The Well of Darkness

by Randall Garrett

  I studied distances, did some figuring, and came up with disaster if we tried to cut across the path of Worfit’s men.

  My link to Keeshah is unique, I told myself. I knew it was a long shot—I had seen into his mind, seen the blank place that had once been his friend Rikardon—but I put a part of my mind into gear, screaming “HELP, KEESHAH!” at full volume.

  It wasn’t just his help I wanted. It was his awareness, a return of the closeness I had missed for so long.

  But I couldn’t dwell on what seemed our slimmest chance. I clutched my aching sides and looked ahead, searching for some hope in the landscape.

  I see now why they call it a well, I thought. We had topped a sharp ridge that seemed to circle the huge, spreading darkness. I stumbled to a stop, less from fatigue than from curiosity and amazement. We were looking into an inverted cone of land perhaps a mile wide. Another step would start us down the side of the cone, which was covered with pale, crumbly-looking rock dotted, here and there, with chunks of gleaming black. Some two hundred yards deep in the cone drifted a smoggy-looking light fog. It lay across the “well”, a light swirling motion suggesting a subtle turbulence. It formed a transparent layer that truncated the cone; we could see the ground clearly enough through its edges.

  But if we looked down, toward the center of the cone, that transparent layer merged into a darker one, then one even blacker. We couldn’t see the ground, even at the edge of the fog, more than four hundred yards straight down.

  “Well of Darkness,” I panted. “Perfect name for it.”

  “I’ve heard of it all my life,” Tarani said, “but I had no idea it was this big.” She looked back over her shoulder. “We cannot stay here, Rikardon.”

  I took her hand and started down the steep slope. It was treacherous going, with the gravel-size rocks sliding out from under our feet with every other step. I had to let go her hand and use both mine to keep upright. Luckily, the slope wasn’t perfectly smooth, but stairstepped with uneven ledges.

  “Call Lonna,” I ordered, a little awed that Tarani had followed me unquestioningly. “They’re expecting us to turn aside here, and think they can cut us off then between here and the Valley. We can’t cross this—that stuff has to be poisonous—but we can hold our breath and take short dips into it. Lonna can guide us, tell us when it’s safe to come up for air.”

  “They will line the rim and wait for us,” she said.

  “Not the eastern rim,” I panted, “the side away from the Valley. They won’t expect that. We ought to be able to work our way around to the north, and climb out the other side. By then, I’m hoping they’ll assume we’re dead. If not—we’ll at least have surprise on our side, and that may give us enough of a head start to reach the Valley.”

  We had clambered down until breathing was becoming difficult, and I realized that the top layer of gas was even more transparent, once we were inside it.

  That makes things harder, I thought, dragging Tarani back up the slope a ways. For this to work, we‘ve got to go deep enough to be obscured from sight. I thought this layer might be breathable, but from its taste and smell, it‘s richly layered with sulfur. It‘s going to take all our breath-holding time just to dip down to the heavier layers and get back up in time to breathe again.

  I could hear men shouting to one another. They would be standing on the rim in minutes, and if they saw which direction we were taking, we’d be trapped for sure.

  “Is Lonna ready?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Tarani said.

  “Aren’t you going to tell me this is a crazy idea?” I asked.

  “You know that already,” she said.

  She stumbled, caught my arm for support, smiled. I kissed her, lightly.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  We took deep breaths and slid and scrambled down the slope toward the darkness. As we moved deeper into the relatively clear top layer, my eyes began to sting and water, and I was already wanting my next breath. When we dipped into the murkiness below, I had to close my eyes to protect them, and we felt our way deeper.

  Tarani tugged at my hand and we struggled back up the slope. We both gave out and gasped for breath a little too soon. The gas stung my eyes and burned my lungs. Tarani’s coughing told me she was having the same sort of trouble. We crawled higher, breathing heavily when the air was cleaner and lying still for several minutes. When I felt I could move again, I looked around. We had been traveling eastward on the zig and the zag of our short trip, and were a good distance from our starting point. We lay in clear view, should anyone be looking—but the men who had followed us were stationing themselves along the western rim, and looking straight down.

