Midnight at the Well of Souls

THE BARONY OF AZKFRU, AKKAFIAN EMPIRE

Datham Hain’s massive body, now in a drugged sleep, rested in the center of the lowest floor of the Baron Azkfru’s nest. The room was filled with computer banks flashing light-signals and making clicking and whirring sounds. Four large cables were attached to Hain’s head at key points, and two smaller ones were fixed to the base of her two antennae. Two neutered Markling technicians with the symbol of the baron painted between their two huge eyes checked readings on various dials and gauges, and checked and rechecked all the connections.

Baron Azkfru’s antennae showed complete satisfaction. He had often wondered what the Imperial Household would say if they knew he had one of these devices.

There would be civil war at the very least, he thought.

The conditioner had been developed by a particularly brilliant Akkafian scientist in the imperial household almost eighty years before, when the ambassador himself was just a youngling. It ended the periodic baronial revolts, and assured the stability of the new—now old—order by making revolution next to impossible. Oh, you couldn’t condition everyone with certainty, so it was done subtly. Probably every baron dreamed of overthrowing the empire—it let the pressure and frustration out.

But none of them could do it. Because, although they could dream about it, they couldn’t disobey a direct imperial command.

But Azkfru could.

His father had duplicated the device here in the earliest days of its development. Here, slowly, methodically, key ones were deconditioned and reconditioned. Even so, he reflected, you couldn’t change the basic personality of the conditioned. That was why Ytil had to go—too dumb to keep quiet. As for Kluxm—well, it was known for some particularly strong-willed Nirlings to break free, although never with any prayer of support from the rest of the conditioned leadership.

“We are ready when you are, Highness,” called one of the Markling technicians. Azkfru signaled satisfaction and went down to the floor.

Quickly and efficiently two additional cables similar to the ones on Hain were placed on his own antennae. When he now said something, it would be placed in the machine, amplified, processed, and fed directly into the brain of Datham Hain in such a way that it would be taken as acceptable input and engraved in the other’s mind.

The baron signaled a go-ahead, and the technicians touched the last controls.

“Datham Hain!” the ambassador’s brain called out.

Hain, although unconscious, answered, “Yes?”

“Your past to this point you retain, but it is an academic past, there to call upon if needed but irrelevant to your present and future,” the baron told her. “What is important to you, what is the only thing of importance to you, is that you are a breeder Markling of the Barony of Azkfru. Your destiny is whatever the Baron of Azkfru wishes, and that is acceptable and normal to you. My will is your will, your only will. You exist to serve me alone. You would never betray me, nor allow harm to come to me. You are my own, my property, and that is all that is good and happy in your mind or life. When you serve me you are happy, and when you do not you are unhappy. That is the measure of your joy in life. I am your leader, your lord, and your only god. Your worship is normal. Do you understand this?”

“I understand, my lord,” replied Hain mechanically.

The baron signaled to the technicians to break contact, which they quickly did, then unfastened the two cables from his antennae.

“How did it take?” Azkfru asked one of the technicians.

“The subject is receptive,” replied one of the technicians, part of whose own conditioning was never to consider the idea that she might have been conditioned. “However, her psychological profile is one of extreme selfishness. That might eventually cancel the conditioning, producing mental breakdown.”

“What do you advise, then?”

“Go along with the idea,” the technician suggested. “Go back into her mind and tell her that her only avenue to wealth and power is through you and no one else. That’s something her mind can completely accept, and it will be acted upon in concert with the standard conditioning you’ve already administered. Then, after she’s awake and you are interviewing her, hold out the highest possible position a breeder Markling could attain.”

“I see,” the baron replied, and he did see. That made everything perfect. “Let us complete the conditioning,” he commanded.

Datham Hain awoke with a very strange set of feelings and yet not aware that over ten days had passed since she was first introduced to the land of the Akkafian.

A Markling with the insignia of the Baron Azkfru entered and saw that she was awake. “You must be starved,” the newcomer said pleasantly. “Follow me and we will take care of that.”

Starvation was close to what Datham Hain actually felt at that point, and she needed no further urging to follow the servant. The feeding room was filled with pens of large, white-ribbed worms that were indigenous to the soil of the land. Hain had no qualms this time about eating such prey, and found them most satisfying.

“The baron raises his own fikhfs,” the guide explained as she gorged herself. “Only the best for this household, till midnight at the Well of Souls.”

Hain suddenly stopped eating.

“What was that you just said?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s just a saying,” the other replied.

Hain forgot it for the moment and continued eating. When it was clear that her hunger had been satisfied, the guide said, “Now, follow me into reception, and you’ll meet the baron.”

Hain obediently followed down several long and particularly plush corridors to a wide anteroom covered in that downy fur with a low-volume “music” background, pleasant but not lulling as the other had been.

