The Mistress of Illusions

by Michael D. Resnick

  “The guards will kill him when they come back,” noted Will.

  “Maybe,” agreed Raven. “I suppose it all depends on how fast he eats.”

  Will looked in the direction of the door through which they had all entered. “If we survive this, I hope to hell I’m not sharing a blanket with it when it’s all over.”

  “A reasonable ambition,” said Raven, starting to walk deeper into the interior of the jail. “How many men do you suppose work here?”

  “They don’t need more than about thirty,” answered Will, “but part of the army is stationed here. I would imagine the total is close to one hundred.”

  “And we’re sixty at best, probably a little less, and certainly not as well armed and armored for a battle inside the building,” said Raven. “Once we free all the prisoners, we’ve got to get back outside and take a defensive position before they break in, someplace where our arrows will be effective. I don’t think half a dozen of us were wearing any armor. The one thing we don’t want is a massive swordfight.” He paused. “Is there a back entrance?”

  “Yes,” said Tuck.

  “All right. Run ahead, tell Little John, Will, and the rest to gather by it. We’ll leave the building that way and take up positions for the battle to come.”

  “Right,” said Tuck, running off down a corridor.

  “That’s always assuming they haven’t surrounded and breached it, of course,” he remarked wryly to Lisa.

  “If they have,” she replied, “you’ll find an alternative.”

  He stared at her. “Are you the Mistress of Illusions or the Mistress of Outright Fantasy?”

  She smiled. “Think of all you’ve been through, Eddie—and yet you’re still here.”

  He grimaced. “She says, as we’re surrounded and outgunned in the middle of a medieval prison.”

  “I know you have your doubts, Eddie,” she said. “But you weren’t selected at random.”

  “If we survive the next hour, and I figure the odds are ten-to-one against it, I want to know how I was selected, and by whom, and for what?”

  “Concentrate on the next hour first,” said Lisa.

  Raven took her hand and began walking toward what he assumed was the back of the jail building. When he saw a crowd of his men he approached them.

  “What’s the problem?” he asked. “I told you to go outside and establish positions.”

  “There are maybe thirty of them right outside,” said Friar Tuck. “They know they can’t come in while we’re here by the door, but by the same token we can’t go out.”

  Alan-a-Dale sprinted up to the group from a different corridor. “Same situation at the front,” he announced. “It’s a standoff.”

  “That can’t last,” said Raven. “They’ll send for more men—and my guess is that we don’t have enough food to hold out for any length of time.” He turned to Little John. “Is the roof flat?”

  “Gently sloped,” was the answer.

  “That’ll do,” said Raven.

  “Robin, you’re not seriously going to pour boiling liquid down on them!” said Friar Tuck. “Hell, they’ll just step back and laugh at us.”

  “We fight with arrows, not liquids,” answered Raven. “And from what I see, they fight with swords. Now who has the advantage when we’re twenty feet above the ground and they’re on it?”

  Friar Tuck’s eyes widened. “What are we waiting for?”

  Raven smiled. “For someone to suggest dragging some furniture to the doorway and setting fire to it, since it will be very difficult for our rooftop archers to hit any targets inside the building.”

  “You heard him!” yelled Friar Tuck. “Drag chairs, beds, anything that can burn, to the various doors and set fire to it!”

  The men scurried around the building, doing as Friar Tuck had ordered, and Raven looked around for a stairway. It didn’t take long to find one, and he and Lisa were soon standing on the roof, peeking unseen over the edge.

  “It’s going to be a slaughter,” he said. “I’d feel sorry for them, if they weren’t planning to kill every last one of us.”

  “There are two ways to end a battle to the death,” said Lisa. “I prefer yours.”

  He smiled at her. “You know, I could really grow fond of you, especially if you’d stop leading me into one fatal situation after another.”

  She returned his smile. “You can be killed,” she said. “But you’re Eddie Raven, at least for the moment, so I know that you won’t be killed.” She paused. “Well, unless you’re careless or foolish.”

  “Or mortal,” he said.

  “Oh, you’re mortal, all right,” she assured him. “That’s why you have to be so careful. Important things lie ahead of you.”

  “And surviving the next few hours isn’t important?”

  “It’s important to you,” she said. “And to me,” she added.

  “But not in Nature’s scheme of things?”

  “Stop, Eddie,” she said. “You must know that’s not true. But you also know there are things I can’t tell you yet.”

  There was a commotion as Little John and a dozen others reached the roof, followed within a couple of minutes by the rest of the Merry Men.

  “You’d better take your positions and start letting those arrows fly,” said Raven. “The fires can’t burn in the doorways all day.”

  The men spread out across the gently sloped roof, and at a signal from Friar Tuck they let loose their first barrage of arrows. There were screams and curses coming up from the ground, and Raven stepped a little closer to the roof’s edge to observe the carnage.

  “They’re up there!” cried one of the jailers, pointing to the roof.

