Twilight at the Well of Souls wos-5

by Jack L. Chalker

  “I understand all that,” he told them impatiently. “Damn it, they made me into a stag.”

  “Our choices were two,” the Gedemondan went on. “First were the horned mounts of the Dahir—but that raised a problem. They do not run free, and are used as mounts and draft animals. A wild one would be seen and captured quickly as it has some value. That left the other creature, one that’s put out to pasture and allowed to roam free until it is needed. You would call it, in your language, a sort of a cow.”

  Lamotien, a Little before Midnight

  Gunit Sangh was quite literally climbing the walls, the ceiling, and oozing in and out through the floor. Others were nervous to even approach his command tent for some time; he had killed the first two messengers who went in there and had issued orders for all sorts of mass executions. None had been carried out, but nobody was willing even to go close enough to tell him this.

  Initial rage had come from the first message, which had been from Dahir. It told him that, when the creatures, along with his own agents, had gone to get Mavra Chang and establish the proper spells to get her walking and moving to the Zone Gate, they had met with no success. A cursory examination had been performed and the general diagnosis was that, while autonomic functions still operated, there was, in effect, total brain death insofar as any voluntary motions were concerned. She was, in effect, a vegetable, and even their magic could not work on a body that no longer was able to comprehend an order to send a message over magically relinked nerves.

  No one could explain it, but there were tracks outside and around the barn area of no known type. The conclusion: Mavra Chang had been discovered by her friends, somehow, and they, having seen her mutilated state, had done this so that she could give no information or messages.

  He had ordered everyone on the ranch immediately executed, but except for the two Dahbi, it was unlikely the order would be carried out. The Dahir were pragmatists, and even the Dahir, not being stupid, would probably be an awfully long time going home or rejoining their forces.

  Then had come the second message that Brazil had been spotted with the Awbrian forces moving up from the south. This, together with his routine intelligence asssuring him that Brazil, was, in fact, still with the Dillians and Hakazits not too many hills away in Bache, did nothing to improve his confidence. He felt like his whole beautiful world of dreams was crashing down about him.

  Finally, though, he did calm down and came out of the tent. A milling throng of officers of many races had gathered near by, but they all pulled back when he appeared, fully unfolded and extended, a truly awesome sight.

  “Fools! I will not hurt you!” he snapped. “We must act and act now or all is surely lost! Make use of the rest of the night to mobilize your entire force. All plans are now in force, all alerts are now proclaimed. We will engage the enemy as soon after first light as is practical. Move!”

  They moved, fast and frenzied.

  Sangh pointed a foreleg at his intelligence officer. “You! Any further messages? Quit shivering, idiot! I won’t eat you! I’m over that—now.”

  The officer in question, a tiny, weasellike Orarc, continued to shiver, but it responded, “There is a strange, impossible message from your embassy at Zone, sir.”

  Sangh froze. More bad news would be more than he could stand. “What?”

  The Orarc swallowed hard. “According to this— it’s unbelievable—but, according to this—”

  “Come on! Out with it!”

  “Ambassador Ortega is no longer at Zone,” the creature told him.

  Gunit Sangh froze, stunned. He realized immediately the import of that news—and its total lack of credibility. If Ortega left Zone, then he broke the spell that restrained his aging, and he was already an old man. It was the end of an era that had stretched back to almost two thousand years before the elderly Dahbi himself had been born, the end of a power and personality that had pervaded and colored the only Well World that Sangh, or anybody else, had ever known.

  “It must be a mistake,” he responded, dismissing the news. “He was just taking a crap or something.” He turned to go back into the tent.

  “It’s definite, sir,” the Orarc insisted. “Some of our own people saw him go through the Zone Gate. No doubles, no duplicates, no other Ulik mistaken for him. There is a new, young Ulik ambassador at Zone and Ortega is definitely gone. Gone home, they said, to die.”

  Gunit Sangh snorted. “Oh, no. There’s something dirtier afoot than that. Ortega would only do that if he were certain not only that he was not going to die but also that the odds favored his plan somehow. I want to know as soon as possible what he did after arriving back in Ulik. I want to know where Serge Ortega is and what he is doing if he survived the trip —and I’m certain he did.”

  “At once, sir,” the intelligence officer responded and turned to go.

  Gunit Sangh felt totally calm, but very uneasy. Up to now it was a simple battle of wits. He was losing, yes, but he always had the chance of winning and he always had known the score. Not now. With Ortega suddenly in the game—outside of Zone! incredible!—he had the uneasy feeling that something momentous was going on, some force was coming into play that was beyond understanding or control.

  He was suddenly conscious that more than history was being made now; the future itself, and for a long, long time to come. The future was being molded by unseen hands. A changing future, not a static one.

  All his life his efforts had gone to maintain the status quo, which he liked very much indeed, and increase his personal role in the leadership of that. But —Ortega gone? Brazil inside the Well?

  He spread out the relief maps and tried to occupy his mind with preparations for battle For the first time in his long life, Gunit Sangh felt afraid.

