Jack Chalker: Echoes of the Well of Souls

As the creature straightened up, Brazil dropped the canister and leapt at it, grabbing the rifle and then dropping, rolling, and coming back up with it pointed back at the assassin in one fluid motion.

The creature banged its back against the tree and put out the fire but then glared down the barrel of his own rifle. There was no doubt from the way Brazil held it that the man knew just how to use it.

Over near the camp another creature had waited in the trees to pounce on whoever might have come to the tent. It clung, silent and still, to the side of the tree without any obvious means of support.

Terry had moved around to the other side after separating from Brazil and had gone up a tree well distant from her own quarry. She moved with silent precision, using the night sense to see the links whereby she could get from one tree to the other and finally to the one next to the tent. The thing glowed brightly in her night sense, a sickly red like dried blood against the glowing tan of the tree. The outline was clear and now familiar to her: one of those scorpionlike creatures, its long, curved tail poised and practically screaming instant death to her.

She was right above it now, and for the first time she wasn’t sure what to do. She sensed that Nathan was about to pounce on the other one; whatever it was had to be done fast. If only she had a better angle… Nothing she could do would work unless she actually touched the loathsome thing!

At that moment Brazil moved, and from up the path there was a scream that she knew was not his. The creature was suddenly alert, then turned toward the direction of the sounds. At that moment, fidgeting, the deadly tail was pointed straight down, the curve right below her. Timing, of course, was everything, but there was no chance for anything else but direct force and a prayer that it would work.

She jumped feet first and struck the tail at its midcurve. The tail went forward and punctured the thick exoskeleton of the creature, who roared even as they both fell from the tree and onto the tent below.

She landed right next to the thing and gave a panicked cry as the poison-tipped tail flailed up and down in random directions. She rolled away just in time for it to miss her, but it was a near thing. She was entangled in the collapsed tent with the creature when it again struck within a hair’s breadth of her arm. She reached out reflexively and shoved it, at the same time sending her own fear and panic.

The creature managed to right itself but seemingly forgot about her. It leapt a good ten feet, landing on its feet, and began running on all six of its legs away toward the port, emitting an eerie, piercing sirenlike scream as it did so.

She had no idea where it went, and she didn’t care. She knew it was gone, and she felt that Nathan was all right as well.

Brazil was torn between his captive and his clear perception of her fright and panic. He turned slightly, distracted by the feelings he was receiving from her, and the would-be sniper took it as an opening, running into the man and knocking him down, sending the rifle into the grass. The creature didn’t look for it or go at Brazil, though; instead, it ran at top speed away into the darkness.

Brazil got up quickly and looked around, but the assassin was gone. “Damn!” he swore aloud. “Damn! Damn! Damn!” He looked around for the rifle, certain that the creature hadn’t retrieved it, and found it in about thirty seconds. The girl no longer worried him; he knew without even checking that she was safe and that the other assailant, too, had fled.

Instead, he walked back down to what remained of the camp, looking at the rifle, noting only now what had caused him to know that an ambush awaited.

The two embedded electric streetlights along the fountain path were out. Either put out or shot out, most likely.

He found Terry shaken but unharmed. She might have a bruise or two, and she had a couple of scratches where she’d fallen into the tent, but it didn’t appear to be anything serious.

He smiled, winked at her, and kissed her, then turned his attention to the rifle. It was a damned good one, too. Expensive. But the previous owner was no pro; a pro would never have taken up that exposed position or allowed anyone to get that close. Similarly, the Ecundo, for that was what the scorpionlike creature had been, had acted less like an assassin than like some ship’s crewman hard up for some spare cash and recruited on the spot for an “easy” job. Again, no matter what her own abilities, she shouldn’t have been able to get close enough to nail him without his hearing, and he certainly should have nailed her with that stinger when they fell. These were amateurs. Amateurs hired by somebody with money and sources of illegal weapons.

They’d just survived a crude attempt by amateurs at a paid “hit.”

“Now what the hell…?” he mused, staring at the rifle. Who would want him dead badly enough to hire toughs to do it? Who would be dumb enough to think they could kill him? Yet if they didn’t know who he really was and what that meant, why bother? The Ambreza? Hardly. They could have snared him a lot easier a thousand times and with far less mess. He’d been only in Ambreza and briefly in Glathriel, and certainly the latter was out as a suspect. The only one who knew both who he was and where he might be would be Mavra Chang.

But this wasn’t her style. Remote-control hits by amateurs? And she of all people would know that he couldn’t be taken out any more than she could. But who else could it be?

Damn it, Mavra was as much if not more of an enigma to him than the girl was. If it was Mavra, what might be the motive? To slow him up, perhaps, now that he was on the move? A real possibility. But the worst possibility was one he didn’t want to think about.

That somebody here, somewhere, knew who and what he was and was bent on stopping him at all cost, a third player whose very race and motives were unknown.

He looked at the ruins of the camp and sighed. Then he went over to find his clothes and get dressed again. She might not mind, but it was damned chilly for him.

There wouldn’t be much sleep tonight, after all, even with all that had happened. Tomorrow morning the ship would sail, and they would be on it. Plenty of time to sleep then. Or, at least, if there was another attacker aboard, they couldn’t run away like these two and he might get answers to some questions.

It was the story of his life, he decided. Every nice turn was met with an unexpected plunge into something nasty.

Lori had been with Posiphar long enough to understand the bargaining game, and it was a good thing, too, since the tentmaker wasn’t offering a very good deal on getting Julian off his hands in spite of his professed disgust with her.

“Since the treatment has begun as the Holy One directed, she is coming along very well,” Aswam argued. “In a few more months, with the herbs the monk gave us to add to her food and drink, she will have forgotten all this foolishness and become a good girl and bear many fine children.”

Lori did find this particular scale of bargaining distasteful, though; it seemed too much like haggling over a sale price, and in this case the commodity was a woman reduced to the status of a brood mare. Still, the addition of drugs—“herbs”—to Julian’s food explained a lot as well about her mood swings and collapse of will.

“And you are arguing that I should repay you for your losses to date, when you are telling me that she is as she is now only because of herbs ? And other than your loss of use of the storage shed, how much has she cost you so far above what dowry you were paid for her? How much for those herbs and all the special attention?”