Twilight at the Well of Souls

Dillia

It was the start of spring in Dillia, the best time of year. The air was warm, the sun bright and cheerful, although there were a few cool breezes from the direction of the high mountains to the west that felt, sometimes, like gentle silk caresses.

Mavra Chang had stood still for a long time, staring at the reflection in the waters of the stream, one with the birds, small river animals, wind and nearby waterfall sound, one with her own thoughts. It was not her reflection, of course, but she hadn’t expected that after going through the Well—and, yet, she knew it was her reflection, not only as she now was but as she could have been, would have been, had not events in her life taken such a strange turn so long ago. Not the tiny, slightly built Oriental woman the back-alley surgeons had changed her into, disguising her from her enemies but also erasing all connections with her early childhood and ancestry, but, instead, the way it might have been had her native world not fallen into the hands of the dictatorial technocracy that was the Com in those early days.

Oriental. That word had lost its meaning many thousands of years before, when mankind spread out to the stars from Old Earth. A third of mankind perhaps more, had been of one race and they had gone in search of the land Old Earth no longer could give them and the space in which to breathe and live and grow beyond teeming, packed cities and communal farms. Almost everyone looked a little Oriental after a while, and that had been something of a leveler; those purely of the other races of man were very few and far between and tended to stand out in any crowd.

Brazil, of course, and the small, scattered, but hearty band of Jews on many worlds, and the other odd ones bound together for racial survival like the gypsies. Very few and very rare.

Her face now was an exotic face, a sexy face, not one reflecting.the racial mix usual on human planets. Amost none there had pure golden-blond hair, except by coloring it, nor deep, icy-blue eyes except with lenses. Without blemish, her skin, too, was very pale, although she knew it would darken with the sun, and her breasts were large, much larger than they had been before, and perfectly formed. They moved when she moved, and she was somewhat conscious of the fact.

She was not, of course, human; only the face and torso were that, memories of might-have-been. The human part blended into the equine form perfectly matched to the human body, also covered in shorter hair of golden blond with a tail that was almost white.

Obie had made her a centaur twice now, although she was aware, in the back of her mind, that this time it was for keeps. She had stood there, thinking after a while, trying to understand the computer’s point. Finally her gaze was drawn from her reflection in the pool upward toward the nearby mountains, cold-looking and purple, wrapped in clouds and capped by snowy peaks that would be a long while melting. That was not Dillia, she knew, but Gedemondas, mysterious Gedemondas, which only she remembered—and even that memory had now been dimmed by centuries of experience and life. A strange, mystic, mountain race that had enormous powers yet kept, hermitlike, completely to itself in its mountain rookeries and in its volcanic steam-heated caverns far beneath the placid surface. Their thought processes were—well, nonhu-man, really, was the term, she supposed, when the rest of the Southern hemisphere, at least the parts she had seen, tended to think along more familiar paths, no matter how bizarre their form and life style. The Gedemondans had known her and been interested in her once. Perhaps again?

She turned and walked away from the stream and waterfall, down the path toward the small village she knew was there, conscious of the fact that she was traveling down the same route that her grandfather had so very long ago, and with the same ultimate destination in mind: the Well of Souls computer itself. Her grandparents had gone there with Brazil, although not really by their own plan.

The village sat at the source of a great glacial lake, far removed from the mainstream of Dillian life. It had remained relatively small, still something of a wilderness community, despite the passing centuries —mostly because the population of the hex was kept relatively stable. There was no overpopulation on the Well World, and therefore none of the pressures that would long ago have forced this area to develop. Nor were there resources here worth despoiling the land; this was a semitech hex, nothing more than steam power allowed, and the deposits of seemingly inexhaustible coal and crude oil were far to the south.

What resources there were here were of greater import to the local population. Fish spawned here throughout the myriad streams that fed the lake, creating a bountiful and carefully managed industry that fed, in more than one way, the food, fertilizer, and special-oils industries elsewhere—Downlake, as the rest of the hex was known to these people. That, and the bountiful game of the Uplake forests, were the resources that counted up here.

Still, she saw, things had changed quite a bit from the last time she had been here. The village was larger; there seemed to be more cabins in and between the forest groves, and things seemed a bit more modern. Torches had been replaced by gas lamps, apparently fed from a huge natural-gas canister, near the lake itself, that had connectors for marine refilling. There also seemed to be a large number of small boats moored in neat rows around the small harbor; almost a marina, she thought. The buildings, too, looked newer, not merely the log cabin style of earlier times but some prefabricated units as well. Change was slow to come to places on the Well World, yet change was inevitable everywhere. Still, it disappointed her in a way. Some of the personality seemed to have gone.