  I felt a surge of hope.

  “They’re not looking for us,” I gasped to Tarani. “I don’t think we need to go quite so deep.”

  The ground trembled slightly, and Tarani jerked up on her elbows.

  “What was that?” she cried.

  I wondered what the Gandalarans believed the Well of Darkness to be. I found I couldn’t tell Tarani what I—what Ricardo—knew it was. Gandaresh had no vocabulary equivalent for volcano.

  Unless you count “Well of Darkness” as a generic, as well as specific, term, I thought. This seems to be the only volcano in Gandalara, and a mildly active one, if that ground tremor is any indication.

  I ignored Tarani’s question and started breathing deeply, getting ready for the next stage of the trip.

  I also checked the volume of my SOS signal to Keeshah, and turned it up a notch.

  19

  We had dipped down into that stinging, cloying mess of gases three times more before I finally figured out why we were making such good distance.

  “Lonna’s watching us and giving you directions, isn’t she?” I said.

  Tarani only nodded through a spasm of coughing. She looked as bad as I felt.

  There didn’t seem to be one square inch of surface, inside of me or outside, that wasn’t burning from exposure to the gas or stinging from scraping on the rocks and exposure to the gas. I looked westward, but my watering eyes couldn’t see the opposite rim very clearly.

  “I’d guess we’re pretty close to the easternmost point of the rim, directly opposite the group watching for us,” I said. “Will you ask Lonna if that’s right?”

  She closed her eyes, then nodded.

  “Then I think we can quit trying to breathe soup,” I said. “We can climb up and work around the rest of the way on the far side of the rim.”

  “Thank Zanek for that!” Tarani gasped, and we started the treacherous climb.

  We moved slowly. I felt weak as a baby—I doubted I would have been able to make another trip into that smelly darkness, anyway. Our clothes were covered with a sooty dust that helped them blend in with the color of the slope, so I didn’t worry too much about the long periods we lay still, totally exposed to anyone who might be looking our way.

  When we got close enough to touch the weathered edge of rock that marked the rim, the ground trembled again, and Tarani whimpered. Lonna swept down from the sky, concern for Tarani’s distress drawing her. She hovered about twenty feet above us.

  Lonna screeched. It was a blood-freezing cry of pain. My eyes were blurred, but I could hear her wingbeat falter and stop. When she hit the ground close to us and started to skid down the slope, I had no trouble distinguishing the dark red stain spreading slowly through the whiteness of her feathers, or seeing the dagger hilt at the center of the stain.

  Tarani moaned and crawled over to Lonna’s body, catching it by a wingtip before it could slide down into the well. She hugged the bird tight against her chest, rolled to her back and lay still.

  “Tarani,” I whispered. Her head turned toward me, but her eyes were blank. Utterly blank.

  “Obilin!” I screamed, and launched myself over the rim of the crater. “This is the end of it, you bastard! You hear me, Obilin?”

  I found my feet and stared around in a wild fury, blinking away the tears t
hat were washing the last of the stinging smog out of my eyes. Obilin waited for me not ten yards away. Small drifts of dust in the air told me he had just now slid back down from this side of the rim.

  “This will be the end of it indeed,” Obilin said in his damaged voice. “I have not made the error, this time, of trusting others. You always manage to use the others against me. But now—” He pulled the steel sword from his baldric and gestured, inviting me downslope. “We’re alone. Worfit’s a good man—he followed my instructions to the letter, allowing you to think you had fooled us while I crept along after that idiotic bird. But he has sworn not to interfere—unless I fail. And Tarani no longer has my interest, Rikardon. You. Your death. That is all I care about now.”

  I drew my sword and moved cautiously down the slope. The red heat of rage had coalesced into a white-hot point of hatred that left me room to think and plan.

  This territory is in his favor, I calculated. Lots of room for those quick and fancy moves of his. That‘s got to be the first priority—limit his mobility.

  We circled. He lunged in, swung an overhand blow which I blocked, then leaped back again. The edge of my bronze sword was no longer smooth.

