Twilight at the Well of Souls wos-5

by Jack L. Chalker

  Mowrey, in the Ocean of Shadows

  “Sail ho!”

  Feet rushed in all directions around the deck of the brigantine, everyone going to their alert post.

  It was a large ship, and well put-together. Although it had only a small auxiliary engine for aid in emergencies, becalming, and the like, it was primarily wind-powered and well designed for that purpose.

  The crew was the usual racial mix, but it had a disproportionate share of one race, a race never seen before in the memory of the Ocean of Shadows, and one which had no reason for being there now.

  A young woman, Type 41 human, ran from the wheelhouse back to the crew’s cabin area behind, bare feet padding against the wooden planking. She reached the first door, hesitated a moment, then knocked.

  There was a muffled response, and she called out. “Master, there is a ship out there, a big one!”

  There was another muffled response, then the sound of someone moving around. After another half-minute or so, the door opened.

  “What is it, Lena?” Nathan Brazil asked blearily, rubbing his eyes to get them fully awake.

  “A ship! A ship!” she said excitedly, and pointed.

  He sighed, went back in for a second and took some water from a bowl, splashing it in his face. “Damn! Just get to sleep and the phone always rings,” he grumbled, then rejoined the girl on the deck. Together they walked back to the wheelhouse.

  At the wheel was an enormous, jellylike mass, seemingly engulfing the steering mechanism. It was mostly transparent, but veinlike strands ran all through it and in its middle was a pulsating pink mass.

  “What have we got, Torry?” he asked the mate.

  Two stalks oozed out of the top of the creature; eye-like nodules formed on the end and it put one on him and one on the sea in front of him. “Steamer,” the mate replied. “Looks like a regular merchantman, but you never can tell. The glasses are over there.” A tendril oozed out of the mass and pointed at a table.

  Brazil went over, picked up the binoculars, and peered out. It was still too far to make much of the ship, but they were definitely closing from the looks of the smoke.

  “Steady as you go,” he instructed. “Looks like we’ll pass her, so anything out of the ordinary would just arouse suspicion—and this is a high-tech hex, remember. Just the usual. I’ll let Henny do the fronting as usual.” He walked over to one of the speaking tubes, blew into it, then called, “Henny, get up here on the double! Company’s coming!”

  By the time the full lines of the big freighter could be made out, Henny was topside and ready, although bitching more than a little. After a duty tour, she had just settled down in her pool below decks when the call had come.

  She was an enormous creature, with rolls of fat hanging not only from her huge, brown body but also from her face, or what there was of it. Two tiny little black eyes peered out of the bulk, and it took some close inspection to find the equally tiny black button nose and see that one of the folds was actually an enormous mouth. Sharp dorsal fins protruded from her back, and she pulled herself along on two monstrous front flippers that turned out to be made of a number of long, prehensile flat fingers—two rows of them, in fact. She was the only creature he had ever seen that had six fingers and six opposing long, flat thumbs. Again he reflected that Henny gave new meaning to the term “ugly,” although she insisted that back in Achrin she was considered a real beauty. He had no way of checking the truthfulness of that statement.

  She peered out, and he knew that her weak eyes were being augmented by some sort of inborn natural sonar that worked both in air and water.

  “Seems routine,” she noted.

  He nodded. “Routine, maybe, but any contacts are a danger at this point. You know that.”

  “Signals, sir!” Tony called. “I make it as WHAT SHIP AND WHERE BOUND?”

  Brazil turned to the woman, still waiting patiently. “Lena, get on the flasher,” he ordered, then sat down on the deck of the wheelhouse, an action that would put him out of sight of any curious onlookers on the approaching ship while still leaving him in a command position.

  The woman went out and lit the lamp, waiting a moment until it reached sufficient intensity. She looked over at him then, expectantly.

  “Make the following signal,” he ordered. “Windbreaker, Achrin registry, Betared-bound.”

  She flipped the signal lever for a little more than a minute, sending out the required pulses, then stopped.

