Midnight At the Well of Souls

by Jack L. Chalker

  "Nate, I couldn't do it in a million years. Like any planet with a huge number of countries and social systems, everything's in a constant state of flux. Conditions change, and so do rulers. You'll have to learn things as you go along. I can only caution that there is a lot of petty warfare and a lot of big stuff that would break out if one side could figure out a way to do it. One general a thousand years or so ago took over sixty hexes. But he was undone in the end by the necessity for long supply lines and by his inability to conquer several incompatible hexes in his backfield that eventually were able to slice him up. The lesson's been well learned. Things are done more by crook than hook here now."

  Hain's eyes brightened. "My game!" he whispered.

  "And now," Ortega concluded, "you must go. I cannot keep you here more than a day and justify the delay to my government. You cannot put off leaving indefinitely in any case."

  "But there are many more questions that must be answered!" Vardia protested. "Climate, seasons, thousands of needed details!"

  "As for the climate, it varies from hex to hex but has no relationship to geographical position," Ortega told her. "The climate is maintained in each case by the brain. Daylight is exactly fifty percent of each full day anywhere on the globe. Days are within a few hours of standard, so that's fourteen and an eighth standard hours of day and the same of night. The axis is straight up—no tilt at all. But it will vary artificially. But—see! I could go on forever and you'd never know enough. It is time!"

  "And suppose I refuse?" Vardia challenged, raising her sword.

  With that same lightning-quick movement that had marked the previous day's fight, Ortega's snake body uncoiled like a tightly wound spring, snatched the sword, and was back behind the desk in less than half a second. He looked at her sadly. "You have no choice at all," he said quietly. "Will you all now come with me?"

  They followed the Ulik ambassador reluctantly but resigned. He led them again down that great, winding corridor through which they had entered the day before, and it seemed to them all that their walk would never end.

  Finally, after what was about half an hour, they found that the corridor opened into a large room.

  Three sides were bare, plastic-like walls similar to those in Ortega's office but without any pattern. The fourth looked like a wall of absolute black.

  "That's the Gate," Ortega told them, gesturing to the black wall. "We use it to go back and forth between our own hexes and Zone, and you will use it to be assigned. Please don't be afraid. The Gate will not alter your personality; and, after the adjustment period, you will find that you are even better, mentally, than you were. For the little girl, here, passage through will mean the restoration of normality, cure of the addiction, and a correction of whatever imbalances they used to limit her IQ and abilities. Of course, she may still be a rather dull farm worker, but in no event will she be worse off than she was before she was addicted."

  None of them rushed into the Gate.

  Finally, Ortega prodded them. "The doorway behind you is closed. No one, not even I, may reenter Zone until he first goes to a hex. That's the way the system works."

  "I'll go first," Brazil said suddenly, and he took a step toward the Gate. He felt a great hand on his shoulder that stopped him.

  "No, Nate, not now," Ortega almost whispered to him. "Last." Brazil was puzzled, but realized the intent. The ambassador had something else to say to him without the others hearing. Brazil nodded and turned to Hain.

  "How about you, Hain? Or should I go at you again? We're not in the embassy now."

  "You caught me by surprise that time, Captain," Hain replied with the old sneer. "But if you stop and think, you'll know I could break you in pieces. Ambassador Ortega saved your life back there, not mine. Yet, I will go. My future is out there." And, with that, Hain strode confidently to the blackness and, without hesitation, stepped into it.

  The darkness seemed to swallow him up the moment he entered. There was no other visible effect.

  Vardia and Wu Julee each stood solidly, not moving from their places near the entrance.

  Ortega turned and took Wu Julee's left arm with one of his, urging her on across the room to the dark wall. She didn't seem to protest until she was very near the darkness. Then, suddenly, she stopped and screamed, "No! No!" Her face turned and looked pleadingly at Brazil.

  "Go ahead," he urged her gently, but she broke free of Ortega's gentle grip and ran to the captain.

  Brazil looked into her eyes with a gentle pity that was almost tearing him apart inside.

