Jack Chalker - Twilight at the Well of Souls

Then had come the second message that Brazil had been spotted with the Awbrian forces moving up from the south. This, together with his routine intelligence asssuring him that Brazil, was, in fact, still with the Dillians and Hakazits not too many hills away in Bache, did nothing to improve his confidence. He felt like his whole beautiful world of dreams was crashing down about him.

Finally, though, he did calm down and came out of the tent. A milling throng of officers of many races had gathered near by, but they all pulled back when he appeared, fully unfolded and extended, a truly awesome sight.

“Fools! I will not hurt you!” he snapped. “We must act and act now or all is surely lost! Make use of the rest of the night to mobilize your entire force. All plans are now in force, all alerts are now proclaimed. We will engage the enemy as soon after first light as is practical. Move!”

They moved, fast and frenzied.

Sangh pointed a foreleg at his intelligence officer. “You! Any further messages? Quit shivering, idiot! I won’t eat you! I’m over that—now.”

The officer in question, a tiny, weasellike Orarc, continued to shiver, but it responded, “There is a strange, impossible message from your embassy at Zone, sir.”

Sangh froze. More bad news would be more than he could stand. “What?”

The Orarc swallowed hard. “According to this— it’s unbelievable—but, according to this—”

“Come on! Out with it!”

“Ambassador Ortega is no longer at Zone,” the creature told him.

Gunit Sangh froze, stunned. He realized immediately the import of that news—and its total lack of credibility. If Ortega left Zone, then he broke the spell that restrained his aging, and he was already an old man. It was the end of an era that had stretched back to almost two thousand years before the elderly Dahbi himself had been born, the end of a power and personality that had pervaded and colored the only Well World that Sangh, or anybody else, had ever known.

“It must be a mistake,” he responded, dismissing the news. “He was just taking a crap or something.” He turned to go back into the tent.

“It’s definite, sir,” the Orarc insisted. “Some of our own people saw him go through the Zone Gate. No doubles, no duplicates, no other Ulik mistaken for him. There is a new, young Ulik ambassador at Zone and Ortega is definitely gone. Gone home, they said, to die.”

Gunit Sangh snorted. “Oh, no. There’s something dirtier afoot than that. Ortega would only do that if he were certain not only that he was not going to die but also that the odds favored his plan somehow. I want to know as soon as possible what he did after arriving back in Ulik. I want to know where Serge Ortega is and what he is doing if he survived the trip —and I’m certain he did.”

“At once, sir,” the intelligence officer responded and turned to go.

Gunit Sangh felt totally calm, but very uneasy. Up to now it was a simple battle of wits. He was losing, yes, but he always had the chance of winning and he always had known the score. Not now. With Ortega suddenly in the game—outside of Zone! incredible!—he had the uneasy feeling that something momentous was going on, some force was coming into play that was beyond understanding or control.

He was suddenly conscious that more than history was being made now; the future itself, and for a long, long time to come. The future was being molded by unseen hands. A changing future, not a static one.

All his life his efforts had gone to maintain the status quo, which he liked very much indeed, and increase his personal role in the leadership of that. But —Ortega gone? Brazil inside the Well?

He spread out the relief maps and tried to occupy his mind with preparations for battle For the first time in his long life, Gunit Sangh felt afraid.

Gypsy pulled deeply on a cigarette, the glow lighting up his face in an odd, supernatural effect. The only other light came from the reddish glow that emanated from Marquoz’s alien eyes.

Nathan Brazil lit a small torch and studied the scene. “I think it’s safe enough right here,” he told the others, and they agreed.

The Gedemondans had called Mavra “sort of” a cow, but to Brazil there was very little qualification. Spotted brown and white, she had all the bovine features, and despite being a little shaggy-haired and having two small horns, twisted like the hakak’s, into conchlike spirals, she was the same sort of animal as before. He sympathized with her, and by the light of the torch she turned her massive head to study them with eyes that were, he knew, weak, very near-sighted, and color-blind.

She had been less shocked by the transfer than most people would have been; she had been through transformations several times before, not all deliberate or painless. She had waited, then, until they had come at dawn to let the cows out to pasture, and had found it very easy to just go with the herd, let the cow part of her take control, and get out into the hills. From that point she had something of an internal struggle with the cow mind as she tried to assume control and force it away, while doing it as slowly and naturally as possible.

The Gedemondans had met her at a predetermined spot, a small pool used by cows and other livestock out of sight of the ranch house, and had gone with her, breaching the fence when they came to it and continuing down an isolated route to the border.

The Gedemondans, she had noticed, seemed weak and somewhat disoriented and had to stop often. At first she had thought it was just the night’s tension catching up to them, but then she realized it was far more than that. Whatever they had done to get her into this body took enormous power and concentration. They all looked much older, somehow, than they had before their efforts on her behalf.

Their condition did not improve in the post-midnight darkness. Even Brazil and the others, who had had no previous experience with Gedemondans and therefore no direct method of comparison, could see the change. Brazil thought back to the Murnies, so long ago, and recalled now that the elders who could do the transference spent half their lives learning the skill that was enough to do them in when used only once or twice. Still, there was an idea in the back of his mind that had started with a tiny glimmer of devious light when he had first heard of Mavra’s transference. Though well worth trying, he just wished he felt better asking it, for he now knew the price.

“How many of your people are around?” he asked the Gedemondan communicator.

“Twelve total,” the white creature responded, “including myself and the other communicator there.”

“And it takes a minimum of three of you to do this transference?”

The Gedemondan nodded. “Yes, three.”

He looked over at the weary Gedemondan party, now slumped against the trees. “Would using more of you in such an operation lessen the, ah, impact?”

The communicator saw where he was leading. “No, I don’t think so. Which of you are you considering for this?”

His eyebrows rose slightly in surprise. “You mean she could be transferred again? I thought the strain would be too much.”

“Actually, it would be somewhat easier,” the Gedemondan told him. “She is not a natural part of the body, nor has she been in it long enough to get totally entwined. Part of the problem is identifying and gathering together all of the soul—much easier with a body alien to it than with one of which it is a part.”

He nodded, but hesitated, looking again at the tired, worn Gedemondans who had given so much of themselves in the rescue. He didn’t like to ask others to go through that.

The communicator understood. “It is all right,” he consoled gently. “You see, we believe in what you are doing. It is necessary, it is important. We’ve kept apart from the rest of the Well World, true, and would still if all were going smoothly. It is not, though. Even at that, we might have been tempted to stay removed from this as we have from all other conflicts, but there is an overriding consideration here that impels us to do anything and everything to make certain you succeed.”