Her nakedness didn’t bother her; with the coming of warm weather most of the centaurs went without clothing, and only her pale complexion really set her apart from the more weathered bodies moving about.

She sought out the office of the local constable, the only real government they had up here. No sense in going around ignorant and alone when these people had always been a friendly bunch.

She couldn’t read the signs, of course, but only one small building, a prefab, had official-looking seals on both sides of the door, seals that could only be the Great Seal of the hex. That meant officialdom, and unless they had really changed, that meant who she was looking for.

Things had changed, but it didn’t matter. The town, it seemed, had become incorporated, mostly to keep the tourists under control, and this was city hall. A mighty small city hall it was, too; if all four officials the mayor, treasurer, clerk, and constable had decided to be in at the same time, there would have been no room even for furnishings. But, the clerk assured her, that never happened. Things changed, but not all that much. The three others were all on the lake, fishing.

The clerk, a sharp-nosed, businesslike woman with mottled gray-and-white body hair, proved pleasant enough. “My name is Hovna,” she told Mavra. “Somehow, when we heard there were a bunch of Entries from your part of space, we expected at least one of you to show up here.”

Mavra’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Oh?”

The clerk shrugged. “Four times in our history people from your area have come in, and all four times at least one has wound up here. Must be some kind of affinity.”

That interested her. “Are there any others here now?”

“Oh, no,” the woman laughed. “Last one was hundreds of years ago, before any of our times. I think you’re the first Entry in my records, in fact, from anywhere.”

That will change shortly, Mavra thought sourly. She would have to alert the authorities here so that some sort of temporary accommodations that wouldn’t screw up this pretty and peaceful place could be made for the newcomers. For now she just said, “Well, I’m pleased to be here. My grandfather was once one of you, back in the old days.”

The clerk frowned. “Grandfather? I don’t remember… Anyway, how could that be? Once here, you’re here.”

“Not if you go out through the Well of Souls,” Mavra replied.

The clerk, obviously confused, just shrugged and said, “Before my time.”

Mavra didn’t press the matter. “For now, I only need a few days to get my bearings and such. I’m afraid I’m not your typical Entry—I have some work I was sent here to do.”

Her statement was even more puzzling. “Work?” The clerk gave a sideways look that indicated she thought the newcomer was more than a little mentally unbalanced. Still, there was an official register for such cases that declared her a citizen and the like and gave her certain legal rights, which weren’t much —but it was a pretty loose government, anyway. Only her first name was taken; the Dillians used only one name and never saw much necessity for two. Fortunately, her name, Mavra, was composed of syllables common to the Dillian tongue and needed no alteration.

“There’s a guest lodge at the head of the lake,” the clerk told her, scribbling something on a piece of official stationery. “You take this over to them and they’ll give you a room until you can get settled. It’s still early in the season, so there’ll be rooms. You can eat there as well, if you like.” Again a second note. “And take this to the smith down the street. You’ll need shoes in this country anyway. Beyond that it’ll be up to you to find your place here. Lots of things to do if you like this part of the country, or go Downlake for more civilized and paved-over type work.” She said the last disdainfully. There were city people and country people, and she made no attempt at concealing which she was.

Mavra looked at the two sheets. “I’m sure this will be fine,” she assured the clerk. “Um… I can’t read them, you know. Which one’s which?”

The clerk looked apologetic, then drew a little inverted horseshoe on one. Mavra nodded, thanked her, and left.

She felt hungry, but decided to look around the town before going up to the lodge. Shoes… Funny, she hadn’t thought of that, she told herself. The Rhone, the centaurs of her old sector, had developed rather sophisticated protections that didn’t require them—but shoes might be a good idea here. She headed for the smith’s.

This was rather like having a broken bone and having to go to a doctor, she decided. The fact that it wasn’t supposed to hurt and would be over quickly didn’t diminish the anxiety that came from the thought that the huge, burly, chestnut-colored centaur, who looked as if he could bend steel bars like noodles, was going to drive a bunch of nails into the bottom of her feet.

