01. Midnight At the Well of Souls (41 page)

"That might be the fun of it," she replied. "After all, it's something I've never been—like I'd never been a centaur before, and you'd never been a stag. I
know
what it's like to be a woman—and I don't particularly care for it. Besides, we're only playing."

"I guess we are," he responded. "Since we are, would you rather go back to being a Dillian than what you are now? You can, you know—just go back to Zone through the local Gate and back through again. You'll be readjusted to the original equation. That's the most common way of breaking spells around here, you know. That's the way I'd have handled things if I'd had the time back in Ivrom rather than risking that facedown with the Swarm Queen."

"I—I'm not sure I
could
go back to Dillia," she said softly. "Oh, I loved being that big and strong, loved the country and those wonderful people—but I didn't fit. That's what was driving me crazy in the end. Jol was a wonderful person, but it was
Dal
I was attracted to. And that doesn't go over in Dillia socially—and, if it did, it's impractical."

He nodded. "That's really what you meant when you told me long ago about how people should love people no matter what their form or looks. But what about me? Suppose I turned into something
really
monstrous, so alien that it bore almost no resemblance to what you knew?"

She laughed. "You mean like the bat or a Czillian or maybe a mermaid?"

"No, those are familiar. I mean a real monstrosity."

"As long as you were still you
inside,
I don't think anything would change," she replied seriously. "Why do you talk like that, anyway? Do you expect to turn into a monster?"

"Anything's possible on this world," he reminded her. "We've seen only a fraction of what can happen—you've seen only six hexes, six out of
ftfteen hundred and sixty.
You've met representatives of three or four more. There's a lot that is stranger." His voice turned grim. "We have to meet the new Datham Hain shortly, you know. He's a giant female bug—a monster if ever there was one."

"Now his outside matches his foul inside," she snapped bitterly. "Monsters aren't racial, they're in the mind. He's been a monster all his life."

He nodded. "Look, trust me on this. Hain will get what he deserves—so will everybody. Once inside the Well, we'll all be what we once were, and then will come the reckoning."

"Even you?" she asked. "Or will you stay a deer?"

"No, not a deer," he replied mysteriously, then changed the subject. "Well, maybe it's better over. Two more days and that'll be it."

She opened her mouth to prod, then closed it again. Finally, she asked, "Nathan, is that why you've lived so long? Are you a Markovian? Varnett thinks you are."

He sighed. "No, not a Markovian—exactly. But they might as well continue to think I am. I may have to use that belief to keep everything from blowing apart too soon."

She looked stunned. "You mean all this time you've been dropping hints that you were one of the original builders, and it was all a
bluff?"
 

He shook his head slowly. "Not a bluff, no. But I'm very old, Wuju—older than anyone could imagine. So old that I couldn't live with my own memories. I blocked them out, and, until arriving here on the Well World, I was mercifully, blissfully ignorant. No mind in history can function long with this much storage input. The shock of the fight and transformation in Murithel brought the past back, but there's so
much!
It's next to impossible to sort it all out, get a handle on it all. But these memories still give me the edge—I know things the rest of you don't. I'm not necessarily smarter or wiser than you, but I do have all that experience, all that accumulated knowledge of thousands of lifetimes. That gives me the advantage."

"But they all think you're going to work the Well for them," she pointed out. "Everything you've said indicates that you know how."

"That's why Serge kept us alive," he explained. "That's why we've been coddled and prodded. I have no doubt that the little voice box on top my antlers has an extra circuit monitored by Serge. He's probably listening right now. I don't care anymore. That's why he could help us, know where we were and what happened to us. That's why we're going to meet him; that's how all this was prepared in advance. Just in case he can't use me, he'll use Skander, or Varnett—he thinks."

"I can see why he'd be concerned with you three," she replied, "but why the rest of us? Why me, for example?"

If Brazil could have smiled, he would have. "You don't know Serge—the old Serge. I'd been so lulled by that talk about a wife and kids I'd forgotten how little this world changes the real you, deep down. Hain—well, Hain is useful to keep Skander in check as well as for transportation. I don't know who else is along, but be sure they're there only because Serge has some use for them or he hasn't been able to figure out how to dispose of them properly."