  "You must go," he told her. "You must go. I will find you."

  Still she didn't budge, but tightened her grip on him. Suddenly she was yanked from him with such force and speed that the movement knocked Brazil to the ground. Ortega pulled her away and tossed her into the blackness in one quick motion.

  She screamed, but the scream stopped as the blackness absorbed her, so abrupt that it was like a recording suddenly stopped in midsound.

  "This business is a bitch sometimes," Ortega remarked glumly. He turned and looked at Brazil, who was picking himself up off the floor. "You all right?"

  "Yeah," Brazil replied, then looked into the creature's sad eyes. "I understand, Serge," he said softly. Then, as if to break the mood, his tone took on that of mock anger: "But if you're going to keep beating the hell out of me I'm leaving here no matter what!"

  His tone almost broke through the snakeman's melancholy, and Ortega managed a chuckle. He put his right upper arm out and clasped Brazil to him, and there were tears in his eyes. "God!" the snakeman exclaimed. "How can the greatness in people be so unloved?"

  Suddenly he relaxed and turned his gaze to Vardia, who had remained motionless throughout the whole episode.

  Brazil guessed what must be going through her mind now. Raised by an all-embracing state, trained and bred to a particular function, she was simply not programmed for such a disruption of her orderly, planned life. Every day for her had always been a certainty, and she was secure in the knowledge of that sameness and content with the belief that she was performing a useful task.

  Now she was, for the first time, on her own.

  Brazil thought for a moment, then hit upon what he hoped was a solution.

  "Vardia," he said in his best command voice, "we set out to do a job when we landed on Dalgonia. That trail has led us here to this spot. Now it leads through there. There are seven bodies back on Dalgonia, Vardia. Seven, including at least one of your own people. There is still a duty for you to perform."

  She was breathing hard, the only sign of inner mental torment. Finally, she turned and faced the other two, then ran at the blackness of the Gate.

  And was gone.

  Brazil and Ortega were alone in the room.

  "What was that about seven bodies, Nate?" the snakeman asked.

  Brazil recounted the story of the mysterious distress signal, the mass murder on Dalgonia, and the signs of the two who had vanished as they had.

  Ortega's expression was extremely grave. "I wish I had known of this ten weeks ago when those two came through here. It would have changed things a great deal in Council."

  Brazil's eyebrows rose. "You know them, then?"

  Ortega nodded. "Yes, I know them. I didn't do the processing, but I watched the recordings of their arrival over and over. There was a great deal of debate about them before they went through the Gate."

  "Who were they? What was their story?"

  "Well, they came through together, and one of them was still trying to kill the other on the Well itself when Gre'aton—be's a Type Six Twenty-two, looks kind of like a giant locust—put a stop to it. A few of the more human-looking boys took over, splitting them up so they didn't see each other again.

  "Each of them told a fantastic story, about how he and he alone had discovered some sort of mathematical relationship used by the Markovian brains. Each claimed that everything in the universe was a series of preset mathematical relationships determined by a
master Markovian brain. When they were given the standard briefing, both became terribly excited, each convinced that the Well World was the master brain and that they could somehow communicate with it, maybe even run it. Each claimed the other had stolen his discovery, tried to kill the other, and was here to establish himself as god. Of course, each claimed that he was trying to stop the other from doing so."

  "Did you believe them?"

  "They were mighty convincing. We used some of the standard lie-detection stuff and tried some telepathy using one of the North boys, and the results were always the same."

  "And?" Brazil prompted.

  "As far as we were able to determine—and we don't have the methods for a really scientific study—they were both telling the truth."

  "Whew. You mean they're psychos through and through?"

  Ortega was solemn. "No, each truly believes he discovered what the code was, and each truly believes the other stole it, and each truly believes that he'd be good for godhead and the other would be horrible."

  "Do you really believe that godhead stuff?" Brazil asked.

  Ortega turned all six arms into a giant shrug. "Who knows? A number of folk here have similar ideas, but no one's ever been able to do anything about them. We called a Council—a full Council, with over twelve hundred ambassadors participating. All were given the facts. Everything was debated.