When she entered the smithy, the smith, a friendly man named Torgix, eyed her appreciatively as any man might, grinned like a schoolboy through a thick beard, and hurried over to her. He took the paper with the horseshoe mark, glanced at it, and told her where to stand.

“Just relax, beautiful,” he roared in a voice that fit his physique, “and I’ll have it done in a jiffy.”

It was pretty nerve-racking to see him measure her hooves, then bend red-hot steel to the proper shape with an artisan’s quick skill, and she couldn’t bear to watch as he drove the special nails through the small holes in the shoes and then into her hooves. It was true that she felt no real pain, except, perhaps, a residual muscle ache from the force of the blows— truly the man had no idea of his own strength—but the psychic pain was intense. Glad when he was finished, she walked about hesitantly, feeling the extra weight and the odd balance the horseshoes gave her.

“You’ll get used to them,” he assured her. “In a couple of days you’ll forget what it felt like not to wear ’em—and your feet will thank you in the days and months to come. The alloy is good; there’ll be no rust or warping, although the nails, naturally, come loose over time. If you have any problems, any smith can do simple repairs. Anything else I can do for you?”

She shook her head. “Nothing, thanks. But I could use a drink, I think.” She hesitated. “But that takes money or some kind of payment, doesn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” he chuckled. “You’re the most beautiful woman in these here parts, I’ll tell you, and you got the moves, too, beggin’ your pardon, if you know what I mean. You won’t have no trouble gettin’ a drink. You was a woman—before?”

She nodded.

“Then you know what I means,” he said knowingly, and winked.

She smiled slightly. Yes, she knew exactly what he meant.

The culture she remembered from her last time through Dillia had been communal. If there had been any money, it hadn’t been used here, in the village Uplake. Again things had changed, although not to the complicated degrees found elsewhere even on the Well World. You had a number—she had a number, on those notes—and that gave you an account, kept by the clerk in the village where you were registered. It wasn’t a very definite kind of thing—the units were sloppy and not even named—and the only thing required was to do some sort of productive work known to the community to keep your account open. There was no trouble going to a store or seller’s stall and just getting what you needed—as long as you worked and produced.

She wondered how far an Entry’s account stretched before it ran dry. A little, anyway, she decided. There hadn’t, really been a time limit—although, of course, the clerk hadn’t explained the system nor read her out her number, either. Best to be wary with folk from alien cultures who might abuse a charge account, she decided. But she was beautiful, and she did, unconsciously, have the moves, as the blacksmith had said, and the system was easily explained to her.

She had gotten sloppy and lazy, she decided. Bars had always been her element; she grew up in and around them, worked them and worked in them. She had always been what others thought of as cute, which had worked to good advantage, but she was now the center of attention and she was rusty at handling it. Obie had been a close friend, a companion, the closest thinking being to her for a long, long time, and she missed him terribly. But he had also been a drug, she was now realizing, a magic genie that could give you anything you wanted or needed at the snap of a finger. The old tough, totally self-reliant Mavra Chang had been lost somewhere along the line. It had been an insidious kind of thing, not missed until needed, and now she realized the disadvantage she was at.

She had been a total world unto herself for the early part of her life, and fiercely proud of it. She had clawed her way to the top by her own wits and abilities—not without a helping hand here and there, but that was true of everyone in the universe, she knew. She had changed, though. Magic wands do that to you.

She found the men and women in the bar mostly loud, boisterous, and very boorish. That had always been the case, of course, but she had always been able to tolerate such behavior and to fake fitting in to get what she wanted. Doing so was increasingly difficult now; the routine social acting seemed somehow impossible, the pawing and passes hard to ignore and easy to cause irritation. She left as quickly as she could and walked up to the lodge, a huge wooden building of logs with a wide porch fronting on the marina and lake.

It was a pretty place inside; the entire first floor was open, except for the huge log ceiling bracing beams, and there was a fireplace at each end and one in the center with an exhaust vent rising up to the roof. The rooms split off in two-story wings from the back of the main social hall, small and basic but what was needed. Dillians slept standing up, although they liked to be braced for sheer relaxation, and there was an area with two padded rails for that; also a sink with running spring water, a pitcher, and some linen for just washing up. The common latrine was down the hall, just a bunch of stalls you backed into. Nothing fancy, but it would do.

