05. Twilight at the Well of Souls - The Legacy of Nathan Brazil (26 page)

"They caught me before I was ready," the newcomer said disgustedly. "Nothing I could do. They were going to drug me."

"Oh, shit," Brazil muttered. "Well, I guess we go now, then. It might still work."

"Why shouldn't it?" Marquoz wanted to know. "So you have to go an extra few hours' flight. That shouldn't be more than an inconvenience."

"It'll be tough on the Eflik," Brazil replied, "but a little more risky for us. We'll have to fly by night, hide by day. Verion will be impossible to cross for the next few days—it's some kind of rutting season there and those worms glow like electric lights. We'll be spotted, and what can be spotted can be reported and maybe shot down. That'll mean a southern route—and Yua's Awbrians aren't far enough along yet to have drawn Khatir's forces away from the Avenue or even provide a good diversion."

"I've helped with that," Gypsy told him. "I stopped off and dropped in on Yua to explain the situation. She's proceeding with all speed. It's riskier than it would be night after next, but the odds are still pretty much with us. I say we go."

Brazil nodded, looking over at Asam. "Get Mavra, will you?"

For a moment the Dillian hesitated, thinking, perhaps, that if she didn't go there was no further threat.

"Not thinking of changing sides now, are you, Asam?" Marquoz prodded the centaur. "If you did, you'd lose her anyway."

The Colonel sighed and went out to find Mavra.

Brazil turned to Gypsy. "You old son of a bitch, you're going to have to explain yourself to me before this is over."

Gypsy grinned. "Maybe. Before it's over," he said playfully. "Hey, Marquoz, about time we got together for this! We're a team again this time!"

"Could be," the Hakazit responded thoughtfully. "Could be . . ."

Brazil shifted uncomfortably. "Wonder what's keeping Asam? Damn it, we've got to get a lot of stuff together before we go, and we have to go as quietly as possible. Gypsy, can you cover for us?"

He nodded. "For a little while, which is all we need. It's a big army, a big, long line. I think I can put in the required Brazil appearances with no trouble and maybe occasionally become Mavra if the question comes up."

"Okay, then. Damn! What's wrong out there? Is Mavra so mad at me she won't even come back? Or did Asam . . . ?" He let the thought trail off.

Suddenly they were all on their feet, nervous and anxious. Brazil looked at Gypsy. "Give yourself some protective coloration," he told the dark man. "We're going to find out what's up."

Gypsy shimmered, changed, became a Hakazit.

"That's a
female
Hakazit," Marquoz noted playfully.

"Got to keep up your reputation," Gypsy came back, and they went out.

They spread out, looking around the flat valley floor. Thousands of creatures of many different races were camped out there, firelights stretching in all directions, but they couldn't see any sign of Asam or Mavra Chang.

Brazil called his humans to him and gave them instructions to comb the area. Gypsy, disguised as a Hakazit, quickly memorized names and faces as Brazil did so.

As more time passed and no word came, Brazil turned to Gypsy and said, "I don't like the feel of this."

"Me neither," Gypsy agreed. "You think maybe we've had it our own way too long and the odds are starting to balance out now?"

"I'm afraid—" Brazil began, but was cut off by a shout from one of his humans. He took off at a run in the indicated direction and Gypsy lumbered along behind him.

Very near the small river was a grove of trees, and it was to these that the runners directed them. Brazil reached the river first and spotted Marquoz, standing there and looking at something in the river mud. Next to the Hakazit stood Asam, looking stricken.

"Right in the middle .of the whole goddamn army!" Marquoz snarled. "God! We were so damnably cocky! Those sons of bitches!"

Brazil looked down at the mud. He could see the hoofprints of a Dillian, walking along the river and very near the clump of trees. Part of the bank was torn from its moorings just ahead and there the hoofprints became a tangled, blotched mess. No other prints could be seen anywhere.