“Just relax for now,” the baron’s servant told her. “His Highness will call you in when he is ready.”

Relaxing was just the thing Hain felt least like doing; extremely awake and alert, she wished idly for something active to do, something to look at. A rack in one corner held a series of scrolls in that funny writing, but it was just random dots.

Not even any pictures, she thought glumly.

She paced nervously, awaiting the baron’s pleasure.

The baron was already entertaining a guest—or guests, he wasn’t sure which. Although he had communicated with a representative of whatever government this creature or creatures had, he had never met any of them and knew nothing about them. He still didn’t, he realized sourly, and he didn’t like the situation, either. The Northern Hemisphere was a place so alien to him that he felt more kinship with the most different of the Southern races compared to the closest of the North.

The object of his speculation and apprehension was floating about three meters in front of him. Yes, floating, he decided—no visible means of support or locomotion. It looked like a slightly upcurved strip of crystal from which a set of dozens of small crystal chimes hung down, the whole thing about a meter long and ending just short of the floor. On top of the crystal strip floated a creature that seemed to consist of hundreds of rapidly flashing lights. Their pattern and their regularity suggested that they existed in a transparent ball fitting in the crystal holder—but, try as he would, he couldn’t make out the ball he somehow felt was there.

The Diviner and The Rel might be looking at him in an equally odd and uneasy way, he realized, but he would never know. He would not like to be, would not ever be, in its world. But it was in his, and that gave him a small measure of comfort.

“Will this Hain stay loyal to you?” The Rel asked, apparently using its chimes to form the words, which gave it a total lack of tone or coloration.

“My technicians assure me so,” replied Azkfru confidently. “Although I fail to see why she is necessary to us in any event. I feel uneasy trusting everything to someone so new and unknown.”

“Nevertheless,” replied The Rel, “it is necessary. Remember that The Diviner predicted that you would receive one of the outworlders, and that the solution to our problems was not possible without an outworlder present.”

“I know, I know,” Azkfru acknowledged, “and I am grateful that it was me who was contacted by your people. We have as much stake in this as you, you know.” He fidgeted nervously. “But why are you sure that this one is the outworlder needed?”

“We’re not,” The Rel admitted. “The Diviner only knows that one of the four who came in that party is needed to open the Well. One was destined for Czill, one for Adrigal, one for Dillia, and one for here. Of the four, yours was known to be psychologically the most receptive to our offer.”

“I see,” Azkfru said, uncertainty mixed with resignation in his tone. “So twenty-five percent was better than zero percent. Well, why not just grab the others so we’re sure?”

“You know the answer to that one,” The Rel responded patiently. “If we missed just one of these Entries, it would hide and we couldn’t monitor it. This way, we will know where they are and what they are doing.”

“Um, yes, and there’s the second prediction, too.”

“Quite so,” The Rel affirmed. “When the Well is opened all shall pass through. Thus, if we keep one of them with us, we will stand the best chance of going through with them.”

“I still wish I were going with you,” the baron said. “I feel uneasy that the only representative of my people will be a conditioned alien of known untrustworthiness.”

“One of you is going to be conspicuous enough,” The Rel pointed out. “Two of you is an advertisement for hundreds of other uneasy governments. Right now, neither of us knows if our agreement is duplicated by others with any or all of the other three.”

That idea made Azkfru more uncomfortable than ever.

“Well, damn it, you—or half of you, or whatever—is The Diviner. Don’t you know?”

“Of course not,” replied The Rel. “The present is as closed to The Diviner as it is to you. Only random snatches of information are received, and that in rather uncontrolled fashion. Getting this much is more than we usually get on anything. Hopefully more pieces will fit together as we progress.”

Rather than disturbing him further, this news reassured him instead. So the damn thing wasn’t omnipotent, anyway. Still, he wished he knew more about the creature that stood before him. What were its powers? What tricks did it have up its sleeve?

The fear that most consumed him was of a double cross.

The Diviner—or The Rel—seemed to sense this, and it said, “Our hexes are as alien as can be. We have no commonality of interest or activity. You are an incomprehensible people to us, and your actions are equally so. Never would we be here, in peril of our sanity, were it not for the urgent single commonality our races share: survival. We are satiated in the summing process, and active in the coefficient of structure. Our sole object is to keep everything just the way it is.”

The baron didn’t understand any of it, but he did understand that mutual survival was a common bond, and the assurance that they wanted to preserve the status quo. The trouble was, he could say exactly the same thing and not mean a word of it.

And now all of his future rested on Datham Hain.

The baron gave the Akkafian equivalent of a sigh of resignation. He had no choice in the matter. That conditioning must hold!

“How soon do you wish to begin?” he asked the Northerner.