"But why me?" she repeated.

"They must have some tame nasties on the Comworlds," he replied sardonically. "You're a hostage, Wuju. You're his handle on me."

She looked uncertain. "Nathan? What if it really came down to that? Would you do what he asked for me?"

"It won't come to that," he assured her. "Believe me, it won't. Varnett has already figured out why, although he's forgotten in his youthful excitement."

"Then what
will
you do?"

"I will lead them all to the Well—Skander can do that anyway, so could Varnett. I intend to show them everything they want. But they will learn that this treasure hunt is full of thorns when they discover what the price really is. I'll bet you that, once in the control room of their dreams, they will think the price is too high."

She shook her head in wonder. "I don't understand any of this."

"You will," he replied cryptically, "at midnight at the Well of Souls."

* * *

The trip was uncomfortable and bumpy. They traveled on a huge wooden sled with runners. Pulling them swiftly were eight huge beasts they could not fully see—sandsharks, the Ghlmonese called them. Only huge gray backs and huge, razor-sharp fins were visible as they pulled their heavy load and were kept in check by a Ghlmonese driver with reins for each of the huge creatures.

The sandsharks were giant mammals who lived in the sand as fish lived in water. They breathed air—a single huge nostril opened whenever their great backs broke the surface—and moved at eight to ten kilometers per hour.

By the end of the day the travelers were all sore and bruised, but more than halfway there. They spread rugs out on the sand, and ate food heated by the fiery breath of their driver. There was no problem sleeping that evening, despite the hot air, blowing wind, and strange surroundings.

The next day was a repeat of the first. They passed several other sleds carrying Ghlmonese, and occasionally saw individuals riding in huge saddles on the backs of sandsharks. Once in a while they would see a cluster of what appeared to be huge chimneys with crews keeping the openings from being blocked by sand. Far below, they knew, there were towns, perhaps large cities.

Finally, near dusk of the second day, structures appeared ahead of them, growing rapidly larger as they approached. These proved to be a network of towers and spires made of small rocks, reaching fifty or more meters in the air, like the tops of some medieval fortress.

They slowed, and came to a halt near two towers with a wide gate between. A number of Ghlmonese stood around; others were busy going to or from unknown places.

An officious-looking dinosaur, in ornate red livery, came up to them. "You are the alien party from Orgondo?" he asked gruffly.

"They are," their driver replied. "All yours and welcome. I have to see to my sharks. They've had a tough journey."

"Which of you is Mr. Brazil?" the official inquired.

"I am," Brazil replied.

The official looked surprised, since Brazil was, after all, still a giant stag, but he recovered quickly. "Come with me, then. The rest of you will be taken to temporary quarters." He motioned to some other Ghlmonese, also in the red livery, and they came up to escort the party. Although the smallest of the humans was a head taller than any of the guards, no one felt like arguing.

"Go with them," Brazil instructed his group. "There'll be no problems. I'll join you as soon as I can."

They had no choice, and walked to the tower nearest them. Brazil turned to the official. "What now?" he asked.

"Ambassador Ortega and the other alien party are camped out near the base of The Avenue," the official replied. "I am to take you to them."

"Lead on," Brazil urged, unconcern in his voice.

The Avenue proved to be a broad trench, thirty or more meters across, that was just beyond the towers and spires. It was also more than fifteen meters below ground level, but, despite only the most rudimentary stone buffers, the sand didn't seem to blow into the obviously artificial culvert, but over and past it.

Broad stone stairs led down to the flat, almost shiny surface below. Brazil had some trouble negotiating the stairs, but finally made it. The buildings of Oodlikm seemed to line The Avenue on both sides, like medieval castles used to be built into the sides of steep river valleys back on Old Earth. There were many stairways and hundreds of doors, windows, and even ports for defense along both sides of The Avenue wall. As for the valley itself, its level, jewellike surface seemed to stretch to the ocean on Brazil's right, and off to the horizon on his left.

