Jack Chalker - Twilight at the Well of Souls

Asam never dreamed; at least, he couldn’t remember his dreams beyond a couple of extremely vivid childhood nightmares. Still, he thought he must be dreaming, there being no other explanation for it.

A rustling sound awakened him—at least he thought so—but his eyes saw nothing in the darkness at first. Then, slowly, the room seemed to be filling with a ghostly kind of white light.

The booze, he thought. It must be the booze. But it was the booze that clouded his memory, that and the fatigue he felt, from recognizing at once a sight he had not seen in a long while but knew well.

Then with a start he did realize what it was, and his hand went to his sword. Guns might do only superficial damage to the damned things, but they could be sliced the same as anybody else.

“Put the sword away, Colonel. I’m here to talk, not to fight,” said the Dahbi as it oozed the last few centimeters out of the floor and solidified in front of him, not three meters away.

His hand didn’t leave the sword hilt, but while he tensed he did not yet pull it out.

“What the hell do you want?” he croaked.

“What I said. Talk. Nothing more. I have already harmed you far more than putting a knife in your heart, as you must be aware. You will never know how much satisfaction that gave me, nor how it pains me to have to offer to give her back to you.”

He relaxed, but just slightly, a cold chill coming over him. “Sangh. Gunit Sangh himself!” he breathed. “You got guts, I’ll give you that.”

“There’s very little threat, really,” the Dahbi replied. “I can swim through the very rock, you know. Besides, I wanted you to know that I personally supervised the little operation earlier this evening. It lends force—and a little justice—to it all, don’t you think?”

“You got your bloody nerve,” he spat. “Justice!”

“Temper, Colonel, temper!” Gunit Sangh said mockingly. “I have something you want. You have something I want. Obviously what I have can not be far away—there hasn’t been time, and you people are, ah, rather bulky, shall we say? But you’ll never find her. You might, if you had a few weeks to look, but we’re currently marching on you and you are shortly going to be far too busy to do so. Besides, discovery would only mean her death.”

“You bastard,” Asam seethed. “How do I know you haven’t killed her already?”

The Dahbi acted stricken. “My word isn’t good enough? Well, perhaps it isn’t. But I need her—alive. Dead she’s of no use to anyone. Alive, she’s a hostage to Brazil and to you.”

Asam chuckled sourly. “She’s no hostage to Brazil,” he told the creature. “That bastard stopped caring for other folks a million years ago. He’s as cold as you are, Sangh.”

“Sorry to hear that,” the Dahbi responded, sounding sincere. “But that just makes things easier in a different way. If he’s unpleasant even to you, then what I ask should be all the simpler.”

The Dillian eyed the other suspiciously. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

“A trade. Brazil trusts you. I can only assume that he intends to leave your forces before the battle, using your deaths as a diversion—perhaps leaving another simulacrum in his place to fool us. But it won’t work. We’re going to be looking for that. The odds are he’ll never make it to the Avenue, let alone the Well.”

“Then what do you need with me?” Asam growled.

“We might miss him. The odds are very much against it, but it’s possible. He is tricky.” He paused a moment. “Ah, you are sure which is the right Brazil, aren’t you?”

“I know who’s who,” the Colonel told him.

“So, you see, I cover the last possibility. The trade is simple—Mavra Chang for Brazil. Within the next day. Let’s say, by this time tomorrow night, at the latest. That will not only accomplish the main objective but also prevent the coming battles. There will be no need to ask people to fight and die, you see?”

Asam frowned. “I don’t trust you one bit, Sangh. Since when do you care who lives and who dies except for yourself? I have no guarantees.”

“You have several,” Gunit Sangh responded. “You get Brazil to a Zone Gate and bring him through. Diplomatic immunity, remember? Even though the council is against you, they will not violate Zone. Take him to your own embassy. We will make the swap right there. Even better, you have couriers from here. Take Brazil, but don’t put him through until a courier comes with word that a living Mavra Chang is in my embassy at Zone.”

Asam fully relaxed now, thinking about it. Finally he said, “Why are you doing this, Sangh? Why agree to be the commander at all? What the hell are you getting out of this?”

“Consider,” the Dahbi replied, “what honors will come to the one who captures Nathan Brazil. The honors, the power, and the influence. Consider the perfect prison, under hundreds of meters of solid granite, the tunnel used to take him down collapsed about him save for a small mechanism to provide food and water. The council will not have Brazil. The Dahbi—I—will have Brazil. An unspoken hostage, so to speak. And I will have the gratitude of all those who did not lose their lives in foolish battles. Consider the effect on Ortega, no longer as feared or as in charge. His place will pass to me, and that fat ancient snake will die at last, his grip on the Well World and the council broken. It’s already been suggested that, as an old friend of Brazil’s, he can not be trusted in this matter. The possibilities are endless.”

Asam shivered slightly, thinking of an unchecked Gunit Sangh in charge, but, oddly, this sinister plan also reassured him. Sangh was being honest with him, partly out of confidence, partly out of the sheer arrogance he exuded. He was saying the stakes were too high to risk a double cross now.

“We will transfer her to Zone after dark tomorrow, as quickly as possible,” the Dahbi told him. “We will receive any envoy you like at our embassy there to verify it. Then you will have eight hours to deliver your end of the bargain.”

“And after that?” he asked, thinking about it.

“You will be free to return to Dillia together,” Sangh told him. “Naturally, this will not settle anything personally between us. That will remain outstanding—as it has. Safe passage for you and the woman, alive, back to Dill’a is all I guarantee. After that we have no more bargain.”

He sighed. “I’ll consider it,” he told the creature. “And if I do not come through?”

“Then the woman will be the object of a ritual feast by my embassy personnel and no trace of her will remain,” the Dahbi responded coldly.

“You bastard,” Asam swore angrily. “You dirty bastard. You and I will settle this personally one day.”

“One day,” the Dahbi agreed. “But not in the next two days.” It turned into its milky white state and slowly oozed into the ground until the last traces of it were gone.

“You bastard,” Asam repeated to the dark, but his mind was already whirling. Schemes, plots, ideas, were already hatching. He considered Gypsy—but, no. He couldn’t be sure he could trust the strange little man, and something might go wrong, betray them. Sangh was on to the plan anyway, and would still be looking for a Brazil getaway. No, it had to be on the square. He had to choose between Mavra and Brazil, it was that simple. And a simple choice.

The ranch was barely twenty kilometers below the border, yet it was isolated enough and far enough for their purposes. Two were Dahbi, the others were Krithians, their huge, beating wings marking time to the call of one to the other. They carried in between them a huge blanket in which lay their heavy burden, unconscious still from the tranquilizers they had shot into her from ambush.