The Return of Nathan Brazil

Dillia

Mavra Chang awoke. it was slightly chillybut not unpleasant; a peaceful forest with the sound of a running stream nearby. She was relieved; going through the Well hadn’t been any trouble at all.

She began to move forward and instantly stopped. She turned to examine her body, then she started cursing.

Damn Obie! she thought angrily. She was still a centaur! He had known it—that had been why he’d insisted she keep the Rhone form. He was getting her used to it.

She walked down to the water. There was a waterfall, small but pleasant-looking, churning the water below but it ran off into a broad pool and almost slowed to a start. Just downstream a bit it was almost a mirror-like lake and she quickly took advantage of it.

She was not the same centaur she’d been, she saw that reflected in the pool. She was larger, stronger, more powerful-looking. Her head and the equine part of her body were covered with a yellowish hair, blonde and majestic. Her body, amply-built but strong and sturdy, was light-skinned and her face retained no trace of its Oriental cast. It was a strong, attractive face with, of all things, blue eyes staring back at her from the reflection.

And yet there was something oddly familiar in the visage, as if it reminded her of someone she’d known long ago. She couldn’t think of who it might be; she’d never seen anyone so fair of skin nor with blue eyes—except—who?

A memory stirred, struggled, then came forth, a memory so long buried that she could never have recalled it on her own. Obie had been at work; his reach extended past his own demise.

A tall, handsome, muscular man with deep-blue eyes and a smaller, stunningly beautiful dark-haired woman with very fair skin.

Her parents.

Somehow she knew now, understood what the Well had done. Mavra Chang had been the creation of back-alley surgeons, a shape and form so different that none would ever recognize her as the refugee child from a doomed planet.

This was what she would have looked like if she’d been allowed to grow up normally, to be the true child of her parents.

Despite the centaur’s form, for the first time in her life she was seeing herself as she might have existed in human form. It startled her, even scared her a little. She shivered, only partly because of the slight chill.

She looked around her. High mountains off in the distance, not very far, really. She was essentially up in them even now. She knew where she was, where she must be. She’d come out of those mountains once before, the strange, quiet peaks of the hex named Gedemondas. This was Dillia, the land of peaceful, centaurs, uplake—at the head of a massive glacial body of water. There was a village down there, she knew. Filled with friendly centaurs who drank and smoked and told great stories. And up there, in those mountains, was the strange mountain race who had powers and senses beyond understanding.

She seemed to understand Obie’s intent, but she was still alone, in a chilly forest, without even a coat to keep out the chill.

All right, Mavra, she told herself. Here you are the would-be warrior queen with no followers and no army. Here you are, a long, long way from Glathriel and Ambreza, naked and alone and you’re supposed to start a revolution.

All right, superwoman, she told herself, you’re on your own now. No Brazil, no Obie, nobody. Just the way you wanted it to be. Now how are you going to do the job you have to do?

She sighed and turned, walking slowly from the stream toward the village she knew was there. First warm clothing, some food and drink, then conquer the world, she told herself.

Yeah. Conquer the world. You and what army? the darker part of her whispered. She had no reply.