Jack Chalker - Charon - A Dragon at the Gate

“Get to know this. You will all have copies provided, and I want you to know every passage, service corridor, twist and turn in the place. Within the next two days I’ll be putting you to the test, showing blind areas on a computer simulator. Better know your way around or you’ll get quickly lost. Speed is important, but I don’t want any of you in there to get lost in any way, shape, or form.”

The picture flipped again, showing the bottom level and the tunnel complex.

“This is the weak spot of the Castle, if it can be said to have one,” the sorcerer went on. “If you look closely, you’ll realize that this is more than a complex of tunnels and caves in a mountain. This is a maze. It is certainly possible to get into the maze more than two kilometers from the Castle itself, but once in you have even more problems. There are spells and sensors everywhere. Apparent rock walls show where there is clear space, and there are literally hundreds of rock plugs that can be—and are—shifted regularly, changing the entire maze. There is, literally, no way to know the configuration of the maze at any given time. At one time, several years ago, I did discover the key to it and sent in some of my best people. Most of them got into the Castle, but only a handful got out again—and none lived to get back to me. You understand the meaning of that. Many of them were top sores. The best. Therefore, should we manage to get in, we’re in. We either take the Castle or we die. No alternatives.”

That outlook was pretty grim, but we all could see his point. Still, somebody had a question—I couldn’t tell who.

“How will we solve the maze?” the questioner sensibly asked.

“The only advantage I have is that I know the entire area. I know what sort of things are Installed and what are not, and I can orient myself even to changed circumstances. Basically, I’m betting that I can solve the maze based on my prior knowledge. If I can’t, it’s all over.”

There was a nervous shuffling in the room at that. We were all being asked to put our necks entirely in a noose made for Koril, and were totally dependent on Koril to keep that noose from tightening.

“Now, it’s inevitable we’ll trip something, bringing troopers and defense forces,” Koril continued, “but these don’t worry me and should not worry you. None are above the level of a low-grade apt, maybe VII tops and more likely DCs. The least of you is a VII, and most of us are far higher than that. They keep the troop grade low to prevent any possible internal revolts, of course. But don’t kid yourself—also in the Castle are some incredibly powerful sores. The tops. The best we know. With luck, there’ll be no more than four or five Synod members there—they roam about much of the time. But the odds are extremely good that there will be at least that number, and we can’t discount Morah. We can only hope that he’s out—and then try and rig things a bit our way.”

“What about Mature?” somebody else asked.

“She’ll almost certainly be in. She rarely leaves, and never for any extended visits. Without her, of course, the Castle is valueless, but I feel certain the odds are with us on that much. As for Morah, well stir up a big dish of trouble in the south coast region, as far from the Castle as we can. With any luck, the fracas will bring him there. Then we enter the Castle. Finally, as a distraction, there will be a general uprising and a well-coordinated but futile attack upon the Castle itself. Our own movements will be determined both by events inside and by the shuttle schedule, which we most certainly know. It puts down at four every afternoon and remains for an hour. That means we launch our south coast diversion a day before we go hi. We go in at five the next day. Once we’re discovered, we’re committed. We must accomplish everything before that shuttle returns the next afternoon. If not, if we’re held in the lower areas through then, Aeolia need only take the shuttle up to the space station and we’re dead.” He paused a moment, then added, “Remember, you all volunteered for this.”

Well, maybe we had—but there were a lot of ifs in this proposition. If all the attacks were coordinated. If Morah could be drawn off. If there were no more Synod members in residence than we could handle ourselves. If the shuttle kept its schedule. If Aeolia Matuze was home. And if we could think, fight, and ensorcel our way through that huge building in only one full day.

I looked at Darva in the gloom and knew she was thinking the same things I was. “I really wish you wouldn’t come,” I told her. “You’re not strong enough for the sores and you’re a knife at my throat They kill you, they get me.”

“I have other skills,” she reminded me, “not the least of which is the weapons practice I’ve been through here. And I’m no more a knife at your throat than you are at mine. If you’re going to take me with you I don’t want to get it sitting out the action someplace.”

I smiled and squeezed her hand. “All right, then. It’s a team we are.”

Her smile in return was weak. I knew she really thought we were going to die in this, and I understood that she was willing to go, particularly if it was in the pursuit of something important.

And, I think, she understood me as well. Hell, up to the last I’d never expected to be in on the end of this thing, not directly. As it was, I was going to have more fun than I’d had in the past ten years.

We could have used four months to train for the mission; Koril gave us four days. Once he’d decided to move, he decided to move, and that was that. He said he’d picked each of us for a reason, but some reasons were easier than others to figure out.

I seemed to have been included because Koril, like many of the Brethren I’d hunted for most of my Me, had a very high opinion of Confederacy assassins, an opinion I’d tried to reinforce in my conversations with him. I was surprised he agreed to let Darva come, but as she had pointed out, what she lacked in sorcerous powers she more than compensated for with close-quarters weaponry. She’d worked hard developing those skills, and I wouldn’t want to be in the way if she wanted to go somewhere. If her opponent were equal or weaker than she in control of the wa force, or was prevented by one of us from using it, that opponent was dead. Zala—or, rather, Kira—was a more interesting choice, since I knew Koril trusted her no more than I did. If she was on the level, of course, she’d be invaluable—but she could also easily be our Trojan Horse, ready to betray us once we were trapped inside the Castle.

The rest were his best sores, as illustrated by the “K” sound that preceded then* names, which they took when admitted to that fraternity of the very best. It was like a title or badge of rank—and when I finally realized that it explained a lot. Of them all, only Morah had never taken a sore name.

Our party wasn’t without interesting abilities. In addition to Darva and myself, Ku, a small, dark man with a rodent-like face, was also a changeling, although very human in appearance. He was naturally nocturnal and, additionally, had some sort of built-in sonar system which would be very useful to us—along with his unnerving ability to stick to walls and ceilings like a fly. It was obvious that, if in fact someone else had made him a changeling or not, he’d adapted for himself some most useful attributes.

Kaigh was a large, hairy bear like man who looked naturally mean, and perhaps was. I understood he was a former Confederacy frontier officer who’d found the possibilities for graft and extortion out there irresistible. Kimil was a typical civilized worlder, younger than Koril but otherwise undistinguished. Kindel was a small, wiry woman with wickedly long nails and a shaved head. Her cold, black eyes seemed too large for her head, and were constantly in nervous motion. Rrugar was a woman of the civilized worlds, in early middle age and otherwise not very distinguished from any other civilized worlder. Of us all, I realized, only Darva was native to Charon.