"Damn it! How the hell do you snatch a five hundred kilo Dillian out from under the noses of ten thousand friendly troops?" Marquoz fumed.

Asam looked up at Brazil, his face ashen, his expression a mixture of grief and bewilderment.

"She's gone," he rasped in an unbelieving tone. "They've got her."

Gypsy lumbered up behind them, stopped, and instantly realized what must have happened.

"Oh, shit," said both Nathan Brazil and Gypsy in unison.

Bache, Later That Night

THEY STUDIED, PROBED, INTERVIEWED, AND INVESTIGATED all through the wee hours to no avail. A few Dillians in a camp nearby thought they might have heard a disturbance, some Hakazit close to the trees vaguely recalled seeing some dark shapes in the air, but all really heard and saw very little. Like their leaders, they felt secure inside their own camp and tended to discount any disturbance or commotion as obviously none of their business and certainly not enemy action.

"Why her?" Asam continued to moan. "Why not you, Brazil? You're what they want, not her."

"But they couldn't get to me," he pointed out. "It had to be a small operation, probably only a few creatures, mostly ones also found on our side so they weren't even noticed. Besides, they're skittish now. Suppose they snatched me and I laughed at them, changed into somebody else, then vanished? Then where are they? Uh uh. Now, taking Mavra is a whole different situation. The Dillians idolize her—and, frankly, so do you—so it'll have a demoralizing effect on the troops and their commander. And they know her story—mostly from Ortega if from nowhere else. They know she means something to me—the only family, I guess you'd say, I have. It's possible they know, from capturing some key people or something, that I insisted on her going through the Well with me. Blackmail, a doorstop, I don't know. But it makes sense."

Asam looked angrily down at him. "And you? What will
you
do now?"

Brazil shook his head. "I don't know. I really don't, Colonel. All I can do right now is get our people to work on this, but time's short. I'll have to decide by tomorrow night, that's certain. I still think I can reach the Well, but it's clear they would take this action only if they were moving on this spot even now. I can't afford to wait or they'll have me cut off." He paused. "And, damn it, it's not right! I don't want the responsibility of turning that machine off. All those people out there . . . All gone, like they'd never been. All the great and small, everybody. I don't know whether I could bring myself to do it."

"Then take someone else," Asam responded.

Brazil looked around. "Who else is qualified? Gypsy? He has to stay here in order for the trick to work. Otherwise I'm an open target. And I'm not sure just what he is, anyway. He might not have any feelings at all about the rest of the universe. Yua? She faithfully expects me to wipe out the universe and create paradise. Marquoz? Somehow, I don't think Marquoz deep down cares a damn about people, except for Gypsy. You? Hell, you don't even know what you're destroying. Only Mavra truly understands the responsibility."

Asam looked sternly down at him. "A lot of good people have fought and died in your name. Don't you have a responsibility to
them?
"

He smiled crookedly and shook his head. "You see? You really don't understand it at all. Civilizations, countless quadrillions of people, their greatness, their thoughts and ideas and achievements . . . they're an abstract to you. Only these few who died here have any meaning for you because they're what you know. The Well World's too limited. There aren't any Michelangelos or Leonardo da Vincis here, no Homer, no Tolstoy or even Mark Twain. No Handel or Beethoven or Stravinsky. Multiplied by all the races in the universe, each with their own stunning creations. You really don't understand what it
is
to erase that."

"I don't understand what you say, it's true," the Dillian responded, "but I think I understand you pretty well. It's not all those funny names and whatever they did that really concerns you, I'm thinking. It's the fact that you haven't got a sucker to take over so you can die."

Brazil looked at hirn with ancient eyes, eyes that showed pain and hurts beyond pain, agony that wisdom nutures. "If you believe that," he said slowly, "then you don't understand me at all."

Asam turned and walked back into his tent. It looked very empty now, and he wasn't sure what he himself felt about it all beyond the urge to start smashing things. He didn't, though; he reached into his pack and brought out a very large flask and took a long, long pull.

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."