Sword of the Bright Lady (60 page)

31.

REVIVAL

He lay in the impossibly white room, perfectly still. Everything was white. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, the bedsheets, the chair. Only the man standing in the doorway was not perfectly, incandescently white. But his robes were.

“It is time to go,” Krellyan said, his voice urgent.

Christopher did not feel urgent. He was comfortable, or rather, he wasn't uncomfortable. More precisely, he didn't feel anything at all. He thought about that for an indeterminate amount of time.

“Is my wife here?” he asked finally.

“No,” Krellyan admitted, “but the only chance you will ever see her again lies through this door.”

“Okay.”

Christopher got up and walked through the doorway.

32.

RETURN

He lay in the warm brown room, the wooden panels glowing with polish, light-stones flickering from the walls. A man stood beside him in white robes.

“Welcome back,” Krellyan said, his voice gentle.

Christopher did not speak, his body empty and drained. Fury burned in him, but the flames were distant and cast no warmth yet.

“Do not be quick to anger,” Krellyan said. “The King has been generous. His inquisitors could find no crime to charge you with. Thus your death was wrongful, and so he has released you from taxes. This alone will pay for your revival, your lost rank, and your regeneration. Your legs will be healed, your body made whole, your rank restored. The King will admit to no wrong, but he has been generous.”

Christopher turned his face to the wall. Krellyan went on, with the faintest hint of desperation.

“Do not be foolish. Your enemies are legion, but you have many advantages. Unknown allies aid us; your body was left on our doorstep, when clearly our enemies meant it to burn. Nordland abides by your bargain and makes no claim. You still have at hand enough tael to gain fifth rank, with the prestige and powers it brings. You have tael and gold beyond that, to make you wealthy even by your standards. You have an army behind you, men loyal unto death and beyond. All but two have come back, an astonishing percentage under the best of times. Do not be foolish.”

Christopher closed his eyes.

“What would you have of me?” Krellyan's voice choked with regret, shame, impotent anger.

Into the empty space between them, Christopher whispered, “The system is corrupt.”

The men waited in silence for a while.

“Yes,” Krellyan agreed, soft and sad. “The system is corrupt.”

Christopher opened his eyes and stared out across the room, into the future.

“I think I know what I am supposed to do now.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This story took three months to write and ten years to tell. Special thanks to my nephews, David, Alex, Dylan, and honorary nephew, Fletcher, for their unflagging enthusiasm; to Josh, for making me rewrite the beginning; to Kristin, for making me rewrite the beginning again; to Julia, for making me look smarter than I am; to Lou, for believing in the book; and always, to Sara, for believing in me.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

M.C. Planck is the author of
The Kassa Gambit
. After a nearly-transient childhood, he hitchhiked across the country and ran out of money in Arizona. So he stayed there for thirty years, raising dogs, getting a degree in philosophy, and founding a scientific instrument company. Having read virtually everything by the old masters of SF&F, he decided he was ready to write. A decade later, with a little help from the Critters online critique group, he was actually ready. He was relieved to find that writing novels is easier than writing software, as a single punctuation error won't cause your audience to explode and die. When he ran out of dogs, he moved to Australia to raise his daughter with kangaroos. Visit his website at
www.mcplanck.com
.

Author photo by Dennis Creasy