Between the two wings was the dining area, posted with signs she couldn’t read but which were easily translated by a friendly staffer as serving times by room number. The basically vegetarian Dillians prepared their plants in a thousand different and delicious ways, both hot and cold, and always highly seasoned, but no one would ever starve in this forest land, no matter what. In a pinch, all Dillians could eat just about any plant matter, including grass and leaves, although the taste often left something to be desired.

She stayed a few days like this, mostly wandering the back trails, staring at the mountains, and trying to find that old self she needed now so much. At one time she had been proud of isolation, reveling in being totally alone and on her own. She still thought she did, but she could not shake the feeling of intense isolation from these simple folks. Part of the difference, she told herself, was that, now, she was working for someone else’s ends—but, no, she had always taken commissions from others and always delivered. Still, it had been her plan, her preparation. Even with Obie she had the sense of being independent, doing what she wanted, the way she wanted it. Not now, though.

What had changed in her, she wondered. Was it the same with people as with this hex, this village? Subtle changes as you grew older, all changing you beyond recognition? Had she changed so much that she no longer had the tools to do a job?

That, of course, was it. Tools were more than fancy equipment; they were also mental. Extreme self-confidence was a must, but also the social tools to get what you wanted from anybody you needed. That was what her life with Obie had robbed her of: the instinct for making people and events bend to her will. She hadn’t needed it; Obie was the ultimate persuader. She had lost the ability, somewhere, and she couldn’t seem to discover where. Take Marquoz—he still had it, had always had it. The Chugach was firmly in charge not only of himself but of those around him, the way she used to be. And Gypsy—whoever, whereever he was—he, too, had it. Where did they get it? They weren’t born with it, certainly. It was something you acquired as you grew—something some acquired. And how did you lose it? By not using it constantly, as Marquoz and Gypsy had always used it.

She was, she thought, like the big frontier fighter who had fought and clawed his way to the top, then wound up in a huge mansion with all that he desired at his beck and call. Take that away after many years and he would be lost. His skills would be rusty, out of date, or, worse, atrophied from long years of disuse.

Atrophied. That bothered her. The wild catlike animal she had been had become tame, domesticated, fat, and lazy. Now that it was thrown again into the wild, its pampered self found that wilderness an alien place, no longer its element at all.

There was no getting around that fact, although she hated to admit it even to her innermost self. She not only needed other people, she needed people she could depend upon, even trust with her life. Perhaps if she had had more time, or were more in control of events and able to alter the plan or the schedule to suit her, she might have reclaimed more of her old abilities, reverted to the wild whence she had come. But she could not, and time was running out even now. Events beyond her control would soon force actions and reactions of which she had foreknowledge— her best weapon—but could not change.

She walked along the riverbank in the late afternoon thinking about this when a curious, harelike animal leaped into view. Its gigantic ears and exaggerated buckteeth gave it an almost comical, cartoon-ish quality that was offset by one look at those powerful legs. It was also more than 150 centimeters high, even without the ears—a formidable size indeed —although the species was harmless. It stared at her, more in curiosity than in fear, and she stared back. Somewhere in the corners of her mind a notion stirred and forced itself to the fore. There was something decidedly odd about the animal, something she couldn’t quite place but which seemed somehow important.

In a moment she realized that the animal was brown from the face down to its shorter forelegs, but beyond that the hair slowly was replaced by snow-white fur. Looking closer, she could see signs of occasional white fringes even in the light brown.

She had seen such creatures before, but they had been mostly white or mostly brown. Now, suddenly, she knew why. White was its winter coloration, making it almost invisible against the snow. Now, with spring here and every day getting a bit warmer than the last, the animal was turning brown, a better protective color for the now blossoming forest. Slowly the white was being pushed out, with the seasonal change—and that meant that, for one of two times a year, the beast was unable to rely on its camouflage for any sort of protection. Now, during early spring as it would be later in fall, it was a target. Hunting parties were coming Uplake now; she had seen them, and cursed herself for not putting the facts together.

Hunting was a major industry for Dillians; the natives used the furs and skins for a variety of things and sold the meat to adjoining hexes. Hunting parties —professionals, mostly—meant tough people who knew their way around. But the hunting wasn’t done in Dillia—that was possible only in Uplake, and Uplake’s wildlife was reserved for Uptake’s permanent residents in order to conserve it. No, Dillian hunting was done in Gedemondas, on the high trails.

She decided that her best place was back in town after all, this time looking for a way into Gedemondas. What she needed from Dillia could be arranged for later; Gedemondas was more critical, particularly since there might not be time enough later to do anything.

