Not that the Empire could put her to death here in Faerie, of course. Not that Dibbs and the others could ever find out what she had done-she was their only link to the Empire. But if she ever wanted to return home, if she wanted Carrie to be able to live a normal life, she had to never again allow herself to consciously remember her crime.

* * * *

At the age of eighteen, Albert Singer had signed up to be a soldier. He had enlisted because he was thoroughly bored with farming, because he liked the way the fancy purple uniforms looked, and most importantly, because he saw how much the girls liked the way the fancy purple uniforms looked. He had signed up for space service because it looked a lot more interesting than hanging around the little garrison at Cochran’s Landing, and he figured it would impress the girls even more.

It had never once occurred to him that this would one day lead to crawling through the stifling, malodorous darkness underneath a wrecked spaceship and the corpse of a gigantic monster bat, shoving his way through damp earth and brittle dead leaves, trying to rescue a fat little foreigner who was probably already dead.

He couldn’t see a thing, not really; a little of the afternoon light filtered in around his own boots, but the dust from the leaves was a thin haze everywhere around him, grit had gotten in his eyes, and there wasn’t anything to see, in any case. He sneezed, spraying warm goo on his upper lip and the back of one hand, and could hardly wipe it off. The entire front of his uniform, chest to toe, was becoming coated with dirt-he could feel it, could feel the cool moisture and the grainy texture.

He belatedly decided that he should have taken off his boots; the shiny finish was going to be ruined, and he thought he’d have been able to crawl better without them.

He pushed with his toes and elbows, forcing himself deeper into the narrow passage. One shoulder brushed against the steel of the ship’s hull; the opposite knee rubbed against the furry, rubbery flesh of the dead monster.

Why the hell did the lieutenant have to pick him for this? And why had he not argued when Wilkins had said to go in first? Good old Ronnie Wilkins was squatting back there watching, not doing a damn thing except staring into the dark, where he probably couldn’t even see the bottoms of Singer’s boots any more.

The first part had been easy, crawling under the ship’s starboard guidance vane, but this part…

Singer coughed, without meaning to, and hoped very much that he wasn’t going to cough up anything that would wind up smeared on his chin or his uniform. The dust from the leaves was ghastly.

As much to clear his throat as anything else, he called, “Anyone in here?”

To his utter astonishment, a voice called back weakly, “Aye, lad.”

Not only was the bearded foreigner still alive, Singer realized, but he was conscious, and only a few feet away.

“Hold on, sir, we’ll get you out,” Singer said, trying unsuccessfully to sound reassuring. Then he coughed again. The powdered leaves felt like ground glass scraping the back of his throat.

He saw something flutter indistinctly in the dimness ahead, and suddenly his throat cleared. He swallowed experimentally, and everything worked.

Singer remembered that the man ahead was supposed to be a magic-worker of some kind. “Did you do that?” he asked.

“Aye,” the voice replied. “An it please you.”

“Thanks.” Singer shoved himself forward again, then stretched out one arm and found he could touch Valadrakul’s embroidered vest.

Then the roof fell in, or seemed to; the blackness that was the dead monster’s wing suddenly sank in, pressing down on him, and Singer found his face pressed into the dirt beneath. “Hey,” he managed to shout, his voice muffled.

Wilkins heard him, and called in, “They’re lifting it off the other one, the loony with the head wound. They were picking it up, and everything shifted.”

“Well, tell them to hurry up, for God’s sake,” Singer called back.

“Right.” Wilkins turned away and shouted something, but Singer was no longer listening; he was trying to see through the gloom ahead of him.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Aye, lad,” the wizard answered.

“Can you move?”

“After a fashion, aye,” Valadrakul replied. “My head is free, ’neath the ship’s hull, like your own. And I can move hands, arms, and all, despite the weight of the flesh atop. But alas, one of the beast’s bones lies across the back of my legs, and holds me fast. An that be moved, I’d be free.”

“You can’t lift it?”

“Nay.”

“I saw you doing those fire tricks before; you can’t burn your way out?”

“Nay, I’d but set myself afire, as well. A blade might serve, but I’ve none, mine was lost long since.”

“A blade…” Singer mentally cursed himself for not bringing a knife. He had one, of course, a standard military-issue combat knife, but it was in his pack, inside the ship, and the ship was underneath the dead monster.

Then, abruptly, the thick layer of flesh above him shifted again, this time pulling up and away. Twisting around so that his helmet was out of the way he looked up at it, and realized that the rest of the squad must have heaved the wing out a little.

