Jack Chalker - Twilight at the Well of Souls

Meanwhile, the rest of the creatures were down and slashing now. They were effective; two of the centaurs were down, bolts or spears in them, but Asam still stood, a bloody but superficial wound on his equine body’s left side. Rearing, turning, charging, all the time yelling at the top of his lungs, he charged the things again and again. One of the creatures managed a roll and tried to take off into the air, throwing a spear at the raging Colonel. It struck, but all he did was flinch, cry out, more in fury than in pain. He reached around, pulled the spear out of his side, and threw it at the now airborne attacker. The spear struck the thing, and it paused for a moment, then fell like a rock over the side of the cliff.

Mavra whirled, oblivious to the pain, and charged into the midst of the fight. Suddenly leathery wings seemed to strike her in the face, then there was a massive shock, so hard it felt as if her brain were reverberating inside her skull, and then there was darkness. She never even felt herself fall.

She felt as if she were drowning in a sea of thick liquid, unable to get her bearings, unable to see anything but the swirling wet mass that was all around her. She tried to struggle against it, tried to fight its overwhelming, engulfing motion, but it was impossible. There was pain, dull throbs and sharp stabbing sensations about which she could do nothing, and it was alternatingly suffocatingly hot then icy cold. She thrashed out at the swirling, liquid mass, tried to beat it off.

There seemed to be others in the mass as well; strange shapes and faces that would occasionally focus and then fly away. Some were horrible, gargoylelike creatures that swooped in and out but out of her reach, jabbering and mocking her; others were more familiar, yet no less threatening: giant, catlike creatures with glowing eyes; tiny, mulelike beasts whose eyes showed agony; phantom minotaurs, great scorpions, phantoms out of her past.

In the midst of all this activity, there stalked a small, frail-looking figure, his back to her, oblivious to all the horrors. She reached out for him, tried to call to him, but the liquid that she seemed suspended in prevented that, though he seemed oblivious to it.

Finally she managed some sort of scream, a scream of terrified helplessness. He must hear! He must! He must! She concentrated all she could muster on the walking figure.

He stopped, seemed to hear, and slowly turned. It was the face of Nathan Brazil she saw, and he stared back, looking more bored than sympathetic.

“Brazil! You-must-help-me!” she gasped, reaching out a hand to his.

He smiled, took out a coin and flipped it to her. “Glad to be of service,” he responded lightly. “Any old time. Got to go now. I’m God, you know. Too many things to do…”

He turned from her and walked into the mists, not heeding her anguished cries, then faded into the swirling, milky whirlpool and was lost from view.

She was alone, alone again with the liquid and the horrors that floated by her, mocking her, striking out at her.

Alone.

“Help me!” she screamed at nobody in particular. “Will no one help me now?”

Figures appeared, kind-looking human figures. A handsome, middle-aged man and a stunningly beautiful woman. They stretched out their arms to her, beckoned her to come to them, to run to their protection. She started for them, but suddenly a great dark shadow came out of the whirlpool and intervened between the pair and her. A great, angelic shape in white robes, it smiled at her even as it put out its own outstretched arms.

She hesitated, then started to approach, but the kindly figure began to undergo a terrible metamorphosis, changing from its human perfection into some sort of hideous, ugly frog-creature that gibbered and drooled and turned from her to devour her parents far in the distance, laughing as it did so.

She felt herself falling, down, down, into some sort of pit still awash in that liquid that now had the foulness of decaying garbage.

She struggled even more against the noxious odor, reached out for something to grab onto, but no one was there, no one at all. She was sinking, sinking further into the filth and slime, and the terrible creatures still floated around laughing, mocking, joking, and jabbing.

A tough-looking pasty-yellow face with hair nearly white appeared at the edge, smiled at her, and offered a hand. But the hand decayed as Mavra touched it, became a skeletal thing. The infection finally consuming the old woman, and when that happened she felt herself sinking even more into the bottom layers of slime. She felt more and more alone, more and more like she was going to remain forever in this bottomless pit of torment and corruption.

Now another face appeared, a kind face, a face that was representative of all the races of Old Earth, a handsome face that said it wanted to help. He reached out his own hand and took hold of her, pulling her up, up from the muck and the mire, and for a moment she thought she was free. She could see air ahead, and stars, millions of twinkling, blinking lights spread everywhere before her.

There was a sound, a loud explosion somewhere near her, and as she looked again in horror, her savior’s face seemed to be coming apart, exploding grotesquely, and the grip slipped.

“Gimball!” she screamed. “ No! No! My husband…”

But he was gone, and she was alone again, sinking again in the filth, never free of the swirling liquid, and it seemed to her as if the gibbering creatures were enjoying it all the more now.

Black shapes moved in, bound her, sliced her up into pieces of herself, made her a deformed, helpless monster. Still she struggled against them, fought the dark forces pushing her deeper and deeper in the muck. Another, misshapen, mutilated like herself, approached as the creatures swirling around started to close in on her, to choke her off. A gargoyle raised a spear and thrust it at her, hate in its eyes, but the other moved quickly, took the spear, and vanished, too, into the corruption.

A purplish light broke through the muck, and she heard Obie’s voice, calling to her, and she reached the light. “I’m your magic genie,” he told her. “Where in the universe do you want to go?”

“Everywhere!” she cried, and, in fast, flashing scenes she did. Yet, there was something wrong, very wrong. Every place they went had more of the foul corruption she thought she had escaped. Every place had more and more, all stinking, rotting, garbage.

The purple glow faded, and standing there, once more, was Nathan Brazil. He shrugged and gave her a crooked smile. “Well, what did you expect?” he asked her. “After all, I created the damn place in my own image.”

And there was just the swirling, engulfing liquid and the stench and corruption, the chills and burning sensations, the pain, and nothing else. Nothing. Nothing.

Alone. She was alone. Alone forever in the muck… She hated that muck, she hated that stench, and, most of all, she hated a universe teeming with life in which she could be so utterly, so completely alone. If this was the way the universe was, it was better destroyed, she thought fiercely. Clear the muck, throw out the garbage, clean and cleanse, cleanse… But so empty now, so alone, so very alone…

Yet somehow she was not alone, not now, not at this point. She had the impression of someone hugging her, transferring warmth and caring to her, someone whispering gently to her, telling her it was all right, that someone else was there. She anxiously fought to open her eyes, to see who or what it might be, and finally managed, but the world wouldn’t focus. A figure, just a figure, no more, no less. A figure, bending down, concerned, worried. A weathered, tough, handsome face whose eyes showed some ancient wisdom and gentleness he might try to hide but could not.