  "The idea explains a lot, of course. All magic, for example. But it is so esoteric. And, as it was pointed out by some of our mathematically minded folk, even if true it probably didn't mean anything, since no one could change the brain anyway. In the end, even though a large number of members voted to kill them, the majority voted to let them through."

  "How did you vote, Serge?" Brazil asked.

  "I voted to kill them, Nate. They are both maniacs, and both are possessed of genius. Each believed he could do what he set out to do, and both seemed to believe that it was destiny that, so soon after the discovery, they were brought here."

  "More to the point, do you believe it, Serge?"

  "I do," the giant replied gravely. "Right now I think those two are the most dangerous beings in the entire universe. And—more to the point—I think that one of them, I can't tell which, has a chance of succeeding."

  "What are their names, Serge, and their backgrounds?"

  Ortega's eyes brightened. "So God in His infinite wisdom allows mercy after all! You do want to get them, and God has sent you to us for that purpose!"

  Brazil thought for a moment. "Serge, ever hear of a Markovian brain actually, literally, trapping people by sending out false signals or the like?"

  Ortega thought for a moment. "No," he replied, "as far as I know it's always accident or blunder. That's why so few come. Now do you see what I mean about God sending you to me?"

  "Somebody sure did, anyway," Brazil acknowledged dryly. "I wish I could see those films and learn a lot about them before I tried to find two invisible needles in a planet-sized haystack."

  "You can," Ortega assured him. "I have all the material back in my office."

  Brazil's mouth was agape. "But you told us there was no way back!"

  Ortega shrugged monstrously again. "I lied," he said.

  * * *

  Several hours later Brazil learned as much as he was going to from the recordings, testimony, and arguments of the Council committees.

  "So can you give me any leads on this Skander and Varnett? Where are they now? And what?"

  "Newcomers are pretty conspicuous around here, since there are so few of them and they are so obvious," Ortega replied. "And, yet, I can give you nothing on either. The planet seems to have swallowed them up."

  "Isn't that unusual?" Brazil asked. "Or, worse, suspicious?"

  "I see what you mean. The whole planet saw what you saw and heard what you heard. They could have some natural allies."

  "Yeah, that's what I'm most concerned about," Brazil said bluntly. "The odds are that there's a monstrous race going on here, and that this place is the soul of reason compared to what everything we know would become if the wrong side was to win."

  "They could both be dead," Ortega suggested hopefully.

  Brazil shook his head in a violent negative. "Uh-uh. Not these boys. They're clever and they're nasty. Skander's almost the archetypal mad scientist, and Varnett's even worse—a renegade, high-class Com. At least one of them will make it, and he'll have some way to dump his allies afterward."

  "You'll have the help of all the hexes who voted to kill them," Ortega pointed out.

  "Sure, Serge, and I'll use that when I have to. But this is really a lone-wolf operation and you know it. That Council was politically very slick. They could count. Even a hex voting to kill them knew they wouldn't be killed—so what was the use of their vote? Getting there might take help—but once there, every friend I have on this world will seek godhead, and never mind that I don't know how to talk to the brain. No, Serge, I have to kill both of them, absolutely, irrevocably, and as quickly as possible."

  "Getting where might take help?" Ortega asked, puzzled.

  "To the Well of Souls, of course," Brazil replied evenly. "And before midnight."

  Now it was Ortega's turn to look stunned. "But that's just an old saying, like I said before—"

  "It's the answer, Serge," Brazil asserted strongly. "It's just that nobody has been able to decipher the code and make use of it."

  "There is no answer to that. It makes no real sense!"

  "Sure it does!" Brazil told him. "It's the answer to a monstrous question, and the key to the most monstrous of threats. I saw Skander's and Varnett's eyes light up when they first heard the phrase, Serge. They seized on it!"

  "But what's the question?" Ortega asked bewilderedly.