He still couldn’t see much, though. His flashlight was in his pack, aboard the ship, as well. Another stupid mistake. At least he wasn’t the only one who had made this particular mistake; as far as he knew, everybody, even Lieutenant Dibbs, had left his pack aboard ship.

He peered into the darkness. The dust had settled, and his eyes had adapted; he could see the wizard’s face as a pale, colorless blur.

He had room now to get up on his knees, his back pressing up into the creature’s wing; he did, and leaned forward, groped ahead until he was able to grasp Valadrakul’s hand.

“Maybe I can pull you free,” he suggested.

“Mayhap you can,” Valadrakul agreed. “An you haul, I’ll push.”

Singer grabbed the wizard’s arm in both hands, braced himself, and said, “Ready? Heave!”

They heaved.

Nothing happened. There wasn’t enough room for Singer to really dig in his heels, and his grip was on Valadrakul’s sleeve more than on the arm within.

Someone shouted, back out there in the world of light and air; Singer glanced toward the opening, then decided to ignore it. It couldn’t have anything to do with him or the trapped foreigner.

“’Tis the ankles that hold me,” Valadrakul said. “And the thing’s wing-bone.”

“Maybe if I dig down underneath?”

“’Tis a sound idea, methinks,” Valadrakul agreed.

Singer took a deep breath, cupped his hands, and started burrowing.

* * * *

Pel watched as Ted got unsteadily to his feet.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Guess I got the blanket over my face,” Ted said, looking back at the huge black wing. “Or maybe a pillow. Maybe I pulled it down off the bed-I think I must’ve fallen out long ago.”

Lieutenant Dibbs snorted with disgust; Pel didn’t blame him. Ted’s persistence in his delusion had long since passed the point of evoking sympathy, concern, or even amusement.

Pel had long ago run out of ideas for dissuading Ted, though; nothing worked.

Dibbs and the civilians watched as the soldiers heaved at the wing, trying to pull it out, away from the ship, as much as possible. The soldier who was helping in the attempt to free Valadrakul-Wilkins, was it?-had said that his companion was having problems, being squeezed in there.

That would not do. They needed Valadrakul, needed him badly.

So the soldiers were trying to give Valadrakul and his rescuer a little more room. They were too far under to have the wing lifted off them completely, the way it had been lifted off Ted, but it should be possible to stretch it a little tighter, so it didn’t hang down so heavily upon them.

Pel thought it was a very good idea. “Can I help?” he asked.

Dibbs looked at him, at the tattered remnants of his shirt and the blood and dirt smeared on his face and body, then turned back to his men. “No, sir,” he said flatly. “We’re doing fine.”

Pel didn’t argue, but he wondered just how fine Dibbs was actually doing. His commanding officer had been killed-and, Pel realized, Dibbs was now, under orders, trying to rescue the man who had killed Carson. Four of his men had vanished during the panic as the bat-thing approached, and still had not returned. His supplies, other than the useless sidearms, were all aboard the ship, which was inaccessible-and for that matter, the ship had crashed, stranding them all in an alien universe.

Pel reminded himself that this universe was just as alien to the Imperials as it was to the Earthpeople.

It would be perfectly reasonable for Lieutenant Dibbs to be feeling some pretty serious strain. Pel decided not to push the man about the rescue efforts, or anything else, just yet.

As Pel decided this, one of the soldiers happened to look to one side. Startled, he pointed and shouted. Equally startled, Pel turned.

A rather shamefaced Imperial soldier was stumbling out of the forest, toward the dead monster and the buried ship. His helmet was gone, and his face smeared with something.

Well, that was one of the four, anyway; Pel glanced surreptitiously at Dibbs’ face, and caught an expression of intense relief.

Then it vanished.

“All right, Sawyer,” the lieutenant shouted, “about time you got back! Get over there and give the others a hand!”

* * * *

Dirt sprayed into Singer’s face; his eyes had closed immediately, but not fast enough, and now they stung horribly. Dirt was blocking his nose; he huffed most of it out. He could taste the earth in his mouth, on his tongue and lips; he spat out as much as he could.

“Your pardon, good sir, a thousand times, I beg your pardon!” the wizard said hastily. “I am shamed and dishonored to have discomfited you, who sought to rescue me-and who did so! Look you!” He wiggled his newly freed, booted foot.

“No problem,” Singer muttered, wiping away dirt. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Aye,” Valadrakul agreed fervently, “with a good will!”