Brazil's hooves clacked on the shiny surface. He towered over countless stalls selling all sorts of things and over the crowds which gaped at him and made way as he passed. He and his escort walked toward the ocean, past the last shops, and finally to what was obviously a more official, less commercial section, across which had been hastily erected a barricade with a heavy wooden gate and armed guards.

The official approached the gate, showed a pass he produced from his coat pocket. After the guards inspected his pass carefully, the gates opened and they passed through. Inside were more guards—huge numbers, in fact. In the center of The Avenue were an Akkafian, a Czillian, a Umiau in what looked like a square bathtub, and—something else.

Brazil studied The Diviner and The Rel, and the last pieces fit into place. The role of the Northerner had been unclear to him from the start, and he knew nothing of the creature's hex, physically or culturally. He was certain that the thing was at the heart of much of the mischief that had been worked, though.

Darkness had fallen, and the stars started showing through. Small gaslights had been lit, giving the entire scene an eerie glow.

"Remain with the others," the official instructed him. "I will get Ambassador Ortega."

Brazil went over to the alien creatures, ignoring all except the Umiau.

"So you're Elkinos Skander," he said flatly.

The mermaid gave a puzzled look. "So? And who or what are you?"

"Nathan Brazil," he replied crisply. "That name means little to you? Perhaps it will be better to say that I am here to avenge seven murders."

The Umiau opened her mouth in surprise. "Seven—what the hell do you mean?"

Brazil's independent eyes showed Skander on the right, and the interest of the other three on the left. The others were all watching the two tensely.

"I was the captain of the freighter who found the bodies on Dalgonia. Seven bodies, charred, left on a barren world. None of them ever did you harm, nor was there any reason for their deaths."

"I didn't kill them," Skander responded in a surly tone. "Varnett killed them. But, what of it? Would you have preferred to open this world to the Coms?"

"So that was it," Brazil said sadly. "The seven died because you feared that their governments would get control. Skander,
you
know who killed them, and
I
know who killed them, but even beyond that is the fact that they needn't have died even for so dubious a reason. The Gate would not have opened for them."

"Of course it would!" Skander snapped. "It opened when Varnett and I found the mathematical key to the computer. And it was still open for you and your party to fall through!"

Brazil shook his head slowly. "No, Skander. It opened only because the two of you
wanted
it open. That's the key, you know. Even though you didn't know that the Gate didn't lead to the Dalgonian brain, but to here, you knew that some sort of Gate must exist and you wanted desperately to find it. You had already decided to kill Varnett and the others before you found it. Varnett knew it. He had a desire to find the Gate, and the fear of death to fix it. That's what opened it up, not your mathematical discoveries. It hadn't opened since the Markovians, and it wouldn't have opened again unless the conditions were right."

"The how did
you
fall through?" Skander retorted. "Why did it open for you?"

"It didn't," Brazil replied evenly. "Although I should have known it was there."

"But it
did
open for us, Brazil," Hain put in.

"Not for you, Hain, or for me, or for Vardia, either," Brazil told them. "But, within our party, there was one person who had lost all hope, who wanted to die, to escape fate's lot. The brain, sensitized to such things, picked this up and lured us to Dalgonia with the false emergency signal. We went up to where the shuttles left by Skander and Varnett were still parked, walked out onto the Gate floor, and, when Wu Julee was well within the field, the Gate triggered—sending all of us here."

"I remember you, now!" Skander exclaimed. "Vardia told me about you while we were imprisoned in The Nation! She told me how the ships seemed to vanish. When I heard all that, I assumed you had engineered the whole thing, that you were a Markovian. The evidence fitted. Besides, it stands to reason that you don't leave a control group like those on the Well World without someone to monitor the control."

"The fact that it was the girl and not Brazil who triggered the Gate doesn't necessarily invalidate your conclusions, Doctor," came a smooth, husky voice behind them. They turned to see the huge form of Serge Ortega, all five meters of snake and two meters of his thick, six-armed body.