Early attempts at linking up with an expedition resulted in failure. Although the hunting parties were composed of females as well as males, the Dillians having few sexual distinctions when there was a job to do, she was too soft, too pretty for them to take seriously. It was a frustrating experience for her. All her life she had been not merely small but tiny, and had never been taken seriously then, either—until it was too late. But now, to be scorned because she was too attractive, that was an unkind blow. Not that the hunters, particularly the huge, strutting males, weren’t interested in her—they just weren’t interested from the business standpoint.

She felt as if she were going back to her beginnings, when, poor and trapped on a backward frontier world, she had gained money, influence, and eventually a way out by renting her body and other services. But things were different now; Dillia had some similarities, but not that way out—not now and not here. And she had nothing else, not even a thick coat for the wintry cold of the hunting grounds, nor any real weapons skills. Oh, she knew a laser pistol and its related cousins inside and out, but this was a semitech hex, where nothing beyond combustion weapons would work; and the hunting ground, Gedemondas, was a nontech hex, where killing was accomplished with bows and arrows and similar weapons, weapons that required a constant honing of skills, of which she had almost none, particularly in this new and larger body.

She was becoming discouraged, and some attempts with both bow and crossbow hadn’t given her any more of a lift. She was lousy with them.

Still she continued to meet, greet, and talk to the parties still coming in, now in a rush to make sure they would still be able to stake out some unclaimed hunting territory. They were all at the bar, and one man, the leader of a party, was gustily downing huge mugs of ale and telling the locals about Gedemondas. Most had never been there and never would go there; it was a mysterious and dangerous place even for those who knew it well, and what common sense didn’t prevent, superstition did. Despite the fact that Dillian young could discuss hexes and creatures halfway around the Well World, nobody knew much about their next-door neighbors. They maintained no embassy at Zone, and histories said nothing about them. Geographies generally described them as shy, but nasty, savages glimpsed only from distances. Dillia did not have permission to hunt in Gedemondas, but there had never been an objection. All these made the hex an eerie, forbidding place of legend.

The hunter, whose name was Asam, was a big burly Dillian in early middle age but aging extremely well. His tanned lean, muscular figure was matched by a craggy, handsome face that looked as if it had seen the misery of the world; yet, somehow, there was a kindness there, perhaps accented by his unusual deep-green eyes. His beard, flecked with white, was perfectly trimmed and he was, overall, rugged but well-groomed. His voice matched his looks: thick, low, rich, melodic, and extremely masculine.

“It’s always winter up there,” he was saying between long pulls on a two-liter-plus mug of ale. “Aye, a warm summer’s day could freeze yer hair solid. We hav’ta take extra care, rubbin’ each other down regular so the sweat don’t turn into little iceballs. And y’do sweat, make no mistake. Some of them old trails are almost straight up, and yer’ carryin’ a heavy pack. Sometimes you lose the trail completely—hav’ta go out onto the snow and ice, which is double bad this time o’ year, for snow melts from the ground up and the sun do beat down, it does. So y’get hidden crevasses that can swallow a party whole and never leave a trace, and nasty slicks and soft spots, and snow bridges, where it looks like solid ground but there’s nothin’ underneath ya but air when ya try it.”

His accent was peculiar; it translated to her brain as something out of a children’s pirate epic, colorful and unique. She wondered how much of it was put on for the show of attention, or whether, as with some others she had known, he had put on the act so often that he had become the character he liked to play.

His audience was mostly young, of course, and they peppered him with questions. Mavra eased over to one of them and whispered, “Who is he, anyway?”

The youngster looked shocked. “Why, that’s Asam —the Colonel himself!” came the awed reply.

She didn’t remember anything about rank in Dillia. “I’m sorry, I’m new here,” she told the awe-struck youth. “Can you tell me about him? Why is he called the Colonel?”

“Why, he’s been completely around the world!” her informant breathed. “He’s served more’n fifty hexes at one time or another. Doin’ all sorts of stuff—smugglin’, explorin’, courier—you name it!”

A soldier of fortune, she thought, surprised. A Dillian soldier of fortune, an adventurer, an anything-for-a-price risk-taker—she knew the type. To have gotten this old he had to be damned good even if half the stories told about him probably weren’t true. If in fact he had been around the Well World, he was one of the very few who ever had. That alone said something about him—and was the kind of accomplishment to make a legend right there, thus probably true.