  He pulled a hatchet out of his belt and hurled it, but it had lost almost all its force by the time it reached the roof, and didn’t come within ten feet of the closest potential target. Others on the ground tried the same strategy, and got nothing for their effort except a barrage of arrows.

  “I guess it’s working,” remarked Raven to Lisa.

  “I guess it is.”

  “Well, they should have the brains to retreat pretty soon,” he said. “It’s better than the alternative.”

  “By the time they do, you’ll have lowered the odds for your men, perhaps evened them.”

  “You think so?”

  “Free will isn’t the commodity that it becomes in a few centuries, Eddie,” replied Lisa. “Their job is to stay here and try to subdue or kill your men. They’ll do it until they’re facing absolute, unequivocal defeat and death, and maybe beyond it.”

  “It’s going to be a bloody sight,” said Raven with a grimace.

  “Fortunately you won’t have to see it,” she said.

  And suddenly he felt a disorientating sense of, not exactly motion, but displacement.

  And when he opened his eyes and regained his balance, he was very definitely Elsewhere.

  15

  “Where the hell are we?” muttered Raven, looking around at the lush, flower-filled landscape.

  “A stopover between worlds,” answered Lisa, who was standing beside him. All the others had vanished—or, more precisely, had been left behind.

  “Between Earth and where?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “It’s not as simple as that, Eddie.”

  “Somehow I’m not surprised,” he answered bitterly.

  “By the way, you were magnificent leading your men against the sheriff’s army.”

  “First, I didn’t so much lead them as react to the other side,” said Raven. “Second, they were jailers, not soldiers. And third, they’re all imaginary anyway.”

  She pointed to a gash on his arm that was dripping blood. “One of their swords must have had one hell of an imagination,” she said.

  “Okay, I was magnificent,” he said. “Now whe
re the hell are we?”

  “A halfway stop.”

  “Halfway between what and what else?” he asked irritably.

  “Between what happened last and what happens next,” she answered.

  He stared at her. “I love you,” he said. “I hope you know that.” He paused, then frowned. “But you’re driving me crazy!”

  “I’m sorry, Eddie,” said Lisa. “Please believe me that everything you’re undergoing is necessary.”

  “Damned well better be,” he muttered. “Well, what’s next?”

  “I don’t think you’re in the right frame of mind for another excursion.”

  “We’re calling them excursions, are we?” he said. Suddenly he shrugged. “Well, it beats calling ’em delusions.” He looked around. “So we just sit here and wait for . . . for whatever?”

  “No, I think you’ll adjust quicker to something more familiar.” She reached out. “Here, hold my hand. I don’t want us to get separated, or you’ll spend all your time trying to find me.”

  He reached out and took her hand in his. “Feels human,” he remarked with a smile.

  “It is,” she replied. “Mostly.”

  He was about to ask her to qualify that last word, but suddenly the world had vanished again and they were spinning, weightless, in total darkness. After a moment his feet touched the ground, the spinning stopped, and he tightened his grip on Lisa’s hand to make sure she couldn’t spin off in some other direction.

  He opened his eyes, not quite sure what to expect, and found himself standing beneath a streetlight on a Manhattan street. He led her to a corner and read the street sign.

  “I should have known,” he said. “This is Rofocale’s street. His apartment is four buildings down.”

  “I thought as long as we were taking a break from other things, you might like to see how he’s progressing,” answered Lisa. “He is one of your sponsors.”

  “He’s the chief demon of Hell,” growled Raven.

  “He’s on your side,” she said. “What else matters?”

  “Give me a minute to come up with an answer.”

  “If it’s a negative answer,” said Lisa, “I’ve got another question for you.”

  “Oh?”

  She nodded. “How can you trust the Mistress of Illusions when you can’t trust the demon she clearly trusts?”

  “So all the history books should know that you created Robin Hood and Friar Tuck and the rest?” he said dubiously.

  She shook her head. “I chose the version of them in which you could function best.”

  He frowned. “How many versions of them are there?”

  She smiled. “More than I think you can imagine.”

  He stared at her, tried to think of another question where the answer wouldn’t confuse or frustrate him, couldn’t come up with even one, then shrugged and sighed.

  “Well, as long as we’re here, we might as well see how he’s doing.”

  “I intuit that he’s making progress, but very slowly.”

  “I’ll bet his boss is having a hell of a chuckle at his pain.”

  “Certainly not!” said Lisa.

  “The Devil doesn’t enjoy his lackey’s pain?”

  She sighed and shook her head. “You just don’t understand.”

  “Enlighten me,” said Raven.

  “Eddie, even the Devil is simply a fallen angel.”

  He stood perfectly still for a moment. “Son of a bitch!” he muttered. “I never thought of that.”

  “Almost no one does,” she said sadly.

  “Okay, let’s go check on him,” said Raven, heading off to Rofocale’s building with Lisa at his side.

  They entered the building, walked into the elevator, found out that it wasn’t working, and climbed the stairs to Rofocale’s one-room apartment. Raven was about to knock when Lisa grabbed his wrist.