  “Add WHO ARE YOU?” he instructed.

  That was done quickly, being a standard signal.

  “Queen of Chandur,” Torry relayed to Brazil. “Makiem-bound.” He froze for a moment. “I think it’s carrying troops!”

  Brazil nodded. “It’s to be expected. Some specialist troops and a lot of war materiel. Wish we had something to sink her with, but it’s a gnat trying to kill a giant here.”

  “I might be able to do something,” Henny suggested. “The Mowrey aren’t all that friendly, but they aren’t all that mobile, either. I could probably get a message through to our people to hit them, say, in Kzuco.”

  He shook his head. “Uh uh. Too risky. All we need is one word of that and they’ll be out to sink us even if they don’t suspect I’m here. Let it ride. It really doesn’t make much difference anyway.”

  She turned and looked at him. “Except that what that ship’s carrying could kill a few thousand people, perhaps ours.”

  He shrugged. “Henny, they’re asking me to pull the plug on several quadrillion, maybe more.” He let it go at that.

  “Well, they’ve got their glasses trained on us,” Torry commented. “I’m not really sure I like it, frankly. We got too many of your kind on board. They’re bound to report it.”

  He shrugged again. “So what can they report? Let ’em, Torry. We’re pulling the switch in Jucapel anyway. I’ll be long gone.”

  “Yeah, but we won’t,” Henny responded wryly.

  They waited there until the ship passed to starboard and then was lost on the far horizon.

  Finally he felt safe enough to get up and stretch. “Don’t worry so much,” he told them. “They want me, not you. The ship’s legitimately in your name, Henny, and the humans aboard are technically the property of the holding company, bought fair and square from the Ambreza. They’ll go batty but they won’t figure it out. Not now, anyway.”

  He walked out of the wheelhouse and aft, then went down a ladder to the main deck. Several creatures lay there, sunning themselves. They were great, birdlike creatures distinguished not only by ugly, drooping beaks but also because each had three complete heads, each on a long, spindly neck.

  “Either of you up to a long trip?” he asked them.

  The center head of one of them rose and looked at him with two yellow eyes. “I guess I can,” it said.

  He chuckled and shook his head in wonder. “I never can figure out which head to talk to,” he said dryly, knowing full well that the creatures had only one brain, that not anywhere near the heads.

  “Awbri’s due northeast of us right now. Tell Yua to be prepared to move at any moment. Tell her we were spotted by an enemy steamer bound for Makiem, and while I was not spotted, you never know. Tell them, if they can, to get off a message to both the other forces to try to link in Makiem, which seems to be their supply depot. They’ll know what to do.”

  The creature rose up, stretched its great wings, and asked, “What if they try to take you?”

  He smiled enigmatically. “If they do, believe me, the others will know.” He looked over at the other identical three-headed creature. “Besides, I’ll still have Rupt, here, for emergencies.”

  “All right, then, I’m off,” said the messenger. “You take care they don’t put a bomb on the hull or something.”

  He laughed. “I’ve got a fair little protection force of our people under us. You know that. Besides, they wouldn’t blow the ship. They could never be sure I was aboard. Now git!”

  With a rushing of wind
from great wings that almost knocked Brazil over, the creature got.

  Makiem

  The battle had been ugly and tough. The Hakazit had tasted battle now, and removed many of the doubts Marquoz had about them. They truly enjoyed themselves all the way, so much so that they had been a pain to stop even when it was clear that they had won. He was beginning to worry that they might now go on killing binges just out of blood lust. It made him feel safer, but only just, that he was one of them.

  The nontech Makiem, who resembled giant frogs, were vicious fighters and very determined, and they had been joined by three thousand allies of other races, including the shockingly electric Agitar on their winged horses, but it hadn’t been nearly enough. Gunit Sangh had deployed most of his forces far to the north, on the assumption that they would link up with the Dillian-led column and head north up the coast. It just hadn’t worked out that way, thanks only partially to Brazil’s message. Now they held Makeim alone, and its key ports, and waited for the Dillian column to catch up to them.

