Twilight at the Well of Souls

Yongrem, at the Betared-Clopta Border

The small launch came ashore on the waves.

A small storm out to sea had whipped them up and they pounded the surf, making a safe landing somewhat tricky. The coast was rocky here, and a misstep could mean being smashed against those rocks.

It was just before dawn; light enough to see what you were doing but not yet the hour when curious folk might wander down this way. Not that many would, right in here at the border. The Betareds and the Cloptans had little love for one another, the reasons going so far into the past that neither could really give them anymore, but, like all such feuds, the lack of rational cause only intensified the feelings.

Never in his memory had Brazil seen so clear-cut a contrast where hexes met. To his left Betared shivered in the grip of icy cold, the trees were festooned with icicles, and the snow drifted around them into wavelike mounds. As if seeing two pictures placed side by side, to his right was lush, green warmth, a fairyland of gum trees, palms, and other tropical growths. The border itself seemed here a physical thing, shimmering at the juncture with the other, and a torrent of water poured down a well-eroded path through the rocks to the sea as warm air met cold. Only from a third hex would such a sight be visible; the waves of Yongrem beat with equal force on both coasts.

There was a tiny thermal barrier between the hexes, not to keep anyone from crossing through but to provide a small bit of insulation between such different places. Even so, cloud patterns formed along both sides and stretched out from the border in both directions. It made the region just at the border dark and fog-shrouded, which was just what they wanted.

His four bodyguards awaited him when the skillful crew managed to get the launch, on the fourth attempt, through the reefs and up onto what served for a beach just on the warmer Cloptan side. He jumped out quickly, waved to the crew, who got quickly back into the water for the even more perilous trip back, and walked up to them.

Two were Punretts, not uncommonly seen neighbors of Clopta, who looked at first glance like giant eight-balls from a mammoth billiard table perched on two huge ribbed, fowllike legs with heads that seemed to be long, flat scissor-shaped bills and little else. The eyes, on two short stalks, actually grew out of the bill near its base and were almost invisible. Just under the bills, hanging down as if part of some garment, were eight flat, droopy segments like leaves of some impossible plant. Brazil realized that these were tentacles.

Two more were Quilst, hardly inconspicuous here despite their own hex’s border with both Clopta and Betared. They were almost two and a half meters tall, standing upright on flat-bottomed thick round legs like the trunks of very large trees. Their massive arms looked the same, but ended in fat, massive humanoid hands whose most unusual feature was that the fingers all ended in flat stumps completely covered with a fingernail-like layer. On almost no necks, their immense heads looked to be all mouth, for a giant, rounded snout, with tiny little piglike eyes set back in the head and flanked by two equally small ears that twitched constantly. Incongruously, both wore gunbelts, and the pistols strapped to their sides were of sufficient size to blow holes in small mountains.

The fifth was an Awbrian, looking very uncomfortable on the ground, and very frail when contrasted against the rest of the party.

“Captain Brazil,” the Awbrian said nervously. “We are glad to see you. I am Foma of Awbri, and these two Punretts are Squom and Dutrik, the two Quilst Maganong and Sungongong.”

He gave each a nod. “All of you are natives?”

“All natives,” she confirmed. “I’m afraid I’ll have to do a lot of the talking, since neither race communicates in the normal fashion, but they can understand us because of our translators—and they can talk to the Betared and Cloptans, if need be.’”

“Good enough for me,” he told her. “I have a heavy coat here, but I’d prefer to stay on this side of the line if possible. Warm weather attracts me more. Guess I’m getting soft from being too little in the open.”

“We understand,” Foma replied. “It suits us as well. We have an aircar over here which should get us up to the Quilst border in a hurry. From then on we’re on foot.”

He sighed. “Okay. Suits me. What’s the situation right now?”

They walked over to some bushes where a large platform with canopy and control stick seemed to hover a few centimeters off the ground. In fact it was floating, for all intents and purposes, since it was supported by thousands of tiny “legs” of invisible energy keeping it aloft like a hovercraft. Although not designed for human comforts, it was, he reflected, more advanced than most local transport he had seen in the Com. They all fit, which was something in and of itself.

“The women of Awbri, freed from oppression after so very long, are massed in your favor,” she told him. “We have been joined by some others of many races, all originally from your own land, who are massed with our forces near the border with Agon. You understand that most of Awbri can not be traversed on the ground.”

He didn’t, really, but nodded anyway.

“There is also an alarm out for you in this area,” she told him.

He was startled. “Huh? How’d that happen? Has my, ah, counterpart with the others already made an escape?”

“Nothing like that,” she assured him. “It seems that someone in our own forces either stumbled on the truth and talked too much or that the council has hedged its bets and decided to take no chances.”

He sighed. “That damned steamer. I knew it. Council, my ass—this is Ortega’s doing. He’s the only one with the kind of mind to figure it out in advance.” He was talking more to himself than to the others. Turning to her, he said, “Well, nothing to do but make the best of it. Khutir’s forces are still guarding the Avenue?” She nodded. “They have made no move as yet, and seem massed mostly in Quilst. That has gained us some friends, like Manganong and Sugongong, here. Although Quilst is officially with the council, the army has not been kind to it and there has been more than a little trouble.”

He could understand that. An army of several dozen races, with different physical requirements, would be hell to put up in your back yard and hell for even a tough old bastard like Khutir to control.

“We believe you should ride the border, so to speak,” she said. “Up to Lieveru, then into Ellerbanta, where the mountains make it impossible for any army or force to cover all access to the Avenue.”

