"Fire away," the man invited, sipping more of the ale.
"If that gas stuff was still active, why didn't it affect you, at least slightly?"
"I honestly don't know," Brazil responded. "Everything says I should have been reduced to the level of the hex, including Ambreza chemistry. But I wasn't. I wasn't even physically changed to conform to the larger, darker version of humanity there. I couldn't explain that—and neither can the Ambreza."
* * *
The Healer stuck her head in the door, and they turned expectantly.
"She's sleeping now," she reported. "Really sleeping, for the first time in more than a month. I'll stay with her and see her through."
They nodded and settled back for a long wait.
Wu Julee slept for almost two days.
Brazil used the time to tour the village and look at some of the trails. He liked these people, he decided, and he liked this isolated place, cut off from everything civilized except for the one daily boat run. Standing on a ledge partway up a well-maintained cross-country trail, he was oblivious to the cold and the wind as he looked out at the mass of snow-covered mountains. He realized suddenly that almost the whole mountain range was in the next hex, and he speculated idly on what sort of denizens lived in that kind of terrain.
After spending most of a day out there, he made his way back to the village to check on Wu Julee's progress.
"She came around," the Healer informed him. "I got her to eat a little something and it stayed down. You can see her, if you want."
Brazil did want, and went in.
She looked a little weak but managed a smile when she saw him.
She hasn't really changed radically, he thought, at least not from the waist up. He would have known her anywhere—despite the different coloration and the lower body, the pointy ears, and all. She actually looked healthier than she had under the influence of that vicious drug, the product of eating better and of exercising.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, idly wondering why that stupid question was always the first asked of obviously sick people.
"Weak," she replied, "but I'll manage." She let out a small giggle. "The last time we saw each other I had to look up to you."
Brazil took on a pained expression. "It never fails!" he wailed. "Everybody always picks on a little man!"
She laughed and so did he. "It's good to see you laugh," he said.
"There's never been much to laugh about, before," she replied.
"I told you I'd find you."
"I remember—that was the worst part of the sponge. You know, you are aware of all that's happening to you."
He nodded gravely. "Throughout the history of man there's always been some kind of drug, and people stuck on it. The people who push the stuff are on a different kind of drug, one so powerful that they are not aware of its own, ravaging, animalistic effect on them."
"What's that?"
"Power and greed," he told her. "The ugliest—no, the second ugliest ravager of people ever known."
"What's the ugliest, then?" she asked him.
"Fear," he replied seriously. "It destroys, rots, and touches everyone around."
She was silent for a moment. "I've been afraid most of my life," she said so softly he almost couldn't make out the words.
"I know," he replied gently. "But there's nothing to fear now, you know. These are good people here, and this is a spot I could cheerfully spend the rest of my life in."
She looked straight at him, and her youthful looks were betrayed by the eyes of someone incredibly old.
"They are wonderful," she admitted, "but it's their paradise. They were born here, and they know nothing of the horrors around them. It must be wonderful to be that way, but I'm not one of them. My scars seem huge and painful just because of their goodness and simplicity. Can you understand that?"
He nodded slowly. "I have scars, too, you know. And some of them are more than I can take at times. My memory's coming back—slowly, but in extreme detail. And, like Serge said, they're mostly things I don't want to remember. Some good times, some wonderful things, certainly—but some horrors and a lot of pain, too. Like you, I blotted them out, more successfully it seems, but they're coming back now—more and more each day."
"Those rejuve treatments must have done a lot to your memory," she suggested.
"No, nothing," he said slowly. "I've never had a rejuve treatment, Wu Julee. Never. I knew that when I blamed them for such things."
"Never—but that's impossible! I remember Hain reading your license. It said you were over five hundred years old!"
"I am," he replied slowly. "And a lot more. I've had a hundred names, a thousand lives, all the same. I've been around since Old Earth, and before."
"But that was bombed out centuries ago! Why, that was back almost before history!"
His tone was casual, but there was no doubting his sincerity. "It's been dropping like a series of veils, little by little. Just today, up in the mountains, I suddenly remembered a funny, little, Old Earth dictator who liked me because I wasn't any taller than he was.
"Napoleon Bonaparte was his name. . . ."
* * *
He slept on furs in Yomax's office for several days, seeing Wu Julee gain some strength and confidence with every visit.
But those eyes—the scars in her eyes were still there.
One day the steamboat came in, and Klamath almost fell in the lake rushing out to meet him.
"Nate! Nate!" the ferry captain called. "Incredible news!" From his expression it was nothing good.
"Calm down, Klammy, and tell me about it." He spied a block-printed newspaper in the waterman's hand, but couldn't read a word of the language.
"Somebody just busted into that university in Czill and kidnapped a couple of people!"
Brazil frowned, a funny feeling in his stomach. That was where Vardia was, where he was going next.
"Who'd they snatch?" he asked.
"One of yours, Vardia or something like that. And a Umiau—they're sorta mermaids, Nate—named Cannot."
The little man shifted uneasily, chewing on his lower lip.
"Anybody know who?"
"Got a good idea, though they deny it. Bunch o' giant cockroaches with some unpronounceable name. Some of the Umiau spotted them in the dark when they shorted out the power at the Center."