“And the Colonel part?” she pressed.

“Aw, he’s been every kind’a rank and stuff you can think of in a lotta armies. When he got the plague serum from Czill to Morguhn against all the Dhabi attempts to stop him, why, they made him an honorary Colonel there. Dunno why, but he stuck with that. It’s what most everybody calls him.”

She nodded and turned again to the powerful and legendary center of attention, who was off on a tangent, telling some tale of fighting frost-giants in a far-off hex long ago.

“If he’s that kind of man, what’s he doing here? Just hunting?” she asked the youth after a while.

An older man edged over, hearing her question. “Pardon, miss, but it’s his obsession. Imagine being all over the world here and doing all he’s done and have Gedemondas right next door—he was born here, Uplake. It’s a puzzle for him. Off and on he’s sworn to capture a Gedemondan and find out what makes ’em tick before he dies.”

Her eyebrows arched and a slight smile played across her face. “Oh, he has, has he?” she muttered under her breath. She stood there for a while, until the story was done, then pressed a question through the throng to him. “Have you ever seen a Gedemondan?” she called out.

He smiled and took another swig, eyes playing appreciatively over her form. “Yes, m’beauty, many times,” he replied. “A couple of times some of the creatures actually tried to do me in, pushing avalances on me. Other times, I seen them at a distance, off across a valley or makin’ them strange sounds echoin’ off the snow-cliffs.”

She doubted the Gedemondans had ever wanted to do him in. If they had, he would be dead now, she knew.

She had Asam on the right track now, and finally he looked around and asked, “Anybody else here seen a Gedemondan? If so, I wanta know about it.”

There it was. “I have,” she called out. “I’ve seen a whole lot of them. I’ve been in one of their cities and I’ve talked to them.”

Asam almost choked on his ale. “Cities? Talked to them?” he echoed, then leaned toward the bartender. “Who is that girl, anyway?” he asked in a low rumble out of the side of his mouth.

The bartender looked over at her, following the gaze of the rest of the patrons, also staring at her, mostly wondering if the insanity was contagious.

“A recent Entry,” the bartender whispered back. “Only been here a few days. A little batty if you ask me.”

Asam turned those strange green eyes again in her direction. “What’s yer name, honey?”

“Mavra,” she told him. “Mavra Chang.”

To her surprise, he just nodded to himself. “Ortega’s Mavra?”

“Not exactly,” she shot back, somewhat irritated at being thought of that way. “We don’t have much mutual love, you know.”

Asam laughed heartily. “Well, girl, looks like you’n me we got a lot to talk about.” He drained the last of the mug. “Sorry, folks, business first!” he announced, and made his way outside.

The structure, like most, was open to the street on one side, but even then it was a problem for the two of them to make it outside. Still, the youngsters followed in what looked like a slow-motion stampede, Mavra thought with a chuckle.

Asam was using a hunter’s cabin, the kind of place built for working transients, and it was to that log structure, one with walls and a door that shut, that they went.

Finally assured of some privacy, he sighed, relaxed a bit, and took out a pipe. “You don’t mind if I light up, do you?” he asked in a calm, casual tone that retained some of the accent though not nearly as much as he had put on in the bar.

“Go ahead,” she invited. “You’re the first smoker I’ve seen on this whole world.”

“Just need the right contacts,” he replied. “Stuff’s damned expensive, and the only varieties worth a damn are grown in just a couple of far-off hexes. We Dillians are crazy about the stuff—I dunno, maybe it’s the biochemistry. But only a few of us can afford it.”

“Watch it,” she said playfully. “Your education’s showing.”

He laughed. “Oh, well, we hav’ta do somethin’ ’bout that, don’t we? Yer can’t let yer act slip, right?”

She returned the laugh. She was beginning to like the Colonel—he was her kind.

“So,” he said after a few moments, “tell me about Gedemondas.”

“I was there,” she told him. “A long, long time ago, it’s true. I may look like a youngster but I’m a spry thousand-year-old. If you know Ortega well enough to recognize my name, you know the basic story.”

He nodded. “I know the basics from the history tapes. I do a lot of work for him, off and on, and we got to know each other real well.”

She was suddenly suspicious. “You’re not working for him now, are you?”

He laughed again. “No, I’m not. But I’ll be honest with you; he did get in touch with me. Me and a lot of others, I suspect. Asked me to be on the lookout for you and the others and let him know.”