He nodded uneasily, knowing the odds of getting nearly that far. Not, of course, that he intended to do so anyway—but these must not know that. He wished, though, that the others had already made their own break and were out and heading for the home stretch. Everything depended at this point on the continued befuddlement of the council and the traditional thinking of its leadership. If, in fact, Ortega had guessed the plan and managed to convince the others of it, that could upset the timetable. Things could be very dangerous very quickly.

They raced through Clopta at almost a hundred kilometers per hour and were at the Quilst border in just a little under three hours. As far as he could tell they had not been spotted or even seen by anyone. So far so good—but now came the hard part.

Even now those Awbrian forces that had sat still to this point would be on the move, heading straight for the Ellerbanta-Verion Avenue—but they were a long ways away. It should draw Khutir south to counter it, past them and to the east of them, while Sangh’s forces would be cut off, forced to stand and guard the Yaxa-Harbigor Avenue from what to all intents and purposes was the real Brazil. It was so close, so close now… Everything had worked so well. Another day, two at best, and things would be well in hand. Another two days…

Quilst proved cooler than Clopta, but far less humid, and seemed to be a good compromise. They walked now, still near the border with frozen Betared, but progress was considerably slowed.

For its coolness, Quilst seemed a swampy place, thick with trees and weeds and abounding with enormous mudholes. It certainly didn’t look that livable, yet the enormous creatures that were part of his bodyguard came from here.

He was thankful for the presence of the natives; they knew their way around and would keep him from getting into trouble with some unpleasant flora and fauna of which he might be ignorant, as well as keeping him away from population. The two Punretts were less help, but he knew they could swell up to four times their size and in a fight were not merely nasty but tended to eat almost anything that couldn’t eat them. You couldn’t always pick the best allies in these kinds of situations, you just picked the best you could get.

Out for several hours, they had seen no sign of anybody. That worried him a little; it was too easy. They were walking around one of those large mudholes when suddenly the thing simply erupted. Twenty or more Quilst heads popped up, snorting, then the rest, as if on some kind of elevator platforms.

Manganong and Sugongong snorted angrily, nostrils flaring, and pulled their pistols before suddenly realizing that, in this nontech hex, they were no better than small and fragile clubs.

The two Punretts squawked loudly and swelled up, like balloons attached to a helium nozzle. Crossbows were cocked in the hands of the ambush party, and as the two strange birds swelled, a couple were loosed in their direction.

Suddenly the two circular birds shot into the air, causing the bolts to miss underneath them, and both came down on the heads of the two closest attackers, vicious clawed feet digging into the huge heads and and drawing blood and grunts of pain.

A voice came out of the trees, as the others ducked for cover, loudly yelling, “Nathan Brazil! You and your cohorts will remain where you are! You are under arrest by order of the council.”

The two Quilst in the patrol roared at this; the Punretts, if they stayed where they were, would soon kill the huge creatures.

Brazil, who had run for the cover of nearby trees with Foma, turned to her anxiously. He could see that, under the threat of the bows, the two Quilst had already surrendered and were standing meekly, arms up, while the Punretts had loosed their grip and hopped to solid ground. No use in committing suicide.

“Foma!” he hissed. “Get out of here! Tell Yua what’s happened. Tell her to draw off that damned army if she has to beat them over the head!”

She looked uncertain. “But they’ll get you.”

“No they won’t,” he assured her. “Not me. You tell her to move it. I’ll get to her as quickly as possible!”

She stared at him. “I… I don’t understand.”

“Just move out!” he commanded. She slunk off into the woods.

“Nathan Brazil! Come out or we shall shoot your friends forthwith. You cannot escape!” that voice continued. “Betared patrols have been monitoring you for hours. Come out and save lives!”

He sighed, got up, and walked out into the clearing, clearly surprising both his former ineffective bodyguards, who eyed his presence with some relief, and the Quilst still standing guard.

“Okay, okay,” he called out. “Let’s get this over with. No sense in prolonging the agony, damn it!”

From the trees swooped a great butterfly shape, orange wings barely fluttering as it landed on eight tentaclelike feet. Its black skull’s head, with two eyes like great red pads, eyed him with the quizzical curiosity of a zookeeper looking over a specimen. Somehow, in this moment, he could only think that he was the object of some sort of racial revenge on every butterfly collector that ever lived.

“I am Jammer,” said the Yaxa. “I arrest you in the name of the council. You will accompany me as my prisoner to the nearest Zone Gate. It is useless to resist.”

Its segmented body rose in front, and its two forelegs became useful as mittenlike hands. They reached back into a pack, pulling out first a small medical-type bottle and then a syringe designed for its clawlike hands. Brazil sighed. He’d hoped to keep the stall going by just accompanying them to the gate—but they were going to take no chances. This he could not allow.

Crossbows were all on him now as the Yaxa approached, needle in hand, until it stood only a meter in front of him, looking down at him.

“So you are Nathan Brazil,” it sneered.

He started to chuckle. The chuckle became a laugh, the laugh a roar, until tears almost ran down his face. Before the eyes of the startled Yaxa and Quilst the body shimmered, changed before their eyes. It became taller, different-featured; the skin tone darkened, the entire body build changed. Even the clothes were not the same.

Laughing almost maniacally, the new figure pointed to the Yaxa. “Gotcha!” he managed. And then he did the even more impossible. Gypsy vanished instantly, leaving only the echo of his laughter.