Slowly the story came out. Two large creatures resembling giant flying bugs blew the main power plant, causing the artificial sunlight to fail in one wing of the Center. Then they crashed through the windows of the lab, grabbed Vardia and Cannot, and took them away. The leaders of the culprit's race were confronted at Zone, but pointed out that there were almost a hundred insectival races on the planet and denied they were the ones. Their tight monarchy, resembling a Comworld with fancy titles, was leakproof—so nobody was sure.
"But that's not the most sensational part!" Klamath continued, his voice rising again. "These Umiau got superupset at all this, and one of them let slip the truth about Cannot.
"Seems they and the top dogs of the Center had a real secret to keep. Cannot was Elkinos Skander, Nate!"
Brazil just stood there, digesting the information. It made sense, of course. Skander would use the great computers of the Center to answer his big questions, getting everything he needed so that, when he was ready, he could mount an expedition under his direction to the interior of the Well World. Power and greed, Brazil thought sourly. Corrupting two of the more peaceful and productive races on the planet.
Well, they wanted it all, and now all they've got left is their fear, he reflected.
"I'll have to go to Czill now," he told the ferry captain. "It looks as if my job is starting."
Klamath didn't understand, but agreed to hold the boat until Nathan could say good-bye to Wu Julee.
She was standing unsupported and looking through a book of landscape paintings by local artists when he entered. His expression telegraphed his disquiet.
"What's the matter?
" she asked.
"They've broken into a place a couple of hexes over and kidnapped Vardia and Skander, the man who might be the killer of those seven people back on Dalgonia," he told her gravely. "I have to go, I'm afraid."
"Take me with you," she said evenly.
The thought had never occurred to him. "But you're still weak!" he protested. "And here is where you belong. These are your people, now. Out there is nothing but worse and worse. It's no place for you!"
She walked over to him and looked down with those old, old eyes.
"I have to," she told him. "I have to heal the scars."
"But there're only more scars out there," he countered. "There's fear out there, Wu Julee."
"No, Nathan," she replied sternly, using his first name for the first time. She tapped her forehead. "The fear is in here. Until I face it, I'll die by inches here."
He was silent for a while, and she thought he still wouldn't take her.
"I'm easier to care for than you are," she pointed out. "I'm tougher of skin, more tolerant of weather, and I need only some kind of grass and water."
"All right," he said slowly. "Come if you must. You can get back to Dillia through a gate from anywhere, anyway."
"That's what I've got to know, Nathan," she explained. "I'm cured of sponge, but I'm still hooked on that ugliest drug, fear."
"You sure you're well enough?"
"I'm sure," she replied firmly. "This will give me what I need."
She put on a coat and they went outside. When they told Yomax and the others that she was going along, the same round of protests started all over again, but her mind was made up.
"I'll tell Dal and Jol," Yomax said, tears welling in his eyes. "But they won't understand, neither."
"I'll be back, old man," she replied, her voice breaking. She kissed him lightly on the cheek.
Klamath sounded the steam whistle.
They stepped on board the first floor of the steamship and entered the partially closed cargo door that enclosed the lower deck from the colder weather.
Five hours later they landed in the much larger village of Donmin downlake. Compared to the uplake community, it was a bustling metropolis of fifteen or twenty thousand, stretching out across broad, cleared plains. The streets were lit with oil lamps, although Brazil had no idea what sort of unrefined, natural oil they used. It smelled like fish, anyway.
He reclaimed a well-made but crude backpack from the shipping office and said good-bye to Klamath, who wished them luck.
The packs, Wu Julee found, were largely filled with tobacco, a good trade commodity. One pouch had some clothing and toiletries.
Using the tobacco, Brazil managed to trade for some small items he thought they would need, then got a room for them at a waterfront inn, where they spent the night.
The next day they set out early across the trails of Dillia toward the northeast. She had trouble staying back with him, having to walk in almost uncomfortable slow motion. After several kilometers of particularly slow going, she suggested, "Why don't you ride me?"
"But you're already carrying the pack," he protested.
"I'm stronger than you think," she retorted. "I've hauled logs heavier than you and the pack put together. Come on, climb on and see if you can keep from falling off."
"I haven't been on a horse since I went to the first Wilson inauguration," he muttered incomprehensibly. "Well, I'll try."
It took him three tries, even with her help, to mount her broad, stocky body that reminded him so much of a Shetland pony. And he fell off twice, to her derisive laughter, when she started to trot. She finally had to put her arms behind her to give him something to hold on to. When her circulation started going, he had to hold on to the much-less-reassuring pack. His own circulation was in no great shape. His legs discovered a hundred new muscles he had never known before, and the agony almost obliterated the soreness of his rump from bouncing.
But they made good time, the kilometers flying by. Near dusk they reached the Dillian border, through the last village and seeing here and there only an isolated farmhouse. It started to snow, but it was only a flurry at first and didn't really bother either of them.
"We're going to have to quit soon," he called to her.
"Why?" she mocked. "Scared of the dark?"
