Legacy of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [63]
“What?” Eliza asked, pausing and staring around. “Who’s there? Is it Papa?”
“No, it is not Papa! Keep quiet! Don’t move! Don’t even breathe! Too late.” Teddy groaned. “They’ve heard us.”
Silver shimmered in the night. Two figures clad in silver robes, their faces hooded and masked, were walking along the highway. They were twenty paces from us and coming up on us rapidly. Eliza opened her mouth. I put my fingers on her lips, to warn her to keep silent. We stood in the shadows, hardly daring to breathe, as Teddy had cautioned. The figures continued walking and they came to a halt, right opposite us. Their faceless faces turned slowly in our direction.
“This is where we heard voices, sir,” one was saying, speaking into some sort of communication device. “They came from somewhere around here. Yes, sir, we’ll check it out.”
Eliza shrank close to me. Her free hand clutched mine. She pressed the Darksword to her body. I put my arm around her, held fast to her, and thought frantically of what to do if they found us, which it seemed they must do any moment. Should we make a break for it? Should we—
“Almin’s blood,” said Simkin irritably. “It seems I must get you out of this.”
The bear vanished from my hand. A translucent form, much as if smoke had taken the shape of a young and foppish nobleman from about the time of Louis XIV, materialized right in front of the Technomancers.
“Oh, I say! Lovely night for a walk, isn’t it?” Simkin languidly waved his orange scarf in the air.
I must give the Technomancers credit. They would have been more than human if they had not been startled by the apparition materializing before them, but they kept amazingly calm. One thrust her hand into the molten fabric of the silver robe, held up a gob of it, and a device shaped itself out of the fabric.
“What is this thing?” asked the other Technomancer, a male by his voice. The faceless head was gazing at Simkin.
“I’m analyzing it now,” the woman replied.
“Analyzing me? With that?” Simkin cast the device a scathing glance and smiled smugly. He seemed to find the entire idea hilarious. “What does it say I am? Spirit? Specter? Spook? Ghost? Ghoul? Wraith? I know—doppelganger! No, better yet. Poltergeist.”
He sidled around, craned his head to try to get a look at the device. “Perhaps I’m not here at all. Perhaps you’re hallucinating. Sleep deprivation. A bad acid trip. Or maybe you’re going mad.” He appeared eager to help.
“Residual magic,” the woman reported. Snapping shut the device, she slid it back into the robe, which seemed to swallow it whole. “We postulated that there are likely to be pockets of leftover magic all over Thimhallan.”
“Residual magic!” Simkin quivered, his voice cracked with outrage. He could barely speak for his emotion. “Me! Simkin! The darling of Kings, the play toy of Emperors! Me! Magical leftovers! Like some damn moldy sandwich!”
The Technomancer was reporting in again.
“The voices checked out, sir. Nothing to worry about. Residual magic. A substanceless phantasm, possibly an Echo. We were warned about such. It poses no threat.”
He paused a moment, listening, then said, “Yes, sir.”
“Our orders?” the woman asked.
“Continue. The other teams are on site and advancing.”
“What do we do with this thing?” The woman gestured at Simkin. “It has a voice. It could warn the subject.”
“Unlikely,” the man responded. “Echoes mindlessly repeat words they’ve heard others speak. They mimic, like parrots, and like parrots, sometimes give the illusion of appearing intelligent.”
I cannot describe the look on Simkin’s face. His eyes bulged, his mouth opened and shut. Perhaps for the first time in his life— which, considering that he was probably immortal, had certainly been a long one—he was struck dumb.
The man started to walk on. The woman was more dubious. Her silver face was turned toward Simkin.
He hung in the air, appearing more nebulous than