  "That's what I don't know yet," Brazil replied, pointing his finger at the Ulik animatedly. "But they thought it was the answer, and they both think they can figure it out. If they can, I can.

  "Look, Serge, why was this world built? No, not the brain; we'll accept that as bringing some sort of stability to the universe. In fact, if they're right, we're all just figments of some dead Markovian's imagination. No, why all this? The Well, the hexes, the civilizations? If I can answer that, I can answer the bigger question! And I'll find out!" Brazil exclaimed excitedly, half-rising from his chair.

  "How can you be so sure?" Ortega responded dubiously.

  "Because someone—or something—wants me to!" Brazil continued in the same excited tone. "That's why I was lured here! That's why I'm here at all, Serge! That's what makes even the timing! Even now they've got a ten-week start! You, yourself, said as much back at the Gate!"

  Ortega shook his head glumly. "That was just my old Latin soul coming forth, Nate. I've been consorting with Jesuits again—yes, we have several here, from the old missionary days, came in a single ship and are out trying to convert the heathen. But, be reasonable, man! You never would have found Dalgonia were it not for the detour. You wouldn't have detoured except for Wu Julee's presence on your ship, and that could hardly have been planned, let alone your act of mercy."

  "I think it was planned, Serge," Brazil said evenly. "I think I've been conned all along. I don't know how, or by whom, or for what purpose, but I've been had!"

  "I don't see how," Ortega responded, "but, even if so, how will you ever know?"

  "I'll know," Brazil said in a tone that was both firm and somewhat frightening. "I'll know at midnight at the Well of Souls."

  * * *

  They stood once again at the Gate, this time for the last time.

  "It's agreed, then," Ortega said to him. "As soon as you pass through and get oriented, you announce yourself to the local ruler. All of them will have been notified of your coming through, with instructions to render any assistance. But at least one of them is sure to be in league with your enemies, Nate! Are you sure? What if you are swallowed up?"

  "I won't be, Serge," Brazil replied calmly. "Chess-players don't sacrifice their queens early in th
e game."

  Ortega gave one last massive shrug. "Believe what you wish—but, be careful, my old friend. If they get you, I shall avenge your death."

  Brazil smiled, then looked at the Gate. "Is it best to run at it, walk into it, or what?" he asked.

  "Doesn't matter," Ortega told him. "You'll wake up as if coming out of a long sleep, anyway. May you wake up a Ulik!"

  Brazil smiled, but kept his thoughts on being a seven-meter, six-armed walrus-snake to himself. He walked over to the gate, then turned for one last look at his transformed old friend.

  "I hope I wake up at all, Serge," he said quietly.

  "Go with God, you ancient heathen," Ortega said.

  "I'll be damned," Brazil muttered, half to himself. "After all these years I might wake up a Gentile." And, with that, he stepped through the Gate.

  And in the darkness he dreamed.

  * * *

  He was on a giant chessboard, that stretched off in all directions. Seven pawns were down on his side—the white side. They looked like scorched and frozen bodies, lying on blackened cots.

  Through the mostly faceless field of black pieces, he could see Skander and Varnett, queen and king.

  Skander was a queen in royal robes, with a scepter in hand. The queen looked around, but could not spot the king. There was Wu Julee, a pawn, out front, and Vardia, a knight with bright sword flashing.

  Ortega, a bishop, glided by quickly, and was struck by a black rook with the face of Datham Hain.

  The queen glided quickly, trying not to trip over her long skirts, toward Hain, the scepter ready to strike that ugly, pig face, when suddenly Ortega reappeared and pushed him away.

  "The black royal family has escaped, Your Highness!" Ortega's voice shouted. "They are heading for the Well of Souls!"

  The queen looked around, but there was no trace of the enemy's major pieces. Anywhere.

  "But where is the Well of Souls?" screamed the queen. "I cannot get to the king without knowing!"

  A sudden burst of overwhelming, cosmic laughter came from beyond the board. It was giant, hollow, and all embracing. A giant hand gripped the queen and moved it far away to the other side of the board. "Here they are!" the great voice said mockingly.