  The carnage from the battle was grisly enough, but the troops were now rampaging through the towns and countryside, looting and burning and destroying what they didn’t like just for the hell of it. He tried to control it, but found that his powers were somewhat limited. It was sad, though, to see such destruction unleashed on a race that was just defending its homeland. About the only good thing that might come of it, he reflected, was its warning. Those hexes that had allowed them to march through had been left virtually untouched, and much of the supplies they had picked up along the way had actually been paid for; Makiem, which had resisted, was paying a terrible price. The news would spread pretty quickly.

  He also didn’t like the waiting. The more waiting, the worse the rampaging would be, and, of course, the more vulnerable his own force would become. They had held the day here mostly because they had faced mostly green recruits, old-timers, and civilians, all quite disorganized. If they had run into just the main force of the council now massed and organized up in Godidal, they would have been slaughtered. And Sangh must know by now that he had been outguessed. His forces would have to be moved, and they could move just as quickly as Marquoz could with his. He’d rather start first.

  As for Gypsy Brazil—as Marquoz had come to think of the man—he had kept far in the background with the human Entries, and they had actually talked very little. It was frustrating, really; he wanted to ask the man so damned many questions, but simply couldn’t, not here in this environment, where one slip that he wasn’t Brazil might blow the whole bit. It might be easier, later, he hoped, when the two armies had joined.

  It took three days for the others to reach him. He could see that they were appalled by the destruction, but it had calmed down now, with most of the froggies taking refuge in the sea and everything that could be looted looted. Mavra and Asam looked well, but not a little nervous at the sight of thousands of battle lizards like himself.

  He could only shrug. “They’re natural-born killing machines and they’ve never done it until now. You can’t really blame them.”

  They went over to where the Dillians had pitched their command tent and they relaxed.

  “Where’s—ah—Brazil?” Mavra wanted to know.

  “Oh, he’ll be along shortly,” Marquoz assured her. “I sent word to his camp. He’s been well-protected away from the battle zone, and he hasn’t been lonely. He’s got eighteen human women who think he’s god and who’ll do literally anything he asks.”

  She chuckled but without humor, thinking not only of the massive destruction around her now but of the costly fight they had had, the many dead and wounded it had left. All that bloodshed… and Gypsy was having a ball. She couldn’t help but say as much.

  “Don’t blame him,” Marquoz told her. “After all, he’s playing a part. He’s doing what Brazil would do, and we’re treating him just that way. Don’t forget that he’s painted a target on himself, too.”

  “That’s right,” Asam agreed. “All those forces are lookin’ for him. Bet he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since he joined the force.”

  She was about to say something else when the object of their conversation entered the tent. He was a small man, made even smaller by the largeness of the others in the tent, and he looked around nervously. “I feel like a shrimp,” he remarked. “Gad. This could give you an easy inferiority complex.”

  They all chuckled at this, and he relaxed, sensing that the ice had been broken.

  “Okay, I think we ought to clear this place at dawn,” he told them. “The Parmiter are no real threat. A bigger race of pirates you’ll never meet, although they’re the usual lot. They won’t tackle a force our size and there are no heroes among ’em. Playing both sides as usual.”

  “I remember,” Mavra said dryly. “One of the little sons of bitches tried to kidnap or kill me a long time ago, in Glathriel.”

  Gypsy Brazil let that pass. “Well, we’ll be pretty safe from air attacks there, since the Cebu won’t want to risk flying into our full laser defenses, which will be operable there.”

  Asam nodded. “I understand the plan, but I don’t like it. A slow march makes us sittin’ ducks.”

  “Which is what we’re supposed to be,” he reminded them. “My guess is that Sangh will use his force to guard the Yaxa-Harbigor Avenue. It’ll be a simple matter for him to shift up to Lamotien and depend on his force plus the Yaxa to keep us out.”

