Midnight at the Well of Souls

ZONE—THE AKKAFIAN EMBASSY

The Markling receptionist looked startled as General Ytil emerged through the Zone Gate.

Each hex had a gate somewhere, which would transport anyone to Zone instantaneously, and from Zone to his home hex. There were 780 such gates to the offices of each of the Southern Hemisphere races, as well as the one master Gate for Classification through which all entries passed and the huge input-only Gate in the center. It made things very easy for interspecies contact.

General Ytil dismissed the startled exclamation and apologies of the receptionist and made his way immediately to the Imperial Ambassador’s office.

The Baron Azkfru had barely been tipped off by the clerk when the general rushed in the door. The ambassador could see the obvious excitement and agitation in Ytil’s every movement.

“My Lord Baron!” the general exclaimed. “It has happened! We have one of the new Entries as it was foretold!”

“Calm down, Ytil,” Azkfru growled. “You’re losing your medals for dignity and self-control. Now, tell me rationally what this is about.”

“The one called Hain,” Ytil responded, still excited. “It turned up earlier today over in Kluxm’s barony as a Markling breeder.”

“Hmmmm…” Azkfru mused. “Too bad she’s a breeder, but it can’t be helped. Where is this Entry now?”

“In lull sleep, safe for two or three more days,” the general told him. “Kluxm thinks I’ve notifled the Imperial Household and the Privy Council. He’s expecting someone to pick her up.”

“Very good,” Azkfru replied approvingly. “It looks like things are breaking our way. I never put much stock in fortune-tellers and such crap, but if this has happened then Providence has placed a great opportunity in our hands. Who else knows of this besides Kluxm and yourself?”

“Why, no one, Highness,” Ytil replied. “I have been most careful.”

Baron Azkfru’s mind moved quickly, sorting out the facts and deciding on a course of action with a speed that had guaranteed his rise to the top.

“All right, return to your post for now, and nothing of this to anyone! I’ll make all the necessary arrangements.”

“You’re making the deal with the Northerners?” Ytil asked.

Azkfru gave the Akkafian equivalent of a sigh. “Ytil, how many times do you need to be reminded that I am the baron? You take orders, and leave the questions and answers to your betters.”

“But I only—” Ytil began plaintively, but Azkfru cut him off.

“Go, now,” the ambassador said impatiently, and Ytil turned to leave.

Azkfru reached into a drawer and pulled out a pulse rifle. This one worked in Zone, at least in his offices.

“Ytil!” he called after the other, who was halfway out the door.

Ytil stopped but couldn’t turn. “My Lord?” he called back curiously.

“Good-bye, fool,” Azkfru replied, and shot the general repeatedly until the white-haired body was a charred ruin.

Azkfru buzzed for his guard, and thought, Too bad I couldn’t trust the idiot, but his incompetence would give the show away.

The guard appeared, and looked down at the general’s remains nervously but without curiosity.

“The general tried to kill me,” he explained without any effort to be convincing. “I had to defend myself. It appears that he and the Baron Kluxm are at the heart of a baronial revolt. After you dispose of this carrion, go to Kluxm’s, and eliminate his whole staff and, of course, the baron. Then go to the rest area and bring a Markling named Hain to my estate. Do it quietly. I’ll report the revolt.”

They nodded, and it look them only a few minutes to eat the body.

After they had left, he buzzed for a clerk.

“You will go to the Classification Gate and enter. It will take you to the North Zone. When you get there don’t leave the Gate room, but simply tell the first inquirer that you want to talk to Ambassador Thirteen Forty, and wait for that person. When it comes, tell it who you are, who sent you, and that we are ready to agree. Got that?”

The clerk waved her antennae affirmatively and repeated the message.

Dismissing her, he attended to the last detail. He flipped the intercom to the receptionist’s desk.

“The General Ytil wasn’t here,” he told her. “Understand? You never even heard of him.”

The clerk understood all too well, and rubbed out Ytil’s appearance in her logbook.

It was a big gamble he was taking, he knew, and it would probably cost him his life. But the stakes! The stakes were too great to ignore!