Jack Chalker - The Return of Nathan Brazil

“We faked it,” Mavra told him. “We had to. Otherwise Obie, totally in control of himself and beyond any override—and a miniature Well of Souls—would have been hated, feared, perhaps eventually destroyed in spite of his powers. And me—if you’ll remember, I was in the worst shape of anybody to face rejoining the human race. I had no desire to come back as a circus freak, didn’t know that Obie was still alive, so to speak, and decided to die with him. I didn’t. We went to a far galaxy and had a lot of fun together.”

He swayed back and forth a little but Mavra couldn’t tell what he was thinking. The reptilian part of him was in command now, a solid mask.

“And Obie? Where is he?”

She sighed. “Dead—or good as.” Quickly she told the past history of Obie and Brazil as truthfully as she could.

“And Brazil? When is he coming through?” the snake-man pressed.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Nobody but he does—and I’m not sure if he isn’t just waiting for the right moment.”

“And he told you to tell me all this?” Ortega asked skeptically.

She smiled. “He left the decision to me. He said you’d be essential as an ally, but if you weren’t to remind you that he beat you once when he didn’t know who he was fighting and he could do it again with his eyes open if he had to.”

Ortega rocked with laughter again. “Yes, yes! That is Brazil! Ah, this is marvelous!”

Then all the mirth seemed to drain from him. He suddenly looked very ancient, as ancient as he actually was, then his eyes seemed to soften. “You are really Mavra Chang?”

She nodded.

“Well, I’ll be damned. God is good even to the fallen,” he muttered to himself. He looked up at her, “You know, in all the time I lived I killed an awful lot of people, almost all of whom were either trying to kill me or who deserved killing, anyway. I screwed a lot of people who deserved to be screwed and, you know, if I had it to do all over again, I would. There’s only one blot on my conscience, one person who has haunted me through the years—-even though I had no choice, which made it all the more maddening. What you’re saying is that I have achieved absolution. That one person lives, and has lived a full life, lived longer than any except maybe Brazil and myself. You’re telling me I did the right thing, that I’m forgiven now.”

She peered at him, a little uncomfortable with his reaction. It was not what she’d expected from the man at all. She could almost swear that there were tears welling up in his eyes.

“I haven’t forgiven you, Ortega,” she said evenly. “You are the one man I could still cheerfully kill—if I didn’t need you.”

He chuckled. “You really are Mavra Chang?” He seemed to need the reassurance, as if he couldn’t accept the truth. “I’ll be damned.” Suddenly he hardened. “Listen. If you are Mavra Chang, then you owe me.”

It was her turn to be surprised. ” I owe you?”

He nodded. “If I hadn’t done what I did back then you’d be out there someplace, right now, dead these seven hundred years, dead and buried. Dead never having gotten off this stinkin’ world, never having seen the stars again. I saved you and you owe me that much. I saved you and that means everything to me.” His eyes were burning now. “How I envy you. Seven hundred years out there. I haven’t seen the stars in much longer than that. I haven’t been out of this stinkin’ hole since long before you were born. Do you know what that means? I was a captain too, you know.”

She did know what that meant, although it was unnerving, somehow, to find it still in Ortega as well. She tried to imagine it. All this time Ortega had been built up as a Machiavellian mastermind, the true ruler of the Well World—and, in fact, he really had tremendous power, more power than anyone had ever had here. People lived or died, governments rose and fell, trade was or was not accomplished according to his will and whims. And yet…

He nodded and smiled slightly. “I see that you understand me. I am a prisoner, more than you ever were. All this power is meaningless. A diversion for an old man in an artificially lit prison cell who hasn’t seen a star or a blade of grass except in pictures in almost a thousand years.” He sighed. “You know, old memories keep popping up here and there. I remember the last time Nate was here. He said the only thing he wanted to do was die—he was sick of living. He’d done everything, been everything, lived too long. I thought he was nuts. The only difference between Brazil then and me now is that he took longer. So will you, although you probably won’t live that long. You were probably just reaching the first stages of boredom, I think. You lasted longer than me because you could move, see the stars and trees and bright desert colors and blue skies. Even in Glathriel you had that. Imagine your last seven centuries locked in here. ”

She shook her head in wonder. “If you feel that strongly, why not just walk through that gate with me? Go home to Ulik and see the deserts and the stars?”

He chuckled dryly. “You want to know why? You think I haven’t thought about it, over and over again, every spare hour? Every time I feel the walls close in, or I see my distinguished colleagues return, rested, from trips home? You want to know? I’m scared. Me, Serge Ortega. I’ll match swords or guns or anything else—including wits—with anybody. I’ll charge into Hell itself—but I will not go there invited.”

She stood there, listening to him, and discovered to her surprise that much of the hate and resentment she had felt for him was gone now, replaced by a slight but no less genuine pity for a man who had built his own prison and had been suffering in it.

“You don’t have to worry about Hell, Ortega,” she said softly. ” This is Hell. You made it. You created it out of your own fears and guilts. You live in it constantly, forever, all the more Hell because you know you can leave. I feel sorry for you, Ortega. I really do.”

She turned, faced the blackness. “I think I’m ready to go now. Take this trip I was due to take seven hundred years ago but for your own efforts. Full circle, Ortega. Will you help us? You don’t owe these people anything. Not now. Please help—if only for my sake.”

He smiled. “I’ll do what I can. But what’s interesting for me will be hell for the rest of the races here. You realize that. I might not be able to stop things.”

“Do what you can, then,” she responded. “If you do not, then we have a date, you and I, here, in Zone; this I swear.”

“I certainly hope the day never comes when I have to choose you or me,” he murmured, sounding sincere. “I—I just don’t know which I’d choose.”

“I’ll be back, Ortega, one way or the other I’ll be back. Bet on it!” she snapped and started off at a gallop, vanishing quickly into the darkness of the Well Gate.

Serge Ortega just sat, rocking back and forth on his serpent’s coils, for a long, long time, staring into the blackness.

Marquoz awoke.

He groaned, stretched, and looked about curiously at his new land. It was not a cheering sight; he was on a high plateau and had a good view of the lay of the land for many kilometers. The land was rugged, almost ringed, it seemed, by towering volcanic peaks some of which were venting smoke. Below stretched a great plain, but a plain strewn with black rocks and boulders and thick layers of volcanic ash broken occasionally by tiny cinder cones that did not look reassuringly old or extinct.

There was grass, yes; a sickly yellow grass that grew tall and wild and waved in the wind that swirled around the volcanic bowl, and off in the distance he could see a huge body of blue-green water that had to be an ocean. Only near this great sea were there splotches of deep green indicating cultivation.