  “But there’s that force just landed to the west,” Marquoz pointed out. “They’re already on the move.”

  He nodded. “Yes, and that’s the problem. That’s where we either get away with this or we don’t. They’re supposed to guard and block the Ellerbanta-Verion Avenue. If they play it safe and fortify there, we’ve got problems. But if they decide to move in for the kill —sorry about that—and put us in a squeeze, then we succeed. It all boils down to that. That and a little luck with Nathan Brazil.”

  Gypsy-Brazil transferred what little he had to the Dillians, saying that, Marquoz aside, he felt a little better and a little safer with them than he did with the Hakazit.

  Most of the time, and particularly when they moved, they were stiffly correct as befitted his status as Brazil. The forces felt honored to have him there, to have been trusted with his welfare. It was a morale-booster in particular for the Dillian force, who until this were more or less going through the motions after having avenged themselves in battle. Now they felt that a sacred trust had been placed in their hands, and they were not about to let him down.

  But, in the evenings, when they camped and tried to catch some sleep, he found himself occasionally alone with Mavra Chang.

  At one such time he remarked, “You don’t like Nathan Brazil much, do you, Mavra? I can tell. Every time you say the name, it sounds more and more like the vilest cussword you can think of.”

  She gave him a wan smile. “Why should I like him much? What’s he ever done for me?”

  His eyebrows rose. “The way I hear it, he rescued you from a fate worse than death when your world turned Com and kept something of a lookout on you.”

  “Some lookout!” she snorted. “He didn’t really have any affection for me. He did it mostly as a favor, for old time’s sake, to my grandparents. If he really cared, why give me to Makki Chang?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t know what to do with you. Figured a woman who’d had nine kids before, all grown, would know how to bring you up better.”

  “And when Makki was caught by the cops, leaving me alone to live in the filth as a beggar and grow up to be a whore—some help then!”

  “You didn’t turn out so bad,” he noted. “It sure as hell toughened you for the life ahead. You became totally independent, fast-thinking, dangerous, in a way—in a good way.”

  “No real thanks to him, though,” she noted. “I did that myself.”

  “So what was he supposed to do for you? He didn’t know you, didn’t even know your parents, I think. So he takes you up and ra
ises you himself. Then what? Marry you off to a fat cat? Hell, Mavra, he didn’t owe you anything. What’s the problem?”

  She thought about it. What was the problem. In Brazil’s place, asked to get the child of a couple of children of old friends, she would have done it, of course. But what would she have done with the child? Raised her herself? Not likely. It would have cramped her style, changed her life style, restricted her too much. Nor was she really qualified, even now, to raise a child.

  “I… I don’t really hate him,” she said almost defensively. “I have, I guess, contradictory feelings about him. I used to feel pretty warmly about him, I guess, but that has just ebbed over the years. I can’t explain it.”

  “And if you can’t explain it to yourself, then I can’t explain it to you,” he told her. “Sooner or later, if you really look inside yourself, you’ll figure it out. And, when you do, if you do, you might consider that if you had to look for it yourself, it might just be something that he would never have thought of.”

  She looked at him strangely. “You want to explain that?”

  He shook his head. “Not me. But I think your whole life’s been a search for something you never realized— and if you realize it, you might find it. Until then, let’s change the subject. Any word from Dahir?”

  She nodded. “Some. They’re pulling back. Free passage. Looks like orders from above, though. They don’t want to do it, that’s clear, so there may be some trouble, and that makes me nervous. They have magic in Dahir, you know.”

  He nodded. “I’m well aware of it. It’s possible they won’t fight, but if old Gunit Sangh is going to pull any fast ones, that’ll be the place to do it.”

  “We’ll have you under a pretty solid and constant guard,” she assured him. “And we’re not as vulnerable as all that. True, we don’t have any magic of our own—even if we had some with the training it takes, their magic would only be good in their home hexes, anyway—but we’ve got some countercharms. I don’t think they can get to you.”