  For the first time, I was facing Rika, rather than wielding it.

  Thais another point on his side, I conceded, then warned myself: He‘s got the advantage with the steel sword; don‘t double it by letting it rattle you.

  He came in again, swinging low this time. I blocked, whirled, swung—but he had danced away.

  Remember, I thought, offense is his strength, defense his weaker skill.

  I pressed him then, slashing and swinging, forcing him to use his sword instead of his feet. I yelled with every stroke. I outweighed the man, and I was stronger. Fury had restored the energy that had been nearly totally drained only moments before. I beat Obilin back, not caring for the nicks and dents in my own sword. He was quick. I couldn’t touch him.

  When he realized I was forcing him up the slope toward the rim of the Well, he changed tactics. He started moving faster, slashing in at me between his blocks. Rika was no more than a blur in his hands. We were at a standoff, not moving in either direction.

  I let my guard down on the right, hoping I could time it correctly. He lunged in, Rika swinging into my side; I jumped to my left as I blocked. Obilin saw the opening I had left him, and whirled to jump downslope.

  I had my dagger in my left hand. As he turned, I jabbed at him, catching the back of his right thigh.

  He fell, rather than jumped, down the slope, and I was right on his heels. He rolled to his back and braced Rika in front of his face. I pressed my sword down on Rika, straining my strength against Obilin’s, and jabbed again with the dagger. This time it lodged in his side.

  Obilin grunted, and the steel sword moved fractionally closer to his body under the pressure of my sword. The little man’s good eye, unchanged by the scarred skin all around it, looked at me from above the sword with the same expression of insolent challenge that I had always seen in there.

  “You can’t win,” Obilin gasped in a broken whisper. “Worfit will finish it—for me and for himself.”

  “But you, Obilin,” I said fiercely. “You have failed.”

  “No,” he gasped, taking in a ragged breath. “I haven’t killed you, Rikardon, but I have marked you. You and the lady will not soon forget me.” His scarred face rearranged itself into the familiar, sneering smile. “It is a … satisfactory revenge.”

  I gritted my teeth and, with a terrible joy, I jerked the dagger in Obilin’s side upward to rip a long, bloody gash through clothes and flesh. Rika snapped downward, its tip grating against the rocky hillside.

  I threw down the battered bronze sword, picked up Rika with a feeling of meeting an old, much-missed friend, and slipped the steel sword through my bladric. I looked down at Obilin and knew he had been right—his death would leave a deeper scar in me than any I had given him. Later, I might examine the pleasure I had taken in killing Obilin, and judge how it had changed me. Now, I only felt relief, and a sudden return of fear.

  I scrambled over the rim of the well down to Tarani. I slapped her lightly; she roused and followed me back up the slope, still clutching Lonna’s still form.

  She was in touch with Lonna when Obilin killed the bird, I thought, and felt a pang of loss when I thought of the bird’s death.

  I heard shouting, and looked up to see men running around the rim of the Well, and I felt my last hope give way. The fight with Obilin had taken my last reserves. I was shaking from the inside out, barely able to hold to Tarani’s hand.

  I pulled Tarani into my arms, holding her and Lonna in what I believed to be our last farewell. I pressed me cheek against Tarani’s and reached out with my mind.

  *Keeshah*, I thought. *If only I could ride you one more time …*

  *I COME!*

  It was like a shout echoing through a long corridor, at first, a sense of tremendous volume at the source but only faintly heard. Then, as if it had been beyond a barrier and the barrier suddenly dissolved, it was clear and close, the old link re-established.

  *I come,* Keeshah said again, the thought more normal in tome. *Close. Do not die.*

  I started to laugh, but my lungs still burned and the effort trailed off into coughing.

  *Die?* I echoed. *Who, me?*

  I gripped Rika, drawing some confidence merely from holding the steel sword once more, and faced south. Six to eight men were racing around the rim toward us, only two or three minutes away. I recognized the squat figure of Worfit in the van of the group.