  Bache, near the Dahir Border

  Gypsy pulled deeply on a cigarette, the glow lighting up his face in an odd, supernatural effect. The only other light came from the reddish glow that emanated from Marquoz’s alien eyes.

  Nathan Brazil lit a small torch and studied the scene. “I think it’s safe enough right here,” he told the others, and they agreed.

  The Gedemondans had called Mavra “sort of” a cow, but to Brazil there was very little qualification. Spotted brown and white, she had all the bovine features, and despite being a little shaggy-haired and having two small horns, twisted like the hakak’s, into conchlike spirals, she was the same sort of animal as before. He sympathized with her, and by the light of the torch she turned her massive head to study them with eyes that were, he knew, weak, very near-sighted, and color-blind.

  She had been less shocked by the transfer than most people would have been; she had been through transformations several times before, not all deliberate or painless. She had waited, then, until they had come at dawn to let the cows out to pasture, and had found it very easy to just go with the herd, let the cow part of her take control, and get out into the hills. From that point she had something of an internal struggle with the cow mind as she tried to assume control and force it away, while doing it as slowly and naturally as possible.

  The Gedemondans had met her at a predetermined spot, a small pool used by cows and other livestock out of sight of the ranch house, and had gone with her, breaching the fence when they came to it and continuing down an isolated route to the border.

  The Gedemondans, she had noticed, seemed weak and somewhat disoriented and had to stop often. At first she had thought it was just the night’s tension catching up to them, but then she realized it was far more than that. Whatever they had done to get her into this body took enormous power and concentration. They all looked much older, somehow, than they had before their efforts on her behalf.

  Their condition did not improve in the post-midnight darkness. Even Brazil and the others, who had had no previous experience with Gedemondans and therefore no direct method of comparison, could see the change. Brazil thought back to the Murnies, so long ago, and recalled now that the elders who could do the transf
erence spent half their lives learning the skill that was enough to do them in when used only once or twice. Still, there was an idea in the back of his mind that had started with a tiny glimmer of devious light when he had first heard of Mavra’s transference. Though well worth trying, he just wished he felt better asking it, for he now knew the price.

  “How many of your people are around?” he asked the Gedemondan communicator.

  “Twelve total,” the white creature responded, “including myself and the other communicator there.”

  “And it takes a minimum of three of you to do this transference?”

  The Gedemondan nodded. “Yes, three.”

  He looked over at the weary Gedemondan party, now slumped against the trees. “Would using more of you in such an operation lessen the, ah, impact?”

  The communicator saw where he was leading. “No, I don’t think so. Which of you are you considering for this?”

  His eyebrows rose slightly in surprise. “You mean she could be transferred again? I thought the strain would be too much.”

  “Actually, it would be somewhat easier,” the Gedemondan told him. “She is not a natural part of the body, nor has she been in it long enough to get totally entwined. Part of the problem is identifying and gathering together all of the soul—much easier with a body alien to it than with one of which it is a part.”

  He nodded, but hesitated, looking again at the tired, worn Gedemondans who had given so much of themselves in the rescue. He didn’t like to ask others to go through that.

  The communicator understood. “It is all right,” he consoled gently. “You see, we believe in what you are doing. It is necessary, it is important. We’ve kept apart from the rest of the Well World, true, and would still if all were going smoothly. It is not, though. Even at that, we might have been tempted to stay removed from this as we have from all other conflicts, but there is an overriding consideration here that impels us to do anything and everything to make certain you succeed.”

  Brazil looked up at the creature in puzzlement. “Overriding consideration?”

  The Gedemondan nodded. “You see, Captain, we have devoted the entire energy of our race to exploring the ways of the universe, the ways of the Well, and, most important, exploring the innermost part of every sentient being, the soul. We have learned much, but we have also learned that there are things beyond us, bound as we are here on the Well World. An entire world of our own, a huge race that could know and understand struggle, hardships, and the reality of the rest of the universe beyond this tiny artificial bubble—that is the only way to progress, to get to the real truths about ourselves.”

  “Well, you have one, somewhere,” Brazil pointed out.

  “We do not,” the Gedemondan told him sadly. “There was an error, something, some factor that was overlooked in our preparation here for a real existence out there. We died out—quickly. There does not even seem to have been a second generation.”

  “How do you know all that?” Brazil asked him. “I mean, even I don’t know that, and wouldn’t without getting deep into the machinery. You couldn’t possibly know.”

  “We know,” the creature assured him. “Each construct in the universe has its own intricate mathematical codes. We can sense those codes, read them, so to speak. We know the codes are consistent, and we can trace individual races out there from their counterparts on the Well World, even identify a large number of races no longer on the Well World at all, at least in a mathematical sense. And when the race is no longer in existence, there is a gap, a noticeable discontinuity.”

  Brazil was fascinated. “You mean you can actually read the Well’s code?”

  “To an extent, yes,” the Gedemondan admitted. “It is due to that ability that we can use some of the Well’s potential ourselves, more or less in the Markovian manner. It’s how we can sometimes foretell future trends, spot key people, do such things as the transfer and blind others’ minds. You can see the frustration. To be so close to the Markovian abilities and understanding—yet, that close and no closer, for we can not expand, grow, or get into a position where we can look at the situation from the other end, from the universe itself. And that, of course, is why we must help you in any way possible.”