  “It’s not locked,” she told him.

  “You know that for a fact, do you?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t,” she responded.

  He reached out, grabbed the doorknob, twisted it, and pushed it open.

  Rofocale was sitting on the edge of his bed, not looking much better than the last time Raven had seen him, but at least sitting rather than sprawled out.

  “Hello, Eddie,” he said. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  “You have?” said Raven, surprised.

  “Ever since you returned from Sherwood.”

  “You knew I was there?”

  “Of course,” said Rofocale.

  Raven stared at the red humanlike creature sitting on the bed. “You should have told me who and what you were.”

  “Would it have made you more comfortable in my presence?”

  Raven frowned. “Probably not.”

  “If you took it wrong, I was in no condition to defend myself.”

  “I don’t attack cripples,” said Raven. “Not even crippled demons.”

  “I know,” said Rofocale. “You would be He Whom We Sought if you were.”

  “You make it sound like a title,” said Raven.

  Rofocale shrugged. “In a way.” He turned to Lisa. “He did as expected?”

  “We wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t,” she answered.

  “Good. The time is getting close.”

  “The time for what?” demanded Raven.

  “It’s still a little too soon to tell you, Eddie Raven,” said Rofocale. “I don’t want you to be frightened or overcome by the magnitude of it.”

  “Of what?” persisted Raven.

  “Of what we have been preparing you for,” said Rofocale. He winced in discomfort. “I’d invite you to relax and visit, but this place was not created for visitors, and besides I’m sure she has more important things on tap for you. I’d accompany you, but my strength isn’t up to it yet.”

  Ask your Dark Master for some, Raven wanted to say, but somehow he knew that if it were available Rofocale would already have it.

  “All right,” said Raven. “I’ll check on you whenever I can.”

  “I appreciate your concern, but I have suffered far worse injuries over the eons, and I shall be fine.”

  Once I knew who and what you are, I never doubted it.

  Raven held the door open for Lisa, then closed it and followed her to the stairway.

  “Before we leave the building,” he said, “was there anything you wanted to say to him?”

  “I’ve already said it,” she answered.

  “While I was talking to him?”

  She smiled. “When else?”

  “You had a whole conversation with him while we were there?”

  “Yes.” They reached the foyer. “Don’t let it distress you, Eddie. He’s not a normal human being.”

  And neither, it would seem, is the woman I love.

  She smiled again. “I read that thought. I appreciate the sentiment.”

  “Well,” he said wryly, “I can tell that if we ever get married, one of us had damned well better not cheat.”

  She laughed. And then, suddenly, her face was totally serious.

  “Let’s survive the next few days and weeks, Eddie,” she said. “Then we’ll worry about getting married—if we, and the world, are still here.”

  “Fair enough,” he agreed. “You hungry?”

  “I could eat.”

  “I saw a Chinese restaurant about two blocks from here last time I was walking away from the apartment,” said Raven. “Looked okay.”

  “Then let’s give it a try,” she replied.

  “Turn left at the corner.”

  They walked two blocks, then turned to their right about forty feet, and entered a tastefully decorated restaurant displaying rows of fans and delicate lanterns.

  “W
hat do you think?” asked Raven.

  “I think it’s charming,” she answered. “I hope the food is up to the décor.”

  A waitress approached them.

  “Table for two, please,” said Raven.

  “Follow me, please.” She turned to Lisa. “I like your outfit.”

  Raven looked at Lisa, blinked, shook his head, and blinked again.

  “You’re still Lisa?” he asked of the Asian girl in the brocaded robe who stood beside him.

  “I’m still the Mistress of Illusions,” she answered. “And for you, of course, I’m Lisa.”

  “You don’t look like her.”

  “Adaptive coloration,” she replied. “If this was a Hawaiian restaurant I might be wearing a sarong and letting my hair hang down to my waist.”

  “Your hair doesn’t begin to reach your waist.”

  She smiled. “Don’t bet on it, Eddie.”

  They continued following the waitress and a moment later were seated at a table.

  They each looked at their menus, and Eddie said, “I wonder how the kung pao shrimp is.”

  “I’ll ask,” said Lisa, signaling the waitress, who returned to the table. Lisa spoke very briefly in a Chinese dialect that Raven found incomprehensible, smiled, and turned to him. “It’s the specialty of the house.”

  “I’ll have some,” he said to the waitress, and Lisa ordered in the dialect. “How many languages do you speak?” he asked as the waitress retreated.

  “As many as I have to,” she replied.

  He stared at her. “I have to ask,” he continued. “Did you study them all, or do they each come naturally?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes what?” he persisted.

  She smiled again. “Yes, one or the other.”

  He was sure he’d get another non-answer to anything he wanted to know, and he thought he’d go crazy indulging in idle conversation when there was so much he wanted to ask, so he sat in silence, and she accommodated him.

  Finally, after almost ten minutes of silence, their meals arrived.

  “Is there a way to test it?” he asked, staring at his plate.

  “You think it might be too hot?” she responded.