  When I glanced northward, however, I was greeted with a familiar, cherished sight—a lean, tawny figure streaking toward us at full speed.

  Keeshah reached us a few precious seconds before Worfit, who skidded to a stop when he saw Keeshah. He turned to give orders, and discovered that he was alone. The other men had stopped several yards behind him. They replied to the roguelord’s yelling with shaking heads and a general movement backward.

  I was aware of Worfit and his men only marginally. I left Tarani to fling my arms around Keeshah, and I rubbed my face into the fur behind his massive jaw, delighting in the feel and smell of the sha’um. He sidestepped, dragging me with him, and lifted and ducked his head to take full advantage of the rubbing motion.

  We were together again, the mindlink clear and sweet, no thought of the past weeks intruding except in our awareness that this was a reunion. Our minds achieved the special and elemental joining that Keeshah and I had shared so often, and emotions rocketed through us—the fierce tenderness of our friendship, the exhilaration of recovered loss, needs and joys and the exquisite reality of being together—until their intensity overwhelmed us and the merging dissolved.

  *Go,* Keeshah urged. *Not safe here.*

  I looked around. Worfit had gone back to his men and was literally driving them toward us with his hands and sword. They were moving reluctantly, but beginning to feel the confidence of their greater number as more came around the rim to join the group.

  Keeshah crouched down and I pulled Tarani toward him. She had remained standing where I had left her, showing little sign that she knew what was going on, but she paused near Keeshah’s head.

  “Sha’um,” she murmured, and reached out to stroke back the fur between Keeshah’s eyes.

  The cat folded back his ears and gently nosed the bloody carcass in Tarani’s arms.

  *Bird gone,* he said to me. *Sorry.*

  “We have to hurry,” I told Tarani gently. She nodded, her eyes still distant, and mounted Keeshah. The girl still held Lonna, and I couldn’t bring myself to argue with her. I mounted second, and Keeshah surged to his feet while the group of men closed in cautiously.

  Worfit had directed them well; they had nearly circled us. A single gap remained—due north. I spared one second to look directly at the roguelord and laugh, then Keeshah carried us away from the Well of Darkness.

  I didn’t have to tell Keeshah where to
go. In that moment of close sharing, he had learned directly of our needs, and I had seen his. He took us into the Valley of the Sha’um.

  I woke with the roar of a sha’um’s fighting challenge vibrating in my ears.

  *Keeshah!* I called, disoriented for a moment by the darkness and the odd smell.

  *Stay out of the way,* Keeshah ordered me—and memory returned.

  The big cat had brought us across the remaining desert into the thick forest of the Valley which seemed, topologically, to be less an actual valley than a triangle of forested area bounded on the north by the Great Wall and on the West by the Morkadahl Mountains, through which ran the Alkhum Pass. He had threaded his way through the flatter area of the triangle and into the foothills of the Morkadahls, where briars and viney growth entangled the trunks of the tallest trees in Gandalara. He had shown us the entrance to a cavelike hollow in the snarled vines above a small clearing. Tarani and I had crept into its shadowy interior and collapsed.

  I recognized it now. It had a musky, earthy smell that wasn’t the least unpleasant. We had slept on a cushion of leaves and pungent needles, and air and light penetrated the interwoven vines around us.

  This is Keeshah‘s lair, I thought. He brought us home. But what‘s going on outside?

  I shuffled through the leaves to the shaded circle that was the lair’s entrance, nearly hidden from the meadow below it by a stand of young trees. I found a place from which I could see into the meadow.

  Keeshah was there, facing down a smaller, gray sha’um. Around them were six sha’um I could see, probably more waiting in the shadowy forest. But all the rest seemed content to watch.

  The gray lunged at Keeshah, and the two cats clinched briefly then broke apart, snarling at one another. There was blood on the gray’s muzzle and along Keeshah’s foreleg, but neither wound looked serious. The smaller sha’um closed in again. Keeshah wrestled him to the ground, lay with the gray pinned beneath him, snarling at the others. The smaller sha’um roared and twitched, waited, struggled again, then lay quiescent.