  Nathan Brazil considered what the creature was saying, then broke into a slight smile. He shook his head slowly and pointed an accusatory finger at the communicator. “You want me to start over,” he said with a mixture of amazement and amusement. “You want to try it again.” So much for altruism, he thought sourly. The same old self-centered elitist bastards were still in charge. He wondered idly how different the society and culture of Gedemondas was from some of the old Com worlds. Still, it made things even easier.

  “Look,” he explained, “we have two problems here. One is that Mavra is in no current condition to travel and is likely, if she stays this way, to wind up as somebody’s barbecue. The second is that Gunit Sangh will be looking for me to make a break now and he’ll have patrols and everything he can think of waiting for me. Had things not unraveled when they did, I probably could have done it with few problems. The original plan, as far as it goes, is still sound. The only way in is to fly.”

  “So you want to get made up as an Agitar, maybe, and then make Mavra your pegasus?” Gypsy guessed. “It’s not a bad idea, if she’s agreeable.”

  Mavra’s head turned and she gave out a very cow-like “Moo,” which was indecipherable.

  “Well, that would have been a good idea if we were still following the original script, but I think they’re on to that kind of thing now. I don’t have the advantages of the Com here, particularly not out here in the middle of nowhere. No costume we could come up with would stand close inspection, and Sangh’s no dummy. He’ll force down any creature even remotely resembling me, just for insurance. No, let’s be a little bit trickier than that. Let’s make both Mavra and me pegasuses.”

  “But you won’t be able to speak,” Marquoz noted. “To everyone else you’ll be just dumb animals.”

  “Then they—we’ll—have to have riders,” Brazil replied.

  “The few such creatures we have were mostly stolen,” the Hakazit pointed out. “I’m not sure how much we can trust the Agitar riders.”

  “Not Agitar,” he told them. “A Gedemondan, for sure, since we have to have some method, no matter how basic, to communicate if necessary.” He looked at the communicator. “I assume something of that sort is possible?”

  The communicator nodded. “By laying of hands, in a basic way,” he replied slowly, “the Gedemondan would then become the conduit for both conversations—but it would work, I think. Still, why not two of us?”

  “You’re useful, but you’re not fighters,” he told the great creature realistically. “Somebody ought to be along who can shoot a variety of things.”

  “We are not defenseless, but it is true that we can act only in self-defense where a sentient life is concerned,” the Gedemondan admitted.

  “I think I’m a little too big and heavy for one of those,” Marquoz noted ruefully. “Although, truthfully, if there were some way to do it I would love to be there at the end.”

  Brazil nodded. “All right, then, we’ll have to trust one of the Agitar. Pick the best you can and get him and two of the creatures here as quickly as possible.”

  “I’ll do it,” Gypsy said, and vanished.

  They all stared at the spot where he had just been, and it was Brazil who shook his head in amazement. “How does he do that?” he wondered aloud.

  “He tells the Well what he wants and it does it for him,” the Gedemondan communicator replied.

  They all looked at the creature. “You mean it responds to his will?” Brazil pressed.

  The communicator nodded. “In effect he is a Markovian,” he said flatly.

  Brazil shook his head. “No, not that. Markovians on the Well World had no access to the main computer. That would have destroyed the point of the experiment.”

  “Nevertheless, t
hat is what he does,” the creature maintained. “I could feel it, almost see it.”

  Brazil stared off into the darkness. “Now who the hell could have learned that—and how?” he mused aloud.

  The Agitar was an Entry named Prola, a former Olympian with a lot of self-confidence who was honored to be chosen for this mission. As an Agitar male the former Amazon was somewhat uncomfortable, but now saw this as a heaven-sent opportunity.

  “I regret I am not very good at riding the beasts, though,” Prola said apologetically.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Brazil told the satyrlike creature. “You just hold on and let me do the flying. I hope,” he added under his breath.

  They gathered around the torchlight one last time and Brazil took out a map and spread it on the ground. “Now, Sangh’s almost certainly going to attack this morning. I don’t want you to fight. Gypsy, you tell Asam as soon as we’re off to pack up everybody and everything he can and start moving directly for the Ellerbanta-Verkm Avenue. Sangh will be snapping at your heels, but fight only rearguard actions. Marquoz, I think your people could do that effectively. The faster you can go, the less threat from the rear, since the enemy expects you to stand and fight here, not run, and won’t have prepared logistically for a chase. If you can, Gypsy, then get down to Yua and tell her the same thing.”

  “But that will run her right into Khutir’s army,” the strange, dark man protested. “It’ll be a slaughter. Khutir’s got her outnumbered and out-experienced.”

  “But he’s going to get word real quick that the main force is moving on the Avenue from his flank. I’m betting he’ll set up the best defense line he can over the broad front and try and hold until Sangh can come up behind your army. He has to block both forces with his army, remember, and that’s putting him on the extreme defensive, outnumbered and outgunned.”