"My body just won't take much more of this," he groaned. "And we'll pass into the Slongorn Hex in a little while. I don't know enough about it to want to chance it in the dark."
She slowed, then stopped, and he got off. Pain shot through him but it was the aching sort, not the driving sharpness of riding. She was amused at his discomfort.
"So who couldn't make the trip because they were too weak?" she teased. "Look at the brave superman now! And we've already stopped five times!"
"Yeah," he grunted, stretching and finding that that only made it hurt in different places. "But that was only so you could eat. Lord! Do you people stuff yourselves!"
And they did, he thought, consume an enormous quantity to support their large bodies.
"Will we have to camp here?" she asked, looking at the darkening woods with no sign of lights nearby. "If we do, we'd better get some good shelter. It looks like the snow may pick up."
"If that road we passed about a kil and a half ago was the turnoff to Sidecrater Village, there should be a roadhouse not too much farther on." He checked a frayed and faded map he had in the pack.
"Why not go back to the village?" she suggested.
"Almost eight kils down a dead end?" he replied skeptically. "No, we'll go on and hope the roadhouse is still in business. But I'll walk for a while, no matter what!"
As darkness fell the snow did pick up, and started to stick. The wind whistled through the trees, keeping time with the subtle, quiet sound of the snow hitting against trees, bushes, and them.
Visibility dropped to almost zero.
"Are we still on the road?" she yelled to him.
"I don't know," he admitted. "We should have come to that roadhouse by now. But we don't have any choice. We'd never build a fire in this stuff now. Keep going!"
"I'm getting real cold, Nathan!" she complained. "Remember, more than half of me is exposed!"
He stopped, and brushed the snow off her backside. Insulating layer of fat or not, he realized she couldn't continue too much longer.
"I'm going to climb on!" he yelled above the wind. "Then go on as fast as you can! We've got to come to something sooner or later!"
They pushed forward, he clinging to her back, but it was slow going against the wind. They continued on for what seemed like hours in the blowing cold and darkness.
"I don't know how much longer I can go on!" she called to him at last. "My ass is frozen solid now."
"Come on, girl!" he shouted. "Here's that adventure you wanted! Don't give up now!"
That spurred her on, but it seemed hopeless as the snow continued to pile up.
"I think I see something ahead!" she shouted. "I can't be sure—I think my eyes are covered with icicles!"
"Maybe it's the roadhouse!" he shouted. "Head for it!"
She pushed on.
Suddenly, as if they passed through an invisible curtain, the snow was gone—and so was the cold. She stopped suddenly.
He got off and brushed the snow from him. After a few moments to catch his breath, he walked back several steps.
And back into the blowing snow and cold.
He went back to her.
"What is it, Nathan?" she asked. "What happened?"
"We must have missed the roadhouse," he told her. "We've crossed the border into Slongorn!"
Her body began to thaw rapidly, and painfully. Her eyes misted, then started to clear.
Looking back, she could see nothing but billowing, snowy fog.
In any other direction, the spectacular night sky of the Well World shone cloudlessly around them.
* * *
"We might as well camp right here," he suggested. "Not only am I too tired to go any farth
er, but there's no use chancing unfamiliar territory. Anything that might cause us problems is unlikely to be this close to the border, and we always have a convenient if chilly exit if we find any real problems."
"It's hard to believe," she said as he unstrapped the pack and removed a couple of towels, wiping his face and hair, then starting to give her the much more difficult rubdown. "I mean—coming out of that awful storm and into this—winter to summer, just like that."
"That's the way it can be," he replied. "Sometimes there's no clear dividing line, sometimes it's dramatic. But, remember, despite the fact that things interlock on this world—tides, rivers, oceans, and the like—each hex is a self-contained biological community."
"All of a sudden I'm starting to sweat," she noted. "I think I'll take these heavy fur clothes off."
"I'm ahead of you," he responded, drying her rear and tail. She twisted around and saw that he had removed almost all of his clothing. He looks even punier naked, she thought. You can just about see every rib on his body, even through that carpet of black chest-hair.
He finished and came around to her front. Together they stood and looked at the landscape eerily illuminated in the bright starlight.
"Mountains, trees, maybe a small lake over there," he pointed out. "Looks like a few lights off in the distance."
"I don't think we're on the road," she commented. They seemed to be on a field of short grasses. She reached down almost automatically and picked a clump.
"I'm not sure you ought to eat that right now," he warned. "We don't know all the ground rules here."
She sniffed the grass suspiciously. Although Dillians were moderately nearsighted, their senses of smell and hearing were acute. "Smells like plain old grass," she said. "Kind of short, though. See? It's been cut!"
He looked at the stuff and saw that she was right. "Well, this is logically either a high-technology hex or a nontechnological one, judging from the pattern I've seen," he noted. "From the looks of things, it's high."
"The grass has been cut in the last day or two," she observed. "You can still smell it."
He sniffed, but didn't notice much, and shrugged. He never had much of a smeller despite the Roman nose, he thought.
"I'm going to chance it," she decided at last. "It's here, and I need it, and we have two or three days before we'll get through here." She took about three steps, then stopped.
Midnight At the Well of Souls Page 17