“A lot depends on your end,” The Rel pointed out. “Without Skander the whole scheme falls apart, the sum clouds and changes to an infinite number.”

“And you can point him out, only you,” the baron replied. “I’m ready when you are.”

“No more than a week, then,” The Rel urged. “We have reason to suspect that Skander will move out of reach shortly after that.”

“Very well,” the baron sighed, “I’ll condition two of my best Markling warriors. You don’t need Hain for this part, do you?”

“No,” responded The Rel. “That will do nicely. We’ll have to work at night and hide out during the day, so it will take a good day to set us up once there. Another two days to get there, inconspicuously, if possible. Can you be ready within a day period from this moment?”

“I think so,” the baron replied confidently. “Anything else?”

“Yes. While you prepare the two assistants I should like to talk to one who understands structures and electrical systems. Is that possible?”

“Well, yes,” the baron affirmed with some surprise. “But why?”

“It will be necessary to perform some minor sabotage to ease our task,” The Rel explained enigmatically. “Although we have studied it, we want to confirm our necessary actions to be doubly certain, hopefully with one who comprehends such things.”

“Done,” Azkfru told the creatures. “Now I must attend to other matters. Go out the side there and an assistant will take you to a room that will be private. I will send the technicians to you.”

“We go to prepare,” intoned The Rel, and floated out the designated exit.

Azkfru waited several minutes until he was certain the Northerner was well away, then went over to the doorway to his main waiting room and pressed the opening stud with his right foreleg.

“Enter, Mar Datham,” he said imperiously, and quickly got back to the dais that served as his work area. He struck his most awesome pose.

Datham Hain entered on the words, a shiver going through her at their majesty. Almost hypnotically, she entered the office.

She stopped as she saw him, and bent down automatically in a gesture of extreme subservience. Orgiastic spasms shook her, and she cowed in awe and fear.

He is God, she thought with absolute conviction. He is the epitome of greatness.

“My Lord and Master, I am your slave, Datham Hain. Command me!” she intoned and meant every word of it.

The sincerity carried over to Azkfru, who received it with satisfaction. The conditioning had stuck.

“Do you give yourself to me, Mar Datham, body and soul, to do with as I would, forever?” he intoned.

“I do, Master, my Lord God, I do! Command me to die and I shall do so gladly.”

Great now. Forever, if she was around all the time. But she would have only a few interviews until he had to trust her with all he had. Well, here goes the kicker, Azkfru thought.

“You are the lowest of the low, Mar Datham, lower than the fikhfs that breed to be eaten, lower than the defecations of the least of those fikhfs,” he intoned.

And it was so, she realized. She felt as low and as small as she could ever get. She felt so tiny and unimportant that she found it hard to think at all. Her mind was a complete blank, yet basking on pure emotion in the presence of Him who was All Glory.

“You will remain lowly scum,” the Master pronounced, “until I have other use for you. But as you are the lowest of the low, so can you be raised to the heights by my command.” Now came the clincher. “A great task will be placed in your hands, and your love and devotion to me above all else will determine all that is in your future, whether it be the mindless cleaners of the defecation pits or,” he paused for added emphasis, “perhaps even the chief concubine of a king.”

Hain groveled all the more at this thought suddenly placed in her witless head.

“And your name shall now be Kokur, nor will you answer to any other but it, and so you will stay and so you will be until you have successfully carried out my tasks. Then only will you be restored to a name, and then that name will be great. Go, now. My servant shall show you your duties until I shall call you for the task.”

She turned and left the office quickly, on quivering legs.

When the door closed behind her, the baron relaxed.

Well, he thought, it is done. For the next few days, if The Diviner and The Rel were successful, Datham Hain would truly be as low as one could get. Although consciously obedient and happy, that nasty subconscious would be helplessly humiliated by the job and the status, and that was perfect. After a few days, Hain would be willing to do anything to get out of there, and she would be offered a permanent return to that miserable state as opposed to elevation as high as she could possibly reach.

Hain would serve him, he felt confidently.

Kokur wasn’t a name, it was a job description.

Until The Diviner and The Rel returned, Datham Hain would work in the defecation pits, piling up the huge amounts of crap his barony produced—including her own—and then treating it with a series of chemicals and agents that would change its composition into a horrible but physically harmless mess. Hain would not only work there, she would sleep in it, walk in it, and, as her sole diet, eat it. And the only name she could respond to or think of herself as was Kokur, which meant dung-eater.

When off with The Diviner and The Rel, it would be a constant and humiliating reminder of her lowly status and her lifelong fate for failure, a reminder that would even reach others through the translating devices used around the Well World.

Datham Hain would be a most obedient slave.

Actually kind of attractive, he thought. Too bad she’s a breeder.