“And have you?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Not going to, either. Let’s face it, there’s no profit in it. And I’m pretty well doing what I want to do these days. Besides, I didn’t know until a few minutes ago you were in Dillia, let alone as a Dillian. Bet he’ll know as soon as word goes Downlake, though. It was kind of a general all-points, you know. Before I decide much of anything, I want to know just what the hell’s up. And, most of all, I want to know about Gedemondas.”

They weren’t kidding about his fixation, she realized. But that was all to the good.

“First of all,” she began, “do you know who Nathan Brazil is?”

He chuckled. “That’s sort of a joke on the Well World, you know. A supernatural creature, a myth, a legend, whatever.”

She nodded. “It’s not a myth or legend anymore,” she told him. “He’s coming again to the Well World. He has to get into the Well of Souls.” Briefly, she outlined the basic history to date, the rip in space, the damage to the Well World and consequently to all reality, the fact that Brazil was going to the Well to, in essence, turn it off, fix it, then start it up again.

He listened intently, green eyes reflecting the flickering gaslight almost like a cat’s. He didn’t interrupt, although he did occasionally grunt or nod. She did not elaborate on the plan or the problems; that would come much later, after it was clear which side Asam was on.

He was ahead of her. “I can see a big battle,” he said after she had finished. “If he shuts it off, it all ceases to exist and it wipes the memory or whatever it has clean. Don’t look surprised; just because Dilla’s a semitech hex doesn’t mean we don’t know or use other folks’ machines. Just not here. A little cooperation. There’s more of that than you realize. There was once a plague and the people couldn’t stop it—no technology. But a far-off hex with labs and computers went to work on it, created a serum, and made enough for me to take over four thousand kilometers to the people who needed it but couldn’t make it or even isolate it. We saved a lot of folks’ lives and I got my title.”

“Why that one?” she asked him. “Out of all you’ve gathered?”

There was a faint smile and a faraway look in his eyes. “The only one I ever got for saving lives,” he responded softly. Then he snapped out of his reverie and returned to business.

“You and I know the rules,” he pointed out. “If he’s going to rebuild the universe, then he’s going to need live models. Us. Don’t sound like I have any percentage on your side—nor would anybody else on this world of ours.”

“He won’t destroy the Well World,” she assured him. “In a little while our army’s going to pour through the Well. Probably already is. Huge numbers. They’ll be the fighting force for him, and they’ll also be the prototypes for his new universe. Not you.”

“And you?” he came back. “Where will you be if he does this?”

She smiled grimly. “I wish I knew. One thing at a time. I’m not certain if I’ll survive to that point—and if I do, I’ll face the situation when it comes. Gedemondas, for one. I have to go there. I have to talk to them, explain the situation, see which way they will go.”

He nodded. “I’ll accept that answer. And the percentage?”

She realized he was talking about himself. “And after? Well, it would be nice to be on Brazil’s side if he reaches the Well, wouldn’t it? At least, I’d rather be on his side if he gets in than one of his enemies.”

He considered that. “One thing at a time. Gedemondas will do for now. You think they’ll talk to you?”

“I think so,” she replied. “They did before, anyway. And I’m the only one who was there who they allowed to remember exactly what happened, to remember them at all.”

“Um. Wouldn’t do much good if we went in there and I came out never remembering a thing, would it?”

She shrugged. “No guarantees. I’m surprised you believe me now. Nobody else did.”

“Ortega did,” he told her. “He couldn’t afford not to check it out completely. There were just enough tiny inconsistencies in the others’ stories to cast doubt, and he had no sign of that in you. He concluded you were telling the truth. Matter of fact, he once held your account out to me as bait for a job. Knew I couldn’t resist.”

“I need to go there,” she told him flatly. “I need to go there soon. I have other things to do. But I don’t know the hex, don’t know the trails, don’t have any guide, or credit for provisions or anything. I need your help—badly. And I’m your best shot at meeting the Gedemondans.”

He nodded agreement to that last statement. “All right, I’ll get whatever you need. You’re welcome to come with us.”

She sighed. Mission partially accomplished. “How many are you?”

“Five, counting you. All Dillians.” He put on a mock leer. “All male except for you. That bother you?”

“I can take care of myself,” she responded flatly.

He grinned and nodded approvingly. “I bet you can, too.”